Measuring Up : How Oliver Smoot Became a Standard Unit of Measurement

Could you be the next smoot? One MIT student’s diminutive height becomes his mathematical superpower—and claim to fame—in a true story that’s entertaining and inspiring in equal measure.

When the five-foot-seven-inch Oliver Smoot and his friends at MIT decided to play a practical joke, he drew the short straw—and was selected to be the measurement device to carry it out. The task? Measuring the length of a bridge, one lying-down Oliver Smoot at a time. Author Jenny Lacika playfully introduces the idea of nonstandard measurement in this story about the creation of a new unit: the smoot. Anna Bron captures the hijinks of college kids having some fun, getting into trouble, and in the end, making math history. Measuring Up invites readers over to the sillier side of mathematics and encourages them to play with measurement in their own lives. As for the smoot? This unorthodox unit of measure is now cemented into history, in sidewalk markings on a certain Cambridge-to-Boston bridge. Find out more about smoots, MIT pranks, unusual measurements, and further reading in the back matter.

Jenny Lacika is a graduate of MIT and author of the Mathical Award winner Again, Essie?, illustrated by Teresa Martínez. As a student, she crossed the bridge between Boston and Cambridge countless times. She measures about 0.96 smoots in height and now lives more than 2 million smoots away from the bridge, in New Mexico.

Anna Bron is the illustrator of The Five Sides of Marjorie Rice: How to Discover a Shape by Amy Alznauer, No Horses in the House! by Mireille Messier, and the Salma series by Danny Ramadan. She is also an animation director who has worked on Emmy- and Oscar-nominated projects, including short films and commercials. Anna Bron lives in Canada.