smoot
Sign in to saveThe smoot is a nonstandard, humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha by Oliver R. Smoot, who in October 1958 lay down repeatedly on the Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, so that his fraternity brothers could use his height to measure the length of the bridge.
Key facts
- Unit.image
- Terminal smoot mark on Harvard Bridge, Boston 2024-07-15.jpg
- Unit.caption
- "364.4 smoots ± 1 ear" painted on the Harvard Bridge sidewalk in Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Unit.units1
- imperial/US units
- Unit.inunits1
- 5 ft 7 in
- Unit.units2
- SI units
- Unit.namedafter
- Oliver R. Smoot
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Show 3 more facts
- conversion to SI unit
- 1.7018
- Wikidata SPARQL query equivalent
- wd:Q2095762 p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?source; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. ?item p:P2370/psn:P2370 [wikibase:quantityAmount ?target; wikibase:quantityUnit ?base]. BIND(?source / ?target as ?value)
- Commons category
- Harvard Bridge Smoot measurements
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Article
6 sectionsContents
- Description
- History
- Practical use
- See also
- References
- External links
The smoot is a nonstandard, humorous unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha by Oliver R. Smoot, who in October 1958 lay down repeatedly on the Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, so that his fraternity brothers could use his height to measure the length of the bridge.
==Description== One smoot is equal to Oliver Smoot's height at the time of the pledge, . The bridge's length was measured to be "± 1 εar" with the "±" showing measurement uncertainty and "ear" spelled with an epsilon to further indicate possible error in the measurement. Over the years the "±" portion and "ε" spelling have been left out in many citations, including some markings at the site itself, but the "±" is recorded on a 50th-anniversary plaque at the end of the bridge.