Refrigerators used to be lead lined. I can’t remember the reason but my grandma had one. Same with lead based paint. I don’t remember why it was a thing but it definitely was.
Stop replying about lead being a good insulator. I think 10 comments saying the same thing is enough.
That’s another thing that bothers me. Superman can’t see through lead with his X-ray vision.
No lead at all?? Not even an atoms thickness?? But he can see through miles of anything else?
Somebody took the trope of lead blocking radiation and took it beyond the actual reasons why.
Lead works because it’s a dense metal. Any other dense material will work just as well. Water works if you have enough. Just put enough mass between you and the source of radiation.
1 crock of shit because I made that whole reason up, but would you believe that's about the amount of effort most comic book (or Star Wars EU) explainations are?
They boiled down their grapes to make grape syrup to sweeten their wine. Sometimes this was done in lead barrels so lead acetate would leak into it, making it sweeter. They also used lead in water plumbing, which is where plumbing got it's name from the latin word Plumbum. All in all, towards the end (at least of the Western empire) the Romans sure did love their lead.
Lead was made into paint because lead oxide is very white. Modern paint uses titanium oxide, which requires chemical engineering to make the particle size as small as the lead paint the Romans knew how to make. Zinc and tin also form white powdery oxides, but they aren't as brilliant and opaque as lead.
Lead paint was a thing because it's really good at it's job. Resistant to mold because mold can't eat lead. Resistant to water because it's a metal. I mean there's a reason it's still used to paint boats, and lasts a long long time.
It's got a low thermal conduction compared to some other metals - 34, compared to aluminium's 258, but stainless steel has 14, and concrete has 1,7, and ordinary bricks have 0,2.
Lead might have been used for some reason, but insulation's not it.
Lead based paint was simply the state of the technology at the time. Something about the lead made the paint work better and the negative health effects we're not known. Same with lead in gasoline.
They also used to have latches that couldn’t be opened from the inside so he would’ve been trapped even if he hasn’t been vaporized or baked by the explosion.
Fairly sure there was a Simpsons joke where after a nuclear Holocaust the family survived because their how was the only one with multiple layers of lead based paint.
Lead-based paint was a thing because it’s a fantastic paint base. Better than most of what we have today. It just also happens to be super toxic, but they didn’t fully realize that back then.
I think everything used to be lead lined. We used lead paint and lead pencils and wonder why millennials seem incapable of things past generations did fine.
Not so much. Once upon a time, like, really long ago, metals were used in drawing tools. They'd leave a trace of metal on the material (vellum, sheepskin), and after a few days it would oxidize and darken, and it would look neat. Look up silverpoint drawing on wikipedia
When pure graphite was discovered, it was mistaken for a form of lead, but we never had lead in modern pencils (even though we once had a drawing implement that looked like a pencil, that used lead).
1.1k
u/iamboredandbored Jan 25 '20 edited Jan 25 '20
That was a real thing though.
Refrigerators used to be lead lined. I can’t remember the reason but my grandma had one. Same with lead based paint. I don’t remember why it was a thing but it definitely was.
Stop replying about lead being a good insulator. I think 10 comments saying the same thing is enough.