Talk:Palm (unit)

Doesn't really add up
I think there might be something going wrong here - most likely it is the illustration. My hand is probably a little larger than average, but if I stretch out my hand as shown in the diagram, I get a distance across four finger tips of 6 inches, which is no where near a palm. However, if I measure across the width of four fingers closed together, it comes out as just over 3 inches.

The other comparisons work. The width across my hand (line 3) is 3.75 inches which is close to the 4/3 * 3 inches. My span is 8.5 inches which is close to 3 * 3 inches or three palms.

Also the second sentence makes no sense, if the average male hand, measured as shown, comes out at 10 cm, then that is actually four inches not three, so still can't be a palm. -- Solipsist 12:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The image legend for hand and palm were reveresed. The illustration was not numbered according to unit magnitude. I fixed the legend.


 * hand = 4 inches = 10.16 cm = 4/3 palm
 * span = 9 inches = 22.86 cm =  3 palm
 * palm = 3 inches = 7.62 cm


 * -George Hernandez 22:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've taken out the second sentence in the text too, as that must also be wrong. -- Solipsist 07:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The diagram was wrong! So I have replaced it with a (hopefully) more accurate one. Please leave comments if you have strong feelings about this change (approval or disapproval). Unitfreak 10 September 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unitfreak (talk • contribs) 04:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be a mistake with the value given for a finger (7/24 of a palm) as I understand a finger generally refers to the breadth of the index or middle finger while a digit is refering to the thumb, clearly the thumb is larger. My research indicates that a finger should be about 1/5- 3/16 of a palm however I'm still unsure of its exact historical usage. 80.179.161.36 (talk) 15:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)