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

Jenny Lacika

Buch

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Current price: EUR 17.95

Extended return period until January 31, 2026

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Illustration:: Anna Bron
Publisher:: Candlewick Press (MA), 09/2025
Binding:: Gebunden
Language:: Englisch
ISBN-13:: 9781536230123
Item number:: 12148541
Volume:: 32 Pages
Age recommendation:: 5 - 8 Jahre
Weight:: 567 g
Format:: 269 x 225 mm
Thickness:: 10 mm
Release date:: 23.9.2025
Note: Caution: Product is not in German language

Blurb

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 Upinvites 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.