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Re: Christmas Presents (GPS Receivers)



Leigh,

I assume you meant to say that its applied Special Relativity, rather than
GR.

The handheld GPS units are the only consumer products I know which
rely for their operation on applied general relativity in more than a
trivial manner. That alone makes them nice demonstration items. I
take my students outside, and the next time I teach special
relativity I have a dandy way to introduce it with space and time
entering symmetrically into the solution of the GPS problem.

Joel

PS
Our Physics department is housed in the engineering college at our
institution; very early on in my tenure here I recommended to the library
that they buy a book called "Relativity and Engineering", author = Bladel.
As you might guess, and as I recall (always an iffy proposition), GPS
systems figure prominently in the book.