The smoot /ˈsmuːt/ is a nonstandard unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. It is named after Oliver R. Smoot, a fraternity pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha, who in October 1958 lay on the Harvard Bridge (between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts), and was used by his fraternity brothers to measure the length of the bridge.

The Harvard Bridge, looking towards Boston.

Unit description[edit]

In a photo dated 2009, the painted inscription reads: "364.4 SMOOTS + 1 EAR"

One smoot is equal to Oliver Smoot's height at the time of the prank (five feet and seven inches ~1.70 m).^[1] The bridge's length was measured to be 364.4 smoots (620.1 m) plus or minus one ear, with the "plus or minus" intended to express uncertainty of measurement.^[2] Over the years the "or minus" portion has gone astray in many citations, including the markings at the site itself, but has now been enshrined in stone by Smoot's college class.^[3]

History[edit]

To implement his use as a measuring unit, Oliver Smoot repeatedly lay down on the bridge, let his companions mark his new position in chalk or paint, and then got up again. Eventually, he got tired from all this exercise and was carried thereafter by the fraternity brothers to each new position.^[4][5]

Oliver Smoot graduated from MIT with the class of 1962, became a lawyer, and later became chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)^[6] and president of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).^[7] He is the cousin of Nobel Prize winner George Smoot. The prank's fiftieth anniversary was commemorated on October 4, 2008, as Smoot Celebration Day at MIT.^[5]

In 2011, "smoot" was one of the 10,000 new words added to the fifth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary.^[8][9]

Practical use[edit]

People walking across the bridge today can see painted markings indicating how many smoots there are from where the sidewalk begins on the Boston river bank. The marks are repainted each semester by the incoming associate member class (similar to pledge class) of Lambda Chi Alpha.^[10]

Markings typically appear every 10 smoots, but additional marks appear at other numbers in between. For example, the 70-smoot mark is omitted in favor of a mark for 69.^[11] The 182.2-smoot mark is accompanied by the words "Halfway to Hell" and an arrow pointing towards MIT. Each class also paints a special mark for their graduating year.^{[citation needed]}

The 100 smoot mark

The markings have become well-accepted by the public, to the degree that during the bridge renovations that occurred in the 1980s, the Cambridge Police department requested that the markings be maintained, since they had become useful for identifying the location of accidents on the bridge.^[12] The renovators went one better, by scoring the concrete surface of the sidewalk on the bridge at 5 foot 7 inch intervals, instead of the conventional six feet.^[13]

Google Calculator also incorporates smoots, which it reckons at exactly 67 inches (1.7018 meters).^[1] Google also uses the smoot as an optional unit of measurement in their Google Earth software and Google Maps distance measurement tool.^[14]

See also[edit]

• Modulor
• List of humorous units of measurement
• List of unusual units of measurement

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• The Smoot as a unit of length
• "smoot". Sizes.com. Retrieved 8 July 2010. 
• The Smoot story, in Oliver Smoot's own words
• MIT Museum article (courtesy Internet Archive), with photos
• A December, 2005 National Public Radio Interview with Oliver Smoot upon his retirement.
• What's A Smoot? NPR.org