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These days work is becoming less a part of life, and more life itself. People struggle with work-life balance as companies demand more and more from workers. Work requires focus and motivation. It certainly isn’t fun. However, fun is an important part of inventing something new. In 1957, two young American scientists were eager to talk together about *Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. For fun, William Guier and George Weiffenbach thought they could listen to the satellite because it broadcasted a *radio signal. Using a*radio in Weiffenbach’s office, they listened to Sputnik. Using the changes in the signal and a bit of math, they figured out Sputnik’s position in the sky.But it wasn’t just the position they were able to figure out — they were also able to calculate where the satellite would go. This wasn’t even their job, but they had discovered the first step toward creating an essential technology most people use daily. Their boss was excited by their success — if they could find Sputnik in the sky, could they use a radio and a satellite to find something on the ground? As it turns out, they could. Together they spent 6 months developing the necessary technology further, which would be first adopted by *the United States Navy. They named it the *Global Positioning System (GPS), and it would change the world.
Three years after their fun experiment, GPS was being used to help submarines find their way without having to look at the stars. This wasn’t the end of development, however. By 1993, more than 20 satellites had been launched into space. Rather than learning an object’s or person’s position on earth using one satellite, a newer system was used. It compared distances between the object or the person and more than one satellite. Using more than one allows us to get a more accurate location. Soon many countries and companies began launching their own satellites. As a result, there were hundreds of satellites in space working just to help us with global positioning.
This new style of GPS quickly became popular. It became the more common style of GPS, and has become necessary for smartphone games, map companies, a variety of scientists, and uncountable *tech companies. In a way, GPS opened up an entirely new avenue for invention and discovery, and it wasn’t even invented on purpose. Good ideas aren’t always planned. Sometimes, as with Guier and Weiffenbach, good ideas are the result of curiosity, fun, and need. Guier and Weiffenbach would have taken much longer to invent GPS, or perhaps never invented GPS at all, if their boss hadn’t let them have a little fun.