FREE FALL
自由落体
Q. What place on Earth would allow you tofree-fall the longest by jumping off it? What about using a squirrel suit?
Q．在地球上的哪个地方跳下去能让你体验到时间最久的自由落体？如果你穿着翼装跳下去会有什么影响？
——Dhash Shrivathsa
——达什•什里瓦萨
A. THE LARGEST PURELY VERTICAL drop onEarth is the face of Canada 8217;s Mount Thor, which is shaped like this:
A．如果仅仅是看垂直落差的话，加拿大的托尔峰排名第一，它的样子大概是这样的：
To make this scenario a little lessgruesome, let 8217;s suppose there 8217;s a pit at the bottom of the cliff filled withsomething fluffy-like cotton candy-to safely break your fall.
为了让跳崖这件事不那么惊悚，我们不妨在山脚下挖个坑，里面填满了松软的东西，比如棉花糖，这样你就不至于摔死了。
Would this work? You 8217;ll have to wait forbook two . . .
这个方法可行吗？敬请期待《那些古怪又让人忧心的问题》第二卷
A human falling with arms and legsoutstretched has a terminal velocity in the neighborhood of 55 meters persecond. It takes a few hundred meters to get up to speed, so it would take youa little over 26 seconds to fall the full distance.
如果一个人下落时四肢伸展，那么最终坠落速度会在每秒55米上下。要达到这个速度至少要下落几百米的距离，因而要花上26秒多一点的时间你才能坠到山脚下。
What can you do in 26 seconds?
在这26秒你能做些什么呢？
For starters, it 8217;s enough time to get allthe way through the original Super Mario World 1-1, assuming you have perfecttiming and take the shortcut through the pipe.
这段时间足够你玩完原版“超级马里奥”的第一关，前提是你时间拿捏精准，并且利用管子抄近道。
It 8217;s also long enough to miss a phone call.Sprint 8217;s ring cycle-the time the phone rings before going to voicemail-is 23seconds.
这点时间还足够你错过一个电话。斯普林特公司的振铃周期——即打电话转入语音邮箱所需要等待的时间——是23秒。
If someone called your phone, and itstarted ringing the moment you jumped, it would go to voicemail three secondsbefore you reached the bottom.
这意味着如果有人打电话给你，而就在你跳下去的那一刻手机铃响了，那么在你坠落到地面3秒前电话会转入语音邮箱。
On the other hand, if you jumped offIreland 8217;s 210-meter Cliffs of Moher, you would be able to fall for only abouteight seconds-or a little more, if the updrafts were strong. That 8217;s not verylong, but according to River Tam, given adequate vacuuming systems it might beenough time to drain all the blood from your body.
而如果你从爱尔兰210米高的莫赫悬崖上往下跳，你只能翱翔约8秒的时间——如果上升气流强的话可能还会更久一点儿。这段时间看起来不长，不过里弗•塔姆表示，只要有充足的真空吸尘设备，这段时间足够把你全身的血液都抽干。
So far, we 8217;ve assumed you 8217;re fallingvertically. But you don 8217;t have to.
到目前为止，我们假设的是你是垂直下落，但别忘了你可以不直直下落。
Even without any special equipment, askilled skydiver-once he or she gets up to full speed-can glide at almost a45-degree angle. By gliding away from the base of the cliff, you couldconceivably extend your fall substantially.
即使不穿戴特殊装置，一个经验丰富的跳伞运动员也能在抵达全速之后以近45度的角度滑翔。通过这个技巧，你可以极大地延长下落时间。