Gyroscope
The gyroscope: a remarkable device used to guide everything from submarines to satellites. They鈥檙e also integral to drones, a technology some believe will transform how we shop.
When the HMS Victory sank in 1744, with it went an inventor named John Serson and a device he鈥檇 dreamed up. He called it the 鈥渨hirling speculum鈥�, but we now know the basic idea as a gyroscope. Serson thought it could help sailors to navigate when they couldn鈥檛 see the horizon. Nowadays gyroscopes are tiny and, as Tim Harford describes, they are used to guide everything from submarines to satellites, from rovers on Mars to the phone in your pocket. They are also integral to drones 鈥� a technology that some believe could transform how we do our shopping. But for that, they鈥檒l need to work in all weathers.
Image: A gyroscope (Credit: Getty Images)
Last on
Sources
听
Broadcasts
- Sat 13 Apr 2019 04:50GMT主播大秀 World Service except Australasia, East and Southern Africa, East Asia & South Asia
- Sat 13 Apr 2019 13:50GMT主播大秀 World Service News Internet
- Sun 14 Apr 2019 14:50GMT主播大秀 World Service except Americas and the Caribbean, East Asia & South Asia
- Sun 14 Apr 2019 21:50GMT主播大秀 World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Sun 14 Apr 2019 22:50GMT主播大秀 World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Mon 15 Apr 2019 03:50GMT主播大秀 World Service South Asia
Podcast
-
![]()
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy
The stories of inventions, ideas and innovations which helped create the economic world
