Final answer:
Highway surfaces are typically made from asphalt or concrete to provide a smooth, durable surface for vehicular traffic, factoring in engineering standards for safety and handling traffic volumes and vehicle speeds.
Step-by-step explanation:
The surface of a highway is commonly made from materials such as asphalt or concrete. These materials are chosen for their durability and smoothness, which are essential in facilitating safe and efficient vehicular traffic. Asphalt, a mixture that includes bitumen, is particularly valued for its capability to provide a smooth, durable surface that's comparatively simple to repair. Concrete highways, on the other hand, offer greater longevity but can be more costly to construct and fix.
The evolution of road surfaces has been closely tied to the increase in vehicular traffic, leading to the vast development of local and interstate highway systems. Beyond simply being a 'fancy form of dirt', highway surfaces have to meet strict engineering standards to ensure they are safe and can handle the traffic volumes and vehicle speeds we now see. These surfaces are conceptually divided into tiny flat patches for analytical purposes, something that is akin to how we treat the surface of the Earth as locally flat.
When considering the physics behind highway engineering, we must also consider factors such as friction and the banking of roads, which are necessary for high-speed travel and making sharp curves safely. Altogether, the design and material of highway surfaces are critical not just for current transportation needs but also have implications for future technology and infrastructure, such as the possibilitiy of integrating PV panels into roads.