Tallest Person (VIDEO) Carnegie Institution for Science This video is under embargo. Please login to access this video. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Caption Imagine you have a crowd of people and you sort them by size and measure the height of the tallest individual. If you assume that the tallest person in any crowd will have approximately the same height as the one you measured, then by comparing how big these tallest individuals look compared to the one you measured, you can determine the distance to each crowd. In this analogy, crowds are galaxies and the tallest person is the tip of the red giant branch. Credit Carnegie Institution for Science Usage Restrictions With credit License Licensed content Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.