Because smoots are FUN!!
Carleton From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of Jeremiah MacGregor Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 10:05 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:44146] Re: smoots By the same token, we can define a smoot as 170 cm. Every 10 smoots is then 17 m. If we are going to promote metric here, then why mention non-metric words? Jerry _____ From: John Frewen-Lord <j...@frewston.plus.com> To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 5:33:12 AM Subject: [USMA:44142] smoots Jerry talked about US isolationism in terms of measurements. Not only the US as a whole - how about this one (tongue in cheek) from Boston, MA: "Smoots" on the Harvard Bridge MIT students are world-famous for their brains and creativity, and the invention of the "Smoot" as unit of measure is no exception. In 1958, the pledge class of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity marked the length of the Harvard Bridge (which goes to MIT) using pledge Oliver Smoot as a measuring tool. For the record, Smoot was 5 feet 7 inches tall, and the bridge is 364.4 Smoots (plus an ear) long. The bridge is marked with colored lines to mark every 10 Smoots, and the markers are painted on the sidewalk on the outbound side of the bridge. Location: Over the Charles River between Back Bay and Cambridge
