GLOBAL WINDSTORM
全球风暴
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东西都在一瞬间停止转动，但大气层还是保持原来的速度，会怎样？——安德鲁.布朗
A. NEARLY EVERYONE WOULD DIE. Then things would get interesting.
A．几乎所有人都会死去。但接下来事情就变得好玩儿了。
At the equator, the Earth 8217;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 8217;t, the result would be a sudden thousand-mile-per-hour wind.
在赤道，地球表面相对于地轴的旋转速度约为每秒470米（约每小时1700千米）。如果地球一瞬间停止转动而空气不受影响，那么结果就是突然刮起一阵时速1700千米的大风。
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 8217;s population-would suddenly experience supersonic winds.
风速在赤道处最大，但所有居住在南北纬42度线之间的人（约占全球85％人口）都将在一瞬间感受到超音速狂风。
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.
尽管在地表最猛烈的狂风只能维持几分钟，与地面之间的阻力会使风速慢慢降下来，不过这短短几分钟就足以把几乎所有的人类建筑都摧毁殆尽了。
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.
我家在波士顿，那里的纬度足够高，恰好在超音速狂风区之外，但那里的大风的威力仍将是最强龙卷风威力的2倍。不管是棚屋还是摩天大楼，所有的建筑都会被连根拔起，夷为平地，大楼的碎片会在天空中飞得到处都是。
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 8217;s strongest tropical cyclones.
在极点附近，大风的威力会减弱一些，但没有一个人类城市能够逃离被彻底摧毁的命运，因为它们都离赤道不够远。挪威斯瓦尔巴特群岛上的朗伊尔城是全世界纬度最高的城市，它也会被威力媲美史上最强热带飓风的狂风摧毁。
If you 8217;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 8217;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风暴结束，那么你的最佳去处可能会是芬兰的赫尔辛基。赫尔辛基地处北纬60度左右，虽不足以避免被狂风荡平地面的结局，但赫尔辛基城市下的基岩里有一套复杂的地下通道，以及一个个地下购物中心、曲棍球场和游泳池等设施。
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 8217;s not that the wind is blowing, it 8217;s what the wind is blowing.”
在狂风中没有一幢建筑是安全的，即使是那些足以抵御这种强风的建筑也会面临巨大的麻烦。正如喜剧演员罗恩?怀特说的那样：“不是风在吹，而是风在吹啥。”
Say you 8217;re in a massive bunker made out of some material that can withstand thousand-mile-per-hour winds.
打个比方吧，你待在一个材料强度足够抵御时速1700千米大风的巨型地堡里。
That 8217;s good, and you 8217;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.
这很好，你应该会没事儿……前提是你是唯一拥有地堡的人。不幸的是，你周围很可能还有邻居。如果位于你上风处的那个家伙的地堡没你的那么结实，那么你的地堡就将面临时速1700千米的撞击。
The human race wouldn 8217;t go extinct.1 In general, very few people above the surface would survive; the flying debris would pulverize anything that wasn 8217;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.
人类不会灭绝。1总的来说，待在地面上的人没几个能活下来的，在空中飞舞的碎片会把任何不具备抗核爆能力的物体全部毁掉。然而待在地面之下的大部分人应该都能活得好好的。如果在这一切发生时你待在深深的地下室里（或是在更安全的地铁隧道里），那么你活下来的几率会非常大。
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.
其他地方也会有幸存者。在阿蒙森-斯科特南极科考站的几十位科学家及员工应该不会受到狂风的影响。但对于他们来说，出事儿了的第一个迹象是外部世界一下子变得静默了。
The mysterious silence would probably distract them for a while, but eventually someone would notice something even stranger:
这诡异的宁静可能让他们一时摸不着头脑，但早晚会有人注意到更加奇怪的事情。