Is Square Root of a Smoot Moot?

The Harvard Bridge, which links the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Boston, is 364.4 Smoots plus one ear long. A Smoot is 5 feet, 7 inches--the height of Oliver Reed Smoot Jr., whose body was used in place of a more conventional measuring unit when Lambda Chi Alpha pledges at MIT were ordered to determine the length of the bridge in 1958. As the pledges manhandled Smoot end-to-end like a ruler, they marked each length with chalk. The markings, maintained by pledges who twice a year have denoted 10-Smoot lengths with paint on the sidewalk, were threatened by a reconstruction project. However, the Metropolitan District Commission and the Department of Public Works decided the Smoot had “become part of the folklore” of the bridge, So, the new sidewalk is scored at 5-foot 7-inch intervals instead of the usual six feet to facilitate Smoot mark painting. And why was Smoot chosen to be immortalized? “Out of the 14 pledges, I had the distinction of being the shortest,” Smoot said at a ceremony for the new sidewalk.

--Texas Treasurer Ann Richards, who described then-candidate George Bush as being “born with a silver foot in his mouth” in her keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention last year, will announce her candidacy for governor Saturday, according to a campaign press release. If Richards, 56, wins the 1990 Democratic nomination, she may have to run in the general election against President Bush’s son George W. Bush, who has said that he is considering seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Incumbent Gov. Bill Clements, a Republican, has announced he will not seek reelection.

--Elwood Blues, a back-country pack mule owned by the National Park Service, received an honorary doctorate from Yale University at a commencement ceremony in Olympic National Park in Washington. The “Doctor of Portage Equus” degree, signed by Yale’s president, dean and the president of the board of trustees, was presented to Elwood for his contributions to science, including assistance to a Yale geology team when he carried 80 pounds of rock specimens. Park crews had found the Yale team struggling under the burden of rocks about 23 miles from their destination and offered to pack some of the team’s specimens and equipment on the mule. “We don’t consider this a joke; it’s not likely an honorary doctorate has ever been given to a mule before from an Ivy League school,” Richard Hansen, park trails foreman, said.