Cross & Crescent

Pranks have always been a part of daily life at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT.

In 1982, students at a Harvard-Yale football game handed out placards to 1,134 Harvard fans, who were told they would form the message “Beat Yale” when displayed en masse. The spectators discovered, though too late, that they had instead spelled out “M-I-T.”

A more modern prank played out on April Fool’s Day in 1998 when MIT’s homepage was rebuilt to announce that the Walt Disney Company had purchased the institute for $6.9 billion.

But only one prank has left an indelible mark on the MIT campus, Lambda Chi Alpha, and the city of Boston. In 1958, freshman Oliver Reed Smoot, Jr. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1962) was used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge. Total distance: 364.4 smoots plus one ear.

Finding MIT

While his father was serving in the military, Smoot lived with his family in Taipei, Taiwan. Interested in math and science, he decided to apply to attend college at Caltech, Auburn, and MIT. He was denied admission by Caltech, accepted by Auburn, but never heard anything from MIT — at least, not yet.

In August, when it came time to leave Taiwan for Auburn, Smoot finally received a letter from MIT accepting him into the class of 1962. The letter was dated May 1 and asked for a reply within one week.

MIT had apparently not realized that the letter had to travel halfway around the world. After explaining the situation, Smoot was granted acceptance and began his two-week journey to Boston.

After freshmen orientation, Smoot decided to go through rush and accepted a bid from Lambda Chi Alpha.

“When you accept a bid at MIT, you immediately move out of your dorm room and move into the fraternity house,” says Smoot. “I lived in the house all four years as an undergraduate.

Lambda Chi Alpha was the only reason I succeeded in graduating from MIT.

Clearly, Lambda Chi Alpha made an impact on Smoot. When asked about his experience he says, “Lambda Chi Alpha was the only reason I succeeded in graduating from MIT. If I had been on my own, living in the dorm, I don’t think I would have made it.”

When Smoot arrived at MIT, he discovered his high school education was not as advanced as the education his peers received from east coast American prep schools.

“I was trying to learn calculus and to relearn chemistry,” says Smoot. “But when I got to MIT and told them what I had learned from the Taiwanese chemistry books, they said everything I had learned was totally archaic and that I’d have to start all over.”

Every week, Smoot had to report his grades to his big brother. And though his grades were often average or below average, brothers in the house gave him support, mentored him, and pushed him to perform better academically. “Basically,” says Smoot, “having the guys mentor me is what really did it.”

Plus one ear

In 1958, chapter pledge master Tom O’Connor (Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1958) decided he needed a way to measure how far it was to campus when walking across Harvard Bridge.

The Harvard Bridge spans the Charles River, connecting Boston and Cambridge. The fraternity houses resided on the Boston side of the bridge while the MIT campus was on the other.

O’Connor, who is also Smoot’s big brother, walked the bridge every day. On this particular day, he found himself late to class for the third time that week.

A typical MIT engineer, O’Connor recognized a problem that required a simple solution: the Harvard Bridge needed uniform markings to help travelers determine the distance traveled.

But instead of using feet, yards, or miles; O’Connor told his group of pledges to measure the bridge using Oliver Smoot.

Why Smoot? To make the task more difficult, of course. At five feet seven inches, Smoot was the shortest pledge. O’Connor says he picked Smoot because his name had a scientific ring to it, like “watt” or “meter.”

With that famous MIT ingenuity, pledges Pete Miller (1962), Gordon Mann (1962), Bill Edmindson (1962), and Nate Hopton (did not initiate) figured out a way around the task of actually measuring the bridge using Smoot. They decided they would use a string of the same length as Smoot is tall and began their task that evening.

To Smoot’s misfortune, a member of the chapter unexpectedly passed by on his bike and decided to stay to make sure the pledges completed their task the hard way. Thus, the pledges were forced to actually measure the bridge using Smoot himself.

Dispelling rumors that the pledges were drunk, Smoot says, “MIT was a pretty sober place. We first did our studying and then went out and did this thing.”

The pledges used chalk to mark each smoot. Every 10 smoots, they painted a line. Smoot got so tired of getting up and down so often that the other pledges eventually had to carry him to complete the task.

At about the 300 smoot mark, a police officer came by and they scattered. Once the coast was clear, the pledges returned to the bridge to finish their work.

The last line was painted at 364.4 smoots. To account for error, they added “± 1 ear,” which was later changed to “+ 1 ear,” making the bridge officially “364.4 + 1 ear” long.

Make it Official

In 1987, the Massachusetts Department of Public Works decided the bridge needed to be refurbished. At the time, they had no plans to preserve the markings.

The Cambridge police department, however, requested otherwise, saying their officers regularly reference the smoot marks when recording accident information.

The Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission, the government body in charge of the bridge, agreed, saying “We recognize the smoots’ role in local history. That’s not to mean that the agency encourages graffiti painting. But smoots aren’t just any kind of graffiti. They’re smoots!”

So construction began. That’s when the Continental Construction Company of Cambridge decided to set the smoot measurement in stone by scoring the new concrete sidewalk slabs in five-foot-seven-inch increments instead of the usual six-foot length.

Today, the smoot marks are still there, repainted twice per year by the Lambda Chi Alpha chapter. The lines are multicolored from being painted over and over again for the past 48 years.

There are also a few new marks on the bridge. Lines are now painted on both sides of the bridge, because the chapter house eventually moved to the MIT side of the river. And at the halfway mark — 182.2 smoots — walkers are reminded they are “Halfway to Hell” with an arrow pointing toward MIT.

If you think the smoot is just another obscure measurement, think again. Google’s calculator feature allows users to convert other units of measurement into smoots. For example, the distance between the chapter at MIT and Headquarters in Indianapolis is 806 miles — or 762,211 smoots.

Going to great lengths

The greatest irony behind Smoot’s story as a unit of measure begins long after graduating from MIT.

Following his undergraduate studies at MIT, Smoot went to Georgetown Law School, where he earned his Juris Doctor degree. In 1969, he accepted a job at the Information Technology Industry Council, a lobbying agency that advocates IT innovation and supports free-market policies, where he remained until 2002.

Smoot transitioned from being a unit of measurement to governing units of measurement.

It wasn’t until 2001 that Smoot transitioned from being a unit of measurement to governing units of measurement.

From 2001-2002, Smoot served as chairman of the American National Standards Institute. ANSI sets standard units for industries and oversees the development of national guidelines for everything from safety equipment to war materials.

Further solidifying his affinity for precise standards, Smoot also served as president of the International Organization for Standardization from 2003-2004.

The IOS is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from national standards bodies around the world. Smoot is one of only three Americans to serve as president in the organization’s nearly 60-year history.

In December 2005, Smoot retired from the ANSI board.

When Smoot started his career of standards and measures, he started it lying down. Now retired, he can proudly stand knowing he will likely be the only person to become a unit of measure, work for, and lead an organization that is responsible for standardizing measurements.