mitfacts.txt

The Infinite Corridor is 1/6th of a mile long
MIT has an "Engineer’s Drinking Song"
Former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, earned his MS from the business school in 1972.
Federal Reserve Bank Chairman, Ben Bernanke, got his PhD in 1979 in Physics
Apollo 11 astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, got his ScD in 1963 in Aero Astro
CEO of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan, got his BS in 1895 in Electrical Engineering
Former VP of Goldman Sachs and business writer Lisa Endlich received her MBA from MIT
25,800 active companies have been started or cofounded by living MIT Alumni
3.3 million people are employed by companies started or cofounded by living MIT alumni
Intel, Texas Instruments, Bose, Koch Industries, Dropbox, Campbell Soup are all companies started by MIT alums
The Gross Domestic Product of a nation formed by businesses started by MIT graduates would be $2 trillion. This would rank them as 10th in the world (equivalent to Italy, the UK, and Brazil).
The Smoot: In 1958 the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity measured the Harvard Bridge according the to the body lengths of one Oliver Smoot (class of ’62). This was originally done as a joke because Smoot was made fun of for being so short that he could be his own unit of measurement. And thus a tradition was born so each year, members of the fraternity maintain the painted marks. The official length of the bridge is reported to be “364.4 Smoots + 1 ear.” Local police even use the Smoot markings to estimate locations of accidents. Along the bridge you can see lines painted at intervals of 10 Smoots. It may be called Harvard Bridge, but MIT is written all over it!
Up through 1980, MIT had several dominant tiddlywinks teams competing in the intercollegiate level and winning national and world championships. For those of you who don’t know what tiddlywinks is, it is an indoor game that’s played on a felt mat. There are two types of disks involved: “winks” and “squidgers.” To play the game, squidgers are used to press on the edge of the wink and propel it into the air. The object of the game is to get your winks into a pot that is in the middle of the mat.
MIT students can receive the greatly coveted Pirate Certificate if they complete PE classes in pistol, archery, fencing, and sailing!