DRAIN THE OCEANS
把海水抽干
Q. How quickly would the oceans drain if a circular portal 10 meters in radius leading into space were created at the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest spot in the ocean? How would the Earth change as the water was being drained?
Q．如果在海底最深处——挑战者深渊——挖一个半径10米且通向太空的圆形传送门，那么海水会以多快的速度漏出去？海水一点点被抽干了，地球又是怎样一番景象呢？
——Ted M
——特德•M
A. I WANT TO GET one thing out of the way first:
A．首先说一点。
According to my rough calculations, if an aircraft carrier sank and got stuck against the drain, the pressure would easily be enough to fold it up and suck it through. Cooool.
我粗略地估算了下，如果航空母舰沉没了而且又恰好卡在这个排水口，那么洞口处的压强足以轻松将其折断，然后把它吸进去。哈哈哈哈！
Just how far away is this portal? If we put it near the Earth, the ocean would just fall back down into the atmosphere. As it fell, it would heat up and turn to steam, which would condense and fall right back into the ocean as rain. The energy input into the atmosphere alone would also wreak all kinds of havoc with our climate, as would the huge clouds of high-altitude steam.
那你要把洞的另一头放在那里呢？如果它太靠近地球，那么海水又会掉回大气层。在海水下落的过程中，它的温度会不断升高，然后变成水蒸气，而水蒸气最后又会冷凝成雨，最后还是会落回海洋。只是在这个过程中，对大气层的能量输入足以彻底搅乱地球的气候，这还没考虑高空巨量水蒸气带来的后果呢。
So let's put the ocean-dumping portal far away-say, on Mars. (In fact, I vote we put it directly above the Curiosity rover; that way, it will finally have incontrovertible evidence of liquid water on Mars's surface.)
所以我们得把洞的另一头放得远一点——比如放到火星上。（其实我很想把它放到“好奇号”火星探测器上面，这样我们就终于能有火星存在液态水的确切证据了！）
What happens to the Earth?
那地球上会发生什么变化呢？
Not much. It would actually take hundreds of thousands of years for the ocean to drain.
变化不大。事实上要等上几十万年海水才会全部漏完。
Even though the opening is wider than a basketball court, and the water is forced through at incredible speeds, the oceans are huge. When you started, the water level would drop by less than a centimeter per day.
虽然这个洞比篮球场还宽，而且海水将以极高的速度从这个洞流出去，但是记住海水是非常非常多的。一开始，海平面每天下降的高度不会超过1厘米。
There wouldn't even be a cool whirlpool at the surface-the opening is too small and the ocean is too deep. (It's the same reason you don't get a whirlpool in the bathtub until the water is more than halfway drained.)
而且海面上还不会出现酷炫的漩涡——因为洞太小了，大海太深了。（这也是为什么浴缸里的水在刚开始流出去时不会产生漩涡，至少要等一半的水流出去时才会有。）
But let's suppose we speed up the draining by opening more drains,1 so the water level starts to drop more quickly.
但不妨假设为了让水漏得更快些，我们丧心病狂地挖了更多的洞。1
Let's take a look at how the map would change.
然后我们来看看世界地图会发生怎样的变化。