Speaker 1: Guess what mango's that will. So I was flipping through
Speaker 1: the channels the other day and there was the sitcom
Speaker 1: on TV and I started thinking about this because there
Speaker 1: was snow on the ground, and I was wondering how
Speaker 1: they make that fake snow for TV and movies because
Speaker 1: you think about all the things that could melt the
Speaker 1: snow there, Like there's these hot lights, they have these
Speaker 1: long shoots, and they can't use real snow obviously. So
Speaker 1: I looked it up and where 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 flower, even marble dust.
Speaker 1: But the stuff they used today is actually mostly paper.
Speaker 2: Believe it or not. That's pretty weird.
Speaker 3: I feel like paper is the last thing I would
Speaker 3: have expected for like fake snow and movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't have thought about that either, But you know,
Speaker 1: it's available in all different grains and sizes depending on
Speaker 1: what kind of snow you're looking for. But actually the
Speaker 1: process of making it is pretty cool. So the paper
Speaker 1: snow is packaged in these huge bales and then it
Speaker 1: shot through a special hose that lightly dampens the paper
Speaker 1: so that it will stick to whatever it lands on,
Speaker 1: just like snow. And according to Roland Hathaway of the
Speaker 1: Snow Business Hollywood, are you familiar with snow Business Hollywood?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the technique can cover up to thirty seven
Speaker 1: square meters per minute, plus it never melts. So that's
Speaker 1: just the burst of nine facts we've got for you
Speaker 1: today about winter time inventions.
Speaker 2: Let's dive in.
Speaker 1: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 1: friend Mangesh hot ticketter and sitting behind the soundproof booth
Speaker 1: wrapped up in his slanket Mango.
Speaker 3: I know, which I really thought was like an off
Speaker 3: brand Snuggie, but Tristan insists it's the original blanket with sleeve.
Speaker 1: He is very passionate about this. Yes, that's our friend
Speaker 1: and producer Tristan McNeil, so mango. I know it's boring
Speaker 1: to talk about the weather, but the weather definitely inspired
Speaker 1: this week's episode.
Speaker 3: I know, this weekend was so miserable in New York City.
Speaker 3: It was just like rainy and wet, and when you've
Speaker 3: got two feral kids like I do, who are just
Speaker 3: like hard to tame and even harder to keep indoors,
Speaker 3: it is truly miserable. But uh, you know, anyway, all
Speaker 3: this winter weather made us wonder, like, what are some
Speaker 3: great wintertime inventions worth celebrating?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, actually I love that old quote that everyone
Speaker 1: always talks about the weather, but no one does anything
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: And we definitely have a few people on this list
Speaker 3: who did something about it, including my first fact, which
Speaker 3: is about ear muffs. So I don't know if I
Speaker 3: knew this before and forgot it or I just never
Speaker 3: heard this, but the inventor of the ear muffs was
Speaker 3: a fifteen year old boy from May named Chester Greenwood,
Speaker 3: 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?
Speaker 3: I think it was like the late eighteen hundreds, so yeah,
Speaker 3: might not say eighteen seventy three, And of course it's
Speaker 3: surprising that a kid invented them, but you know, basically,
Speaker 3: Chester wanted to go skating with his friends at the pond,
Speaker 3: which of course sounds so wholesome and so American, but
Speaker 3: you know, he couldn't wear a hat because of this
Speaker 3: wool allergy he had, and his ears got so cold
Speaker 3: that he had to turn around and go home immediately.
Speaker 2: And apparently this was a pretty common occurrence.
Speaker 3: For little Chester, but this time he was totally fed up,
Speaker 3: and when he got home he asked his grandmam to
Speaker 3: help him assemble this thing he'd been thinking about. It
Speaker 3: was like little shields for his ears, and once he
Speaker 3: described what he wanted, his Grandmam got out her sewing
Speaker 3: materials and she whipped up the world's first pair of
Speaker 3: ear muffs and the device Chester later called it the
Speaker 3: Greenwood Champion Ear Protectors.
Speaker 2: Oh, I like that name. We should call him that down.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's a much better name than ear muffs.
Speaker 3: But the original muffs were made from beaver fur on
Speaker 3: the outside and velvet on the ear side, and it
Speaker 3: had a band of wire connecting it too. And over
Speaker 3: the years, Chester improved on the design and he patented
Speaker 3: it and by the time he was twenty five, he'd
Speaker 3: actually become the owner of an ear muff factory that
Speaker 3: cranked out fifty thousand pairs every year.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, it gave come me the
Speaker 3: weirdest thing about this. Apparently, like Chester's legend, or the
Speaker 3: legend of his ears and their sensitivity grew over the
Speaker 3: years into like something of a myth, and even like
Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal report on it, and this is
Speaker 3: what they said, quote Chester Greenwood's ears were so sensitive
Speaker 3: that they turned chalky white, then beat red, and deep
Speaker 3: blue in that order when the mercury dead.
Speaker 2: Wow blue.
Speaker 3: I know it feels like a gobstopper or something, but
Speaker 3: you know it's total nonsense. According to his grandkids' ears
Speaker 3: were just cold, just big and cold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's much less dramatic. Oh well, here's a quick
Speaker 1: fact that I liked. Did you know that the first
Speaker 1: makeshift snow vehicles that were used in the northern US
Speaker 1: and Canada were actually just pimped out model ts. 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 snowflyers, and
Speaker 1: they were a god send to these rural residents, especially
Speaker 1: when it came to mail delivery.
Speaker 3: Oh that's really interesting. I like that people were almost
Speaker 3: like hacking forwards, like it's ikea furniture or something. Pretty
Speaker 3: soon after they were.
Speaker 1: Made, right, Yeah, I mean I think it was just
Speaker 1: a year or two after the first model te came
Speaker 1: out that people thought to put them on skis. But anyway,
Speaker 1: while I'm talking about snow vehicles, I'm actually gonna throw
Speaker 1: out another fact. The first snowmobile was invented by a
Speaker 1: fifteen year old, So I'm gonna match your fifteen year
Speaker 1: old fact with one of my own.
Speaker 3: I feel like inventing a snowmobile is like a little
Speaker 3: bit more impressive than getting your grandmam to sew some
Speaker 3: ear musk.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, the story's pretty fascinating. So apparently in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: two there was this kid from Quebec named Joseph Armand Bombardier,
Speaker 1: and he built and tested the first full scale snowmobile.
Speaker 1: So Joe Armand had been interested in playing with mechanical
Speaker 1: things since he was a kid, and had been making
Speaker 1: his own since he was thirteen. He built these toy
Speaker 1: tractors and boats for his younger siblings. He had made
Speaker 1: a steam powered spinning wheel for his aunt, and even
Speaker 1: a miniature train that he built with his old clock part.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the guy was pretty resourceful. But none of
Speaker 1: those prior works could prepare Bombardier's family for what he
Speaker 1: sprang on them.
Speaker 2: On New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1: So, taking a queue from the locals, he had started
Speaker 1: with the model T engine, but rather than use the
Speaker 1: rest of the car, this young inventor instead mounted the
Speaker 1: engine to two wooden sleds that he hitched together. And
Speaker 1: if that doesn't sound dangerous enough, he also added a
Speaker 1: handmade wouldn't propel her to the back of the engine
Speaker 1: to help propel the rig through the snow. I mean
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 3: That is incredible. And of course, like as a dad
Speaker 3: watching your kid like wander on this like rickety contraption.
Speaker 3: What's also amazing to me is like the fact that
Speaker 3: uh Bombardier got his hands on an engine, like a
Speaker 3: fifteen year old kid, just like ending up with an
Speaker 3: engine and two sleds and taking this stuff.
Speaker 1: Especially at that time, you wouldn't think that it would
Speaker 1: be that easy. But anyway, later on, when his dad
Speaker 1: wasn't hovering over him, he perfected the invention, adding caterpillar
Speaker 1: treads to the design.
Speaker 2: That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: So here's what I didn't know. It's that Eddie Bauer
Speaker 3: invented the first puffy down jacket in nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 3: and he actually he has a pattern on it. The
Speaker 3: jacket was originally called the blizzard Proof Jacket and later
Speaker 3: was rebranded as the Skyliner. I guess. But Bower's coat
Speaker 3: was unusual because it used goose down to maximize warmth
Speaker 3: and breathed the ability. But the thing that's most interesting
Speaker 3: about this whole story is that the coat was actually
Speaker 3: created out of necessity. It was after Bauer had nearly
Speaker 3: died of hypothermia while on a winter fishing trip, so
Speaker 3: you can imagine not only was Bauer the owner of
Speaker 3: this sporting good store that was kind of famous, but
Speaker 3: he also loved the outdoors. So this was January of
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty six. His friend asked him to go fishing,
Speaker 3: and he decided to jump at the chance, and the
Speaker 3: day went super well. They caught about one hundred pounds
Speaker 3: of steel head in a matter of hours, which is
Speaker 3: I guess impressive. But as Bauer was hiking back to
Speaker 3: his car, he was soaked from the sweat and also
Speaker 3: just tired from this bag of fish he was hauling,
Speaker 3: and he started to fall asleep on his feet. Apparently
Speaker 3: the moisture in the wool clothes had actually frozen in
Speaker 3: the cold, and hypothermia was setting in. But Bauer was
Speaker 3: an outdoorsman and he was quick thinking. He actually had
Speaker 3: a gun on him, so he shot it twice in
Speaker 3: the air to signal to his friend, and his friend
Speaker 3: came running and saved him. But apparently after he almost
Speaker 3: died from hypothermia, he realized that people really needed a
Speaker 3: lightweight jacket that could be worn comfortably. Especially in cold weather,
Speaker 3: while they were doing things that were like strenuous or
Speaker 3: working or whatever. And the very next year he invented
Speaker 3: the down jacket.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't realize that Eddie Bauer himself had invented
Speaker 1: so many of these things. But yeah, well here's a
Speaker 1: quick one, since we're talking about staying warm. I was
Speaker 1: actually looking up facts about mittens, so I actually.
Speaker 3: Looked up facts about mittens too, But the only thing
Speaker 3: I found that was even remotely interesting was there's something
Speaker 3: called a beer mitten.
Speaker 1: Well, even though I was about to share my fact,
Speaker 1: I have to ask what is a beer mitten.
Speaker 3: I guess it's like a mitten and a beer koozy
Speaker 3: in one, so like you can keep her hands warm
Speaker 3: and your beer cold.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: It's this Icelandic convention and there are all these knitting
Speaker 3: patterns from them online. But the weird thing is that
Speaker 3: it's super single purpose, so you can't really do anything
Speaker 3: other than drink and hold a beverage in your hand
Speaker 3: if you're wearing a beer midden.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: But I did cut you off. So you said you
Speaker 3: were looking up middens.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you found something, because I didn't find
Speaker 1: anything great. But you know, one thing I did find
Speaker 1: was that mittens are surprisingly old, like they've been around
Speaker 1: since prehistoric times. What's interesting is, according to a publication
Speaker 1: called Fashion Time, is that the earliest gloves were found
Speaker 1: in King tuts Too, and since he died around thirteen
Speaker 1: twenty three BCE, that actually makes the oldest known pair
Speaker 1: of gloves well over thirty three hundred years old.
Speaker 3: It's weird to think that gloves are like three thousand
Speaker 3: years old and ear muffs are only like one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty years old. But speaking of muffs, which is
Speaker 3: not a transition, I normally about to say, do you
Speaker 3: know what hand muffs are?
Speaker 2: I don't what are hand muffs?
Speaker 3: They are like those furry cylindrical things that rich people wear.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you see him in like old Hollywood movies or
Speaker 3: in ski towns, and you know, people just stuff their
Speaker 3: hands into them. But apparently hand muffs have been a
Speaker 3: staff to symbols since the fourteen hundreds, and they've actually
Speaker 3: been called different things in different places. In France they're
Speaker 3: called man sean. In England they were called snuffkins, which
Speaker 3: I like. But the name we know it by came
Speaker 3: from the Flemish word mouf or muff, and according to
Speaker 3: the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, this trend grew in
Speaker 3: popularity after the colonies started sending furs to Europe. So
Speaker 3: women in England and France would actually warm their hands
Speaker 3: with the furs of sables or martins, and sometimes they
Speaker 3: jazz up their muffs with stylish accessories, so listen to this.
Speaker 3: They'd actually add bejeweled animal skulls to hang.
Speaker 2: From the chain, which is so weird it is to me.
Speaker 3: Also, fashionable women in the sixteenth century would tote their
Speaker 3: tiny dogs in them, so they're kind of like the
Speaker 3: tiny dog purses you see today. And weirdly, men also
Speaker 3: got in on this muff craze, although of course they
Speaker 3: wanted to wear more manly furs like otter and tiger,
Speaker 3: and people who were cash strapped and just kind of
Speaker 3: aspiring fashionistas they'd settle for lesser animals like squirrel.
Speaker 2: Fur muffs knew they were so to history there.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've learned enough about hand muffs for
Speaker 1: a while, so why don't we take a quick break
Speaker 1: and come back with two more facts. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Part time Genius. We're talking about winter inventions. All right, mego,
Speaker 1: so what do you want to end with here?
Speaker 3: So, in honor of my cold, which doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: go away, ever, how about we talk about Kleenex.
Speaker 2: So how long have you been sick? Now? Is it
Speaker 2: thirty eight years?
Speaker 3: I think so. I feel like every time I start
Speaker 3: to get better, my kids bring back like different germs
Speaker 3: to invade my system. But back to Kleenexes. And so,
Speaker 3: it is fairly obvious that handkerchiefs pre date disposable tissues
Speaker 3: by several centuries, you know, but the disposable option is
Speaker 3: actually older than you might guess. It turns out the
Speaker 3: Japanese have been using disposable facial tissues since about the
Speaker 3: seventeenth century, and they use a super far paper called Washy.
Speaker 3: The Western world, though they were a little later of
Speaker 3: the game, they didn't get into until the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3: And that's when Kimberly Clark Corporation, which I'm sure you've
Speaker 3: heard of, they released Kleenex to the market in nineteen
Speaker 3: twenty four. But this is the weird part. Kleenex actually
Speaker 3: wasn't intended for blowing your nose at all. Instead, Kleenex
Speaker 3: tissues were originally men as a way for women to
Speaker 3: remove cold cream and clean their faces, which is where
Speaker 3: the clean in the name comes from. So even the
Speaker 3: early ads from the period have like Hollywood makeup departments
Speaker 3: endorsing them, and they show movie stars like Helen Hayes
Speaker 3: or Gene Harlow and how they supposedly used Kleenex to
Speaker 3: wipe off the theater makeup. But the public sort of immediately
Speaker 3: knew what to do with them, and within two years
Speaker 3: Kimberly Clark was getting all these letters from customers praising
Speaker 3: Kleenex as the perfect disposable handkerchief. Apparently sixty percent of
Speaker 3: customers used Kleenex for blowing their noses, which totally outnumbered
Speaker 3: the number who were using them to wipe off the
Speaker 3: cold cream, and Kimberly Clark took the hint. By nineteen thirty,
Speaker 3: the company he had completely changed course and changed their
Speaker 3: marketing entirely, and Kleenex sales.
Speaker 2: Had doubled as a result.
Speaker 3: Wow, So, well, what fact do you want to end on? All? Right?
Speaker 1: Well, since I started with the fact about artificial snow,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to end with one on how
Speaker 1: man made snow got invented in.
Speaker 2: The first place.
Speaker 1: But before we talk about the snow, actually, let's talk
Speaker 1: about a special kind of ice that's called rime. So
Speaker 1: when the water vapor in a cloud or fog collects
Speaker 1: on the surface of an object, it can sometimes freeze
Speaker 1: and form this white ice frost, which is rime. So
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties there was this low temperature lab
Speaker 1: in Canada that was experimenting to see what kind of
Speaker 1: effect rime had on the intakes of a jet engine.
Speaker 1: So to recreate the icing effect in their lab, these
Speaker 1: researchers sprayed water in front of the engine that they
Speaker 1: had suspended in their wind tunnel. But instead of creating rime,
Speaker 1: they accidentally started making snow, and I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of snow. And according to the team's report, they had
Speaker 1: to shut down the engine multiple times just to shovel
Speaker 1: snow out of the wind tunnel. It's been so much.
Speaker 3: Fun funny, and I mean it does feel like a
Speaker 3: loud way to make snowed right, Like they must have
Speaker 3: refined snowmakers over the years.
Speaker 1: I guess so I those Canadian scientists were just the
Speaker 1: first to accidentally make snow. I mean, now the process
Speaker 1: is way quieter. So anyway, after all these facts, who
Speaker 1: do you think deserves today's trophy?
Speaker 3: You know, I like the one about the ear muff
Speaker 3: dude Chester, but I actually really love I feel like
Speaker 3: the one that's gonna be most memorable to me is
Speaker 3: the cornflake fact and the fact that people used to
Speaker 3: paint all these cornflakes white to make snow in movies.
Speaker 3: It's crazy. I think that's probably my favorite fact. So
Speaker 3: I think you deserve the trophy today.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I will take it, and that's it
Speaker 1: for today's part time genius. If you've got some fun
Speaker 1: snow or ice or winter facts to share, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear those from you. We also love to just
Speaker 1: hear topics from you, guys, if you ever have ideas
Speaker 1: for episodes, but from Gab Tristan Mango. Actually I think
Speaker 1: Tristan fell asleep in a slank at Mago. But anyway,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening to
Speaker 3: The gl