The Global Positioning System, or GPS, is one of the great tools of our time. It is a feature on virtually all smartphones. Many cars have them built in.

The number of wasted hours that GPS is responsible for eliminating is astounding. How many time have you needed to travel somewhere you’ve never been before, but because of GPS (particularly when combined with Google Maps), you know exactly where you are and how to get to where you need to go?

GPS used to be the domain of Tom Tom and other in car manufacturers. Even before that was the GPS for boats. Now how handy would THAT be? There are no roads in the ocean that boats can follow are there? Using a GPS they can figure out if they’re about to run aground or how to get back to port.

I’d be interested to find out whether any studies have been done on the number of shipwrecks that accurate GPS data is responsible for eliminating. If you combine GPS with sonar technology and a watchful crew, it should theoretically be impossible to run aground. How much do you think the captain of the Titanic would have loved that combination?!

GPS works by bouncing a signal from the device to several satellites and measuring how long it takes for the signal to return from each satellite. Knowing where the satellites are enables the device to calculate its location to within a few meters. Pretty neat hey?