TED-Ed

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-does-your-smartphone-know-your-location-wilton-l-virgo GPS location apps on a smartphone can be very handy when mapping a travel route or finding nearby events. But how does your smartphone know where you are? Wilton L. Virgo explains how the answer lies 12,000 miles over your head, in an orbiting satellite that keeps time to the beat of an atomic clock powered by quantum mechanics. Lesson by Wilton L. Virgo, animation by Nick Hilditch.