This is a "stub" of a page I could expand.

For now, I will present the "start" and "end" points of an experiment. If interest is shown, there could be discussion of various matters.

I have a set of photos, similar to what you see below, taken pretty well every seven days over a period of four months... the time it took my nails to grow about 12mm. Measurements could be taken manually, OR, for a different challenge, to illustrate a technique, software could be used to "read" the images.

Do nails grow at a constant rate? With the as-yet-unpublished photos, we could see, couldn't we?

What do you think of the experimental technique? What strengths can you find? What weaknesses?

Nails as they were 23 March, 2017. Note the small black (India ink) lines at base of each nail. (Just the four fingers, not the thumb. Should have done thumb too. Think about it: Quite likely that it has evolved to replace nail more quickly. Or maybe, being a thicker nail, it grows more slowly?) I believe one of the marks on the little finger got "moved" slightly over the course of the experiment. Sigh.

Each small square on the graph paper is 2mm on a side... should have been marked on it! (So many tings You Can Do Better when you repeat the experiment!)

... and here we see the same hand, 27 July, 2017...

The little finger had three marks, left, centre, and right. (In the first photo they "bump into" each other somewhat.)

This was to check that the intuitive idea that the nail grows at the same speed across its width is correct.

The left hand mark, I think, suddenly got a bit ahead of the other two. (Or the other two fell behind the one!... Seems unlikely.) I presume that I just made a mistake when marking one week.

In te final image, the left hand mark has already "fallen off" the end of the fingernail.

Practical detail

(And disclaimer: "Don't Try (any of) This At Home", unless you are over 18, and willing to accept responsibility for what YOU choose to do. (Under 19s: Ask your parents.)...

Whew! Now THAT's out of the way...

The marks come off quite easily... perhaps a useful property of fingernails: It is hard to make things stick to them. Besides the marks, I put SMALL, SHALLOW scratches where you see ink. That made RE-inking the marks (accurately) easier.

Don't make DEEP scratches... you will compromise the strength and anti-bacterial integrity of your nails. (On my right hand, I damaged the bed of one nail. (Years ago, in a completely unrelated enterprise.) Since then, that nail is "split" down the middle... a tiresome nuisance.)

So! What do you think?

Your thoughts welcome. What should I add to this? If you found it even faintly amusing, I would very much appreciate a Facebook "Like" for it, to bring it to a wider audience. I sometimes wonder if it is worth creating these things. If no one sees them, it isn't!

Have you heard of Flattr? Great new idea to make it easy for you to send small thank you$ to people who provide Good Stuff on the web. If you want to send $$erious thank yous, there are better ways, but for a small "tip" here and there, Flattr ticks a lot of boxes which no one else has found a way to do yet. Please at least check out my introduction to Flattr, if you haven't heard of it? "No obligation", as they say!

Search across all my sites with the Google search button at the top of the page the link will take you to.
Or...

Search just this site without using forms,
Or... again to search just this site, use...

The search engine merely looks for the words you type, so....
  *!  Spell them properly   !*
  Don't bother with "How do I get rich?" That will merely return pages with "how", "do", "I", "get" and "rich".

I have other sites. My Google custom search button will include things from them....
   One of my SheepdogGuides pages.
   My site at Arunet.

Ad from page's editor: Yes.. I do enjoy compiling these things for you... I hope they are helpful. However.. this doesn't pay my bills!!! If you find this stuff useful, (and you run an MS-DOS or Windows PC) please visit my freeware and shareware page, download something, and circulate it for me? Links on your page to this page would also be appreciated!

This page's editor, Tom Boyd, will be pleased if you get in touch by email.

Page qWILL BE tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. Mostly passes. There were two "unknown attributes" in Google+ button code, two further "wrong" things in the Google Translate code, and similar in Flattr code. Sigh.