The recent weather, like a roller coaster, has suddenly cooled down.
Many areas are "one second into winter", how many small partners have silently taken out thick winter coats?
Speaking of cold, down jackets are an indispensable winter coat.
So the question is, was there a down jacket in ancient times? Why should the down jacket use duck or goose feathers? Is the thicker the down jacket, the warmer it is? Let's demystify it.
Was there a "down jacket" in ancient times?
Bird feathers are warmer than silk, cotton, linen, animal skins, and wool.
Feathers have many branches and are more fluffy than other fibers. Its interior is hollow, so it can contain more air, and air is the best insulating material.
The so-called down is a mixture of "feather" and "down". Feathers are the harder parts of the feathers, which play a supporting role in the down and make the down elastic; and the down is the down, similar to the head on the dandelion, which can make the down fluffy and warm. And that kind of big and hard feathers can be made into badminton, not put in the down jacket.
China's ancients knew the warm effect of bird feathers, there is a simple hotel - "chicken feather shop", there is no futon, just pad chicken feathers to keep warm.
In 889, the Tang Dynasty Liu Ke served as Sima of Guangzhou, he was a native of XiongXian County, Hebei Province, and seeing that many things in the local area felt strange, he wrote the "Records of the Ling Table", which recorded: "The chieftain in the south, chooses the fine hairs of the goose, sandwiches them with cloth, and is quilted, and his gentleness is no less than that of The Dragon." Vulgar clouds, goose feathers are soft and warm and cold, it is better to cover the baby, and to dispel the panic epilepsy. "In short, the goose feather quilt is warm and soft, and the child sleeps peacefully under the cover.
Who invented the down jacket?
In 1920, the American Eddie Ball opened a small shop in Seattle, and the name of the store was his own name. In 1935, he almost froze to death while fishing in the winter, and he thought of an uncle who had fought in Russia, where soldiers would stuff duck down and goose down in clothes to keep warm, so in 1936, he designed the world's first down jacket, the skyliner, and applied for a patent four years later.
Because this dress is ugly, only the military, outdoor sports enthusiasts and people who have been working outdoors for a long time will buy it, plus the down jacket at that time is very easy to lose hair, and there is a smell of duck oil, and the down jacket has become a "tool suit".
It is worth mentioning that Eddie Bauer climbed Mount Everest in 1963, proving the warmth of down jackets, a brand that still exists today.
Modern high-quality down jackets appeared later, and the production of coated fabrics in the 70s, so that the fabric fibers were tightly bonded together, solved the problem of down dropping.
It was not until the 1980s that down jackets began to be fashionable in China, because the fabric grade and processing level were not high, and the appearance was bloated, so it was also called "bread clothes". However, since most down jackets were imported at that time, being able to wear down jackets was a symbol of status.
Why choose duck and goose feathers?
The feathers of water birds have a layer of grease on them, which is very easy to dry after washing. Chicken as a land animal, chicken feathers than duck feathers, goose feathers harder, after wet is not easy to dry, cold resistance can not be compared with duck feathers, and chickens have less fluff, so it is more suitable for making chicken feather dusters. Only very inferior down jackets use chicken feathers.
Nowadays down jackets generally use goose down, or treated duck down, because ducks are omnivores, and there will be a fishy smell in the down, while geese are herbivores, and there is no odor in the down. In essence, there is no difference in the warmth of duck down and goose down.
Birds can be divided into early adults and late adults according to the growth rate of chicks. Chickens, ducks, geese are early adult birds, shortly after birth can walk, immediately can follow the parent birds to feed themselves, which is an adaptation to improve the survival rate, and eagles, swallows, sparrows and other chicks, after hatching, the whole body has no or only a few down feathers, need to rely on parent birds to raise, these are late adult birds, can not be large-scale captivity by humans.
Both ducks and geese are members of the family Phyllonorycter, and most of the domestic ducks are domesticated from the mallards and spot-billed ducks of the duck genus, and some of them are special-looking, such as the duck, which is domesticated by the warty-nosed duck. The chinese geese were domesticated by the hong geese, and the European geese were domesticated by the gray geese, both of which are of the genus Geese. The lion's head goose in Guangdong is the world's largest goose breed. In addition, the relationship between swans and domestic geese is relatively distant, and people are of the genus Swan, so it cannot be said that it is the largest goose.
Because ducks and geese can be raised on a large scale, it is most convenient to make down jackets.
The thicker the down jacket, the warmer it is?
Of course not!
The way of heat dissipation is very simple, there is conduction, convection and radiation, and the down jacket will lock the air, so that the air is a bad conductor to isolate the conduction, and the small piece of air between the down is not convenient for convection, so it can avoid the rapid penetration of cold and the loss of body temperature.
Therefore, down jackets are not as thick as possible, and you can't just look at the thickness.
Expert of this article: Zhu Guangxi, popular science writer, member of Beijing Science Popularization Association