If the GPS turned off?

2019/11/26 Roa Zubia, Guillermo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Teknologia

There is a direct consequence, it is clear. Help on our trips would be interrupted and we should re-read maps. Whether you like it or not, it is a big change for the traveler. That said, Harford remembered the problems that the misuse of GPS has given. Some Swedish tourists misspelled Capri's name on GPS, and instead of taking the road to the famous island, they traveled north of Italy, to the city of Carpi, near Modena and almost 700 kilometers from Capri. By the way, to the south of France there is a small village called Lourde (without s, Lourde). From time to time a Catholic arrives to visit Lourdes and has to travel 70 kilometers to reach the goal. Well. There are many cases. The Roma village is located in Germany near Hamburg, 1,600 kilometers north of Rome. Anyway, we were talking about the importance of GPS and we have to mention many more.

GPS is the exact expression of the place. But also of time. GPS system satellites carry an atomic clock because it is essential to know the exact time. Tim Harford says that if we mimic the weather, if we measure a thousandth of a second, the satellite will place you with a mistake of 200 kilometers. The satellite, among other things, makes a relativistic correction because it constantly moves very fast.

And if we don't travel, what? Does it affect us? Well yes. And much. In the day to day we often have to coordinate two elements away from each other simultaneously, and that does the GPS. Coordinates space and time. A bank transfer, an exchange of data from the phone to the phone (any communication or message), the operation of the electrical network… of course, the digital television signal, the computer fog that is so much used today… Let’s not say the stock market, etc. And among those mentioned by Harford, another example: cranes that introduce containers into ships in large ports use GPS to identify each container. As an example.

It is clear that we depend on GPS. Very large. It is an amazing tool and without GPS we could not do many things. But dependence is also enormous. Amazing. If you reflect a little, you are scared.