page_title: Caltech–MIT rivalry
section_title: Schools
hierarchical_section_title: Caltech–MIT rivalry / Schools
caption_attribution_description: English: Beckman Auditorium, Caltech, with San Gabriel Mountains on the background
context_page_description: The Caltech–MIT rivalry is a college rivalry between California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stemming from the colleges' reputations as the top science and engineering schools in the United States. The rivalry is unusual given the geographic distance between the schools, as well as its focus on elaborate pranks rather than sporting events.
  The most recent pranking war was instigated in April 2005, when Caltech students pulled multiple pranks during MIT's Campus Preview Weekend for prospective freshmen. MIT students responded a year later by stealing Caltech's antique Fleming Cannon and transporting it across the country to MIT's campus. Subsequent pranks have included fake satirical school newspapers distributed by Caltech students at MIT and the appearance of a TARDIS device on top of Caltech's Baxter Hall.
context_section_description: Caltech is located in Pasadena, California, 11 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.  It was founded in 1891 and adopted its current name in 1920.  Caltech enrolled just under 1000 undergraduates and almost 1200 graduate students for the 2011–2012 academic year.  Despite its small size, 31 Caltech alumni and faculty have won the Nobel Prize and 66 have won the National Medal of Science or Technology, and Caltech was ranked first in the 2011–2016 Times Higher Education worldwide rankings of universities., whereas MIT was ranked first in the rival QS World University Rankings over the same period.  Curiously from 2004-2009, The Times HES and QS collaborated to produce joint rankings.
  Caltech has a long history of off-campus pranks, which are sometimes referred to as "RFs".  (RF is short for "ratfuck", referring to the shattering of a frozen dead rat in someone's room.)  The most notable of these pranks include the 1961 Great Rose Bowl Hoax, where a card stunt was altered to display "Caltech" rather than the name of one of the competing teams.  Caltech students also altered the scoreboard display during the 1984 Rose Bowl to show Caltech beating MIT 38–9, and in May 1987 changed the Hollywood Sign to read "CALTECH".
  MIT was founded in 1861, and is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, directly across the Charles River from central Boston.  MIT enrolled 4512 undergraduates and 6807 graduate students for the 2014-2015 academic year.  85 Nobel laureates and 28 National Medal of Science or Technology recipients are currently or have previously been affiliated with the university.
  MIT also has a long tradition of pranks, which are called "hacks" at that institution.  Many hacks involve placing an item on MIT's Great Dome or otherwise altering, such as moving a campus police cruiser to its roof, placing full-sized replicas of the Wright Flyer and a firetruck on top of it to acknowledge the anniversaries of first powered controlled flight and the September 11th attacks respectively, and converting it into R2-D2 and a large yellow ring to acknowledge the release of Star Wars Episode I and Lord of the Rings respectively.  A famous off-campus hack involved MIT students inflating a weather balloon labeled "MIT" at the 50-yard line at the Harvard/Yale football game in 1982.
  Pranks at the two institutions are seen as a way to relax from the stress of the notoriously rigorous academics of each.  Both Caltech and MIT have a set of pranking ethics, stating that pranks should be reversible and not cause permanent damage, and emphasize creativity and originality.  In recent years, pranking has been officially encouraged by Tom Mannion, Caltech's Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Campus Life. "The grand old days of pranking have gone away at Caltech, and that's what we are trying to bring back," reported The Boston Globe, which noted that "security has orders not to intervene in a prank unless officers get Mannion's approval beforehand."  However, hacks at MIT are generally more secretive and often do not involve identifying the hackers.
caption: Caltech's Beckman Auditorium
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