As long as 3 words, I can find your position.

Author:Institute of Physics of the Ch Time:2022.09.06

At the beginning of the article, ask everyone, how long does it take to appear in the position (accurate to the room) at the fastest speed?

X -floor X -floor x bedroom X -floor X -floor X -floor X -floor X -floor X of X, X, X, X, X City X.

Let's talk about 10 seconds.

Bridesmaid. Planting vegetables. Short films

Well, yes. Bridesmaid. Planting vegetables. Short films are my position.

This is not what I am doing, but using a position encoding system called What3words.

This system cuts the earth into a 570 billion -3M*3M area, and each area is represented by 3 random words.

Like the area where my station is located, it is called "bridesmaid. Planting vegetables. Short films".

In different countries, what3words will be equipped with different languages.

At present, it supports 50 languages, of which English covers the entire earth (all land, ocean, and ice cap), and uses a total of 40,000 words.

When I write an article, I am curious about these 40,000 words, enough to express 570 million areas?

Later, 40,000 words picked up 3 out of arrangement, with a total of 40,000*39999*39998 ≈ 640 billion ways.

Clarify what this stuff is, and some readers may ask what is it to use.

Express the accurate location? Isn't GPS coordinates okay?

That's right, but it is cumbersome.

My station is described as "bridesmaid. Planting vegetables. Short films", but replaced with coordinates: (the following is different expressions)

30.288392,120.000016

30 ° 17.3035′N, 120 ° 0.0010′E

30 ° 17′18.2112 ″ n, 120 ° 0′0.0576 ″ E

In fact, it is precisely because the GPS coordinates are not easy to remember that some people have decided to do what3words.

Chris, one of the founder of What3words, is an organizer of the festival. He usually arranges a truck driver to send the equipment to the place where the equipment is held.

Because many of the sites of the place will be more vague. In order not to make mistakes, he generally reports GPS coordinates to the driver.

But once the driver mixed the "5" and "4" in the coordinates, and sent the equipment elsewhere, he decided to find an alternative.

After studying with a friend of a mathematician for a long time, he launched What3words in 2013.

If you want to say what3words, the advantage is simple, and it is not easy to make mistakes. You may feel that it is not very useful.

I do n’t conceal you, I think so at first.

Two years ago, a 67 -year -old grandmother broke her leg while hiking on the island. Although they could contact the rescue team, they did not know how to describe the location to them.

After a while, he would crawl over the big stones, and then said where to turn.

Later, the ambulance staff sent a text message to her mobile phone with a What3Words link. After clicking, the grandma sent the three words to the past, and the rescue team quickly found her.

Someone may ask, can the grandmother send GPS coordinates, maybe it is okay.

But more than a dozen of latitude and latitude and three words, when I changed me at the time, I would also choose the latter.

What's more, the other party may be an old man or a child. When they panic, they sent a large number of numbers, which is not wrong.

It is not uncommon for What3words to save people.

Some tourists were trapped in the Snow Mountain and a child lost from the forest. The rescue team asked them to report what3words positions and found them.

As of September last year, 85%of the What3Words services used by the British emergency service group, including police and fire brigade.

Australia's emergency rescue service app has also built -in What3words.

Several cities in the United States, Canada, and Germany have followed.

But this is not the highlights of what3words. In some countries, it even changed the lives of the locals.

Because of historical problems, millions of people in South Africa have no "formal" place of residence.

They lived in the brick houses built, there were no house number, there were no flat roads, and there were no signs.

When someone is onset and a woman is going to make a rescue call, they can only describe a very vague position, and then they are looking for the ambulance team.

In 2016, a town in South Africa came into contact with What3words, and they printed the address and pasted it on each house.

Because of these addresses, the local residents had the house number for the first time, and the ambulancers finally found the patient in time.

In a few years, what3words extended to most of the emergency centers in South Africa.

As soon as the center receives the phone, the call from the call will contain a text message containing What3words links, and let them click in to read three words.

However, South Africa's traffic is notorious. The 100 MB package is 29 Rante, which is about 11 yuan.

In order to prevent everyone from worrying, Vodacam, a South African operator, announced that its 43 million users visit What3words will not consume any traffic.

Maybe from this, the South African people can't wait for the ambulance, it will be less and less.

The Mongolian people who change their lives are also the Mongolian people.

Mongolia's population density is only 2 people / square kilometers. Residents generally have to run a letter and parcel to the post office of several kilometers.

In addition, 30%of them are nomadic peoples. When a piece of water plants are much worse, they have to change a piece of land, where is there any post office.

The residents could not receive the letter, and it happened from time to time.

Later, Mongolian Post changed the What3Words system, which is equivalent to each Mongolian bag with its own "house number". Even if you move, you can change it at any time.

Finally, the local people also enjoyed the delivery service, and I would no longer be afraid of not being able to receive a letter from my loved ones.

In fact, when I return to our daily life, I am also optimistic about it.

Imagine that you are participating in an outdoor electronic syllable, and then your friend is late. In order to gather with him, you have to go with him a lot. In the end, you may not find it.

"Hey, just turn to the left from the Dongdamen, and then see a group of people who shake their heads on the right, I am inside."

But with What3words, in this case, you will have three words.

But if the taxi software is connected to the What3Word system, even if you are in the middle of the road, there is no house on both sides, and the driver can find you.

We no longer have to argue with them, where is the left side.

In fact, there are systems similar to What3words internationally, such as Google's Open Location Code open position coding (hereinafter referred to as OLC) launched by Google in 2014.

The difference is that OLC uses numbers+letters to represent the address, and it is regular. The closer is similar to their codes.

OLC and What3words are different on the Internet, but I think what3words will not make mistakes in emergency situations.

Either there is no matching address, or it will be wrong.

For example, the "bridesmaid. Planting vegetables. Short films" as "bridesmaids. Grass. Short films", the address was partial from Hangzhou to Mianyang.

Both of these situations will make the rescue team find errors and confirm with you.

But if I put OLC coding "7xqx+5x8" as "7xqx+8x5", the tiny errors may not be found to be discovered by the rescue team, which eventually leads to a deviation of tens of meters.

Under complex terrain, tens of meters distance may affect rescue time.

Although What3words is just a seemingly small creativity. What it does is to convert GPS coordinates into words, and artificially remove some disagreement words.

But it is such a creativity that it has brought great changes, and it will definitely be larger in the future.

After all, places like South Africa and Mongolia have a lot of them in every corner of the world.

People there are facing various inconveniences, a simple and accurate address expression, and a system that can give home the "house card", which may bring tremendous changes to their lives.

You may not imagine, but this is true.

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