《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第92期:自由落體(2)
It's hard to say exactly how far; inaddition to the local terrain, it depends heavily on your choice of clothes. Asa comment on a BASE jumping records wiki puts it,
如果你要問水平滑翔距離能達到多大，這還真不好說，要看你穿什麼衣服。低空跳傘記錄頁面上的一條評論是這麼說的：
The record for longest [fall time] withouta wingsuit is hard to find since the line between jeans and wingsuits hasblurred since the introduction of more advanced . . . apparel.
“不穿翼裝的最長下落時間記錄很難確定，因爲隨着更加先進的服裝的出現，牛仔褲和翼裝之間的區別已經變得很模糊了。”
Which brings us to wingsuits-the halfwaypoint between parachute pants and parachutes.
唔，我們說到了翼裝——降落傘褲子和降落傘的中間體。
Wingsuits let you fall much more wingsuit operator posted tracking data from a series of jumps. It showsthat in a glide, a wingsuit can lose altitude as slowly as 18 meters persecond-a huge improvement over 55.
穿着翼裝下落能夠極大地減緩垂直下落速度。一名翼裝飛行員在論壇上發佈了一組翼裝飛行的數據，這些數據顯示穿着翼裝滑翔的下落速度能夠降到每秒只有18米，比之前的每秒55米慢了許多。
Even ignoring horizontal travel, that wouldstretch out our fall to over a minute. That's long enough for a chess 's also long enough to sing the first verse of-appropriately enough-REM's“It's the End of the World as We Know It,” followed by-less appropriately-theentire breakdown from the end of the Spice Girls' “Wannabe.”
即使不算水平滑翔，僅僅是這麼低的垂直速度也已經能大大延長墜落時間了。這段時間足夠你下完一盤棋，也妥妥地夠你聽完REM的It's the End of theWorld as We Know it的第一段，說不定還能聽完辣妹組合的Wannabe最後的rap部分——只是可能而已。
When we include the higher cliffs opened upby horizontal glides, the times get even longer.
如果我們算上水平滑翔的話，下落的時間就會更長。
There are a lot of mountains that couldprobably support very long wingsuit flights. For example, Nanga Parbat, amountain in Pakistan, has a drop of more than 3 kilometers at a fairly steepangle. (Surprisingly, a wingsuit still works fine in such thin air, though thejumper would need oxygen, and it would glide a little faster than normal.)
有很多山能讓你的翼裝飛行持續非常久的時間。比如巴基斯坦的南迦帕爾巴特峯有一段落差超過3000米的很陡的山坡。（令人驚訝的是翼裝在這種高度下居然還能正常使用，不過請自備一個氧氣瓶，而且滑翔速度會比正常時更快一些。）
So far, the record for longest wingsuitBASE jump is held by Dean Potter, who jumped from the Eiger-a mountain inSwitzerland-and flew for three minutes and twenty seconds.
到目前爲止，世界上最久的低空翼裝跳傘時間紀錄由迪恩•波特保持。他從瑞士的艾格爾峯上跳下來，在空中飛行了3分20秒。
What could you do with three minutes andtwenty seconds?
在這3分20秒內你可以幹什麼？
Suppose we recruit Joey Chestnut and TakeruKobayashi, the world's top competitive eaters.
假設我們招來了喬伊•切斯特納特和小林尊這兩位世界頂尖的大胃王。
If we can find a way for them to operatewingsuits while eating at full speed, and they jumped from the Eiger, theycould-in theory-finish as many as 45 hot dogs between them before reaching theground . . .
如果我們能夠設法讓他們在翼裝飛行的時候還能全速吃東西，假如他們從艾格爾峯上跳下來，他們——理論上——能夠在落到地面之前吃完45個熱狗……
. . . which would, if nothing else, earnthem what just might be the strangest world record in history.
……這樣他們就能成爲這項可能是最爲古怪的世界紀錄的共同保持者。
1 For those keeping score, that meansWagner's is 2,350 times longer.
1．相比之下，瓦格納的歌劇《尼伯龍根的指環》要比它長2350倍的時間。
WEIRD (AND WORRYING) QUESTIONS FROM THEWHAT IF? INBOX, #9
那些古怪而又讓人憂心的問題合集九
Q. Could you survive a tidal wave bysubmerging yourself in an in-ground pool?
Q．我可以通過沉入地表游泳池的水面的方法躲過海嘯並活下來嗎？
——Chris Muska
——克里斯•馬斯卡
Q. If you are in free fall and yourparachute fails, but you have a Slinky with extremely convenient mass, tension,etc., would it be possible to save yourself by throwing the Slinky upward whileholding on to one end of it?
Q．如果你在自由下墜的過程中降落傘突然失效了，但你有一個質量、張力等都恰到好處的“機靈鬼”螺旋彈簧，如果你把彈簧拋向空中，手握其中一端，通過這種方法能讓你活下來嗎？
——Varadarajan Srinivasan
——瓦拉達拉金•斯里尼瓦桑
