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> Everyone's smartphone listens to radio beeps to geolocate Are you telling me that Soviets invented GPS?
by PerfectDlite 9y ago
> Everyone's smartphone listens to radio beeps to geolocate
Are you telling me that Soviets invented GPS?
- usaphp 9y agoDid you read his comment?
- avmich 9y agoThe idea of measuring distance by the time of signal having known speed probably predates Newton. Atomic clocks - one of the technological enablements to a satellite navigation system - were initially created with masers which Basov and Prokhorov helped to invent. You already know about the technology to launch those precise clocks to orbit.
- PerfectDlite 9y agoSo, GPS wasn't invented by Soviets and nobody is listening to Soviet radiobeats. What's your point then?
- avmich 9y agoMy point is that people miss points :) .
- Robotbeat 9y agoSputnik was the first satellite. Everyone with a smartphone relies on satellites. GPS is a more sophisticated radio beep, but Sputnik is essentially the proof of concept of the idea.
- PerfectDlite 9y agoSputnik was a proof of GPS concept? That's... amazing.
- Robotbeat 9y agohttp://www.pcworld.com/article/2000276/a-brief-history-of-gps.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/2000276/a-brief-history-of-gp... "It was October 4th, 1957. Scientists at MIT noticed that the frequency of the radio signals transmitted by the small Russian satellite increased as it approached and decreased as it moved away. This was caused by the Doppler Effect, the same thing that makes the timbre of a car horn change as the car rushes by. This gave the scientists a grand idea. Satellites could be tracked from the ground by measuring the frequency of the radio signals they emitted, and conversely, the locations of receivers on the ground could be tracked by their distance from the satellites. That, in a nutshell, is the conceptual foundation of modern GPS."