you are a punkabutt

Okay, for those of you who visited my Emily's Trip to Antarctica Site, thank you.
Also, you are a punkabutt for answering a question meant for a 4th grader when you have a four year degree :)
Anyhow, here is question and answer repeated so that the kids at least have a chance to answer the question, because I delted your answer so the kids could try!

Your answer/question:
I believe a GPS receiver measures longitude, latitude, elevation and time. Intuition tells me that the four satellites serve this purpose. If this is indeed correct, I have a question for you: Say, for instance, you are only able to link to three of the four satellites. Do you just lose one of the dimensions (i.e no elevation data) or does the entire thing not work? Or is it something different altogether?

You have some pretty awesome toys.

My response:
In response to palmer 5: No, our equipment does not work with less than four. It will sit and wait until it has made contact with at least four before it starts logging data. There are a lot of satellites up there, (six orbital planes with 4 each, so a total of 24 satellites). So, you figure you should be able to lock in just fine. As one moves out of view, others will replace it.

Anyhow, the "pretty awesome toys" I'm trying to guess who posted this. I'd have guessed Mick or Kurt, but Mick would say "wicked" instead of awesome, at least in my head. But, the "I believe" does sound like Shoshana, too. but then, I would have thought only Nick was enough of a smart-ass to actually do that to the poor little students....so it is up to whoever did it to confess :)

anyhow, now that I reread the question, I have even more of an answer. It is like math. four unknowns requires four equations. Only three equations doesn't tell you too much because it all ends up in terms of the last variable. So you get nothing! (YOU GET NOTHING is a quote from a movie- any guesses?- remember my few obssessions in the world and it will help...no, it does not involve baseball or anime)