Comments on: Beware the brass rats

By: Mo

Mo — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:04:32 +0000

Oliver Smoot – measuring the length of Harvard Bridge in “Smoots,” the length of his body. Brass rats = MIT’s class ring

By: Kal

Kal — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:50:27 +0000

Oliver R Smoot.

They are measuring how many smoots , smoot is a nonstandard unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank it\’d take to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

By: Raghuvansh

Raghuvansh — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:53:37 +0000

I remember reading about this in Resnick and Halliday’s physics textbook back in school :P The measurement of the Harvard bridge in Smoots, one Smoot being defined as the length of a specific man named Smoot, who is the chappie being lifted.

By: Debasish

Debasish — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:46:07 +0000

Oliver Smoot…

Being used to measure the length of Harvard Bridge

Google earth also has a unit of length called smoots

By: Ludwig

Ludwig — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:19:09 +0000

Is this an MIT undergraduate student named Smoot, who was used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge that runs along Mass. Ave. connecting Boston and Cambridge? The “smoot” was used as a non-standard (hence ISO?) unit of length for the bridge, and even today when cops write tickets/file reports about incidents on the bridge, they use the smoot measure.

By: Rohan

Rohan — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:24:10 +0000

The smoot is a nonstandard unit of length created as part of an MIT fraternity prank. It is named after Oliver R. Smoot (class of 1962), a fraternity pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha, who in October 1958 was used by his fraternity brothers to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

By: Dibyo

Dibyo — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:07:04 +0000

Oliver Smoot, who is being used as a measure of length (the smoot)

By: Neeraj

Neeraj — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:34:21 +0000

Oliver R. Smoot, used to measure the length of the Harvard bridge!!!