
Barns Are Painted Red Because of the Physics of Dying Stars - saraid216
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/05/barns-are-painted-red-because-of-the-physics-of-dying-stars/
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splat
The astrophysics here is not quite right. Stars actually do make elements
heavier than iron (where else would they come from?), they just don't get any
energy out of them.

Also, it's a misconception that the iron on Earth is made in the cores of
stars. That iron is almost all trapped in the resulting neutron star or black
hole. The iron released to the rest of the universe is formed from the decay
of nickel and cobalt in the supernova explosion.

~~~
breadbox
It's not only that they don't get any energy out of them (elements heavier
than iron); they actually lose energy. Which means that splitting any elements
heavier than iron that happen to be created will actually liberate energy. So
yes, stars will _temporarily_ make heavier elements, but surely not in any
appreciable amount. Supernova explosions are where they generally come from.

~~~
splat
This is true. Although fusion into elements heavier than iron happens both
during the last stages of a star's life and during the supernova itself, the
last stages of the star's life last only a few hours anyway. At that point it
really doesn't make too much sense to talk of a "star" since it's no longer in
anything resembling equilibrium. It's more of an "event." Heavy elements fused
deep in the star's core are likely to remain there during core collapse, and
heavy elements fused in the shells or in the envelope during the explosion are
likely to escape.

~~~
vlasev
Here's a cool picture showing the layers of a star before collapse
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Evolved_s...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Evolved_star_fusion_shells.svg)

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ealloc
This is definitely a "Just So" scientific story. That is, it is an
unverifiable account of why things might have happened. They used to be common
in evolutionary thought until it became clear they were often wrong.

Just so stories can be thought provoking, but I'd prefer it if people writing
them made it clear what they are, since they can often lead to muddled ideas
rather than clarity. The tone of this article bugged me a little.

I've also heard this story before, and if you google you will see there are
many alternative explanations, for example that red paint was chosen because
it is a fungicide rather than because it was most plentiful. Why add any
pigment at all, if cost is the issue?

~~~
hnriot
Why add pigment. Every stood next to a white wall in bright sunshine? There's
also the aesthetic reasons, people don't just optimize for cost, they like
things they live with to look a certain way.

The likely reason is a bunch of reasons, including human nature, herd
mentality, or what we today call going viral. Possibly it was just a really
good paint salesman that had a load of spare red going cheap.

The tone didn't bug me in the slightest, it took it for what it was, a bit of
fluff writing that had a pretty photo to look at.

~~~
EmployedRussian
Herd mentality is very likely.

Many barns in USA are red. Most barns in USSR were not painted at all. Most
French barns don't appear to be red either:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=image+barn+france>

~~~
Retric
Your looking at stone barns in France, wooden barns and wooden doors on stone
barns are often red.

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mosqutip
The reactions stop at 56 because Iron has the highest binding energy of any
element, which the author doesn't mention. Even under the extreme conditions
of stellar nuclear fusion, the binding energy cannot be overcome past this
point.

However, this doesn't really explain the abundance of red paint. It explains
the abundance of iron and lighter elements. The fact that Iron Oxide has a red
color has nothing to do with the "physics of dying stars".

~~~
svachalek
The argument goes: Because iron oxide is abundant, it's cheap. Because it's
cheap, it's used to paint barns.

There are a lot of arguments in the comments below but many of them actually
support the statement. E.G. farmers used cow's blood or rust because they
mixed their own paint. In other words, red was the most common and readily
available pigment.

Arguments about modern storebought paint having the same price for all colors
are also besides the point. (a) The tradition was well established before the
20th century and all prices being equal gives little incentive to change it.
(b) Do they still make red paint from rust? (c) Do you really believe the
paints all cost the manufacturer exactly the same?

That said, I don't really know anything about the history of red barns. I'm
just saying as presented, it's a stronger case than many are giving it credit
for.

~~~
danso
But...why aren't _most_ homes painted red, inside and out? Homes have existed
for as long as barns. And while many people might want to splurge more for
their home, it seems we should still see a relatively high number of red paint
schemes in cheaper homes

~~~
dragonwriter
> But...why aren't most homes painted red, inside and out? Homes have existed
> for as long as barns. And while many people might want to splurge more for
> their home, it seems we should still see a relatively high number of red
> paint schemes in cheaper homes

There are psychological impacts of color schemes which make heavy use of it
undesirable for dwellings (its also why it is frequently used in fast food
restaurants, _because_ its gets people out the door faster.)

~~~
anigbrowl
That seems too pat an explanation; I've sen a lot of very nice red rooms, and
in other cultures it has more positive associations than in the Anglosphere.
Also, how you react to color depends on the saturation as well as the hue.

In any case, this doesn't answer the question of why more people don't (or
historically didn't) paint the _outside_ of their houses red.

~~~
randomdata
Perhaps because houses are often made of materials that are not wood? Stone
and brick homes are almost never painted, thus setting a theme for homes that
deviates from red. Houses are also rather small in comparison to barns. It
could just be a matter of being able to afford other options at the smaller
scale.

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Ras_
Most likely because Red ochre paint is also easy to make. Around here
(Finland) every other paint is bought, but Red ochre is occasionally boiled on
site for painting out farm buildings and summer cottages. Partly for economic
reasons, but mostly because it continues centuries old Scandinavian tradition.
This and log cottages found their way to America with immigrant Forest Finns
from northern Sweden. They practised slash and burn agriculture, which became
frowned upon because it was thought to threaten the wood supply for building
ships. So they had to find another frontier. This shared heritage could
explain why some commenters point out never seeing red barns where they grew
up, when they are commonplace in others.

Instructions for diy Red ochre paint:
[http://www.kaupunkiyhdistys.jns.fi/punamulta/english/redtext...](http://www.kaupunkiyhdistys.jns.fi/punamulta/english/redtext.htm)

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Domenic_S
Maybe red paint was cheaper historically, but I'm seeing 1 gallon of red barn
paint at the same price as white barn paint:

[http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-1-Gal-Red-Exterior-Barn-
Fenc...](http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-1-Gal-Red-Exterior-Barn-Fence-
Paint-02501/100132971#.Ua5pxutF-84)

[http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-1-Gal-White-Exterior-Barn-
Fe...](http://www.homedepot.com/p/BEHR-1-Gal-White-Exterior-Barn-Fence-
Paint-03501/100200471#.Ua5qDutF-84)

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pitchups
Aren't we also all here discussing this because of the Physics of dying stars?
In other words, isn't pretty much everything - not just red paint - related to
the Physics of dying stars?

~~~
obviouslygreen
Aside from presupposing the fact that life could not possibly have existed in
the form it currently does on earth before stars started dying... it kind of
misses the direct connection the author is going for (correct or not, and
other commentors have already taken the latter angle).

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danso
My friends and I had this discussion during a camping trip. We resorted to
Google, and the explanations varied from the cheapness of iron to it being a
good luck tradition to include the blood of your first-slaughtered livestock
in the paint (presumably, the paint was also red...or else you'd need a lot of
blood).

The OP doesn't add much to the speculation and the headline makes quite an
egregious speculation.

~~~
cantrevealname
In the comments in the OP's website, I found another theory:

 _Barns are painted red so they are seen from a distance, not only during snow
storms but every day of the year. Livestock need to be able to recognize and
return to it daily. Barns have to be visible from country roads and fields by
humans as well as beasts. It would not be wise to paint your barn lets say
white to blend into the snow, or green to blend into the summer crops._
(Comment by Yvonne Wenz)

As you already noted from your searches on Google, there is a lot of
speculation out there -- who knows if theory is correct or not. But I thought
it was non-obvious and quite interesting.

~~~
DanBC
Cows are red/green colour blind, so a red shed against green fields and trees
wouldn't be so visible to them.

(<http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Paper/5494786>)

(Google - your internet-enabled spell checker grey-underlined "Colour blind"
and a right click suggested "colorblind" even though my settings are for a UK
dictionary. I wonder if we'll see language drift as more and more people spell
check with crowd-sourced dictionaries?)

~~~
chinpokomon
Off topic, but I've been making that argument for years. I actually was more
concerned that language would stop evolving to accommodate spell checking. I'm
glad to see that text messaging has proven me wrong, but in many ways I'm more
concerned about what the next generation will consider to be "language."

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kleiba
This must at least in parts be a cultural thing - I'm not from the U.S., and
I've never seen a red barn in my life.

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fragsworth
Not to be snarky, but technically almost everything we know about is a result
of the physics of dying stars.

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useflyer
This article, while correct in that red paint is "cheap", misses the real
reason why barns are painted red.

Iron oxide is a natural fungicide which protects the crops and animals inside
the barn.

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DanBC
EDIT: The article is good for someone like me with very little scientific
knowledge.

I thought that ferrous oxide was added because it's a fungicide?

(<http://home.howstuffworks.com/question635.htm>) Doesn't have any references.

([http://www.grit.com/Community/Why-Are-Barns-
Red.aspx#axzz2VI...](http://www.grit.com/Community/Why-Are-Barns-
Red.aspx#axzz2VI7dVmd9)) seems to at least have read a book or two.

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btilly
Meh. Iron is very common. But it is also heavy so most of the iron on Earth is
locked up in the core where we can't get to it.

You may or may not have noticed, but there are lots of available colorful
things on the surface of the planet that aren't red.

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millstone
> It makes more 56 nucleon containing things than anything else (aside from
> the super light stuff in the star that is too light to fuse)

What is this "super light stuff" a reference to? Neutrinos?

~~~
yk
Since fusion is a nuclear process and Hydrogen (and all heavier elements) can
undergo fusion reactions, probably any nucleus with a massnumber of 0.

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chinpokomon
I have a feeling this is a contributing factor, but the real reason is because
historically it is what worked. Red pigment would be cheap, apparently has
anti-fungal properties, but it was what their parents and grand parents used;
perhaps because it was cheap, or the wood lasted longer without rotting.

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martindale
Interestingly, this is written by Yonatan Zunger, who is the Chief Architect
for Google+: <https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/about>

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dllthomas
After a beat of bafflement on seeing the title, I actually figured this out,
and clicked through to discover I was correct. I credit the Zelazny short
story "Dismal Light"...

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gonzo
If you think red paint is inexpensive, try painting a car red.

This article is artifice.

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edwardunknown
I think I can debunk this: red paint for some reason needs more coats than any
other color (house painter speaking, step back!) At least with modern paint.
Before Behr Ultra a deep red wall would almost always need three or four
coats, don't ask me why.

Maybe they went with red paint because it was cheaper and they didn't know
they would need three times as much to paint it. But more likely it was
because red barns just look better against a green field.

~~~
loupeabody
_But more likely it was because red barns just look better against a green
field._

I feel similarly. This discussion of dying stars and heavy metals is
interesting, and it certainly could explain why barns are often painted red,
but I tend to believe that color theory has more to do with the tradition of
red barns than the physical state of the entire universe.

~~~
edwardunknown
If you want your barn to stand out against a green field you paint it red
because that's the complimentary color of green. If the field were yellow
you'd paint it blue. Pretty simple explanation when you think about it, no
need for astrophysics.

~~~
icki
*violet

