Are you having trouble figuring out what 20 inches looks like? Sure, you could convert it to feet (1-3/4 feet) or meters (0.508 meters), but these figures don’t explain how 20 inches looks in the real world. Instead, what you can do is use everyday objects as size references.

Measuring something by eye can be difficult, but trying to measuring something that’s 2 inches long without a measuring tool is nearly impossible. You may know that 2 inches is the same as 5.08 centimeters, but that won’t help you figure out what it looks like. Instead of looking for a ruler, you can use everyday objects as size references.

If you’re trying to figure out how long 50 inches is, it’s not that difficult. All you need to know is that 50 inches is only 2 inches longer than 4 feet (48 inches), or that it’s equal to 1.27 meters. Of course, these conversion figures don’t really help in understanding what 50 inches looks like in the real world.

It might seem strange to the metric users out there, but 12 inches equals a foot. In metric terms, 12 inches is the same as 0.3048 meters, which might seem random. However, there are plenty of examples of everyday things that measure a foot long or close to it.

Are you having trouble figuring out how long 16 inches is? Well, it’s the same as 1-1/4 feet or 0.4064 meters. These conversions won’t help you much in the real world, especially if you don’t have a measuring tape on hand. Luckily, we can use everyday objects to help visualize what 16 inches looks like in our mind’s eye.