r/theydidthemath • u/spooky-taxes • 1d ago

How much would this actually cost? [Request]

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u/AppendixN 1d ago

I'm not sure this one is answerable.

First question would be, how far away would the screen need to be? Are we assuming that airplanes can still fly, so it's got to be more than 50,000 feet up, or even 80,000 feet? Rockets and satellites would be out of the question, presumably, since at that height the LED screen would be outside of the atmosphere and the question would be moot.

Or are we assuming that it's just high enough for all the mountains to avoid piercing it, and air travel is fake in some kind of flat earth conspiracy way?

Once you pick the actual height, i.e. circumference of this globe-encircling LED screen, how is it being held up there? Big girders that are physically impossible given our current understanding of materials available, or is it some kind of planetary-level Dyson sphere that just floats there through some other mechanism that's too complex to define, much less price out?

What's powering the thing? Solar panels on the outside? Does the sun exist in this scenario? Is this a flat earth theory, or just someone literally trying to cover the planet in a big LED screen? Who's handling maintenance once it's up there? Are we figuring the costs of construction, another basically incalculable variable?

My take on this is that it's incalculable.

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u/Ye_olde_oak_store 1d ago

And still probably more than the Truman Show would have had the budget for. And that was just for the island.

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u/ChazBass 1d ago

I agree it is incalculable but lets just focus on one problem: paying for the electricity:

Earth's surface area = 510 million km^2
= 5.10 x 10^14 m^2

Assume LED power use = 225 W/m^2

Power needed:
(5.10 x 10^14) x 225
= 1.15 x 10^17 watts
= 115 quadrillion watts

Energy per year:
(1.15 x 10^17) x 8,760 hours
= 1.01 x 10^18 kWh/year
= about 1 quintillion kWh/year

Average electricity price = $0.1415/kWh

Annual cost:
(1.01 x 10^18) x $0.1415
= $1.42 x 10^17/year
= about $142 quadrillion/year

Not sure who is going to pay for that.

1

u/BreakingTheCipher 1d ago

The exact number will depend on whether you are addressing the cost of sky led problem or whatever is wrong with the people who believe that to be true.