Convert Square Yard (yd²) to Barn (b (area)) instantly.
About these units
Square Yard (yd²)
A square yard equals 9 square feet or 0.836 m². Historically used in the British Empire and still used in the US and UK for certain materials, the square yard appears frequently in carpeting, turf, paving stones, and textiles. Its intermediate size makes it suitable for areas larger than a square foot but smaller than a square meter, giving it usefulness in construction and home improvement. Although square meters have replaced square yards in most official contexts, industries such as carpeting, sports field design, and gardening continue to use this practical measure.
Barn (b (area))
The barn is an area unit used almost exclusively in nuclear and particle physics, equal to 10⁻²⁸ square meters. Despite its incredibly tiny size, the barn emerged from humorous origins: early nuclear physicists joked that certain atomic nuclei were "as big as a barn" compared to the particles trying to hit them. The barn quantifies interaction cross-sections—essentially probabilities of particles colliding or interacting with nuclei. Because fundamental forces operate at extremely small scales, typical cross-section values lie in the microbarn, nanobarn, or picobarn range. The barn is essential for describing reaction rates in particle accelerators, nuclear reactors, and astrophysical processes such as stellar fusion.