《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第2期:全球風暴
GLOBAL WINDSTORM
Q. What would happen if the Earth and all terrestrial objects suddenly stopped spinning, but the atmosphere retained its velocity?-Andrew Brown
Q．如果地球和地上所有的東西都在一瞬間停止轉動，但大氣層還是保持原來的速度，會怎樣？——安德魯.布朗A. NEARLY EVERYONE WOULD DIE. Then things would get interesting.
A．幾乎所有人都會死去。但接下來事情就變得好玩兒了。
At the equator, the Earth's surface is moving at about 470 meters per second-a little over a thousand miles per hour-relative to its axis. If the Earth stopped and the air didn't, the result would be a sudden thousand-mile-per-hour wind.
在赤道，地球表面相對於地軸的旋轉速度約爲每秒470米（約每小時1700千米）。如果地球一瞬間停止轉動而空氣不受影響，那麼結果就是突然颳起一陣時速1700千米的大風。The wind would be highest at the equator, but everyone and everything living between 42 degrees north and 42 degrees south-which includes about 85 percent of the world's population-would suddenly experience supersonic winds.
風速在赤道處最大，但所有居住在南北緯42度線之間的人（約佔全球85％人口）都將在一瞬間感受到超音速狂風。The highest winds would last for only a few minutes near the surface; friction with the ground would slow them down. However, those few minutes would be long enough to reduce virtually all human structures to ruins.
儘管在地表最猛烈的狂風只能維持幾分鐘，與地面之間的阻力會使風速慢慢降下來，不過這短短几分鐘就足以把幾乎所有的人類建築都摧毀殆盡了。My home in Boston is far enough north to be just barely outside the supersonic wind zone, but the winds there would still be twice as strong as those in the most powerful tornadoes. Buildings, from sheds to skyscrapers, would be smashed flat, torn from their foundations, and sent tumbling across the landscape.
我家在波士頓，那裏的緯度足夠高，恰好在超音速狂風區之外，但那裏的大風的威力仍將是最強龍捲風威力的2倍。不管是棚屋還是摩天大樓，所有的建築都會被連根拔起，夷爲平地，大樓的碎片會在天空中飛得到處都是。Winds would be lower near the poles, but no human cities are far enough from the equator to escape devastation. Longyearbyen, on the island of Svalbard in Norway-the highest-latitude city on the planet-would be devastated by winds equal to those in the planet's strongest tropical cyclones.
在極點附近，大風的威力會減弱一些，但沒有一個人類城市能夠逃離被徹底摧毀的命運，因爲它們都離赤道不夠遠。挪威斯瓦爾巴特羣島上的朗伊爾城是全世界緯度最高的城市，它也會被威力媲美史上最強熱帶颶風的狂風摧毀。If you're going to wait it out, one of the best places to do it might be Helsinki, Finland. While its high latitude-above 60°N-wouldn't be enough to keep it from being scoured clean by the winds, the bedrock below Helsinki contains a sophisticated network of tunnels, along with a subterranean shopping mall, hockey rink, swimming complex, and more.
如果你打算一直等到風暴結束，那麼你的最佳去處可能會是芬蘭的赫爾辛基。赫爾辛基地處北緯60度左右，雖不足以避免被狂風蕩平地面的結局，但赫爾辛基城市下的基岩裏有一套複雜的地下通道，以及一個個地下購物中心、曲棍球場和游泳池等設施。No buildings would be safe; even structures strong enough to survive the winds would be in trouble. As comedian Ron White said about hurricanes, “It's not that the wind is blowing, it's what the wind is blowing.”
在狂風中沒有一幢建築是安全的，即使是那些足以抵禦這種強風的建築也會面臨巨大的麻煩。正如喜劇演員羅恩?懷特說的那樣：“不是風在吹，而是風在吹啥。”Say you're in a massive bunker made out of some material that can withstand thousand-mile-per-hour winds.
打個比方吧，你待在一個材料強度足夠抵禦時速1700千米大風的巨型地堡裏。That's good, and you'd be fine . . . if you were the only one with a bunker. Unfortunately, you probably have neighbors, and if the neighbor upwind of you has a less-well-anchored bunker, your bunker will have to withstand a thousand-mile-per-hour impact by their bunker.
這很好，你應該會沒事兒……前提是你是唯一擁有地堡的人。不幸的是，你周圍很可能還有鄰居。如果位於你上風處的那個傢伙的地堡沒你的那麼結實，那麼你的地堡就將面臨時速1700千米的撞擊。The human race wouldn't go extinct.1 In general, very few people above the surface would survive; the flying debris would pulverize anything that wasn't nuclear-hardened. However, a lot of people below the surface of the ground would survive just fine. If you were in a deep basement (or, better yet, a subway tunnel) when it happened, you would stand a good chance of surviving.
人類不會滅絕。1總的來說，待在地面上的人沒幾個能活下來的，在空中飛舞的碎片會把任何不具備抗核爆能力的物體全部毀掉。然而待在地面之下的大部分人應該都能活得好好的。如果在這一切發生時你待在深深的地下室裏（或是在更安全的地鐵隧道里），那麼你活下來的機率會非常大。There would be other lucky survivors. The dozens of scientists and staff at the Amundsen–Scott research station at the South Pole would be safe from the winds. For them, the first sign of trouble would be that the outside world had suddenly gone silent.
其他地方也會有幸存者。在阿蒙森-斯科特南極科考站的幾十位科學家及員工應該不會受到狂風的影響。但對於他們來說，出事兒了的第一個跡象是外部世界一下子變得靜默了。The mysterious silence would probably distract them for a while, but eventually someone would notice something even stranger:
這詭異的寧靜可能讓他們一時摸不着頭腦，但早晚會有人注意到更加奇怪的事情。
