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By getting 600,000,000 people around the world to jump at the same time, a German artist hopes to nudge Earth into a different orbit.
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Hans Peter Niesward, from the Department of Gravitationsphysik at the ISA in Munich, says we can stop global warming in one big jump.
The slightlydisheveledprofessor states his case on WorldJumpDay.org, an Internet site created to recruit 600,000,000 volunteers to jump simultaneously on July 20 at 11:39:13 GMT in an effort to shift Earth's position.
Niesward claims that on this day "Earth occupies one of the most fragile positions in its orbits for the last 100 years." According to the site, the shift in orbit will make the Earth a little further way from the sun and "stop global warming, extend daytime hours and create a more homogeneous climate."
However, Niesward doesn't really exist. He is a character created by Torsten Lauschmann, a German-born artist living in Scotland. Niesward is Lauschmann himself or an actor.
Lauschmann's multimedia approach has allowed him to explore a wide variety of subjects, including butterflies, paparazzi photos and, now, aflash-mobexperiment.
In 2005, Lauschmann encouraged scientists and bloggers from around the world to discuss World Jump Day.
"He thought it would just circulate among friends, but it quickly seemed to morph. Within weeks it was global - people in Australia were talking about it on the radio," said Neil Mulholland, areaderin contemporary art theory at Edinburgh College of Art. "The more it was discussed, the more people joined the site, and it crashed several times."
But will people jump out of environmental activism or a commitment to the bizarre?
Members of the online environmental site treehugger.com have been debating not only the physical possibility of the jump's promise but the morality of its outcome.
Some believe it's risky to alter Earth's orbit, while others fear the jump will make the Gregorian calendar obsolete because of the length of Earth's new orbit. Others doubt the ability of the world's population to synchronize an event like this.
The folks at madphysics.com have constructed an anti-World Jump Day equations drawn up to dispute the validity of Niesward's - or Lauschmann's - theories.
One word of caution: The site tells those of us living in the eastern part of the United States to jump at 6:39:13 because we are five hours behind GMT, but that is not true in July. Because ofdaylight savings time, Lauschmann has a part of the United States jumping an hour early.
(Agencies)
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慕尼黑ISA研究中心地球引力物理學(xué)部門的漢斯·彼得·尼斯瓦德說，只要我們一起猛跳一下，就能解決全球變暖問題。
這位有點(diǎn)不修邊幅的教授在"世界跳躍日"網(wǎng)站上對(duì)他的理論進(jìn)行了解釋。而創(chuàng)建"世界跳躍日"網(wǎng)站的目的是招募6億志愿者，讓他們?cè)?月20日格林尼治標(biāo)準(zhǔn)時(shí)間11時(shí)39分13秒這一刻一起跳躍，以改變地球的位置。
尼斯瓦德教授說，在7月20日這一天，"地球處于運(yùn)行軌道上一百年來最薄弱的位置上"。根據(jù)網(wǎng)站上的解釋，地球位置的改變將使其離太陽遠(yuǎn)一點(diǎn)，從而“阻止全球變暖，延長(zhǎng)白晝，并能使氣候更加同一化”。
然而，尼斯瓦德這個(gè)人并不存在。他是居住在蘇格蘭的德裔藝術(shù)家托斯頓·勞希曼虛構(gòu)出來的一個(gè)人物。這位“尼斯瓦德教授”要么是勞希曼本人，要么是一名演員。
托斯頓·勞希曼利用多媒體探討過很多課題，其中包括蝴蝶、抓拍照片，現(xiàn)在，又搞起了閃客實(shí)驗(yàn)。
2005年，勞希曼號(hào)召全世界的科學(xué)家和博友們一起來討論“世界跳躍日”的問題。
愛丁堡藝術(shù)學(xué)院當(dāng)代藝術(shù)理論高級(jí)講師尼爾·穆赫蘭德說：“他原以為這只會(huì)在朋友中傳一傳，誰知道這個(gè)討論后來迅速傳開，幾個(gè)星期之內(nèi)，就舉世皆知--澳大利亞人都在廣播上討論了這事。隨著這個(gè)問題被討論的越來越熱烈，到網(wǎng)站登記當(dāng)志愿者的人也越來越多，網(wǎng)站都被擠爆了好幾回。”
但是，人們是出于環(huán)境的考慮而跳，還是因?yàn)楹闷婺兀?/p>
環(huán)境網(wǎng)站treehugger.com的成員們對(duì)這一跳的可行性及其結(jié)果的真實(shí)性進(jìn)行了爭(zhēng)論。
有些人認(rèn)為改變地球軌道太危險(xiǎn)，其他一些人則擔(dān)心由于這一跳會(huì)使地球軌道變長(zhǎng)，所以要改寫公歷。另有人懷疑全世界的人同時(shí)來做這樣一件事情不大可能。
瘋狂物理網(wǎng)站的成員們構(gòu)建了一個(gè)反對(duì)世界跳躍日的公式，對(duì)尼斯瓦德--也就是勞希曼的理論進(jìn)行了駁斥。
此外，世界跳躍日網(wǎng)站提示：由于美國東部所處時(shí)區(qū)比格林尼治標(biāo)準(zhǔn)時(shí)間晚5個(gè)小時(shí)，所以那里的人應(yīng)在6時(shí)39分13秒跳，但現(xiàn)在是7月，不存在這個(gè)問題。由于現(xiàn)在是夏令時(shí)，所以美國部分地區(qū)的人們要提前一個(gè)小時(shí)跳。
(英語點(diǎn)津姍姍編輯)
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