Oliver R. Smoot

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For other meanings, see Smoot (disambiguation).

Oliver Reed Smoot, Jr. was Chairman of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) from 2001 to 2002 and President of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) from 2003 to 2004. He received his Bachelor of Science from MIT and his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University.

As a pledge of MIT's Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity in 1958, Smoot's height was used to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge. As he lay on the Harvard Bridge (that carries Massachusetts Avenue across the Charles River), markers were made at each distance between his head and feet. The bridge was determined to be 364.4 smoots (and one ear) in length, and the markers remain to this day.

Smoot gave a speech to the hearing to the House Science Committee's Subcommittee on Technology on March 20, 2000, entitled “The Role of Technical Standards in Today's Society and in the Future" .

His cousin[1] George Smoot won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006.

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[edit] References

  1. ^ Talk of the Nation (2006-10-06). Winning the Nobel Prize. National Public Radio. Retrieved on October 7, 2006.
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