May 30, 2006
It doesn't implode. Japanese Translation Quirk.
Today one of my teachers asked me "do you know the word implode?"
"Of course," I replied. "You mean like a black hole?"
His example was a submarine at high pressure, but the effect is the same. It turns out there is no direct single-word translation for "implode" in Japanese.
The usage is 内側に破裂する。 (uchigawa ni haretsu suru). It translates as "to explode to the inside."