Solar FREAKIN' Roadways

[MrBogosity]

You're totally out to lunch! 10,000 lumens not bright???

I think we'll leave it to the readers to decide which of us has gone "full woo."

[Travis Retriever]

You're totally out to lunch! 10,000 lumens not bright???

I think we'll leave it to the readers to decide which of us has gone "full woo."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#Examples
According to this (and verified in my optics lab course), even a 60 Watt bulb is about 900 Lumen.  I don't know what sunlight would be, but from that alone, I'd say 10,000 Lumen is VERY bright.  My professor also seemed to like LED because of how many Lumen/Watt you get out of them compared to other sources, even Fluorescent lighting.

[evensgrey]

You're totally out to lunch! 10,000 lumens not bright???

I think we'll leave it to the readers to decide which of us has gone "full woo."

Yes, we'll let the readers evaluate your claim that a light is bright in comparison to a light 6 to 12 times brighter.

[MrBogosity]

Yes, we'll let the readers evaluate your claim that a light is bright in comparison to a light 6 to 12 times brighter.

What are you comparing it to? The ONLY factor that matters is, can it be seen in daylight? And the answer is, ABSOLUTELY YES!

[MrBogosity]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_efficacy#Examples
According to this (and verified in my optics lab course), even a 60 Watt bulb is about 900 Lumen.  I don't know what sunlight would be, but from that alone, I'd say 10,000 Lumen is VERY bright.  My professor also seemed to like LED because of how many Lumen/Watt you get out of them compared to other sources, even Fluorescent lighting.

Dayrunner headlights are 1500 lumens.

[Travis Retriever]

Dayrunner headlights are 1500 lumens.

Then a 10,000 lumen light should be easily seen in daylight.

[evensgrey]

Then a 10,000 lumen light should be easily seen in daylight.

Daylight is 60 000 to 120 000 lumens per square meter.  It depends on what you mean by 'seeing'.  You can see that it's ON, but you can see that a 10 watt incandescent is on, too.  San you see the sign it's illuminating behind the frosted glass with the sun shining on the front?

[MrBogosity]

Daylight is 60 000 to 120 000 lumens per square meter.

And if these LEDs are a square centimeter each, that's 6-12 lumens hitting that particular square centimeter they have to overpower.

It depends on what you mean by 'seeing'.  You can see that it's ON, but you can see that a 10 watt incandescent is on, too.  San you see the sign it's illuminating behind the frosted glass with the sun shining on the front?

In the case of the roadway, the LED IS what you're seeing. It doesn't have to illuminate anything! There is no sign! The LED patterns MAKE the signs!

If you don't even know THAT, then you have no business criticizing this technology you clearly haven't even TRIED to understand!

[dallen68]

Most newer traffic signals are LED, as well. The reason is it's easier to see what color the light is if the sun is direct on it.

That being said, by the time the technology is advanced enough to make the solar roadway a practical idea, Google mobiles will be ubiquitous, and since the computer that's driving the car doesn't need visible light to see, nor a sign to tell it to stop/go, maybe by then we'll all be traveling mainly in the dark - except maybe whatever we're watching on Netflix while the car takes us places.

[evensgrey]

And if these LEDs are a square centimeter each, that's 6-12 lumens hitting that particular square centimeter they have to overpower.

In the case of the roadway, the LED IS what you're seeing. It doesn't have to illuminate anything! There is no sign! The LED patterns MAKE the signs!

If you don't even know THAT, then you have no business criticizing this technology you clearly haven't even TRIED to understand!

Ypou already stated that you weren't going to bother trying to defend the glass roadway any more unless I admitted your magic LED TVs that you don't have.

In any case, you're just babbling again, since I already demonstrated (in a post you've already declared you won't bother dealing with unless I admit your magic) that the glass road cannot have signs that aren't behind frosted glass.  I'd suggest you try following the physical reality of what a glass road would be, but you already declared your refusal to follow.

[MrBogosity]

That being said, by the time the technology is advanced enough to make the solar roadway a practical idea, Google mobiles will be ubiquitous, and since the computer that's driving the car doesn't need visible light to see, nor a sign to tell it to stop/go, maybe by then we'll all be traveling mainly in the dark - except maybe whatever we're watching on Netflix while the car takes us places.

True, and I fully expect at one point that the self-driving cars will be able to talk to other cars in range and notify them of certain things.

But then, they could interface with a smart roadway as well.

[MrBogosity]

Ypou already stated that you weren't going to bother trying to defend the glass roadway any more unless I admitted your magic LED TVs that you don't have.

Wow. Just wow. Another creationist tactic!

I wasn't "defending the glass roadway" (I was NEVER doing that, actually, so thanks for the False Dichotomy as well); I was pointing out YET AGAIN how WRONG you were about how the LEDS would have to work!

And you STILL can't admit it!

In any case, you're just babbling again,

No, I showed you were wrong with BASIC MATH. You gave the lumens PER SQUARE METER in an attempt to show that sunlight is too bright for LEDs to overpower. I pointed out that LEDs were much smaller: if they're a square centimeter (they're probably smaller than that), then that's 1/10,000th of the lumens per square meter that they'd need to overcome.

that the glass road cannot have signs that aren't behind frosted glass.

THERE ARE NO FUCKING SIGNS!!! CAN'T YOU FUCKING READ??? I've pointed out TWICE now that it's the LEDs THEMSELVES that light up in a pattern to make the sign--they don't illuminate ANYTHING!!! They just need to be bright enough to be visible themselves!

Geez...

[dallen68]

True, and I fully expect at one point that the self-driving cars will be able to talk to other cars in range and notify them of certain things.

But then, they could interface with a smart roadway as well.

Well, yeah, they'd pretty much have to. It's just that having a signal is going to be more important than having light, so the road would be designed with that in mind.

[MrBogosity]

Well, yeah, they'd pretty much have to.

Well, no, they're doing it visually right now. Although there are still some city streets that don't have striping; I have no idea how they handle those...

[dallen68]

Well, no, they're doing it visually right now. Although there are still some city streets that don't have striping; I have no idea how they handle those...

Well, it's in an early testing stage right now, as well. My understanding is there's a couple hundred testers in three cities, so it's a limited thing at the moment. I'm under the impression that the occupant has to take control of the vehicle if the navigation system isn't receiving information.

By the time they become widely available, I would suspect that would be a very rare event.

Also, I can imagine that the road could have displays/information for pedestrians and people who still drive manual vehicles.

As far as info that would be of interest to the occupants, I don't see any reason it wouldn't just be displayed on the internal HUD - and also now reason it wouldn't be built into the windshield/windows.

Also, I guess a laser guidance system would be as good as anything else for the purpose, but I would suspect it would have more than one means of connection. There's already some people that are hoping for the day when it's illegal to manually drive a car, but I don't think that's a good idea, because systems break, get hacked, etc, etc, so you would want to have the ability to over-ride the computer if necessary.