On Mon, 03 May 2004 11:22:40 -0600, Jay Windley wrote:

I'm reminded of a (probably apocryphal) story about MIT engineering students
who were asked to design and construct a bridge using the unit of "smoot",
Professor Smoot being their instructor. His linear, volumetric, and mass
properties were the measurement units for the project. Steel had a density
of so many smoots-mass per smoots-volume, for example. In doing that, you
would gain a deeper appreciation for where these "accepted" values for
everything actually come from, and greater insight into the arbitrary nature
of practically any measurement system.

An embellishment of the true story. Oliver Smoot was a member of the MIT
class of '62 who as a pledge of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. They
measured the length of the Harvard Bridge as 364.4 Smoots plus and ear.
1 Smoot = 5' 7"

http://web.mit.edu/museum/fun/smoots.html has pictures of the process of
measurement.