黑暗之魂3佣兵加点:异想天开：如果地球是方的，世界将会怎样？

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.

　　让我们回到1884年，一位叫作阿尔恩特的瑞士天文学家占据了报纸的新闻头条，声称在海王星之外的一条轨道上发现了一个奇怪的行星。它是一颗立方体形状的行星。

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

　　你能想象出来，就像超人漫画里的奇异世界（Bizarro World ）一样。

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.

　　当然，即使在当时每个人都知道他在满口胡言。《纽约时报》甚至在他们11月16号的报纸上以为《立方体行星》（The Cubical Planet）题登载了一篇文章。

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.

　　为了驳斥瑞士人自以为是的发现，这篇发表在镀金时代（译注：是指从南北战争结束到20世纪初的美国历史阶段）的文章还采访了物理学家西奥多·范柯克。他首先驳斥这个立方体行星是真正的无稽之谈，然后还以科学的语言解释立方体世界会是什么样的。

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.

　　归结起来就是重力的因素。在我们地球上，重力会把我们拉向星球的质量中心，因此在平坦的地表，我们自然站得很直。

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，在一个假设的立方体世界里，会有6个正方形表面。你会朝向这些区域的中心承受向上或向下的重力。当你向边缘靠近时，感觉就好像你在爬一个陡坡，并且重力会把你拉向立方体的质量中心，由于这个质量中心并不是在你双脚的正下方，所以你很难保持直立状态。

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

　　站在这个立方体世界的“边上”会感觉像是站高山之巅一样。

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:

　　当代的宇宙学家卡伦·L·马斯特斯也发现立方体世界的话题很是迷人，特别是如果有大气存在的情况下更是如此。根据她在天文学趣味问答（康奈尔大学主办）上发表的一篇文章的解释，在六个面上的植物佼佼者会享受到适宜的的气候和分布在中心区域的水体，它们也不会受到极地或者赤道气候的影响。而且，立方体世界尖尖的边缘会像高山一样刺穿大气层。下面就是她的解释：

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.

　　让我们做个假定，如果大气层高过“地球”（如果确是球体的情况下）1000公里的话，那么地球本身的半径6400公里+1000公里=7400公里。这应当是正常的数据。和球形“地球”具有同等体积的立方体的每个边长应当是10000公里，每个顶点到立方体中心的距离是8700公里！这样这些顶点肯定在大气层之外了。

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.

　　我在网上搜罗与话题有关的资料时，还在1964年莱斯大学的学报上发现了一段趣闻。人们注意到有位神秘的、衣冠楚楚的绅士住在休斯敦校区散发有关一颗地外立方体行星的资料。

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.

　　此人声称这颗行星叫作奥西西纳里星（Aocicinori），在一个由96颗行星组成的星系中位列第63位。他向人们炫耀这颗行星的地图和生活在那里的动物的彩色图片。莱斯大学的资料显示，这些材料出自苏格兰·L·摩尔之手，是一位休斯顿州立精神病学研究所的门诊病人。