Friday, February 27, 2004

Smoots

If you've ever walked across the Harvard Bridge connecting Cambridge to Boston you've seen the Smoot markers on the sidewalk. The bridge is 364.4 Smoots plus one ear in length. A Smoot is the height of Oliver Smoot, a pledge of the MIT fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha back in 1958. It turns out that Oliver Smoot has devoted his life to measurement. He was chairman of ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and has just been elected as president of ISO (International Organization for Standardization). Impressive. The true measure of a man is how he can take a fraternity prank and turn it into a career.
posted by Bob at 2/27/2004 02:20:00 PM  | | digg | del.icio.us | reddit