MIT Nerds

There is a place or persona or maybe a state of mind called Tetazoo. That stands for “Third East Traveling Animal Zoo,” the name of a dormitory hall at MIT. At the moment, several of its scruffy denizens, including Sam Kendig, 22, are ramming sectional couches down a corridor of classrooms as fast as low-tech human power can, past lab-coated professors and graduate students, none of whom blink an eye. After all, it’s the weekend of the amazing Mystery Hunt—more about that soon—when such peculiar behavior is normal. And in the institute’s 140-year history, these corridors have been traversed by 59 Nobel laureates and 30 astronauts, as well as Dr. Dolittle author Hugh Lofting, architect I. M. Pei, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, inventor Raymond Kurzweil, Ford Motor Company honcho William C. Ford, suspected Al Qaeda agent Aafia Siddiqui, and NPR’s “Car Talk” guys. At a guess, none of them ...