system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 What is triangulation?

Like the title says. I'm trying to explain triangulation to my actual five year old, but don't really understand it myself. Help!
gpt
Let's say you want to know how far away a tree is without actually walking to it. So you put two stakes in the ground at a known distance.

You go to one stake, and draw an imaginary line between you and the tree. The line between the two stakes and your imaginary line forms an angle.

You to the other stake, and draw a new imaginary line between you and the tree. You now have a second angle.

With the known distance between the two stakes and the two angles, you can make a single, unique triangle with the two stakes being two of the corners of the triangle. The third corner will be where the tree is.

You can use math to calculate the distance from the tree to either of the two stakes.