I have been reading a new book, Pinpoint, by American journalist Greg Milner, which seeks to explain how GPS came into being and how it now operates. 我正在读一本名叫《精确定位》的书，作者是美国记着格雷格.米尔勒，这本书试图阐释GPS如何诞生及怎样运作。
Milner calculates that there are already about five billion devices in the world that use GPS（including three billion smartphones）, creating a $21bn GPS economy.据米尔勒计算，目前全世界大约有50亿台设备装载了GPS，其中包括30亿台智能手机，由此创造了210亿美元GPS相关的市场价值。
“This extraordinary system began as an American military application, a way to improve the accuracy of bombs and keep bomber pilots safe,” Milner writes.“[But] today its tentacles are everywhere.” 米尔勒写道: "这套无与伦比的系统最初来源于美国军方为改进炮弹的精度以便确保投弹者的生命安全的需要，如今它已深入到日常生活的方方面面"
As with so much of our cyber economy, most of us have no clue how GPS works; nor that the entire system is run by an obscure squadron of the US Air Force based near Colorado Springs. 虽然网络经济已如此发达，我们大多数人却对GPS的工作方式一无所知，更不清楚整套GPS系统是由位于科罗拉多州斯普林斯市附近的美国空军基地的一支秘密分队所控制。
If you start looking into the network, it becomes clear that the GPS story deserves far more attention — not least because we urgently need to think about what might happen if GPS breaks down. 如果你在网上搜索，便会明白关于GPS的来龙去脉值得我们探寻一番，而不仅仅因为我们急需考虑假如GPS系统崩溃的话我们该怎么办。
By any standards, it is an extraordinary tale, in part be cause GPS touches on anthropology as much as science. 以任何标准来评价，将GPS系统捧上神坛都属实至名归，原因之一是它对人类学的贡献可与其科学价值相匹敌。
As archaeologists, historians and anthropologists know, the way humans imagine the world around them has varied enormously over time. 正如考古学家，历史学家和人类学家所知道的，人类对周围环境的想象随着时间推移产生了巨大变化。
In most premodern societies, people did not have objective “maps” of the world in their heads; instead, they perceived the world as contours radiating out from their home. 在实现现代化之前的大多数社会中，人们大脑中没有关于世界的对象化的"地图"，相反，他们将世界看成是以家为起点，向四周散射的大致轮廓。
From the ancient Greeks onwards,many cultures assumed that the sun revolved around the earth. 包括古希腊在内的多数古代文明都假设太阳围着地球转。
When people started roaming the globe with chronometers and peering at the sky with telescopes, it changed their perspective. 当人们开始使用精密的仪器探索地球，开始用电子望远镜观察天空的时候，他们的发现使大家改变了以往的观点。
The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus developed his revolutionary idea that the sun, not the earth, was at the centre of the solar system. 波兰天文学家尼古拉斯.哥白尼得出了具有划时代意义的观点: 太阳系的中心是太阳而不是地球。
Since then, we have learnt to create objective — not subjective — maps with growing accuracy. 从那时起，随着精度的不断提高，人类开始学着创造对象化的而非主观想象的地图。
GPS alters this perspective again. It uses signals from four or more GPS satellites at a time（out of about 30 orbiting the planet）to pinpoint our position; but it does so by putting us at the centre of our own map.
GPS再次颠覆了传统观点。它使用一次性从四个或更多GPS卫星采集的信号精确定位我们的位置，这些卫星总共大约有30个，围绕地球旋转着。GPS系统把人们置于他们自己所订制地图的中心。
That lets us navigate our surroundings with once-unimaginable precision but it also enables something else to occur that is important: we can now guide other objects, too. 因此，在这种超乎想象的精确度的指引下，我们不仅能定位四周的环境，而更重要的是，它使我们能够操纵其他对象的梦想得以实现。
When GPS finally came of age, this technology was initially used to guide bombs, most notably in the first Gulf war. 在GPS横空出世以后，这项科技最初被用来为导弹领航，参与的最著名的战役是海湾战争。
Today those satellites guide everything from aircraft to oil tankers, from hospital operations to financial trades. And, of course, our cars. 现在，这些卫星为各种事物导航，包括飞机和油罐车，医院的手术和金融贸易，当然也包括我们的汽车。
As technological leaps go,this feels almost miraculous, and it might give some grounds for optimism in relation to other seemingly intractable problems, such as climate change. 伴随科技突飞猛进的势头，以往的天方夜谭如今得以实现，同时它也许能让一些如气候变化这类棘手问题的解决变成可能。
The danger is that the more we become dependent on this magical technology, the more potentially vulnerable we become, too. 而可怕的是，我们对这种神奇的科技越依赖，我们自身也可能变得越脆弱。
Milner cites some fascinating studies by neurologists, for example, which suggest that when people rely on GPS to navigate, they stop interacting with their environment in a cognitive sense, and their brains appear to change. 米尔勒引用了某些前端神经学家的研究，例如: 研究表明，当人们依赖GPS导航的时候，他们停止了认知层面上与环境的交流，于是人类的大脑随之发生变化。
More worrying still, as our modern transport, industry and infrastructure networks become more reliant on GPS, there is a growing risk that these could break down completely if those satellites veer off course. 更多的担忧在于，由于现代化交通，工业和基础设施网络变得越来越依赖于GPS，如果这些卫星出现故障，我们的生活彻底奔溃的风险也随之增长。
The US military insists this will never happen because it is working to keep the system watertight. And one factor that may help them in that respect is that, ironically, even the US's enemies depend on GPS. 美国军方坚持认为这种情况不可能发生，因为他们为保证系统万无一失从未松懈。事实上，讽刺的是，美国的敌对国家也是用GPS，这种现象支持了美军的说法。
Isis, for example, uses GPS-enabled smartphones in its attacks. The truly scary thing about our modern cyber world is that nothing now seems truly invulnerable. 比如恐怖分子在袭击时使用GPS导航的智能手机。关于现代化的网络世界的骇人事实是，没有什么是牢不可破的。
So perhaps the real moral of the tale is that the next time you get into a car, switch on a smartphone or do almost anything else, you should give silent thanks to those unseen satellites orbiting the earth; 所以，也许科技神话真正的道德是，当你再次使用汽车，或打开智能手机，或在做其他任何事情的时候，你应该默默地感恩于那些看不见的在地球轨道上飞行的卫星。
and then ponder what we would do if GPS suddenly stopped working. It's a disorienting thought.
然后琢磨一下，假如GPS突然罢工，我们该怎们办。相信诸位想破脑袋也找不到答案。
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