Hugo Fruehauf, one of the inventors of GPS and a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, tells the surprising story of how GPS was invented. Plus: learn about how planning cheat days could make your next goal easier to achieve.
Hugo Fruehauf, one of the inventors of GPS and a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, tells the surprising story of how GPS was invented. Plus: learn about how planning cheat days could make your next goal easier to achieve.
Planning Cheat Days to Achieve Your Goals by Mae Rice
Additional resources from Hugo Fruehauf:
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-invention-of-gps-w-hugo-fruehauf-and-planning-cheat-days-to-achieve-your-goals
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll hear the surprising story of how GPS was invented, from a very special guest, Hugo Fruehauf — one of the INVENTORS of GPS. But first, you’ll learn about how planning cheat days could make your next goal easier to achieve.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
People almost never keep their New Year’s resolutions. About 80 percent of the time, we don’t save the money or eat the healthy diet that we planned on. Oddly, that might be because we try too hard. According to a recent study, the secret to sticking with a long-term resolution might be, well, breaking it.
Now, there are two ways to break a resolution. One is by giving in to a craving, which can feel like a loss of control. The other way is by planning “cheat days” in advance, where you choose to behave in a less restricted way. This second way, which scientists call “planned hedonic deviation,” can actually make us feel more in control of ourselves, not to mention happier and more motivated.
Researchers found this in a study that compared two diets. Both allowed participants to eat the same amount, but they allocated the calories differently. The “straight goal striving” diet allowed participants the same number of calories every day. The “intermittent goal striving” diet, on the other hand, allowed fewer calories six days a week, and gave participants one weekly cheat day, where they could eat up to 2,700 calories.
First, researchers asked participants to just think about one of the two diets; then, they asked people to actually do the diets for two weeks. Both experiments had similar results: people with a cheat day to look forward to reported more self-control and could come up with more strategies for managing the munchies.
This isn’t just a dieting thing, though. The team also surveyed people with various long-term self-regulation goals, like saving money, eating healthier, and exercising more. Whatever the goal, the survey randomly suggested either a straight striving or intermittent striving approach to it, then asked how motivated and interested people felt about the plan. People reported stronger motivation to pursue their goal when the survey suggested intermittent striving — and understandably so. It’s incredibly difficult to quit our vices cold turkey or start better habits… hot turkey? Self-improvement is like any type of work: easier with some breaks built in.
A lot of today’s technology is possible thanks to the Global Positioning System, better known as GPS. Since it’s something you probably use every day, we thought we’d teach you a little about how it actually works and what it took to invent it — with some help from a VERY special guest. Hugo Fruehauf [FROO-hoff] is one of the inventors of GPS. And in December, he was one of four engineers who received the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. The award came along with a cool prize of one million pounds, and it was presented by Prince Charles, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. The prize is is the world’s most prestigious engineering accolade, and celebrates the global impact of engineering innovation on humanity. So… yeah. We figured he’d be a cool guy to talk to. Hugo told us that we had to launch a new set of satellites into the sky to make GPS happen, since those satellites had to be about 12,550 miles away, or just over 20-thousand kilometers. And they had to be that high because of the way GPS works in the first place. Here’s Hugo.
[CLIP 1:34]
Hugo told us that launching satellites that high into the sky was no easy task, because there’s a TON of radiation at that altitude. But he and his colleagues figured out a way to harden the satellite components to radiation to help them survive up there. As if that’s not enough, here’s the story of what happened once the satellite network was in place.
[CLIP 4:19]
Yeah, so… we had some pretty cool technology back in the 80s. Who knew GPS was so advanced? Again, that was Hugo Fruehauf, an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University’s graduate school and one of the INVENTORS OF GPS. You can find links to learn more about Hugo, the Queen Elizabeth’s Prize for Engineering, and more in today’s show notes. And Hugo will be back next week to talk more about how GPS has changed the world.
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s first story was written by Mae Rice, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was scripted, produced, and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!