A Career in Measurement

Perhaps the missing epsilon is a minor point, but not to Smoot. He had an illustrious career in technical standards and measurement in Washington, DC. As a unit of measure himself, he recognizes the irony in his career choice, but, he contends, "it certainly wasn't planned that way!" He spent most of his professional life at the Information Technology Industry Council, a high-tech trade group. In 1987, he joined the board of the American National Standards Institute, and he eventually became its chair. He served two years as president of the International Organization for Standardi­zation before retiring in 2005.

The concept of Smoots has persisted, both at MIT and beyond. Every year since 1958, the Smoot marks have been repainted by LCA brothers, and when the Harvard Bridge was rebuilt in the late 1980s, the contractor scored the sidewalk every Smoot length, rather than the standard six feet. Smoot's story has been covered by the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and National Public Radio. And Google Earth and Google calculator recognize the Smoot as a bona fide measurement unit; for example, if you type in "25 feet in Smoots," the calculator will convert it to 4.47761194.

Smoot's name also graces the cover of a recently published book on measurement, Smoot's Ear: The Measure of Humanity. In the preface, author Robert Travernor writes, "The significance of Smoot's ear is that it is a built-in error; it recognises that fallibility is ever-­present in human affairs ... that it is an essential quality of human nature, and is at the root of human creativity."

Perhaps that's why Smoot and his buddies never did bother to measure his ear. Nonetheless, Smoot asserts that it's the same length now as it was 50 years ago.