Name: 追著太陽跑！往西開真的能讓日落更久嗎？ (Can you drive west to lengthen the sunset?)
Uploaded: 2025-10-25T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 2 min 46 s

This question comes from Michael who asks,

副詞型分詞構句

"What's the longest possible sunset you can experience while driving,

「在遵守速限、行駛於鋪裝道路的情況下，

assuming you're obeying the speed limit and driving on paved roads?"

你能體驗到的最長日落是多久？」

To start, we have to define what we mean by sunset.

首先，我們得先定義什麼是「日落」。

For the purpose of our question, sunset starts the instant the sun touches the horizon and ends when it disappears completely,

為了這個問題的目的，日落從太陽首次接觸地平線的那一刻開始，直到完全消失為止。

which means that for us, this is not a sunset.

這表示對我們來說，這樣的情況不算日落。

And no matter what happens here, this will not be a sunset.

而且無論這裡發生什麼，這也不會算作日落。

If the sun touches the horizon and then it lifts back up, the sunset is disqualified for a sunset account.

如果太陽碰到地平線後又升起，那這次日落將被取消資格，不算在內。

The sun also can't just disappear behind a nearby hill.

太陽也不能只是被附近的山丘遮住。

It needs to set behind the ideal ice horizon.

它必須落在理想的「地平線」後面。

Otherwise, if you could use arbitrary obstacles like that,

否則，如果你能用任意的障礙物，

you could cause a sunset whenever you wanted, just by hiding behind a rock.

你就能隨時「製造」日落，只要躲在石頭後面就行了。

At the equator, an average sunset is just over two minutes long.

在赤道上，一次普通的日落大約持續兩分鐘多一點。

In places like London, England, it can take between three and five minutes.

在像英國倫敦這樣的地方，日落可能要花三到五分鐘。

At London's latitude, the Earth's surface is moving from west to east at about 1,000 km per hour.

在倫敦這個緯度，地球表面以大約每小時一千公里的速度自西向東移動。

So if you fly west in a commercial airliner, you can experience an arbitrarily long sunset,

所以如果你搭乘商業班機往西飛，就能體驗到極長的日落。

or at least you can until you run out of fuel 15 or 20 hours in.

至少在燃料耗盡之前，大約可持續十五到二十小時。

But Michael's question was about driving to extend the sunset.

但 Michael 問的是駕車延長日落。

Intuitively, it seems like we probably want to be as far north or maybe south as possible.

直覺上，我們可能會認為要盡可能往北或往南走。

The closer we are to the Pole, the easier it is to keep up with the sun.

因為越靠近極地，就越容易跟上太陽。

Unfortunately, there are no paved roads anywhere near either pole.

可惜的是，極地附近根本沒有鋪裝道路。

The closest road that qualifies is probably in Longyearbyen on the island of Svalbard, Norway.

最接近的符合條件的道路，可能在挪威斯瓦爾巴群島的朗伊爾城（Longyearbyen）。

The longest sunset there lasts just under an hour.

Although it doesn't matter if you drive west because the road's too short for your movement to make much difference.

不過你是否向西開並不重要，因為那裡的路太短，根本無法產生太大差異。

In general, driving west to keep up with the sun isn't a viable strategy.

總的來說，往西開車想跟上太陽並不可行。

Even at the northernmost tip of mainland Norway,

you'd have to travel at about half the speed of sound to keep up with the sun.

你也得以大約音速的一半速度行駛，才能跟上太陽。

If you're in northern Scandinavia on a day when the sun just barely sets and then rises again,

如果你在北歐的斯堪地納維亞北部，遇上太陽幾乎不落的那天，

the day-night line moves northwest, then slows, reverses,

晝夜分界線會先向西北移動，然後減速、反轉，

and heads back to the southwest to get along sunset.

再往西南方向移動，形成超長日落。

Sit in your car until the sun first touches the horizon, which means the daynight line is about to pass you.

坐在車裡等太陽剛碰到地平線，代表晝夜分界線快要通過你的位置。

Then drive north to stay a little ahead of the line as long as you can,

接著往北開，盡量保持在分界線前面一點，

which will keep the sun in the process of setting.

這樣太陽就會一直維持「正在下山」的狀態。

Then U turn and drive south across the line into nighttime.

然後掉頭往南開，跨過分界線進入夜晚。

I ran a search for long sunset driving paths, using some PIFM code and GPS traces of Norwegian highways.

我用一些 PIFM 程式碼與挪威公路的 GPS 路徑資料搜尋長日落駕車路線。

And I found that the strategy works about equally well anywhere inside the Arctic Circle.

結果發現這個策略在北極圈內各處效果都差不多。

Over a wide range of routes and driving speeds, the longest sunset I could come up with was consistently about 95 minutes,

在多條路線與不同車速的情況下，我計算出的最長日落時間都約為 95 分鐘。

which is about 40 minutes longer than the longest sunset you can get in Longyearbyen.

比朗伊爾城最長的日落還要多出大約 40 分鐘。

But if you are stuck on Svalbard and you want to make the sunset or sunrise last a little longer,

但如果你被困在斯瓦爾巴群島，又想讓日落或日出久一點，

you can always try spinning counterclockwise, so your angular momentum slows the Earth's rotation.

你也可以試著逆時針旋轉，藉此用角動量減慢地球自轉。

It's true that it will only add an imperceptibly small fraction of a nanosecond,

雖然這只會增加一個極其微小的奈秒分之一時間，

字幕列表影片播放

追著太陽跑！往西開真的能讓日落更久嗎？ (Can you drive west to lengthen the sunset?)

stick

assume

approach

strategy