9 Wonderful Wintertime Inventions

the good news a lot of it. It's edible mango. You can eat all that snow. So in early movies they use corn flakes that were painted white to make snow. But then when sound came into film, you know, obviously all the crunchy sounds would be too loud if they were stepping on it, so they had to find a replacement. And over the years, sets have used everything from firefighting foam to instant potato flakes, to flour, even marble dust. But the stuff that used today is actually mostly paper.

Believe it or not. That's pretty weird. I feel like paper is the last thing I would have expected for like fake snow. In movies. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought about that either. But you know, it's available in all different grains and sizes depending on what kind of snow you're looking for. But actually the process of making it is pretty cool. So the paper snow is packaged in these huge bales and then it shot through a special hose that lightly dampens the paper so that it will

stick to whatever it lands on, just like snow. And according to Roland half Away of the Snow Business Hollywood, very familiar with snow business Hollywood, Yeah, the technique can cover up to thirty seven square meters per minute, plus it never melts. So that's just the first of nine facts we've got for you today about wintertime inventions. Let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius.

I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof booth wrapped up in his slanket Mango I know, which I really thought was like an off brand snuggy, but Tristan insists is the original blanket with sleeve. He is very passionate about this. Yes, that's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So, I know it's boring to talk about the weather, but the weather definitely inspired this week's episode. I know, this

weekend was so miserable in New York City. It was just like rainy and wet, and when you've got two feral kids like I do, who are just like hard to tame and even harder to keep indoors, it is truly miserable. But you know, anyway, all this winter weather made us wondered, like, what are some great wintertime inventions worth celebrating? Yeah? You actually, I love that old quote that everyone always talks about the weather, but no one

does anything about it. And we definitely have a few people on this list who did something about it, including my first fact, which is about earmuffs. So I don't know if I knew this before and forgot it or I just never heard this, but the inventor of the earmuffs was a fifteen year old boy from main named Chester Greenwood, and Chester had this horrible allergy to wool. So before you could keep the story going, well when

are we talking about here? I think it was like the late eighteen hundreds, so um, yeah, my my notes eighteen seventy three, and and of course it's surprising that a kid invented them, but you know, basically, Chester wanted to go skating with his friends at the pond, which of course sounds so wholesome and so American, but you know, he couldn't wear a hat because of this wool allergy he had, and his ears got so cold that he

had to turn around and go home immediately. And apparently this was a pretty common occurrence for little Chester, but this time he was totally fed up. And when he got home he asked his grandmom to help him assemble this thing he'd been thinking about. It was like little shields for his ears. And uh. Once he described what he wanted, his grandmom got out her sewing materials and she whipped up the world's first pair of ear muffs and the device Chester later called it the Greenwood Champion

ear Protectors. Like that we should call him that. I feel like it's a much better name than ear moths. But the original muffs were made from beaver fur on the outside and velvet on the ear side, and and it had a band of wire connecting to two and over the years, Chester improved on the design and he patented it, and by the time he was twenty five, he'd actually become the owner of an ear muff factory that cranked out fifty thou pairs every year. Wow, it's

pretty remarkable. Yeah, I mean, you know, it gave toll me the weirdest thing about this. Apparently, like Chester's legend or the legend of his ears and their sensitivity grew over the years into like something of a myth and uh and even like the Wall Street Journal report on it, and this is what they said, quote, Chester Greenwood's ears were so sensitive that they turned chalky white, then beat red, and deep blue in that order. When the mercury dead blue.

You know, it feels like a gob stopper or something. But you know, it's total nonsense. According to his grandkids, his ears were just cold, just big and cold. Yeah, but that's much less dramatic. Well, here's a quick fact

that I liked. Did you know that the first makeshift snow vehicles that were used in the northern US and Canada were actually just pimped out Model T s. Apparently this started as far back as the nineteen tens, when people would remove the cars undercarriage and then what they would do is they would mount a pair of skis to the front and a set of tracks to the rear. So these converted cars were referred to as snow flyers, and they were a god sent to these rural residents,

especially when it came to mail delivery. That's really interesting. I like that people were almost like hacking forwards, like it's ikea furniture or something, pretty soon after they were made, right, Yeah, I mean I think it was just a year or two after the first model T came out that people thought to put them on skis. But anyway, while I'm talking about snow vehicles, I'm actually gonna throw out another fact.

The first snowmobile was invented by a fifteen year old, So I'm gonna match your fifteen year old fact with one of my own. I feel like inventing a snowmobile is like a little bit more impressive than getting your grandmom to sow some ear must Yeah. Well, the story is pretty fascinating. So apparently in ninety two there was this kid from Quebec named Joseph Armand Bombardier, and he

built and tested the first full scale snowmobile. So Joe Armand had been interested in playing with mechanical things since he was a kid, and had been making his own since he was thirteen. He built these toy tractors and boats for his younger siblings. He made a steam powered spinning wheel for his aunt, and even a miniature train that he built with this old clock part. So yeah, the guy was pretty resourceful. But none of those prior works could prepare Bombardier's family for what he sprang on

them on New Year's Eve. So, taking a queue from the locals, he had started with the model T engine, but rather than use the rest of the car, this young inventor instead mounted the engine to two wooden sleds that he hitched together. And if that doesn't sound dangerous enough, he also added a handmade wouldn't propeller to the back of the engine to help propel the rig through the snow. I mean this guy, this is I love this story anyway. Actually, it was that last part that ultimately led his dad

to order the contraption be dismantled. Although Bombardier's younger brother was able to pilot the prototype snowmobile for more than half a mile, watching his son's speed across the snow that close to an open propeller, he said, made his stomach turn. That is incredible. And of course, like as a dad watching your kid like wander on this like

rickety contraption. What's also amazing to me is like the fact that h Bombardier got his hands on an engine, like a fifteen year old kid, just like ending up with an engine and two slights and this stuff. Especially at that time, you wouldn't think that it would be that easy. But anyway, later on, when his dad wasn't hovering over him, he perfected the invention, adding caterpillar treads to the design. That's pretty amazing. So here's what I

didn't know. It's that Eddie Bauer invented the first puffy down jacket in and he actually has a pattern on it. The jacket was originally called the blizzard Proof Jacket and later was rebranded as the Skyliner. I guess. But Bower's coat was unusual because it used goose down to maximize warmth and breath of ability. But the thing that's most interesting about this whole story is that the coat was

actually created out of necessity. It was after Bauer had nearly died of hypothermia while on a winter fishing trip, so you can imagine not only was Bauer the owner of this sporting good store that was kind of famous, but he also loved the outdoors. So this was January. His friend asked him to go fishing, and he decided to jump with the chance, and the day went super well. They caught about a hundred pounds of steel head in

a matter of hours, which is I guess impressive. But as Bauer was hiking back to his car, he was soaked from the sweat and also just tired from this bag of fish he was hauling, and he started to fall asleep on his feet. Apparently the moisture in the wool clothes that actually frozen in the cold and hypothermia

was setting in. But Bauer was an outdoorsman. He was quick thinking he actually had a gun on him, so he shot it twice in the air to signal to his friend, and his friend came running him and saved him. But apparently after he almost died from hypothermia, he realized that people really needed a lightweight jacket that could be worn comfortably, especially in cold weather while they were doing things that were like strenuous or working or whatever. And

the very next year, he invented the down jacket. Wow. I actually didn't realize that Eddie Bauer himself had invented so many of these things. But well, here here's a quick one, since we're talking about staying warm. I was actually looking up facts about mitten's, so I actually looked at facts about mints too, But the only thing I found that was even remotely interesting was there's something called a beer mitten. Well, even though I was about to share my fact, I have to ask, what what is

a beer mitten? I guess it's like a mitten and a beer cuzy in one, so like you can keep your hands warm and your beer cold. It's this Icelandic convention and they're all these knitting patterns from them online. But the weird thing is that it's super single purpose, so you can't really do anything other than drink and hold a beverage in your hand if you're wearing a beer mitten. But I did cut you off. So you said you were looking up mittens. Well, I'm glad you

found something, because I didn't find anything great. But but you know, one thing I did find was that mittens are surprisingly old, like they've been around since prehistoric times. But what's interesting is, according to a publication called Fashion Time, is that the earliest gloves were found in King Tut's tomb, and since he died around thirteen twenty three BC, that actually makes the oldest known pair of gloves well over

thirty three years old. It's weird to think that gloves are like three thousand years old and ear muffs are only like a hundred fifty years old. But speaking of muffs, which is not a transition, I normally do you know what hand muffs are? I don't want her hand muffs. They are like those furry cylindrical things that rich people where sometimes you see him in like old Hollywood movies or in ski towns, and you know, people to stuff

their hands into them. But apparently hand muffs have been at a symbol since the fourteen hundreds, and they've actually been called different things in different places. In France they're

called man shawn. In England they were called snuffkins, which like but the name we know about came from the Flemish word move or muff, and according to the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion, this trend grew in popularity after the Colonies started sending furs to Europe, so women in England and France would actually warm their hands with the furs of sables or martins, and sometimes they jazz up

their muffs with stylish accessories, so listen to this. They'd actually add bijeweled animal skulls to hang from the chain, which is so weird to me. Also, fashionable women in the sixteenth century would tote their tiny dogs in them, so they're kind of like the tiny dog purses you see.

And weirdly, men also got in on this muff craze, although of course they wanted to wear more manly furs like otter and tiger, and people who were cash strapped and just kind of aspiring fashionistas they had settled for lesser animals like squirrel fur muffs. Knew there was so to history there. Well, I feel like we've learned enough about hand must for a while now, so why don't we take a quick break and come back with two

more facts. Welcome back to part time Genius. We're talking about winter inventions, all right, Mago, So what do you want to end with here? So, in honor of my cold which doesn't seem to go away ever, how about we talk about Kleenex. So how long have you been sick? Now? Is at thirty eight years? I think? So? I feel like every time I started to get better, my kids bring back like different germs to invade my system. But

back to clean X and stuff. It is fairly obvious that handkerchiefs predate disposable tissues by several centuries, you know, but the disposable option is actually older than you might guess. It turns out the Japanese have been using disposable facial tissues since about the seventeenth century, and they use a super in paper called washing. The Western world, though that they were a little later to the game. They didn't

get into until the nineteen twenties. And and that's when Kimberly Clark Corporation, which I'm sure you've heard of, they released clean X to the market in n But this is the weird part. Clean X actually wasn't intended for blowing your nose at all. Instead, clean X tissues were originally men as a way for women to remove cold cream and clean their faces, which is where the clean

and the name comes from. So even the early ads from the period have like Hollywood makeup departments endorsing them, and they show movie stars like um Helen Hayes or Gean Harlow and how they supposedly used Kleenex to wipe off the theater makeup, but the public sort of immediately knew what to do with them, and within two years Kimberly Clark was getting all these letters from customers praising

clean X as the perfect disposable handkerchief. Apparently six of customers used Cleanex for blowing their noses, which totally outnumbered the number who were using them to wipe off the cold cream, and Kimberly Clark took the hint by the company had completely changed course and changed their marketing entirely, and Cleanex sales had doubled as a result. So, well,

what fact do you want to end on? All? Right? Well, since I started with a fact about artificial snow, I kind of want to end with one on how man made snow got invented in the first place. But before we talk about the snow, actually, let's talk about a special kind of ice that's called rhyme. So when the water vapor and a cloud or fog collects on the surface of an object, it can sometimes freeze and form

this white ice frost, which is rhyme. So in the nineties there was this low temperature lab in Canada that was experimenting to see what kind of effect rhyme had on the intakes of a jet engine. So to recreate the icing effect in their lab, these researchers sprayed water in front of the engine that they had suspended in their wind tunnel. But instead of creating rhyme, they accidentally started making snow, and I mean a lot of snow.

And according to the team's report, they had to shut down the engine multiple times just to shovel snow out of the wind tunnel. It's been so much funny, funny, and I mean it does feel like a loud way to make snowe right, Like, like they must have refined snowmakers over the years, I guess so, And those Canadian scientists were just the first who accidentally makes snow. I mean, now the process is way quieter. So anyway, after all

these facts, who do you think deserves today's trophy? You know, I like the one about the ear muff dude Chester, but I actually really love I feel like the one that's gonna be most memorable to me is the corn flake fact and the fact that people used to paint all these corn flakes white to make snow in movies. It's crazy. I think that's probably my favorite fact. So I I think you deserve the trophy today. All right, well, I will take and that's it for today's part time Genius.

If you've got some fun snow or ice or winter facts to share, we'd love to hear those from you. We also love to just hear topics from you guys, if you ever have ideas for episodes, but from gave Tristan Mango. Actually, I think Tristan fell asleep in his slank at Mango, but anyway, thanks so much for listening.