Explore the vast range of titles available.

An MIT \"hack\" is an ingenious, benign, andanonymous prank or practical joke, often requiring engineering or scientificexpertise and often pulled off under cover of darkness -- instances of campus mischief sometimes coinciding withApril Fool's Day, final exams, or commencement. (It should not beconfused with the sometimes nonbenign phenomenon of computer hacking.)Noteworthy MIT hacks over the years include the legendary Harvard--YaleFootball Game Hack (when a weather balloon emblazoned \"MIT\" poppedout of the ground near the 50-yard line), the campus police car found perchedon the Great Dome, the apparent disappearance of the Institute president'soffice, and a faux cathedral (complete with stained glass windows, organ, andwedding ceremony) in a lobby. Hacks are by their nature ephemeral, althoughthey live on in the memory of both perpetrators and spectators. Nightwork,drawing on the MIT Museum's unique collection of hack-related photographsand other materials, describes and documents the best of MIT's hacks andhacking culture. Thisgenerously illustrated updated edition has added coverage of such recent hacksas the cross-country abduction of rival Caltech's cannon (a prankrequiring months of planning, intricate choreography, and last-minute improvisation),a fire truck on the Dome that marked the fifth anniversary of 9/11, andnumerous pokes at the celebrated Frank Gehry-designed Stata Center, and even aworking solar-powered Red Line subway car on the Great Dome. Hackshave been said to express the essence of MIT, providing, as alumnusAndre DeHon observes, \"an opportunity todemonstrate creativity and know-how in mastering the physical world.\"What better way to mark the 150th anniversary of MIT's founding than tocommemorate its native ingenuity with this new edition of Nightwork?

In 1914, MIT chose the beaver as its mascot from the pages ofMr. Hornaday’s Book on the Animals of North America. Lester Gardner (Class of 1898) explained why its candidacy was uncontested: “Of all the animals in the world,” he said, reading straight from Hornaday, “the beaver is noted for his engineering and mechanical skills and habits of industry. [He is] nocturnal, he does his best work in the dark.” Regardless of superficial changes to campus culture, such as the introduction of computers or mobile phones, the MIT animal has remained true to Hornaday’s description at the turn of

The origins of the acronym “IHTFP” are strictly anecdotal. Many have claimed the amorphous motto as their own. Its use has been unofficially documented in both the U.S. Air Force and at MIT as far back as the 1950s. Whatever its ancestry, generations of MIT students have delighted in the acronym’s infinite versatility. “IHTFP” has appeared on signposts and in Greenspeak (written in the windows of the Green Building). It has even been printed on shoelaces. The point is to use it creatively: I Hate To Face Physics, It’s Hard To Fondle Penguins, I Have Truly Found Paradise. And of

Sometimes a propeller beanie set jauntily atop the Great Dome says it all, but every now and then, a procession, a kidnapping, or even a boiling cauldron is necessary. In the vernacular, these “happenings” are known as “performance hacks.” From mock swordfights to chanting monks, performance hacks are an enduring Institute tradition. In 1978, two MIT traditions were melded to create one of the most beloved performance hacks of all time. Since 1953, the Institute had been crowning the Ugliest Man on Campus (today, it is the ugliest “manifestation”). The UMOC (pronounced “you mock”) is a charity event held by

What many in the MIT community think of as one of the great Lobby 7 hacks was actually artwork and not a hack at all. The field of wheat that students and staff strolled through one Monday morning in May1996 was an art installation entitled “The Garden in the Machine.” The nearly 100,000 stalks of wheat were planted by artist Scott Raphael Schiamberg (1993 SB, 1996 MArch, 1996 MCP), a graduate student striving to invoke the grand American pastoral tradition with an intimate, small-scale oasis. Because of its sheer ingenuity, surreal impact, and obvious impermanence, the wheat field was seen