What is the men’s high jump world record, in metres?

How to get close to this number

Measure it against a doorway. The explanation gives you the anchor directly: the record clears a standard interior door frame. Almost everyone can picture that height and knows they could not jump it, which converts an abstract record into something you can stand next to and judge. Anchoring on architecture is one of the most reliable estimation habits there is, because buildings are standardised.

The reason the number feels impossible is that it is not a jump in the everyday sense. The Fosbury flop takes the athlete over the bar back-first and arched, so the body's centre of mass passes *below* the bar even as every part of the athlete passes above it. The technique is what buys the last few centimetres, and it is why the record jumped when the technique changed.

This is one of the oldest standing records in athletics, unbeaten for over thirty years, and longevity like that says something worth noticing: in events with no equipment to improve and no route to optimise, records stop falling. That stability is exactly what makes a figure suitable for this site — the number you guess today is the number a player will guess in five years.