Speaker 1: I guess what mango? What's not will? So I was
Speaker 1: flipping through the channels the other day and there was
Speaker 1: this sitcom on TV and I started thinking about this
Speaker 1: because there was snow on the ground, and I was
Speaker 1: wondering how they make that fake snow for TV and movies,
Speaker 1: because you think about all the things that could melt
Speaker 1: the snow. They're like, there's these hot lights, they have
Speaker 1: these long shoots, and they can't use real snow obviously.
Speaker 1: So I looked it up and what do you find out? Well,
Speaker 1: the good news a lot of it. It's edible mango.
Speaker 1: You can eat all that snow. So in early movies
Speaker 1: they use corn flakes that were painted white to make snow.
Speaker 1: But then when sound came into film, you know, obviously
Speaker 1: all the crunchy sounds would be too loud if they
Speaker 1: were stepping on it, so they had to find a replacement.
Speaker 1: And over the years, sets have used everything from firefighting
Speaker 1: foam to instant potato flakes, to flour, even marble dust.
Speaker 1: But the stuff that used today is actually mostly paper.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not. That's pretty weird. I feel like
Speaker 1: paper is the last thing I would have expected for
Speaker 1: like fake snow. In movies. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought
Speaker 1: about that either. But you know, it's available in all
Speaker 1: different grains and sizes depending on what kind of snow
Speaker 1: you're looking for. But actually the process of making it
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. So the paper snow is packaged in
Speaker 1: these huge bales and then it shot through a special
Speaker 1: hose that lightly dampens the paper so that it will
Speaker 1: stick to whatever it lands on, just like snow. And
Speaker 1: according to Roland half Away of the Snow Business Hollywood,
Speaker 1: very familiar with snow business Hollywood, Yeah, the technique can
Speaker 1: cover up to thirty seven square meters per minute, plus
Speaker 1: it never melts. So that's just the first of nine
Speaker 1: facts we've got for you today about wintertime inventions. Let's
Speaker 1: dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: good friend Mangesh Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof booth
Speaker 1: wrapped up in his slanket Mango I know, which I
Speaker 1: really thought was like an off brand snuggy, but Tristan
Speaker 1: insists is the original blanket with sleeve. He is very
Speaker 1: passionate about this. Yes, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So,
Speaker 1: I know it's boring to talk about the weather, but
Speaker 1: the weather definitely inspired this week's episode. I know, this
Speaker 1: weekend was so miserable in New York City. It was
Speaker 1: just like rainy and wet, and when you've got two
Speaker 1: feral kids like I do, who are just like hard
Speaker 1: to tame and even harder to keep indoors, it is
Speaker 1: truly miserable. But you know, anyway, all this winter weather
Speaker 1: made us wondered, like, what are some great wintertime inventions
Speaker 1: worth celebrating? Yeah? You actually, I love that old quote
Speaker 1: that everyone always talks about the weather, but no one
Speaker 1: does anything about it. And we definitely have a few
Speaker 1: people on this list who did something about it, including
Speaker 1: my first fact, which is about earmuffs. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if I knew this before and forgot it or
Speaker 1: I just never heard this, but the inventor of the
Speaker 1: earmuffs was a fifteen year old boy from main named
Speaker 1: Chester Greenwood, and Chester had this horrible allergy to wool.
Speaker 1: So before you could keep the story going, well when
Speaker 1: are we talking about here? I think it was like
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds, so um, yeah, my my notes
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, and and of course it's surprising that
Speaker 1: a kid invented them, but you know, basically, Chester wanted
Speaker 1: to go skating with his friends at the pond, which
Speaker 1: of course sounds so wholesome and so American, but you know,
Speaker 1: he couldn't wear a hat because of this wool allergy
Speaker 1: he had, and his ears got so cold that he
Speaker 1: had to turn around and go home immediately. And apparently
Speaker 1: this was a pretty common occurrence for little Chester, but
Speaker 1: this time he was totally fed up. And when he
Speaker 1: got home he asked his grandmom to help him assemble
Speaker 1: this thing he'd been thinking about. It was like little
Speaker 1: shields for his ears. And uh. Once he described what
Speaker 1: he wanted, his grandmom got out her sewing materials and
Speaker 1: she whipped up the world's first pair of ear muffs
Speaker 1: and the device Chester later called it the Greenwood Champion
Speaker 1: ear Protectors. Like that we should call him that. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a much better name than ear moths.
Speaker 1: But the original muffs were made from beaver fur on
Speaker 1: the outside and velvet on the ear side, and and
Speaker 1: it had a band of wire connecting to two and
Speaker 1: over the years, Chester improved on the design and he
Speaker 1: patented it, and by the time he was twenty five,
Speaker 1: he'd actually become the owner of an ear muff factory
Speaker 1: that cranked out fifty thou pairs every year. Wow, it's
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable. Yeah, I mean, you know, it gave toll
Speaker 1: me the weirdest thing about this. Apparently, like Chester's legend
Speaker 1: or the legend of his ears and their sensitivity grew
Speaker 1: over the years into like something of a myth and
Speaker 1: uh and even like the Wall Street Journal report on it,
Speaker 1: and this is what they said, quote, Chester Greenwood's ears
Speaker 1: were so sensitive that they turned chalky white, then beat red,
Speaker 1: and deep blue in that order. When the mercury dead blue.
Speaker 1: You know, it feels like a gob stopper or something.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's total nonsense. According to his grandkids,
Speaker 1: his ears were just cold, just big and cold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's much less dramatic. Well, here's a quick fact
Speaker 1: that I liked. Did you know that the first makeshift
Speaker 1: snow vehicles that were used in the northern US and
Speaker 1: Canada were actually just pimped out Model T s. Apparently
Speaker 1: this started as far back as the nineteen tens, when
Speaker 1: people would remove the cars undercarriage and then what they
Speaker 1: would do is they would mount a pair of skis
Speaker 1: to the front and a set of tracks to the rear.
Speaker 1: So these converted cars were referred to as snow flyers,
Speaker 1: and they were a god sent to these rural residents,
Speaker 1: especially when it came to mail delivery. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I like that people were almost like hacking forwards, like
Speaker 1: it's ikea furniture or something, pretty soon after they were made, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it was just a year or
Speaker 1: two after the first model T came out that people
Speaker 1: thought to put them on skis. But anyway, while I'm
Speaker 1: talking about snow vehicles, I'm actually gonna throw out another fact.
Speaker 1: The first snowmobile was invented by a fifteen year old,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna match your fifteen year old fact with
Speaker 1: one of my own. I feel like inventing a snowmobile
Speaker 1: is like a little bit more impressive than getting your
Speaker 1: grandmom to sow some ear must Yeah. Well, the story
Speaker 1: is pretty fascinating. So apparently in ninety two there was
Speaker 1: this kid from Quebec named Joseph Armand Bombardier, and he
Speaker 1: built and tested the first full scale snowmobile. So Joe
Speaker 1: Armand had been interested in playing with mechanical things since
Speaker 1: he was a kid, and had been making his own
Speaker 1: since he was thirteen. He built these toy tractors and
Speaker 1: boats for his younger siblings. He made a steam powered
Speaker 1: spinning wheel for his aunt, and even a miniature train
Speaker 1: that he built with this old clock part. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the guy was pretty resourceful. But none of those prior
Speaker 1: works could prepare Bombardier's family for what he sprang on
Speaker 1: them on New Year's Eve. So, taking a queue from
Speaker 1: the locals, he had started with the model T engine,
Speaker 1: but rather than use the rest of the car, this
Speaker 1: young inventor instead mounted the engine to two wooden sleds
Speaker 1: that he hitched together. And if that doesn't sound dangerous enough,
Speaker 1: he also added a handmade wouldn't propeller to the back
Speaker 1: of the engine to help propel the rig through the snow.
Speaker 1: I mean this guy, this is I love this story anyway. Actually,
Speaker 1: it was that last part that ultimately led his dad
Speaker 1: to order the contraption be dismantled. Although Bombardier's younger brother
Speaker 1: was able to pilot the prototype snowmobile for more than
Speaker 1: half a mile, watching his son's speed across the snow
Speaker 1: that close to an open propeller, he said, made his
Speaker 1: stomach turn. That is incredible. And of course, like as
Speaker 1: a dad watching your kid like wander on this like
Speaker 1: rickety contraption. What's also amazing to me is like the
Speaker 1: fact that h Bombardier got his hands on an engine,
Speaker 1: like a fifteen year old kid, just like ending up
Speaker 1: with an engine and two slights and this stuff. Especially
Speaker 1: at that time, you wouldn't think that it would be
Speaker 1: that easy. But anyway, later on, when his dad wasn't
Speaker 1: hovering over him, he perfected the invention, adding caterpillar treads
Speaker 1: to the design. That's pretty amazing. So here's what I
Speaker 1: didn't know. It's that Eddie Bauer invented the first puffy
Speaker 1: down jacket in and he actually has a pattern on it.
Speaker 1: The jacket was originally called the blizzard Proof Jacket and
Speaker 1: later was rebranded as the Skyliner. I guess. But Bower's
Speaker 1: coat was unusual because it used goose down to maximize
Speaker 1: warmth and breath of ability. But the thing that's most
Speaker 1: interesting about this whole story is that the coat was
Speaker 1: actually created out of necessity. It was after Bauer had
Speaker 1: nearly died of hypothermia while on a winter fishing trip,
Speaker 1: so you can imagine not only was Bauer the owner
Speaker 1: of this sporting good store that was kind of famous,
Speaker 1: but he also loved the outdoors. So this was January.
Speaker 1: His friend asked him to go fishing, and he decided
Speaker 1: to jump with the chance, and the day went super well.
Speaker 1: They caught about a hundred pounds of steel head in
Speaker 1: a matter of hours, which is I guess impressive. But
Speaker 1: as Bauer was hiking back to his car, he was
Speaker 1: soaked from the sweat and also just tired from this
Speaker 1: bag of fish he was hauling, and he started to
Speaker 1: fall asleep on his feet. Apparently the moisture in the
Speaker 1: wool clothes that actually frozen in the cold and hypothermia
Speaker 1: was setting in. But Bauer was an outdoorsman. He was
Speaker 1: quick thinking he actually had a gun on him, so
Speaker 1: he shot it twice in the air to signal to
Speaker 1: his friend, and his friend came running him and saved him.
Speaker 1: But apparently after he almost died from hypothermia, he realized
Speaker 1: that people really needed a lightweight jacket that could be
Speaker 1: worn comfortably, especially in cold weather while they were doing
Speaker 1: things that were like strenuous or working or whatever. And
Speaker 1: the very next year, he invented the down jacket. Wow.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't realize that Eddie Bauer himself had invented
Speaker 1: so many of these things. But well, here here's a
Speaker 1: quick one, since we're talking about staying warm. I was
Speaker 1: actually looking up facts about mitten's, so I actually looked
Speaker 1: at facts about mints too, But the only thing I
Speaker 1: found that was even remotely interesting was there's something called
Speaker 1: a beer mitten. Well, even though I was about to
Speaker 1: share my fact, I have to ask, what what is
Speaker 1: a beer mitten? I guess it's like a mitten and
Speaker 1: a beer cuzy in one, so like you can keep
Speaker 1: your hands warm and your beer cold. It's this Icelandic
Speaker 1: convention and they're all these knitting patterns from them online.
Speaker 1: But the weird thing is that it's super single purpose,
Speaker 1: so you can't really do anything other than drink and
Speaker 1: hold a beverage in your hand if you're wearing a
Speaker 1: beer mitten. But I did cut you off. So you
Speaker 1: said you were looking up mittens. Well, I'm glad you
Speaker 1: found something, because I didn't find anything great. But but
Speaker 1: you know, one thing I did find was that mittens
Speaker 1: are surprisingly old, like they've been around since prehistoric times.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is, according to a publication called Fashion Time,
Speaker 1: is that the earliest gloves were found in King Tut's tomb,
Speaker 1: and since he died around thirteen twenty three BC, that
Speaker 1: actually makes the oldest known pair of gloves well over
Speaker 1: thirty three years old. It's weird to think that gloves
Speaker 1: are like three thousand years old and ear muffs are
Speaker 1: only like a hundred fifty years old. But speaking of muffs,
Speaker 1: which is not a transition, I normally do you know
Speaker 1: what hand muffs are? I don't want her hand muffs.
Speaker 1: They are like those furry cylindrical things that rich people
Speaker 1: where sometimes you see him in like old Hollywood movies
Speaker 1: or in ski towns, and you know, people to stuff
Speaker 1: their hands into them. But apparently hand muffs have been
Speaker 1: at a symbol since the fourteen hundreds, and they've actually
Speaker 1: been called different things in different places. In France they're
Speaker 1: called man shawn. In England they were called snuffkins, which
Speaker 1: like but the name we know about came from the
Speaker 1: Flemish word move or muff, and according to the Encyclopedia
Speaker 1: of Clothing and Fashion, this trend grew in popularity after
Speaker 1: the Colonies started sending furs to Europe, so women in
Speaker 1: England and France would actually warm their hands with the
Speaker 1: furs of sables or martins, and sometimes they jazz up
Speaker 1: their muffs with stylish accessories, so listen to this. They'd
Speaker 1: actually add bijeweled animal skulls to hang from the chain,
Speaker 1: which is so weird to me. Also, fashionable women in
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century would tote their tiny dogs in them,
Speaker 1: so they're kind of like the tiny dog purses you see.
Speaker 1: And weirdly, men also got in on this muff craze,
Speaker 1: although of course they wanted to wear more manly furs
Speaker 1: like otter and tiger, and people who were cash strapped
Speaker 1: and just kind of aspiring fashionistas they had settled for
Speaker 1: lesser animals like squirrel fur muffs. Knew there was so
Speaker 1: to history there. Well, I feel like we've learned enough
Speaker 1: about hand must for a while now, so why don't
Speaker 1: we take a quick break and come back with two
Speaker 1: more facts. Welcome back to part time Genius. We're talking
Speaker 1: about winter inventions, all right, Mago, So what do you
Speaker 1: want to end with here? So, in honor of my
Speaker 1: cold which doesn't seem to go away ever, how about
Speaker 1: we talk about Kleenex. So how long have you been sick? Now?
Speaker 1: Is at thirty eight years? I think? So? I feel
Speaker 1: like every time I started to get better, my kids
Speaker 1: bring back like different germs to invade my system. But
Speaker 1: back to clean X and stuff. It is fairly obvious
Speaker 1: that handkerchiefs predate disposable tissues by several centuries, you know,
Speaker 1: but the disposable option is actually older than you might guess.
Speaker 1: It turns out the Japanese have been using disposable facial
Speaker 1: tissues since about the seventeenth century, and they use a
Speaker 1: super in paper called washing. The Western world, though that
Speaker 1: they were a little later to the game. They didn't
Speaker 1: get into until the nineteen twenties. And and that's when
Speaker 1: Kimberly Clark Corporation, which I'm sure you've heard of, they
Speaker 1: released clean X to the market in n But this
Speaker 1: is the weird part. Clean X actually wasn't intended for
Speaker 1: blowing your nose at all. Instead, clean X tissues were
Speaker 1: originally men as a way for women to remove cold
Speaker 1: cream and clean their faces, which is where the clean
Speaker 1: and the name comes from. So even the early ads
Speaker 1: from the period have like Hollywood makeup departments endorsing them,
Speaker 1: and they show movie stars like um Helen Hayes or
Speaker 1: Gean Harlow and how they supposedly used Kleenex to wipe
Speaker 1: off the theater makeup, but the public sort of immediately
Speaker 1: knew what to do with them, and within two years
Speaker 1: Kimberly Clark was getting all these letters from customers praising
Speaker 1: clean X as the perfect disposable handkerchief. Apparently six of
Speaker 1: customers used Cleanex for blowing their noses, which totally outnumbered
Speaker 1: the number who were using them to wipe off the
Speaker 1: cold cream, and Kimberly Clark took the hint by the
Speaker 1: company had completely changed course and changed their marketing entirely,
Speaker 1: and Cleanex sales had doubled as a result. So, well,
Speaker 1: what fact do you want to end on? All? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: since I started with a fact about artificial snow, I
Speaker 1: kind of want to end with one on how man
Speaker 1: made snow got invented in the first place. But before
Speaker 1: we talk about the snow, actually, let's talk about a
Speaker 1: special kind of ice that's called rhyme. So when the
Speaker 1: water vapor and a cloud or fog collects on the
Speaker 1: surface of an object, it can sometimes freeze and form
Speaker 1: this white ice frost, which is rhyme. So in the
Speaker 1: nineties there was this low temperature lab in Canada that
Speaker 1: was experimenting to see what kind of effect rhyme had
Speaker 1: on the intakes of a jet engine. So to recreate
Speaker 1: the icing effect in their lab, these researchers sprayed water
Speaker 1: in front of the engine that they had suspended in
Speaker 1: their wind tunnel. But instead of creating rhyme, they accidentally
Speaker 1: started making snow, and I mean a lot of snow.
Speaker 1: And according to the team's report, they had to shut
Speaker 1: down the engine multiple times just to shovel snow out
Speaker 1: of the wind tunnel. It's been so much funny, funny,
Speaker 1: and I mean it does feel like a loud way
Speaker 1: to make snowe right, Like, like they must have refined
Speaker 1: snowmakers over the years, I guess so, And those Canadian
Speaker 1: scientists were just the first who accidentally makes snow. I mean,
Speaker 1: now the process is way quieter. So anyway, after all
Speaker 1: these facts, who do you think deserves today's trophy? You know,
Speaker 1: I like the one about the ear muff dude Chester,
Speaker 1: but I actually really love I feel like the one
Speaker 1: that's gonna be most memorable to me is the corn
Speaker 1: flake fact and the fact that people used to paint
Speaker 1: all these corn flakes white to make snow in movies.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. I think that's probably my favorite fact. So
Speaker 1: I I think you deserve the trophy today. All right, well,
Speaker 1: I will take and that's it for today's part time Genius.
Speaker 1: If you've got some fun snow or ice or winter
Speaker 1: facts to share, we'd love to hear those from you.
Speaker 1: We also love to just hear topics from you guys,
Speaker 1: if you ever have ideas for episodes, but from gave
Speaker 1: Tristan Mango. Actually, I think Tristan fell asleep in his
Speaker 1: slank at Mango, but anyway, thanks so much for listening.