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Harvard Bridge Smoot Measurements

Boston, MA

Painted marks across Harvard Bridge measure its length in 'smoots,' a unit created in 1958 by repeatedly laying MIT pledge Oliver Smoot end to end. The final measurement — 364.4 smoots plus one ear — became a lasting engineering-school joke.

Filed under roadside oddities: giant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.

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Source: Atlas Obscura

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