The Smoot – How an MIT prank became a lasting unit of measurement

Interview On a chilly October evening in 1958, a group of MIT students shuffled onto the Harvard Bridge, which separates the university town of Cambridge from Boston proper. The shortest among them lay down on the sidewalk at the bridge's start, his friends marked his length, he got up, moved forward, and repeated the process.

The man in question was Oliver Smoot, then a freshman at the institution who was pledging to join the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. As part of his initiation, he was tasked with measuring the Harvard Bridge using his own height. The resulting unit, the "smoot," remains visible on the bridge today, with its markings repainted annually.

Local police even use these markings to pinpoint locations of traffic incidents. Google Earth also includes it as a unit, measuring five feet seven inches (170.18 cm) - you can find it as the last item under "Settings," then "Distance units."

Smoot went on to a career in standards and policy within the technology sector. After holding various roles, he served as chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) from 2001 to 2002 and later as president of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) from 2003 to 2005.

Now retired and living in San Diego, Smoot took the time to talk to The Register about the prank that made him a unit of measurement and the lasting impact of standards.

Looking back, he recalled how fraternity leaders assigned him the task, and he and his friends carried it out the next day. Since they were painting on public property, the job had to be done at night, but even then, a local police car stopped to check what was going on, forcing the students to run off and hide.

"Luckily, it wasn't when we were in the middle of the bridge. It would be a long run," he said.

This wasn't the only task Smoot had to accomplish before he was allowed into the fraternity. He and his fellow pledges also had to wear burlap sacks covered in maple syrup for three days. National Lampoon's Animal House might have taken things a bit too far, but the fraternity system was somewhat odd in those days.

For the record, the Harvard Bridge measures 364.4 smoots, plus or minus one ear. A plaque on the bridge's north side commemorates the event, and in 2016, Smoot returned to lead a parade celebrating the enduring legacy of his namesake measurement.

Always setting standards

After graduating from MIT, Smoot studied at Georgetown for his Juris Doctor. However, after completing his degree, he ended up managing a team of programmers using the Control Data Corporation (CDC) 1604 computer - one of the first transistorized computers built by the legendary Seymour Cray - before deciding on a career shift.

"I decided I had to do something with my law degree," he said. "I talked to a friend of my father's and he said 'we have an opening,' so I went to work in a trade association [the Information Technology Industry Council], doing policy work on every aspect of business - particularly on privacy."

We were advocating a sector by sector approach to data security

At the time the largest computer database in the US was at the Social Security Administration, Smoot explained, and the group was tasked with examining the privacy implications of computing and large data sets. After a couple of years of cogitating, they recommended rules that are still adhered to today.

"Basically it set the framework for the US approach to privacy, and the number one thing was that if you're going to regulate data you regulate the usage and not the computer," he said. "We were advocating a sector by sector approach to data security."

The result, Smoot opined, was legislation like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for healthcare data, and other vertical market legislation. But there's still the need for a federal privacy law, he suggested.

"We have the various states increasingly adopting what I would call European style, blanket regulation of privacy and, of course, various industries are now complaining to the federal government," he said. "So let's have a superseding, a preemptive federal statute. Of course, that's gotten caught up in the divisive politics in Washington so really, nothing has been done."

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Smoot then joined the ANSI, a non-profit dedicated to overseeing the development of voluntary consensus standards in the US, and was elected chairman in 2001. It was valuable work, he said. For example, the thickness of screw threads was not fully standardized in the US until the ANSI negotiated an agreement.

In 2003, Smoot was made president of the group and held the post until retirement. He also held leadership roles with the American Bar Association (ABA), including chairman of its Technical Standardization Law Committee and its Section on Science and Technology Law, and served as president of the Computer Law Association, now known as the International Technology Law Association.

Two of his children went to MIT, and his son's nickname was "Son of Smoot" on campus. The smoot measurements are repainted every year by members of his fraternity. In 2011, the American Heritage Dictionary formally added smoot to its tome.

As for the bridge, it was repaved in 1987, raising concerns that the smoot markings would be lost. However, the Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission recognized their significance and allowed them to be repainted. Additionally, the new sidewalk paving slabs were adjusted to match the length of one smoot - five feet seven inches—rather than the standard six-foot slabs.

"We recognize the smoots' role in local history," the Commission said. "That's not to mean that the agency encourages graffiti painting. But smoots aren't just any kind of graffiti. They're smoots!" ®