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GPS – Bartosz Ciechanowski (2022)
Interactive article explaining how GPS works.
We’re ultimately trying to solve this system of equations to get the receiver’s xyz position and its bias b, but for the rest of the article I’ll keep using the more abstract description of the problem since the mathematical operations aren’t critical for our understanding of GPS. It’s often erroneously claimed that if GPS didn’t correct for these relativistic effects by slowing down the clocks on satellites, the system would increase its error by around 7.2 mi11.6 km per day as this is the distance that light travels in those 38 microseconds. Precise time tracking was made possible by the invention of an atomic clock, while advancements in radio transmission and clever coding algorithms allowed the very weak signal sent by satellites to be correctly deciphered on Earth by receivers, which were in turn dependent on microchips and the digital revolution.
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