I just wanted to open a new topic but I see that this is a great fit for my post. In the USSR, we often used this method to determine the time of development. So, we cut off a small piece of film and lower half of it into the developer, at the same time turning on the stopwatch. Initially, the wet part swells the emulsion and brightens.
Then comes the development process and the emulsion begins to darken. At the moment when the color on both parts becomes equal, we turn off the stopwatch. We multiply the resulting time in seconds by 3.14 and get the manifestation time in minutes.
I just developed the film. Responsible film, my daughter filmed in Stockholm, Prague and Kyiv. In my case, the time in seconds was 23 seconds. 23 x 3.14 = 72.22. We consider = 7.5 minutes. I played it safe and showed 8 minutes, but now I see that really 7.5 would be ideal. Film Ilford 400 developer Foma, water temperature was unknown to me about 18C. I don't know why, but this method really works and can be used when there is uncertainty. I will be glad to questions, comments and results of experiments