1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:02,880
Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that will? So I was away

2
00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:04,720
Speaker 1: earlier in the week, but I hear you guys had

3
00:00:04,720 --> 00:00:07,520
Speaker 1: a big snow day here in Atlanta. Yeah, that's right.

4
00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:11,360
Speaker 1: We stayed home from the office, my kids drove me bonkers,

5
00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:15,640
Speaker 1: and of course it didn't snow at all. Yeah. That's uh,

6
00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:17,600
Speaker 1: that's life in the South. I hope you get used

7
00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:19,520
Speaker 1: to it, but you know, I still feel like we

8
00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:22,000
Speaker 1: should do this week's nine Things in honor of snow.

9
00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:24,200
Speaker 1: So I've got a fact to kick us off here.

10
00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:29,040
Speaker 1: Did you know that in March Syracuse actually tried to

11
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:32,760
Speaker 1: ban snow. There was this record snowfall that season. I

12
00:00:32,800 --> 00:00:35,159
Speaker 1: think it was like a hundred and sixty something inches,

13
00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:37,720
Speaker 1: and so the city council this was a great idea

14
00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:41,360
Speaker 1: that unanimously approved this resolution to outlast snowfall in the

15
00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:46,600
Speaker 1: city of Syracuse until December of the following year. I

16
00:00:46,720 --> 00:00:49,400
Speaker 1: like that. So obviously they're like holding it off until

17
00:00:49,560 --> 00:00:52,760
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, which is great. But did it work not

18
00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,360
Speaker 1: at all. In fact, Mother Nature wasn't in a listening

19
00:00:55,400 --> 00:00:58,720
Speaker 1: mood and its snow two days later. But it did

20
00:00:58,800 --> 00:01:01,080
Speaker 1: give the citizens something to smile about, you know, during

21
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:03,680
Speaker 1: this really tough winter season. And so that's just the

22
00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:26,280
Speaker 1: first of nine facts about snow. Let's dig in. Hey

23
00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:28,960
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, Welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will

24
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:30,959
Speaker 1: Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend

25
00:01:30,959 --> 00:01:33,080
Speaker 1: Man Guesh Ticketer and on the other side of the

26
00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:37,000
Speaker 1: soundproof glass, sitting with a snowman preparedness kid on his desk.

27
00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:39,039
Speaker 1: I was curious what this thing was. I'd look at

28
00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:41,440
Speaker 1: it before we came in the studio. It's it's just

29
00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:44,080
Speaker 1: like a ziplog bag with a carrot and some pieces

30
00:01:44,120 --> 00:01:47,160
Speaker 1: of coal and I think like a corn cob pipe

31
00:01:47,160 --> 00:01:50,360
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, Tristan is always prepared. Yeah, just you

32
00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:52,280
Speaker 1: just you take it and you just wait to stick

33
00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:54,000
Speaker 1: it in a snow man. And so that's from our

34
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,760
Speaker 1: good pal and our producer, Tristan McNeil to Mago. I

35
00:01:57,800 --> 00:02:00,480
Speaker 1: know you're disappointed it didn't snow more, but at least

36
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:02,880
Speaker 1: we've got a show full of wintry facts. So so

37
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:05,000
Speaker 1: what do you want to start with? So I've got

38
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:07,440
Speaker 1: a pretty good one. Um. Have you ever heard of

39
00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:11,160
Speaker 1: yacki gossim? And I'm sure I'm pronouncing that wrong. I

40
00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:13,079
Speaker 1: have not heard of it, but I am certain you're

41
00:02:13,080 --> 00:02:17,359
Speaker 1: pronouncing it wrong. Yeah. So it's a massive Japanese snowball

42
00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:20,600
Speaker 1: fight that's apparently similar to Capture the Flag, but it's

43
00:02:20,639 --> 00:02:23,639
Speaker 1: played in three minute rounds and it's two teams of

44
00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:27,520
Speaker 1: seven people. You actually get ninety pre made snowballs for

45
00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:30,480
Speaker 1: each team to start, and then players get eliminated when

46
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:33,280
Speaker 1: they get hit by the snowballs. The other thing that's

47
00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:35,280
Speaker 1: weird about it is that the players wear helmets to

48
00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:39,080
Speaker 1: protect their heads. And while I am generally wharrey of

49
00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:41,160
Speaker 1: playing any game that requires you to wear a helmet

50
00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:44,560
Speaker 1: with a face mask, this one looks really fun. So

51
00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:46,840
Speaker 1: I'm kind of ready for it to be an Olympic sport.

52
00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:49,480
Speaker 1: That does sound so fun, But I love that it

53
00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:52,000
Speaker 1: must be so rough that they have to wear helmets

54
00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:57,680
Speaker 1: with face masks. All right, well, speaking of dangerous snowball fights,

55
00:02:57,680 --> 00:02:59,560
Speaker 1: because I've got one here. I learned about this from

56
00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:01,520
Speaker 1: the British show q I that you and I have

57
00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:04,760
Speaker 1: talked about several times before. But it's actually a snowball

58
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:06,840
Speaker 1: fight that you know, a parent might use as an

59
00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:09,959
Speaker 1: example of why you shouldn't participate in a snowball fight.

60
00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:13,720
Speaker 1: So back in fifteen forty six, a general named Francois

61
00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:16,440
Speaker 1: de Bourbon got into this snowball fight and it got

62
00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,440
Speaker 1: pretty rowdy, and so he ducked under a window to

63
00:03:19,480 --> 00:03:22,160
Speaker 1: get a breather from it all, and someone then threw

64
00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:25,000
Speaker 1: a linen chest out of their window. It landed on

65
00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:27,920
Speaker 1: his head, and he unfortunately died a few days later.

66
00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:30,560
Speaker 1: So you know, kids, you've got to be really careful.

67
00:03:30,600 --> 00:03:32,520
Speaker 1: This is a pretty good lesson about what can happen

68
00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:37,440
Speaker 1: in snowball fight. I'm not trying that really applies to

69
00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:41,040
Speaker 1: most snowball fights, but I don't know. So here's a

70
00:03:41,080 --> 00:03:44,280
Speaker 1: fact about snowman. Did you know that Michelangelo used to

71
00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:47,080
Speaker 1: carve in snow? So this is from Jake Rosen at

72
00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:51,040
Speaker 1: Metal Flass. But early in Michelangelo's career he had a

73
00:03:51,040 --> 00:03:54,560
Speaker 1: patriot named Piero da Medici, you know, from the Medici family.

74
00:03:54,680 --> 00:03:57,160
Speaker 1: But Medici really didn't know what he wanted the young

75
00:03:57,240 --> 00:03:59,280
Speaker 1: artist to do for him, so mostly he kind of

76
00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:02,680
Speaker 1: used him as the like personal shopper or interior decorator.

77
00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:05,520
Speaker 1: He kind of like picked out works of art for him.

78
00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:07,800
Speaker 1: And then one day, when it snowed, he got this

79
00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:10,680
Speaker 1: great idea and decided to task Michelangelo with making him

80
00:04:10,720 --> 00:04:15,640
Speaker 1: a snowman, and obviously, like Micgelangelow's skills are so great.

81
00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:19,000
Speaker 1: But uh um, there are no detailed images of how

82
00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:22,040
Speaker 1: this snowman looked, except that it is on the historical

83
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:27,400
Speaker 1: record that it looked, quote very beautiful. That's pretty good.

84
00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:30,240
Speaker 1: All right, Well, here's a quick one about building a snowman.

85
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:32,760
Speaker 1: Did you realize that building one can actually be a

86
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,680
Speaker 1: pretty good workout? And Pop Sugar looked into this and

87
00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:38,240
Speaker 1: they found that building a snowman for an hour will

88
00:04:38,279 --> 00:04:41,240
Speaker 1: burn about two and eighty five calories. You can have

89
00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:44,880
Speaker 1: a snowball fight and that burns about three hundred nineteen calories.

90
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:47,240
Speaker 1: And then if you spend that full hour, you know,

91
00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:50,280
Speaker 1: just an hour making a snow angel, you can burn

92
00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:54,000
Speaker 1: two hundred and fourteen calories, which is about what you'd

93
00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:56,920
Speaker 1: burn if you walked uphill for an hour, I mean,

94
00:04:57,080 --> 00:05:00,720
Speaker 1: an hour of making snow angel sounds like total torture. Yeah,

95
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:03,280
Speaker 1: you're probably right. So you know, I'm a huge fan

96
00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:06,120
Speaker 1: of Calvin Hobbson. One of my favorite themes in the

97
00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:09,480
Speaker 1: strip is when Calvin builds all these hilarious and horrific

98
00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:12,200
Speaker 1: snowmen in his front yard and it's often too the

99
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:15,839
Speaker 1: horror of his parents. But according to the History of Snowmen,

100
00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:19,159
Speaker 1: which is this wonderful book, um, this was actually a

101
00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:22,719
Speaker 1: popular activity in the nineteen hundreds. Apparently snowmen were often

102
00:05:22,800 --> 00:05:26,320
Speaker 1: used as like a comic stand in for violence and uh.

103
00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:29,640
Speaker 1: Illustrations from the early nineteen hundreds show them being javelin

104
00:05:29,760 --> 00:05:35,040
Speaker 1: with brooms or run through with Toboggan's. M All right, well,

105
00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:37,480
Speaker 1: here's a weird snow fact I had no idea about.

106
00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:39,680
Speaker 1: Did you know that there was a heavy snow the

107
00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:44,320
Speaker 1: day before JFK's inauguration and really heavy winds too, and

108
00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:47,400
Speaker 1: all of this was threatening the presidential parade from actually

109
00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:50,359
Speaker 1: being able to happen. So in steps the Army Corps

110
00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:53,440
Speaker 1: of Engineers. They worked through the night to clear the path.

111
00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:57,640
Speaker 1: They moved something like fourteen hundred cars from the inaugural route,

112
00:05:57,720 --> 00:06:00,080
Speaker 1: and they got to use, you know, in addition to

113
00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:03,159
Speaker 1: sanders and plows and all the usual stuff. Something that

114
00:06:03,200 --> 00:06:04,880
Speaker 1: I got excited to read about, they actually got to

115
00:06:04,920 --> 00:06:07,200
Speaker 1: use flame throwers to get rid of the snow. How

116
00:06:07,279 --> 00:06:10,479
Speaker 1: much fun would that be? And so in the morning

117
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:14,120
Speaker 1: sent hundred boy scouts pitched in to help them finish

118
00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:16,279
Speaker 1: the job, and of course the roads were clear in

119
00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:19,080
Speaker 1: time for the inauguration. That's really sweet and I've never

120
00:06:19,120 --> 00:06:22,560
Speaker 1: heard that. So here's a fun tip I never expected

121
00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:25,600
Speaker 1: to use. In two thousand ten, the Ignoble Prize for

122
00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:28,120
Speaker 1: Physics went to this team from New Zealand at the

123
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:32,560
Speaker 1: University of Otago, and they showed that quote. On ice

124
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:36,760
Speaker 1: footpaths in the wintertime, people slip and fall less often

125
00:06:36,960 --> 00:06:39,600
Speaker 1: if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.

126
00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:45,800
Speaker 1: What a helpful fact there, Mango. Thanks for Yeah, you

127
00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:49,159
Speaker 1: can wear your socks a shoe condom. That's right, that's right. Well,

128
00:06:49,160 --> 00:06:52,359
Speaker 1: speaking of really productive science, you know that old saying

129
00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:57,200
Speaker 1: about no two snowflakes looking alike. Apparently it's not exactly true.

130
00:06:57,560 --> 00:06:59,880
Speaker 1: The New York Times reports that a scientist named Kenneth

131
00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:03,960
Speaker 1: liebric that the California Institute of Technology he grows twins

132
00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:06,960
Speaker 1: snowflakes in a lab. And according to the article, it's

133
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,320
Speaker 1: not so much as snowflakes original structure, but it's the

134
00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:12,560
Speaker 1: path that it takes through the atmosphere, you know, all

135
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:16,040
Speaker 1: the twists and turns and volatility, and that's what makes

136
00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:18,720
Speaker 1: it unique. But in the lab, it's a pretty different story.

137
00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:22,160
Speaker 1: The Libricks process takes in between fifteen minutes to an

138
00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:25,000
Speaker 1: hour or so to grow a pair of snowflakes, but

139
00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:27,680
Speaker 1: he defends his idea of making flakes that look alike,

140
00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:30,480
Speaker 1: and as he puts it, we haven't violated any laws

141
00:07:30,480 --> 00:07:34,480
Speaker 1: of physics. We just found a loophole. That's pretty cool

142
00:07:34,560 --> 00:07:36,720
Speaker 1: and it's amazing that you can grow a pair of

143
00:07:36,760 --> 00:07:39,880
Speaker 1: snowflakes in the in the lab. But it also kind

144
00:07:39,880 --> 00:07:42,440
Speaker 1: of makes me feel less special. Oh well, man, go

145
00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:44,280
Speaker 1: I don't want you to feel less special. So you

146
00:07:44,280 --> 00:07:47,520
Speaker 1: know what, I think the really useless fact that you

147
00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:50,600
Speaker 1: gave about the sock over the shoe, that that maybe

148
00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:52,080
Speaker 1: that gives you the prize today. So I'm going to

149
00:07:52,160 --> 00:07:56,680
Speaker 1: give you today's fact off trophy. I like using sympathy

150
00:07:56,720 --> 00:07:58,840
Speaker 1: as a way to get you to give me the trophy. Finally,

151
00:07:58,920 --> 00:08:02,480
Speaker 1: so thank you and thank you guys for listening. We'll

152
00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:05,880
Speaker 1: be back with a full length episode tomorrow. M