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Farmers originally used to seal their barns with a combination of linseed oil (red-ish) and iron oxide (rust, red). Then when paint came around, apparently red paint was the cheapest. https://www.bobvila.com/articles/solved-why-are-barns-painted-red/
Cool! I suspected there had to be a practical reason. Thanks for sharing the link!
Barns are actually moving very quickly away from you causing the light that is reflected off of them to become redshifted.
DA RED WUNZ GO FASTA
THANK you. Finally, a real answer!
Actual answer: back in the day the sealant that farmers coated barns with often had iron oxide in it because it helps prevent rot and mold, and the iron oxide would turn the sealant mixture red. Now people just do it because it's a tradition.
It also happens to be cheap. Other pigments are hard to manufacture. Rust is easy.
Even today red paint is sometimes cheaper, especially when ordered in bulk.
Wait really red pigment is mainly rust? I'd imagine that would turn a orangish brown. Or brownish orange.
Blood is also red due to iron for the sane reasons rust is red. Rust isn't very vibrant on metal for other reasons, I'd assume mostly because it's mixed with something not clear.
I'm not sure if this is why, bit the color depends on how oxidized each atom of iron becomes, so if you have a mix of different oxidation levels, you would also have a mix of the colors
Itβs not mainly rust any more, they figured out a way to replicate the effect without using actual rust. Itβs just pigment, and now red is probably cheaper because more people buy it because itβs traditional.
Also seems to be the color that degrades in the sun the fastest
It makes the barn go faster
Barns are red because supernovas produce significant amounts of iron.
https://futurism.com/how-red-barns-are-linked-to-dying-stars
Well when you put it that way, just about everything can be linked to dying stars π€
Thanks for sharing the link!
"We are made of star stuff" -Carl Sagan
"We are all made of stars" - Moby
βWe are stardustβ - Joni Mitchell
Baby Iβm a Star - Prince
Yea, you a starfucker - Mick Jagger
Well, ackshually...
The iron is produced by the star while "alive". The nova only throws it into the void.
Haha I love this time scale being applied here. Do more!
Idk if this is true for the US but where I live in Scandinavia red is a common house colour because historically it was a cheap colour you could get from mixing red ochre and oil, so red barns aren't uncommon. Then again the US midwest does have a lot of Scandinavian immigrants so it might've bled over culturally because there's lot of farms up there?
Thatβs a pretty good hypothesis π€
Iron oxide (rust) was historically used in barn paint as an extra layer of protection from the elements. This turned the paint red over time. Red barns became the "traditional" look as a result.
Barns are red because of exploding stars - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/barns-are-painted-red-because-of-the-physics-of-dying-stars-58185724/
Great article. Similar to "NASA's booster size is the result of the size of a horse's ass": https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-feet-85-inches-space-shuttle-horses-ass-william-batch-batchelder
I love these types of articles. I feel like there should be a community for these, but I don't know what it'd be called
Holy shit. Just what I needed on my trip.
That is because red paint was inexpensive and abundant, than it became tradition.
Because the farmers are planning to seize the means of production
Oh wait, they are the means of production (for food at least)
To attract bulls.
Can y'all knock it off with the bad jokes? This isn't reddit.
thank you for fighting the good fight, brave man yourself
I only made it because the question had already been answered.
Idk if its still relevant, but I work at a car parts store and had a guy come in asking for a poop tonne of atf fluid(which is normaly pinkish) so he could stain a long fence on his property. Stuff turns red I guess.
Ha wow that sounds expensive (and potentially toxic?) I wonder how the cost compares to common wood fence stain
No idea, it was the first and last time I heard of it.