Infinite Corridor

The Infinite Corridor is the hallway, 251 metres (825 feet, 0.16 miles, 147 smoots) long, that runs through the main buildings of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specifically parts of the buildings numbered 7, 3, 10, 4, and 8 (from west to east). The corridor is important not only because it links those buildings, but also because it serves as the most direct indoor route between the east and west ends of the campus. The corridor was designed as the central spine of the original set of MIT buildings designed by William W. Bosworth in 1913.

"Traffic" in the corridor can be quite heavy at times, and in fact one legendary "hack" (practical joke) in 1985 involved placing traffic signals, lane markings, and highway-like signs along its length. On occasion, students in the Transport Lab of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) have studied foot traffic in the Infinite Corridor, as a safer, more accessible model of highway traffic. One student report made the following observations about the informal rules that seem to apply to Infinite Corridor traffic:

"The rules of the road for the Infinite Corridor include: stay to the right, limit group size, pass on the left, form a line at bottlenecks, don't stop/slow down, no tailgating, traffic within corridor has right of way, no physical contact and no eye contact.

Twice per year, in mid-November and in late January, the corridor lines up with the plane of the ecliptic, causing sunlight to fill the entire corridor, events that are celebrated by students and staff.