Name: 如果地球突然停止轉動會發生什麼事？ (What if Earth suddenly stopped spinning?)
Uploaded: 2024-07-23T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 4 min 35 s

情態副詞

This is a question from Andrew, who asks, "What would happen if the Earth and all terrestrial objects suddenly stopped spinning, but the atmosphere retained its velocity?"

這是安德魯提出的問題，他問：「如果地球和所有地面物體突然停止旋轉，但大氣層仍保持其速度，會發生什麼情況？」

程度副詞

然後，事情就會變得有趣起來。

At the equator, the Earth's surface is moving at about 470 meters per second, a little over a thousand miles an hour, relative to its axis.

在赤道上，地球表面相對於地軸的運動速度約為每秒 470 米，即每小時一千多英里。

If the Earth stops and the air doesn't, the air there will suddenly be moving over the surface at 470 meters per second.

如果地球停住了，而空氣沒有停住，那麼那裡的空氣會突然以每秒 470 米的速度在地面上移動。

For reference, supersonic speed is 343 meters per second.

作為參考，超音速為每秒 343 米。

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% of the world's population, would also experience sudden supersonic winds.

赤道上的風力最大，但生活在北緯 42 度和南緯 42 度之間的所有人和物，包括世界上約 85% 的人口，也會遭遇突如其來的超音速風。

The high winds would only last for a few minutes near the surface before friction with the ground slowed them down.

大風只能在地表附近持續幾分鐘，然後就會因為與地面的摩擦而減弱。

However, those few minutes would be long enough to reduce virtually all human structures to ruins.

然而，這幾分鐘的時間足以讓幾乎所有的人類建築變成廢墟。

Even structures strong enough to survive the winds themselves would be in trouble.

即使是足以抵禦狂風的建築本身也會陷入困境。

As comedian Ron White said about hurricanes, "It's not that the wind is blowing, it's what the wind is blowing."

正如喜劇演員羅恩-懷特在談到颶風時所說：「不是風在刮，而是風在刮什麼。」

Say you're in a massive bunker made out of some material which can withstand thousand-mile-per-hour winds.

假設你在一個用某種材料製成的巨大掩體中，這種材料可以抵禦每小時 1000 英里的狂風。

That's good, and you'd be fine if you were the only one with a bunker.

這很好，如果只有你一個人有掩體，你也會沒事的。

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 supersonic impact by their bunker.

不幸的是，你可能會有鄰居，如果你上風向的鄰居的掩體錨固較差，你的掩體將不得不承受他們掩體的超音速撞擊。

My home in Boston is far enough north to be just barely outside the supersonic wind zone, but the winds here would still be twice as strong as those in the most powerful real-world tornadoes.

我在波士頓的家位於北面，勉強處於超音速風區之外，但這裡的風力仍然是現實世界中最強龍捲風的兩倍。

Buildings would still be smashed flat, torn from their foundations, and sent tumbling across the landscape.

建築物仍然會被砸扁，從地基上被撕裂，在地面上翻滾。

Winds would be lower near the poles, but no human cities are far enough from the equator to escape devastation.

兩極附近的風速會更低，但人類的城市離赤道都不夠遠，無法躲過這場浩劫。

The highest-latitude city on the planet is on the island of Svalbard in Norway, and even it would experience winds equal to those in the planet's current strongest tropical cyclones.

地球上緯度最高的城市位於挪威的斯瓦爾巴特島上，即使是這樣的城市也會遭遇與地球上目前最強的熱帶氣旋相當的風力。

Even so, the human race wouldn't go extinct.

True, very few people above the surface would survive.

的確，地表以上的人很少能活下來。

The flying debris would pulverize almost everything.

However, a lot of people below the surface of the ground would survive the initial event just fine.

不過，地表下的很多人都能在最初的事件中倖存下來。

There would be other lucky survivors, like the scientists and staff at the Emmons and Scott Research Station at the South Pole.

還有一些幸運的倖存者，比如南極埃蒙斯和斯科特研究站的科學家和工作人員。

The surface of the Earth at the South Pole isn't moving relative to the Earth's axis because it's on the axis.

南極的地球表面相對於地軸並沒有移動，因為它在地軸上。

People there would simply lose contact with the outside world.

那裡的人們將與外界失去聯繫。

They'd probably be confused, until someone noticed that the sun had stopped moving across the sky.

他們可能會感到困惑，直到有人注意到太陽已經停止在天空中移動。

Back at the equator, things would get really weird.

回到赤道後，事情就變得非常奇怪了。

Winds sweeping over the oceans would have been churning up and atomizing the surface layer of the water.

掠過海洋的風會攪動海水錶層並使其霧化。

For a while, the ocean would cease to have a surface at all.

一時間，海洋將不再有任何表面。

It would be impossible to tell where the spray ended and the sea began.

無法分辨水霧的盡頭和大海的起點。

As the energy of the blasting wind began to dissipate, it would mostly go into heat.

當爆破風的能量開始消散時，大部分會轉化為熱量。

Below the thin surface layer, there are fairly uniform 4 degrees Celsius.

在薄薄的表層下面，有相當均勻的 4 攝氏度。

The wind-blown spray would be heated by contact with the hot air and carried up into the layers of air still blowing above, making room for more cold spray, which would be heated and rise, and so on.

被風吹起的噴霧與熱空氣接觸後會被加熱，並被帶到上方仍在吹拂的空氣層中，為更多的冷噴霧騰出空間，而冷噴霧又會被加熱並上升，如此循環。

The subsequent turbulent mixing would likely trigger worldwide thunderstorms over the oceans.

隨後的湍流混合可能會在海洋上空引發全球範圍的雷暴。

The wind would also have momentum, which would transfer into waves, which would sweep around the globe, west to east, and every west-facing shore would encounter the largest storm surge in world history.

風也會產生動力，並轉化為波浪，從西向東席捲全球，每一個朝西的海岸都將遭遇世界歷史上最大的風暴潮。

It would be like a combination of normal wind-driven waves and a tsunami.

這就好比是普通風力驅動的海浪和海嘯的結合。

A turbulent wall of water would flow ashore, reaching in some places many miles inland.

洶湧的水牆將流向海岸，有些地方甚至會到達內陸數英里處。

Eventually, a dense blanket of fog would settle over the cold ocean surfaces.

最終，濃霧將籠罩寒冷的海面。

Normally, this would cause global temperatures to plummet.

通常，這會導致全球氣溫驟降。

And they would, at least on one side of the Earth.

他們會的，至少在地球的一邊。

If the Earth stopped spinning completely, the normal cycles of day and night would end.

如果地球完全停止自轉，正常的晝夜循環就會結束。

The Sun wouldn't completely stop moving across the sky, but it would slow down a lot.

太陽不會完全停止在天空中移動，但速度會減慢很多。

As the Earth's orbit carried us in a circle, we would see the Sun rise and set exactly once a year.

由於地球軌道帶著我們繞了一圈，我們每年都能看到太陽準確地升起和落下一次。

The momentum of the atmospheric winds would get transferred back to the Earth, starting it spinning again very slowly, since the atmosphere is much lighter than the Earth.

由於大氣層比地球輕得多，大氣風的動量會傳回地球，使地球重新開始緩慢旋轉。

Relative to the distant stars, a single spin of the Earth would now take around 3,000 years to complete.

相對於遙遠的恆星，現在地球自轉一圈大約需要 3000 年。

So for all practical purposes, the once-per-orbit day, that lasts a year, would win out.

就所有實際目的而言，持續一年的「每軌道一天」將勝出。

Earth would experience six months of daylight and six months of night.

地球將經歷六個月的白天和六個月的黑夜。

On the day side, the surface would bake under the constant sunlight, while on the night side, the temperature would plummet.

在白天，地表會被持續的陽光烘烤，而在夜晚，溫度則會驟降。

Although the length of the day would change, the length of the month would not.

雖然日長會發生變化，但月長不會。

The Moon hasn't stopped revolving around the Earth.

月球並沒有停止圍繞地球旋轉。

In fact, the Moon, our faithful companion, would act to partly undo what Andrew has done.

事實上，月亮，我們忠實的夥伴，會採取行動，部分消除安德魯所做的一切。

Before Andrew, the Earth's tidal bulge, created by the Moon's gravity, slowed down our rotation while dragging the Moon into a higher orbit.

在安德魯之前，月球引力產生的地球潮汐隆起減緩了我們的自轉，同時將月球拖入了更高的軌道。

After Andrew stopped the Earth's rotation, the Moon's gravity would tug on the Earth and very, very, very gradually speed us up again just a little while it slowed down.

安德魯讓地球停止自轉後，月球的引力會牽引地球，在地球減速的同時，月球的引力會非常、非常、非常緩慢地讓我們再次加速。

Until eventually, someone could again ask, what if the Earth suddenly stopped rotating?

直到最後，有人又會問，如果地球突然停止自轉了呢？