Volta, Ampere, and Smoot
Volta, Ampere, Faraday, Henry, and others have their names as units of electrical measurement, and then there’s length. If you’re thinking feet or meters, forget them. Think in units of Smoots.
What, you’ve never heard of measuring linear distance in Smoots? It’s a real measurement named after Oliver Smoot. In 1958, a group of MIT students measured the length of the Massachusetts Ave. bridge, which connects MIT to Boston, using Smoot as the unit of length, his height.
1 Smoot = 5 ft. 7 in
10 ft = 1.79104478 Smoots
The bridge measures 364.4 smoots and one ear (Smoot’s ear, of course).
On October 4, 2008 Smoot returned to MIT to mark the 50th anniversary of the Smoot unit of measurement.
Three years prior, Smoot retired as chairman of (get this) ANSI, the American National Standards Institute.
Macco commented:
Now I know who the birnay one is, I'll keep looking for your posts.
Makaela commented:
I just hope whevoer writes these keeps writing more!
Joan commented:
You are so awesome for hleipng me solve this mystery.
