The smoot is a nonstandard unit of length created as part of an MIT
fraternity prank. It is named after Oliver R. Smoot, a fraternity
pledge to Lambda Chi Alpha, who in October 1958 lay down repeatedly on
the Harvard Bridge (between Boston & Cambridge, Mass) so that his
fraternity brothers could use his height to measure the length of the
bridge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot