How GPS Works

In a tribute to the late founder of HowStuffWorks Marshall Brain, we chose one of his great articles. Learn all about how your phone knows how to get you around without bumping into stuff or running people over in this episode. Thank you, Marshall. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:12Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. Jerry's at a cabin in the woods even. And this is Stuff You Should Know, podcasting from the future.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  That's right. And we are going to take a couple of minutes here ahead of the show to pay tribute to howstuffworks.com founder, Marshall Brain, who passed away last November at the age of 63.

• 1:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he is the guy who started it all. And it's really hard to understate the impact that that guy had on our lives.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, 100%. Just about Marshall, he was an electrical engineer, had a bachelor of science. He was a longtime professor at NC State. And in 1998, he founded as a hobby.

• 2:06Speaker 02

  HowStuffWorks.com because he wanted to, he had a very pure goal, which was to make complex things understandable and relatable to everyday people. And that is, you know, that's what we still do. We were hired as writers there. I never met Marshall personally. I think I saw him come through the office a couple of times early on, but I never had the pleasure of actually sitting down with the guy.

• 2:29Josh Clark?

  I met him a couple of times. He was a good guy. He, I think some of his first articles, I think the first one might have been like how air conditioning works.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:41Josh Clark?

  Remember Scooby Doo? We did an episode on Scooby Doo based on one of his articles.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Was that Marshall?

• 2:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, totally.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 2:48Josh Clark?

  But yeah, he was a very good guy. And without him, I can tell you, I would not be podcasting. And if I were, it probably wouldn't be a very good podcast because you and I would have never met. Yumi and I would have never met. Like, the fact that Marshall came along and founded HowStuffWorks set my destiny in a lot of ways. So I'm really grateful to him for that.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, for both of us. He was also an author. One of his books is called The Doomsday Book: The Science Behind Humanity's Greatest Threats, something that Josh has particular interest in.

• 3:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, he's a transhumanist down with Nick Bostrom and all of the, all those guys.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. So Marshall was also a TV host. He eventually was the director of NC State's Engineering Opportunities Program, which helped mentor aspiring inventors. And Marshall was survived by his wife, Leanne, his four kids, David, Irina, Johnny, and Ian, and their dog, Summer. And it was just really sad to hear the news because like, like you said, Marshall, if it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here now. And we like to think we're still carrying on his tradition of making complex things accessible.

• 4:04Josh Clark?

  I like to think that, too.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  So here's to you, Marshall. Rest in peace. And as a tribute, we chose an article, one of the few ones that we hadn't recorded that, that Marshall wrote originally, on GPS. And this is like bread and butter, Marshall brain stuff. There's engineering, there's science, there's some more engineering, there's figuring things out with circles and diameters and stuff like that, like. Straight up Marshall stuff.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, classic Marshall, classic house stuff works. And even though our show has kind of grown and morphed, it's fun to go back and do these every now and then.

• 4:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. So let's get started, shall we?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  All right. GPS tells you where you are. The end.

• 4:47Josh Clark?

  There you go. That's word for word Marshall's article.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's actually, uh, sounds intimidating, but it's really not at all. Uh, it's a pretty simple process, uh, believe it or not.

• 5:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah, surprisingly.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  But what it is overall, GPS, uh, is a, um, as Marshall wrote, a space-based radio navigation system, uh, that, uh, technically GPS is the one that the US government owns. If you live in another country, it's not called GPS. It's called a, what, a GNSS?

• 5:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Global Navigation Satellite System is the generic term. And GPS has become like the Kleenex of global navigation satellite systems. Like it's the proprietary eponym.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. But, you know, that's what the system is that tells you where you are. Uh, when you take out your little smartphone and say, where in the world am I? Or how in the world do I get somewhere? If you want to get somewhere, they gotta know where you are at that moment. And that's why you can do that 24/7.

• 5:50Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and GPS is owned and operated by the American government. And it's paid for by the American taxpayers, but it's used worldwide. Um, I think out of eight point something billion people on the planet today, six billion of them use GPS every day. So it's America's gift, I think, is what I'm trying to say. Because if anything, that's what America is known for. It's like creating things and giving it away to the rest of the world for free.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, we'll see what happens with that. You never know. But right now, that's the, the current situation. Um, the, they do this with satellites, uh, at least 24. Usually there's more than 30. And if, wherever you are on, on earth, uh, if you had, you know, super, super long vision, you could look up and see four of these bad boys, uh, with your eyeballs, because you gotta have those four. To tell you where you are.

• 6:49Josh Clark?

  For sure. Technically, you just need three, but let's not get into that right now. Okay. So the satellites are up in medium Earth orbit, about 11,000 miles above Earth. They circle it constantly. They're not geostationary. So they circle the Earth and they rise and set, I guess, every 12 hours, so twice a day. They're like the tides, basically. And the GPS satellites are just one component. There's three components. There's a satellite component. There's the control component, which is on the ground. The Space Force runs GPS, so they're constantly tracking, monitoring, telling satellites what to do, like really bossing them around. And then the third component is you, the person using GPS, or more technically,

• 7:34Josh Clark?

  your receiver that is telling you where you are in the world.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the important part, because I've tried, I've gone out there without a phone and just shouted up, "Where am I?"

• 7:44Josh Clark?

  They're like, "Get a phone."

• 7:48Speaker 02

  The kind of, one of the cool things about GPS is this was kind of roughly figured out a long time before we even had satellites. There was a doctor, Dr. Ivan Getting, who was a physicist, an American, who basically said, "Hey, you know what? You could find out someone's 3D coordinates if you use radio signals and just calculated the time it takes for those signals from different sources to reach a single point on Earth."

• 8:14Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  And that's GPS, basically.

• 8:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And the people around Getting, especially his greatest critics, were like, "Oh, yeah? Yeah? How are you gonna do that? There's nothing up in space, you jerk. How are you gonna do it?"

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 8:26Josh Clark?

  And he said, "Just wait." And they sat around and they waited. I don't know how long they waited for a while, and they finally went home. And then a couple of years after that, the Soviets came to the rescue in a certain weird way. They launched Sputnik. And in America, in the United States, it was not a happy time. They called it the Sputnik Crisis, because basically, at the time, we thought the Soviets were just like some backwater, backwards country. And all of a sudden, they were the first ones to launch a satellite into space, and it took us by surprise. But Dr. Getting's theory was able to be put into use because American scientists figured out that you could track Sputnik

• 9:08Josh Clark?

  because its radio signals, I don't know quite how to put it. Let's say they engaged in the Doppler effect. They dabbled in Doppler. So that when the satellite was moving away from you, the frequency that reached you here on Earth was different than the frequency when the satellite was moving toward you, or when the satellite was just stationed above you. So they figured out that you can track satellites based on these radio signals. And that gave the initial rise to GPS, which is you need to track the satellites to know where they are, because that is an essential piece of information for GPS. And that kind of led to people saying like, okay, let's, let's get Geding's idea off the ground, literally.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, literally off the ground and into space. Sputnik was October 57, and a couple of years later, we said, oh yeah, we'll see your Sputnik, and we'll raise it five satellites, or I guess raise it four, for a total of five satellites.

• 10:08Josh Clark?

  Sure, all aces.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  That's right. And this was 1960, I'm sorry, in 1967, they had really precise clocks on board these satellites. And then just five years, six years after that, in 73, Navstar was formed. And that is the system, the program that, you know, that is GPS, basically. And then we said, all right, now it's just going to take us about 20 years to figure all this out.

• 10:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, 1995, the whole thing was finally operational. They just kept shooting up satellites and tinkering with it and get it going. And I wish we would have kept the name Navstar. I think it's a little cooler than GPS, but I don't know, maybe it sounds a little more hostile or assertive. So GPS is probably okay.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  You want to talk about assertive, what about Space Force?

• 10:53Josh Clark?

  Space Force is, I don't know what Space Force is, the name.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  It sounds like a movie.

• 10:58Josh Clark?

  It does.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Like a Mel Brooks movie.

• 11:00Josh Clark?

  It does. But, but so we called it GPS, and there were two versions that they released at the same time. One was L1. That bandwidth was used for civilian purposes, everything from, well, just if you weren't in the military, let's say you used L1. If you were in the military, you used L2. It's much more precise out of the gate. But the entire reason that this went from what I think was originally a military project intended just for use by the military to one where everybody who had a GPS receiver could use it for free was actually based on a tragedy that occurred in 19, I think,

• 11:43Josh Clark?

  83 with Korean Airlines Flight 007.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a flight intended to go from New York to Seoul to get there. They were flying over Alaska and still today, we don't really know why, but it veered off course about 200 miles into Soviet airspace. This is not a great area of Soviet airspace to be near because it was near some secret military installations. And so they scrambled a couple of fighter jets, Soviets did, MiGs, I reckon, and they tried to contact the plane, could not get in touch, and then downed the plane with a missile and killed everybody, 269 people. I remember this, I was 12.

• 12:25Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah?

• 12:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you know, of course, I didn't understand something like that fully at 12, but I remember it being, you know, all across the news.

• 12:33Josh Clark?

  Well, having been raised in the United States and being 12 in 1983 during the Cold War, I'll bet you were so mad at the Ruskie Commies for doing that.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Oh, man. There was probably a song on FM radio that, you know, encapsulated this.

• 12:50Josh Clark?

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Like that a DJ made, you know, not a real song.

• 12:53Josh Clark?

  Right, right.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  There were so many. It used to be such a thing.

• 12:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was weirdly, it was a thing, but I'll bet it was Survivor that sang the song.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably. What I don't fully get, now, what I do get is that, you know, airplanes and airlines have GPS on their airplanes, so they don't do this now. But why did that like broaden it to the public at large? Like, couldn't they have just said, all right, it's for the military and for the FAA?

• 13:22Josh Clark?

  I don't know. Maybe they just thought that there were other potential tragedies that they couldn't foresee that could be.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 13:31Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I don't know. If there's one thing that I'm not, it's in Ronald Reagan's head.

• 13:40Josh Clark?

  I just don't know.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  So we have one GPS system, which is kind of a problem. We don't have a backup yet, which, you know, we'll talk a little bit about that more later. But there is more than one GPS because it's not like China and Russia are like, hey, we'll just, you know, use your GPS when we want to bomb something.

• 14:00Josh Clark?

  When we want to shoot a missile at you.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So China and Russia and the EU all have their own GPS. And I think they all have backups even, and we don't.

• 14:09Josh Clark?

  Right. It just takes too many floppies to back up our GPS. So we're just going without right now.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:15Josh Clark?

  You want to take a break?

• 14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's take a break. I think it's a fantastic setup.

• 14:20Josh Clark?

  Okay. And when we come back, we're going to really wing it by trying to explain how GPS works.

• 14:42Speaker 02

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• 16:44Speaker 02

  All right, so if you want to geolocate something or somebody, you're gonna need, and you're on Earth, you can just use longitude and latitude, and that'll do a pretty good job.

• 16:56Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  GPS is like, hey, what if you want to find out where you are relative to sea level? We can do that. And you can't, longitude and latitude.

• 17:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  And GPS does that with microwaves. They decided not to use radio waves for reasons we'll talk about, but they use microwaves sent down to Earth.

• 17:15Josh Clark?

  They do. And so these microwaves, I've seen both, Chuck. I've seen that they're constantly beaming transmissions, like basically uninterrupted from the satellites, or that they do it like on a repeating pattern. Regardless, however this information arrives, it contains a few really important pieces of information. And one thing we should point out, apparently, there's a misunderstanding that a lot of people think when you open up like your location services or whatever on your phone, your GPS antenna ping satellites. That's not the case. It passively listens for GPS, the four GPS satellites broadcasting constantly.

• 17:52Josh Clark?

  Or intermittently and it picks them up, right? And so the information it gets is the time. And this is a really important component. And we talked before about atomic clocks and just how ridiculously precise they are. And on a GPS satellite, there's multiple atomic clocks that are keeping time together and to make sure that they stay synchronized.

• 18:15Josh Clark?

  And then the satellite sends its own location. Apparently they figure out their location using celestial landmarks like quasars. So the satellite knows where it is at all times. So it can tell you or your GPS receiver. And then there's a satellite ID that says, I'm me and that is good enough.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  That's right. And that is in the form of a pseudo random code. And one of the cool parts about that is it, it's going to tell you like, yeah, it's coming from this satellite. Here's my pseudo random code. But it also uses a slightly differently altered frequency. So the frequencies don't jam one another. So all these satellites, because the frequencies are just slightly varied, can all talk to each other. Cause you don't want satellites up there jamming each other.

• 19:05Josh Clark?

  No, but they can also talk to you too. Virtually at the same time, if not at the same time, because don't forget you're getting information from four different satellites to figure out where you are. So you don't want to get one from one, wait a couple of minutes, get one from the other. You want them all to be coming in basically at the same time. And by, by slightly altering their frequencies, they can all arrive.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Right. And this is one final bit of key, key information here. All these satellites, great, they're beaming microwaves down, fine. If, if we didn't know how fast those microwaves traveled, then none of that would do us any good. We have to know exactly how fast that stuff travels in order to measure a distance. And in this case, we know that electromagnetic waves, microwaves travel at speed of light. 186,282 miles per second.

• 19:58Josh Clark?

  Right, so now they have all the basic information. I think this is why you were saying at the outset, this is actually kind of a simple setup GPS is. If you take, so if that satellite sends you an information, piece of, like a signal, and it says, "I sent this exactly at 1:45 PM", and it arrives at 1:45 PM in one second, and you know that microwaves travel at the speed of light, you can use that information to calculate the distance between you and the satellite, okay? When you know that the satellite is located here in space, and then you figure out your distance from the satellite,

• 20:40Josh Clark?

  you start to have your first piece of information about where you are. Because now you know where you are relative to one satellite. That's not enough information to tell you where you are on Earth, but it's a really good start.

• 20:54Speaker 02

  That's right. And you might be thinking like, "Yeah, but what about stuff getting in the way? Like, if this stuff is supposed to be exact, then, you know, what about a tall building? Or what about, you know, weather in space? Like, that can throw all this off, right, guys? And that's true, but they have a very, pretty brilliant workaround for that. One method is called differential GPS, and they have these antenna on Earth that are locked in. They're stationary, they're not going anywhere. We know exactly where they are. They're called known points for that reason. And since we know exactly where those are, they're receiving these transmissions from GPS, and so they can calculate whether or not the location is off.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  And that, you know, if this thing is locked in place, but the calculation coming from the GPS is off by a little bit, hey, it must have gone through some thick shrubbery, or bounced off a building or something. But either way, we're locked in place, so we know exactly what that should be, and thus we'll know what that discrepancy is, and we can account for that.

• 21:59Josh Clark?

  Right. So once that known point has that discrepancy, it sends that out, that information out to all the GPS receivers in the area. So they can use it to adjust their own GPS readings that they're getting from those satellites that were slightly off, but they didn't have any way to remedy it. Now they do, because the known point is like, "Hey, satellite B is off by like 10 nanoseconds. Don't tell it." But I just wanted to let you know.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. And hey, listen, I won't tell everybody. I'll just adjust it on my end. And they'll never know that you screwed up.

• 22:33Josh Clark?

  Right. And also, there's something in your teeth.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Oh, it's kale.

• 22:42Josh Clark?

  Kale is so gross.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  You don't like kale?

• 22:45Josh Clark?

  I can't, I have to choke it down. And gross is the wrong word. It's just too harsh.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Too much kale, like a salad with only kale, or like, God forbid you eat a bag of kale chips.

• 22:59Josh Clark?

  You would die. You wouldn't be able to breathe any longer.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  It's too much at once.

• 23:03Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. All right. So now we get to trilateration. Take it away, friend.

• 23:10Josh Clark?

  Oh, no. You're the trilateration expert between us. Let's tell everybody what happened.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  Well, first of all, let me explain that trilateration is not the same as triangulation because we're not talking about ankles. We're talking about distance. And somewhere in there is the key of where I was screwing up because you had sent me this in a very elegant, sort of simple to explain way.

• 23:32Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is, this is Marshall.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Okay, à la Marshall Brain. It was explained about, you know, like a Venn diagram, three circles overlapping. And then the point where they overlap is where you are. We'll explain that more thoroughly. But I was just drawing three random circles. And I'm like, three random circles don't always intersect at a point.

• 23:51Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Like, they might overlap in an area. And so the center of that area maybe is what we're talking about. But then I realized you can't just draw three random circles and expect them to have a tangent point because they don't always.

• 24:03Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  In the case of GPS, I guess it's just a very exact measurement from one place to another. And in that case, they will intersect.

• 24:10Josh Clark?

  Right. Okay. Okay. So I think you should also tell everybody that when you sent me a picture of your three circles with the, like, the part where they, they overlap, they all overlap, you would put a point in there and wrote bingo with an exclamation point. You're like, case closed.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  I thought I really figured out something here.

• 24:33Josh Clark?

  I think you may have discovered something else that we're not aware of yet. So I don't think you should just put it to this. No, I think like you might have just invented like a new way of calculating things.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  No, I'm sure there's a name for it. Some science person's gonna say, oh Chuck, that's just blank.

• 24:49Josh Clark?

  Oh, I wish they would because I don't know either. But I like hats off to you because man, I can't tell you how many circles I guess you probably drew. Just trying to get this to work and I don't blame you. I was smart and was like, there's madness there. I'm just going to try to understand this as best I can. I'm not going to try it myself.

• 25:08Speaker 02

  I got a freaking compass at one point because you were like, it's because the circles are willy nilly. And I was like, okay, I'll draw them perfect.

• 25:15Josh Clark?

  Okay, so well, let's talk about trilateration because in in theory, I guess it's very simple. And the way that that Marshall described it was, let's say you're lost. You're in the United States and you ask somebody where you are. And that person says you are 625 miles from Boise, Idaho.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  And you say, thanks a lot. That doesn't tell me much.

• 25:38Josh Clark?

  Right, you actually push them down as they're walking away.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:42Josh Clark?

  But after after you get away, you're chased by the police, but you make it down an alley and hide behind some garbage cans as they pass by. You have a good idea. You go buy a map and you spread out your map. Maybe you buy a compass as well, à la Chuck. And you draw a circle around Boise, Idaho, using Boise as the center point. That is 625 miles in diameter, or at least represents that by scale, right? And you're like, okay, I am somewhere on this circle that has a diameter of 625 miles around Boise. Kind of helpful. It's a little bit narrowed it down, but I need more information.

• 26:23Josh Clark?

  So you go find somebody else and you say, hey, do you know where I am?

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, is this where I could come in?

• 26:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hey, well, I'm not gonna tell you that, but how about this? You're 690 miles from Minneapolis.

• 26:37Josh Clark?

  Okay, so that's great. At least they didn't repeat the Boise thing, right? Because if they said that, you'd just be like, man, that didn't help at all. But now you know where you are from Minneapolis, and you can do the same thing with Minneapolis. Using that as the center point of a circle, you draw a circle with a radius of 690 miles around Minneapolis. Now you're really close, because what you'll find is the circle around Boise and the circle around Minneapolis, they overlap, right?

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you get a little football in the middle.

• 27:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, like a Venn diagram. And if you look at a Venn diagram where those two circles overlap, there's two points where they intersect, right? Where they cross each other. Those lines cross each other. And because you are 625 miles from Boise and 690 miles from Minneapolis, you are somewhere where those two circles overlap at those two points. One of those is right, the other is off by hundreds of miles. So you still need to narrow it down.

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Right, so you're like, is there one more wiseacre in this town who will tell me by not telling me where I am, where I am?

• 27:48Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  And so you go into this final, the only other gas station in town, and you say, guys, someone told me I was 625 from Boise. Didn't help much. Someone else said 690 from Minneapolis. Please just tell me where I am. They said, oh, you're 615 miles from Tucson, pal.

• 28:03Josh Clark?

  Do you just trash the place at this point?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, you just lay waste. You find the nearest broom and you just start knocking everything off the shelves.

• 28:10Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. My collector beer stones.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  All right, so now you got three circles, though. And this is where I got super tripped up, because I was like, oh, cool, let me draw this out. And I drew it out, and I was like, these don't intersect at a common point. But if you're using exact GPS calculations, distance from a satellite. Or in this case, points on a map. Then that's, that's, you know exactly where you are because it's going to intersect it at only one place at three points.

• 28:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, all three circles will overlap with one another. So they intersect at two different points. Each circle intersects with the other at two points, but all three of them will only intersect at one single point. And you have just trilateralated your position. You now, you know where you are. And Marshall said, this is Denver, by the way. That's where you are is Denver. Because I think if we hadn't have included that, some people would have been really upset.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you knew you're in Denver because you can't catch your breath and it smells like weed everywhere.

• 29:11Josh Clark?

  That's right. And now you have to figure out what to do, even though you're dead.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. And liberals and conservatives are smashed together and everyone's like, what kind of state is this?

• 29:20Josh Clark?

  It is. It's crazy like that, isn't it?

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love Colorado. I think it's interesting that way.

• 29:25Josh Clark?

  It's like all of those shows we've done in Denver, it's like a wedding, like split down the middle. The people on one half of the room all have guns out. The other half are all playing hacky sack.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:39Josh Clark?

  It's an interesting place.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  And one guy goes, hey, you ever tried to shoot a hacky sack in midair?

• 29:44Josh Clark?

  Watch this.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Kind of fun.

• 29:47Josh Clark?

  Okay, so that's trilateralation. That's 2D trilateralation, because what you've done is found your, if you were a flat point and the earth was flat, which it's not, that's all we would need to do. But the earth is a sphere. It's round. And so what GPS uses is 3D trilateralation, which rather than flat circles, it uses spheres. And when the three or four usually, because you use four satellites, where those spheres all intersect, the one point, that's where you are. Because now you not only know where you are longitude and latitudinally, you also know where you are altitudinally.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  My friend, I hate to break it to you, but you did the old Josh Clark, insert an extra consonant thing.

• 30:32Josh Clark?

  Trilateralational?

• 30:35Speaker 02

  It's trilateration.

• 30:36Josh Clark?

  I know, and I've been wanting to say trilateralization for so long.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Well, you weren't even saying that.

• 30:42Josh Clark?

  I just had to get it off my chest.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  You were saying trilateralation.

• 30:45Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  So now that's three ways.

• 30:48Josh Clark?

  So trilateration?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Trilateration.

• 30:51Josh Clark?

  That sounds made up, like Space Force.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  I know.

• 30:55Josh Clark?

  All right, trilaterationization.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:00Josh Clark?

  Ali.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Station.

• 31:02Josh Clark?

  So that's it. That's how you figure it. Well, I should say that's how your GPS receiver figures that out. It has, it knows where those three or four satellites are because they tell it where they are. It figures out the distance between you and your receiver for each of those four, and it tells it, oh, here's where I am because here's where all those, that information intersects.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  Right. And I think you mentioned the spheres while I was obsessing about the extra L, right?

• 31:28Josh Clark?

  Yes, I did.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Okay, great.

• 31:30Josh Clark?

  And there's a really pretty image out there. I can't remember what website I found it on, but if you search like how GPS trilateration works, it will come up, I'm sure, but it shows like the four spheres created by the satellites, and they're all in four different primary colors, and it's so pretty.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  I saw that, yeah.

• 31:49Josh Clark?

  I understand that there are three primary colors, but whatever the fourth one is, it's basically a primary color as far as I'm concerned.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Okay. Uh, should we take our second break?

• 32:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I think so, Chuck. We earned it with that trilateralation. Trilateration.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 32:07Josh Clark?

  Explanation.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Explanation. We'll be right back.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Here's a question for all you curious people. What's one thing you wish there was an app for? With Base44, you can build it yourself. It might be something simple, like a tool for a task your team does every week. You want the steps, useful links, and everyone's progress in one place.

• 32:41Josh Clark?

  Well, with Base44, describe that in your own words. You don't need to know coding or programming. Then you just keep editing and refining it until it works exactly the way you want. Your build comes headache-free with built-in login, data storage, backend, and hosting. So what's the app you wish existed?

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Try it free and upgrade when you're ready. Go to base44.com to get started.

• 33:06Josh Clark?

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• 33:19Speaker 02

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• 33:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, plus it's built with a durable aluminum chassis, weighing just 2.2 pounds and Intel Core processors. So it's fast, reliable and portable enough to keep up wherever you go. And while shopping, you'll also find great perks like Dell Rewards, fast free shipping, premium support and financing with flexible payment options. Plus you can find great deals on monitors and accessories. That means you can score a whole new setup now for less. Visit dell.com to explore the possibilities with XPS.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  And this Black Friday sale is one that you're not going to want to miss. Just head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.

• 34:25Josh Clark?

  Okay Chuck, so there's one other thing, kind of like a little sidebar I felt like we should talk about. If you've ever tried to figure out where you are and your phone's like, turn on Wi-Fi and we'll get a better reading.

• 34:38Speaker 02

  I've never understood that until you explained it.

• 34:41Josh Clark?

  So what it's trying to do is it's prompting you to turn on your Wi-Fi based positioning system. And that is based essentially on the same thing that Dr. Getting was getting at, which is you can use information from different sources and comparing those sources to figuring out where you are. And so rather than using satellite information, this uses the, it bases it on the known strengths of different Wi-Fi network towers, antenna. And so depending on how strong one signal is compared to where you are, in addition to comparing it to another signal and another signal, another signal.

• 35:24Josh Clark?

  It's like, oh, you're, you're in Denver.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Right. You don't know how dumb I am?

• 35:31Josh Clark?

  I don't think you're dumb. I know you're not dumb, but let's hear what you have to say.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  I say this out loud at the risk of losing listeners that might be new listeners are like, I can't listen to this guy.

• 35:39Josh Clark?

  Oh, this is really dumb.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Up until, said yesterday, whenever my phone or my car or something said, you know, turn on your wifi to improve accuracy of your location. It's like, I'm not near my house. What is this thing asking me to do? I'm not, I'm not near my wifi.

• 35:55Josh Clark?

  You weren't like, you're not the boss of me.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  No, I was just, uh, that's pretty dumb.

• 36:01Josh Clark?

  I don't, no, it's not.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Wifi is everywhere. It doesn't have to be your house wifi.

• 36:06Josh Clark?

  So, yes, that's one way it does it. And it does it in your house too, but that's because your router is a big blabbermouth and tells everybody where you are. So.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  I'm glad to get it now.

• 36:18Speaker 02

  It's like, they don't know. I'm not near my house. Why is it asking me to turn on my wifi?

• 36:21Josh Clark?

  This phone is so stupid.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. All right. So, speaking of the opposite of stupid, your smartphone, how accurate are those things? When GPS first started, they said, and this was again, like 95 ish, they said, uh, it's going to be accurate to within 100 meters 95% of the time, which at the time was like, hey, that's not bad at all. Like that gets me in the, in the neighborhood of where I want to be. Uh, they've gotten much, much better. Um, now they say two meters, within two meters of 6.6 feet, but it's really closer than that. They did some measuring in 2021 and the global average across all users was about just a little more than two feet.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  And, you know, again, that, that depends on a lot of things. If it's got tall buildings in the way, um, space weather, atmospheric conditions, uh, apparently like a really dense, like jungle canopy or thick shrubbery can actually degrade the accuracy of that signal.

• 37:19Josh Clark?

  Yeah. You got a hickory tree? Well, TS for you because GPS isn't going to work.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Is that a thick tree? Thick canopy?

• 37:27Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I would, yeah, I think so. I mean, it's a known shade tree.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  No, hey, oh, it's a, uh, it's a, it's a KST?

• 37:36Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Put it on the list.

• 37:38Josh Clark?

  If we could broadcast information, it would also be a known point.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 37:43Josh Clark?

  Um, so there's a, there's a, a, a couple of other things that can mess with your GPS signal coming from the satellite. Cause remember I said that they navigate celestially? Well, if the earth's position itself relative to the satellite, satellite can know where it is. But, um, if the earth shifts a little bit, like the, the magnetic core sloshes around just enough that the earth kind of wobbles a little bit, or if the sea currents are particularly strong, it can like

• 38:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:12Josh Clark?

  slow the rotation of the earth. Those things, I mean, just the tiniest, tiniest changes can alter the accuracy of the signal that it gets. But that's just the signal that they're like, we're going to get you within six feet. Um, they don't guarantee your receiver and your receiver typically adds a little bit of, um, uh, inaccuracy. I think five meters is usually what you, what you're going to get from like your average dumb, uh, GPS receiver.

• 38:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I get, I mean, it's amazing we're here. Cause if you're like GPS to just say, this is good. If you're, if you're five feet away from the restaurant or your friend and you don't see them, that's on you.

• 38:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Just look up.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:57Josh Clark?

  So we're getting better though, you know?

• 39:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, it's getting, I mean, I imagine they're going to have it. I think, uh, March 24, uh, if you're an ideal, if it's clear skies, you're out in the middle of the desert or something, they can, they can be as accurate as 30 centimeters.

• 39:13Josh Clark?

  Which is five double A batteries end to end. We're going to get even better than that though, Chuck, because right now there's some really good GPS antenna that are starting to pop up in smartphones. And those, those are, uh, dual band, dual, a dual band, dual frequency receivers, one of those two. And that uses the L1, the standard civilian, um, GPS band that has been around since the beginning, but it's gotten better over time. And it also uses the new whizbang L5. And this is like the next generation of GPS. It's not widespread enough yet. There's not enough satellites out there that are L5 for an antenna to just rely on that. But

• 39:56Josh Clark?

  when you put L1 and L5 together, it gets pretty good. Um, the thing is, is you might ask yourself like, Why, why would you need to get like within centimeters of the restaurant that you're going to? It doesn't make sense. Well, some people use GPS for more than just finding the restaurant that they're going to.

• 40:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. And your parents and grandparents might be using their Garmin still. So just have patience with them.

• 40:25Josh Clark?

  I think that Garmin was actually one of the original GPS devices.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's still being used in certain cars and certain people's families.

• 40:34Josh Clark?

  Are those things even supported any longer?

• 40:37Speaker 02

  I don't know, man. It's pretty funny though. It's like looking at a MySpace webpage or something when you look at it.

• 40:43Josh Clark?

  I'll bet it is.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  But yes, I took this off task. You were talking about other things that this is used for. A lot. We talked about landing airplanes. That's pretty important. Accuracy is pretty important, maybe not down to the centimeter, but

• 40:59Speaker 02

  if you want to track soil moisture, you can do that via GPS. If you want to measure the size of a glacier and whether it's shrinking or moving, you can do that very, very accurately. And not just sort of ballpark things anymore. Migration patterns. If you want to see where that, that school of whales is headed. And, and how they know when they get there and how far they are from where they started. You can do that with great accuracy.

• 41:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, also things use it to basically stay in position like modern agricultural equipment, like harvesters, they go in a straight line by themselves, thanks to really precise GPS. Same with self-driving cars.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  Oh, sure.

• 41:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And then like apparently it's just grown so ubiquitous and so reliable that contractors use it. Like, like digital blueprints will have GPS coordinates for like a nail or an electrical outlet or something like that. So you can know exactly where that thing's going to go. Which, I mean, that's got to cut down on construction costs and time dramatically.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought the, the thing on tunneling was kind of cool. I never really thought about that, but if you're tunneling. Through two sides of a mountain to ideally meet in the middle and have a one long tunnel. That's not one tunnel with a little zigzag in the middle because they were off by a little bit. You can do that down to the centimeter, you know, or 30 centimeters, rather.

• 42:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, a tunnel that goes through a mountain with like a hairpin turn in the middle.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  That sounds great.

• 42:30Josh Clark?

  And if you put all this stuff together, all these different uses for GPS, which again, the American taxpayers give to the world for free. It generated, I think in 2022, $94 billion worth of stuff, right? All of that receivers that were sold, all of the tunnels that were drilled correctly. Like, all that stuff came to generate $94 billion. And in the next five years, it's expected to hit almost 300 billion. So it's a big deal. Like, we rely on GPS a lot. And so because we rely on something this much, and because, like you said, we don't have a backup

• 43:10Josh Clark?

  of GPS in particular, it can be pretty delicate, I guess you could say, to put it delicately. Because it can get screwed up pretty bad, pretty easily. And in fact, on a very local level, you or I could go screw up somebody's GPS for fun anytime we wanted.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was a little disconcerting to learn. I thought like, oh, well, surely this thing has just some weird, robust government shield that cannot be hacked, right? And that's not true. In fact, the military, I mean, it's part of military, just regular operations to jam GPS for another country, their planes and drones, or to spoof it is when you send it, you know, jam it and make it non-operable, but you, you're like, ooh, here's some fake coordinates that you're gonna think are real.

• 44:01Josh Clark?

  Right, yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  Like, they do that all the time. Countries do that to us all the time. But like you said, Any schmo that's got 300 bucks can get a software-defined radio and figure out how to use it and jam somebody's GPS. And so your neighbor's walking around wondering where that restaurant is.

• 44:17Josh Clark?

  I know. They're like, "A Friday's."

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Right. "I wanted to go to Bennigan's."

• 44:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so you were talking about spoofing. Apparently Iran in 2019, just for kicks, spoofed a British cargo ship's GPS and told that it was in international waters when really they had drifted into Iranian waters. So Iran was like, "Oh, you're our ship now and you're our crew now." And they held the whole thing for 10 weeks, just by being jerks, apparently. I can't figure out what the point would have been for that other than to flex.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is a little odd. I'm sure somebody knows. Or maybe it was a flex.

• 44:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And the kids still say that, right? They flex?

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Oh, you're asking the wrong guy.

• 45:03Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, let's say they do.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I mean, Ruby says things I don't understand and I just don't even ask.

• 45:07Josh Clark?

  I know. I know. My niece Mila was schooling us on slang and I'm like, "There's no context for that. It doesn't make any sense."

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:19Josh Clark?

  I'm trying to think of one example. I know I'm gonna get it wrong.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  No cap?

• 45:23Josh Clark?

  No. Something like "skibitty..."

• 45:26Speaker 02

  Oh, "skibitty toilet"?

• 45:28Josh Clark?

  Yes. And I understand, yes, it's a web video or whatever, but the videos itself make no sense whatsoever, too.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hey, you know, all we did in the 80s was shorten "awesome" to "oss" and "un-oss."

• 45:42Josh Clark?

  That was our big contribution.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  That was as sophisticated as we got. I don't know about the "skibitty" stuff.

• 45:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and I don't mean to complain. I mean, each generation, like, builds on the last, comes up with its own stuff. I'm happy about that. I just don't understand it.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Well, that's the point, I think.

• 45:57Josh Clark?

  You know, I think you're right, actually, and I'm kind of hurt by that.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, you know, kids and teens come up with their own language, so adults don't know what the heck we're talking about, and they can laugh behind their backs.

• 46:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  We did the same thing.

• 46:10Josh Clark?

  I didn't.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  We said, "That's very un-oss," and our parents were like, "What are they saying?"

• 46:15Josh Clark?

  I can't make heads or tails of that.

• 46:19Speaker 02

  Airlines can get jammed. There was a study that found intentional jamming of airlines was a problem in three regions, only three. More than 70,000 flights were jammed between February and August of 2022. And that, you know, once you jam it up, you can't reset it. Like, that plane lands and then the unjamming happens.

• 46:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah, you have to turn the whole thing off and reset everything. You can't just reset the GPS antenna.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  They need to work out all that stuff, don't you think?

• 46:51Josh Clark?

  They definitely do. But something about those flights being jammed, those are civilian flights being jammed by bad actors and sometimes governments and militaries. So what you're trying to do essentially is to crash a plane full of people. Like, that's your shot. It's not like a really dedicated shot at it, but that's pretty much the goal of doing that to an airliner.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you have no idea how much I put my hand over my mouth when you said "bad actors" and I almost shouted out a few names of actors.

• 47:21Josh Clark?

  Who are you gonna name?

• 47:23Speaker 02

  No, I can't, because, you know, you never know. People might listen to this. I'm sensitive to hurting people's feelings now, here in my 50s.

• 47:30Josh Clark?

  I think that's great, man. Well, text me some names, then.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  I will.

• 47:34Josh Clark?

  Okay. There's another thing that spoofing, I believe, I think they use spoofing for it, is to cheat at games like Pokemon Go.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:45Josh Clark?

  Where you can fake where your own GPS coordinates are to say like, "Oh, I'm at the, I don't know, Pikachu's lair," or something like that. "So give me the egg that Pikachu is guarding," which I can turn into like some Ski Ball tickets and get a comb.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  Or a skivvity toilet. I hope that doesn't mean something dirty, right?

• 48:08Josh Clark?

  It means nothing from what Mila's told me. Like, it's just basically a thing you say.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:14Josh Clark?

  I hope I'm not outing Mila as uncool, though.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just glad that you have someone in your life that's down with that kind of stuff, because it's pretty vital these days.

• 48:26Josh Clark?

  I don't know if it's vital that I know that Skibidi Toilet exists, but-

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Maybe not that, but Skibidi Toilet has its own Wikipedia entry.

• 48:34Josh Clark?

  Oh, I believe it. Have you seen the videos, though, that it's based on?

• 48:38Speaker 02

  No, but I see a screenshot now.

• 48:40Josh Clark?

  They're mesmerizing.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  It doesn't pull me in.

• 48:43Josh Clark?

  You should watch a second or two of it. You don't need to watch much. You get the gist of it really quick, but it's like, you'll find that your mouth is open. Not in awe, but just because you're glazed over.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 48:56Josh Clark?

  So, like you said, the United States is not unaware of the vulnerability. That was what I was saying. It was in a delicate position. It's vulnerable. It's a very vulnerable system. And, you know, globally and also locally. So they are taking steps to update it. And that is going to come in the form of adding more and more L5 satellites.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 49:23Josh Clark?

  But for now, if you want to be a little shocked, taking into consideration how dependent we are in GPS, the average age of a GPS, specifically the United States' Global Positioning System, satellites, is 13 years.

• 49:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:40Josh Clark?

  That is really old for a satellite. But Chuck, tell them how old the oldest satellite in the constellation of GPS satellites is.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  Uh, that would be 27 years old? Is that right? Yeah.

• 49:54Josh Clark?

  Yes. That thing has sarcopenia.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 50:02Josh Clark?

  I guess that's it for GPS, huh?

• 50:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, this was more fun than I thought. And you know what? I'm glad we had some fun and had some laughs, because that feels like a lighter tribute for Marshall than something else.

• 50:14Josh Clark?

  For sure. Hopefully, we made you proud, Marshall. And thanks again for everything. And since we said thanks to Marshall Brain, then I think it's time for listener mail.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  I'm gonna call this "Forget Rice, How About Some Peace and Love." Hey guys, big fan of the show. I love listening when training for marathons and loved the recent marathon episodes. While listening to the history of refrigeration, the "Rice Method" for managing a musculoskeletal injury was mentioned, did you know, guys, that in 2020, the medical world threw out the "Rice Method" and transitioned to "Peace and Love"?

• 50:53Josh Clark?

  Hmm. I don't even remember mentioning that, let alone knowing that tidbit.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  I think I probably did. So, for "Peace and Love," we have "Protection," "Avoid activities that cause pain for 2 to 3 days," "Elevation," the "A" is "Avoid Anti-Inflammatories," because apparently that reduces healing, and you should avoid ice, too.

• 51:14Josh Clark?

  I have heard that, that anti-inflammatories are actually not very good for you.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  I just, I never take those, anyway, because I don't really need to, but yeah.

• 51:24Josh Clark?

  Lucky. Some people really need them.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  I know, I'm sure. Where was A? So, down to C, "Compression," E, "Education," which is "Avoid unnecessary passive treatments. Your body will heal," so I guess educate yourself.

• 51:37Josh Clark?

  They were like, "We really need an E here."

• 51:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, basically. And then we, "And" is not spelled out, but "Love" is, "Load," "Let your pain be your guide," "Optimism," "Condition your brain," "Vascularization," "Pain-free cardio," and "Exercise: Restore Mobility Through Active Approach." And Sarah says, "This is a lot. I hope people can learn to avoid ice and anti-inflammatories for optimal recovery, but it's having a hard time catching on."

• 52:09Josh Clark?

  I can imagine why.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  That is from Sarah, PT Bird Nerd Hollingsworth, and she's a bird nerd and loves our bird episodes.

• 52:18Josh Clark?

  That's awesome. Thanks, Sarah. Way to spread the good word. I know there's a lot of good advice and information in there, but it's just gonna take months of digesting that information to try to figure out those acronyms.

• 52:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:30Josh Clark?

  If you want to be like Sarah and put something on our radar that we weren't aware of before, we love that kind of thing, you can send it to us via email, like Sarah did, to [email protected].

• 52:46Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 53:02Josh Clark?

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• 53:47Josh Clark?

  Just describe what you want in your own words, no coding required. Base44 handles the database, login, backend, and hosting. Try it for free. Go to base44.com to get started.

• 54:01Speaker 03

  That sound? That's the National Squash League. Pro teams, the world's best players, in rallies so fast you'll forget to breathe. Season four is in full swing, and every match streams free on YouTube. Big hits, bigger rivalries, and a front-row seat from wherever you are. Watch every match for free on YouTube. Search National Squash League and hit Subscribe or follow live updates on Instagram at nsl.sport.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.