The main objective of the research was to determine whether marking the bridge with a newly devised experimental marking would result in more cautious decisions from subjects regarding whether or not the experimental bridge structure could be passed under safely compared with the currently used UK bridge marking standard.
Smoots quickly became campus legend, and biannually thereafter, the Lambda Chi pledges repainted the marks on the bridge.
"I don't recall actually thinking about it, or getting a note or having a conversation with my brothers". That was until he gave an interview to a reporter at the now-defunct "Holiday magazine" who was investigating the strange marks on the bridge that were repainted each year by incoming Lambda Chi Alpha students.
The carriage roads are marked by signposts; the bridge is at signpost 24.
No one knows why these two civilizations did a common task so differently, but both civilizations mark the stones of the bridge.
Every 10 lengths of Smoot's body, a hash mark was painted on the bridge, eventually deemed 364.4 Smoots and one ear long.
His nose was almost healed except for a small red mark that ran along the bridge and which he kept pressing because he was self-conscious.
The decision came so close to the opening date that officials decided not to proceed with an extravagant celebration planned to mark the completion of the bridge, which at $6.4 billion is the most expensive single piece of infrastructure in California's history.
But it's a mark of how gripping The Bridge's central storyline is – and how well plotted, albeit with echoes of other stories – that these distractions soon fade, with the classic Nordic noir preoccupations of society, reform and justice brought to the fore as the killer's agenda is made clear.
The new £1.35bn Queensferry Crossing has been lit up to mark the handover of the bridge from the contractors to the Scottish government.
