They also help you achieve balance in your actions, acting as a gauge to determine when you're lopsided and have been spending too much time and energy in one area.

We needed to unnerve militants and at the same time use some sort of passive measure to gauge their force strength in the area and it went well, "an unnamed source said."

There is a fixed relationship between the gauge length and the cross-sectional area of the test-piece at the reduced diameter.