Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
CONCLUSION
Nature's Navigators
We have seen how the ancient craft of navigation has evolved over millen-
nia from humble beginnings into the very high-tech, high-precision sci-
ence that it is today. I might have chosen to summarize this evolution here
in the closing section by simply listing our modern navigational capabili-
ties, or perhaps by emphasizing how these capabilities have exploded expo-
nentially over the last 20 years. This manner of wrapping up the topic
would have been reasonable, if a little uninspired. It seems to me, however,
that there is a better wrap-up—one that conveys the breadth of naviga-
tional technology that we humans have built up over time and yet places
these achievements in a strange and rather interesting perspective.
We humans are not alone in our need for navigation and our ability to
navigate. Some animals have to navigate accurately over long distances,
and their skills and capabilities have evolved over eons to a degree that is
quite astonishing. Most of us are familiar with the barn swallow, which
migrates from under our roofs to some far-away wintering ground in the
southern hemisphere (I am writing as a resident of the northern hemi-
sphere) and then returns to the very same nest site the following sum-
mer. Clearly, this accomplishment requires significant navigational skill. A
more detailed investigation of animal navigation reveals that these birds
are just the tip of a large metaphorical iceberg: other birds and animals
exhibit, between them,
all
of the navigational capabilities that we humans
have developed with our technology. Indeed, I will go so far as to say that
there is nothing we humans have achieved in this field that is not matched
somewhere in the animal world.
There is an eerie analogy between the systems that we use to aid naviga-
tion and the systems that have evolved in the natural world. (Maybe it's not
so eerie; after all, everyone and everything is subjected to the same laws of
