We take navigation for granted these days
今天 人们已经对GPS习以为常
GPS receivers guide airplanes, cars, and even cell phones!
GPS可以为飞机,汽车甚至手机导航
But did you know that the Global Positioning System is basically a big clock in space?
但你是否知道 全球卫星定位系统就像宇宙中的一个巨大的时钟
There are thirty GPS satellites in orbit, 、
绕地轨道上共有30颗GPS卫星
and they just broadcast where they are and what time it is.
它们会随时发送自己的位置和时间
All your phone GPS has to do is receive signals from four satellites
而你手机只需要接受来自四颗卫星的信号
and it can triangulate its location in the four dimensions in which we live
就能建立一个你所在点的四维坐标
three space and one time.
三条空间轴和一条时间轴
But actually it's not that simple!
事实并不像这么简单
In order for navigation to work,
为了精确导航
the satellites carry atomic clocks accurate to the nanosecond
卫星的原子钟必须精确到纳秒
otherwise your GPS receiver might tell you you're halfway across town when you're still in the driveway.
否则 你的车还没启动 GPS就报告你已经上路了
And special relativity tells us that moving clocks run slow,
根据狭义相对论 运动中的时钟会变慢
while general relativity tells us that clocks run faster higher in a gravitational field.
但广义相对论又说引力场会使高处的时钟走得更快
These effects don't quite cancel
这些影响并不能抵消
general relativity wins out and time indeed runs faster up in orbit with the satellites!
而广义相对论的影响更大 所以卫星的时间确实会变快
But some of the engineers working on the first GPS satellite
但工程师设计第一颗GPS卫星时
couldn't bring themselves to believe that their clock would actually run fast just from being higher up,
固执的认为时间不会因为离引力场越远 而变得更快
so they sent it up uncorrected!
所以他们把错误时间的卫星送了上去
Within minutes it was off by enough to impair GPS navigation,
几分钟后GPS已经不能定位
and by the end of the day, GPS receivers would have been wrong by tens of kilometers!
一天下来 卫星偏离了数十公里
Needless to say, the engineers turned the correction back on,
不必多说 工程师们重新校正了时间
and these days they trust general relativity!
然后乖乖的相信了相对论
Oh, and one last thing - GPS is also a nuclear weapons detector:
哦 还有件事 GPS还可以监测核武器
there are always at least four GPS satellites visible from any point on earth,
地球上任何一点都有四颗卫星同时监视
and because of this, any nuclear detonation will be seen by enough satellites to pinpoint exactly where and when it took place.
因此 无论在哪引爆了一颗核弹 都能知道它准确发生的地点和时间