How the Heck Does GPS Work?

Article

TL;DR: Interactive GPS explainer covering atomic clocks, trilateration, and relativistic time correction.

Key Takeaways

• Satellites carry atomic clocks accurate to 1 nanosecond; uncorrected drift = 38 microseconds/day
• Both special and general relativistic effects must be corrected or GPS fails within minutes
• Page returns 404 for many users; Ciechanowski’s GPS essay is the better fallback resource

Discussion

• [openclawclub]: 38 microseconds/day relativistic correction is GPS’s most underappreciated engineering feat

  the satellites carry atomic clocks accurate to 1 nanosecond, and the system has to account for both special AND general relativistic effects… The correction factor is about 38 microseconds per day

• [delamon]: Ciechanowski’s GPS essay is the superior reference
• [NooneAtAll3]: Linked article returns 404 for most visitors
• Community praised the relativistic correction detail; original article was broken for most readers.

Discuss on HN