異想天開：如果地球是方的，世界將會怎樣？

Back in 1884, a Swiss astronomer by the name of Arndt made headlines when he claimed to have discovered a very curious planet in an orbit beyond Neptune -- a surprisingly cubical planet.

　　讓我們回到1884年，一位叫作阿爾恩特的瑞士天文學家佔據了報紙的新聞頭條，聲稱在海王星之外的一條軌道上發現了一個奇怪的行星。它是一顆立方體形狀的行星。

You know, like Bizarro World from the Super Man comics.

　　你能想像出來，就像超人漫畫里的奇異世界（Bizarro World ）一樣。

Of course even in 1884, everyone knew this was bunk. The New York Times even ran a piece titled "The Cubical Planet" in their Nov. 16 edition.

　　當然，即使在當時每個人都知道他在滿口胡言。《紐約時報》甚至在他們11月16號的報紙上以為《立方體行星》（The Cubical Planet）題登載了一篇文章。

As informative as it is stuffy, the Gilded Age article interviews physicist Dr. Theodore Vankirk, who first dismisses the prospect of a square planet as pure hooey, and then proceeds to wax scientific about just what a cube world would be like.

　　為了駁斥瑞士人自以為是的發現，這篇發表在鍍金時代（譯註：是指從南北戰爭結束到20世紀初的美國歷史階段）的文章還採訪了物理學家西奧多·范柯克。他首先駁斥這個立方體行星是真正的無稽之談，然後還以科學的語言解釋立方體世界會是什麼樣的。

It all comes down to gravity. On our spherical Earth, gravity pulls "down" us toward the planet"s center of mass. So on a flat surface, we naturally stand up straight.

　　歸結起來就是重力的因素。在我們地球上，重力會把我們拉向星球的質量中心，因此在平坦的地表，我們自然站得很直。

A hypothetical cube world, however, would feature six square faces and you"d only encounter up/down gravity toward the centers of these regions. As you traveled closer and closer to the edge, it would feel like you were walking up an incline and it would be difficult to stand up straight because the gravitational pull would draw you toward the center of the massive cube, which wouldn"t lie directly beneath your feet.

　　然而，在一個假設的立方體世界裡，會有6個正方形表面。你會朝向這些區域的中心承受向上或向下的重力。當你向邊緣靠近時，感覺就好像你在爬一個陡坡，並且重力會把你拉向立方體的質量中心，由於這個質量中心並不是在你雙腳的正下方，所以你很難保持直立狀態。

Standing on the "edge" of this cube world would feel like standing atop a mountain range.

　　站在這個立方體世界的「邊上」會感覺像是站高山之巔一樣。

Contemporary cosmologist Karen L. Masters also finds the topic of cube worlds fascinating -- especially the atmospheric possibilities. As she explains in Cornell"s Ask a Physicist feature, all six faces of the plant aces would boast temperate weather, centralized bodies of water and none of them would feature polar or equatorial weather.What"s more, the pointy edges of the cube would actually poke through the planet"s atmosphere like titanic mountains. Here"s her explanation:

　　當代的宇宙學家卡倫·L·馬斯特斯也發現立方體世界的話題很是迷人，特別是如果有大氣存在的情況下更是如此。根據她在天文學趣味問答（康奈爾大學主辦）上發表的一篇文章的解釋，在六個面上的植物佼佼者會享受到適宜的的氣候和分布在中心區域的水體，它們也不會受到極地或者赤道氣候的影響。而且，立方體世界尖尖的邊緣會像高山一樣刺穿大氣層。下面就是她的解釋：

Let"s assume that the atmosphere goes up 1000 km above the Earth (when it is a sphere), and so is a sphere itself of radius 6400km+1000km=7400km. This should be about the right number. A cube with the same volume as the spherical Earth would have a side 10,000 km (6,400 miles) long so the corners are 8700 km from the center! They would definitely stick out above the atmosphere.

　　讓我們做個假定，如果大氣層高過「地球」（如果確是球體的情況下）1000公里的話，那麼地球本身的半徑6400公里+1000公里=7400公里。這應當是正常的數據。和球形「地球」具有同等體積的立方體的每個邊長應當是10000公里，每個頂點到立方體中心的距離是8700公里！這樣這些頂點肯定在大氣層之外了。

As I was poking around the net on this topic, I also ran across this amusing tidbit from a 1964 edition of the Rice University campus paper. A mysterious, well-dressed gentleman had been observed hanging out around the Houston-area campus, distributing literature about an alien, cubical planet.

　　我在網上搜羅與話題有關的資料時，還在1964年萊斯大學的學報上發現了一段趣聞。人們注意到有位神秘的、衣冠楚楚的紳士住在休斯敦校區散發有關一顆地外立方體行星的資料。

The man claimed that the planet was called Aocicinori and that it was the 63rd in a system of 96 planets. He showed off maps of the world, as well as some colorful illustrations of the creatures that lived there. The Rice University article reveals that these materials were created by Scotland L. Moore, an outpatient from the Houston State Psychiatric Institute.

　　此人聲稱這顆行星叫作奧西西納里星（Aocicinori），在一個由96顆行星組成的星系中位列第63位。他向人們炫耀這顆行星的地圖和生活在那裡的動物的彩色圖片。萊斯大學的資料顯示，這些材料出自蘇格蘭·L·摩爾之手，是一位休斯頓州立精神病學研究所的門診病人。

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