How would you explain to an intelligent but non-scientifically-educated member of your family how a GPS receiver determines its location? (Don\'t worry about technical details but make sure you explain the basic physics - and geometry - principles.) Solution A GPS receiver is constantly receiving signals from satellites for this purpose which are orbiting the earth. We know the frequency and speed of the waves we are sending. So from the sensors in GPS we can know the time taken for the waves from satellite to reach the receiver. Now we have speed and time and we multiply them to get the distance between receiver and satellite. We take the distances from four or more such satellites and then we can pinpoint such position on earth which is at these calculated distances from these satellites. In this way we can actually position the location of a receiver using GPS within a few inches precision. .

1. How would you explain to an intelligent but non-scientifically-educated member of your family
how a GPS receiver determines its location? (Don't worry about technical details but make sure
you explain the basic physics - and geometry - principles.)
Solution
A GPS receiver is constantly receiving signals from satellites for this purpose which are orbiting
the earth. We know the frequency and speed of the waves we are sending. So from the sensors in
GPS we can know the time taken for the waves from satellite to reach the receiver. Now we have
speed and time and we multiply them to get the distance between receiver and satellite. We take
the distances from four or more such satellites and then we can pinpoint such position on earth
which is at these calculated distances from these satellites. In this way we can actually position
the location of a receiver using GPS within a few inches precision.