If you drill a hole straight through the center of the earthand jump in, would you float suspended at the ctr?

Question

Please assume that there is no molten core issues to deal with.

OK so say you place a tube that can stand any amount of heat and that maintains infinite strength and is 10 feet in diameter into the hole you have cored out. If you jumped in, you would be suspended in the center yes?

Answer 1

This is a cool question. If you were able to tunnel through the Earth, and fall through, your speed would keep increasing until you reached the graviational center. At that point, the net gravitational force is zero, because all of the forces cancel. However, you wouldn't just stop because of your inertia. You would go right through, but then you would begin to slow down, until you reached the other hole. Depending on how high you started from the first hole, and lets say you jumped five feet above the hole, you would come to a complete stop five feet above the second hole. Then you would fall back through and continue that cycle. (Of course we aren't considering air resistance, which screws everything up! ;0)

Guess how long it would take to make it to the other side of the Earth through that tunnel? Approximately 42 minutes! Not a bad way of traveling.

The other cool thing is, if you were to tunnel from say New York to Berlin, which means the tunnel isn't obviously through the middle of the Earth, it would still take you 42 minutes!

Answer 2

There are several assumptions you must make in order to explane what would happen. First you must assume that you blocked the liquid in the middle of the earth from getting into your tunnel. Then you must assume that somehow you are able to survive and keep your body in tact.

With these assumptions in place, here is what would happen.

within 10 secconds you would easily reach a speed of 200 miles per hour. This speed is called the terminal velocity for skydivers. You would remain at this speed for a while. There would be some change in your speed as the density of the air changed as you neared the center of the earth, and the force of gravity would counteract the density change in the air. Eventually you would reach and pass the center of the earth, unless the air solidifies before that point from too much pressure. The interesting thing is that you would never make it back out of the earths core.
So the answer to your question is yes. You would get stuck in the middle of the earth. You would bounce up and down in the tunnel for a while, but not very long at all because after you pass the center, the force of gravity and the force of friction team up against you each time you bounce past the middle, while one works with you and one against you whenever you are moving towards the middle..

Answer 3

One other thing that will happen here: unless you drill your hole from North Pole to South Pole, you will have to deal with the rotation of the earth. For example, at the equator, you have a horizontal motion component of 1,000 miles per hour that has to be canceled by the time you reach the center of the earth. So, expect to be bounced along the side of the tunnel a lot. Wear padding.

Answer 4

you would behave like a rubber ball but instead of bouncing up and down you would travel back and forth through the center, losing momentum on each pass and eventually yes you would be susspended in the center.

Though it may be uncomfortable.

On the surface you have gravity acting on you in one directon

To be suspended like that gravity would be pulling on you from everywhere.. I suppose it might feel like bouncing into an invisbe wall no matter which way you tried to move.

Answer 5

no you will hit the bottom. Because you did not drill completely through just to the center not out the other side. We must assume for this to happen you would be safe. Plenty of air and no lava. You will be dead from the fall to.

Answer 6

Assuming you could do it in a vacuum so that the force of the weight of the atmosphere did not crush you, you would bounce up and down past the center until you eventually settled down in the center.

Answer 7

The tendency would be to oscillate. However, you would be attracted by gravity to the sides of the hole and would be eventually stopped and attached to the sides of the hole just as you are attached to the surface of the earth.

Answer 8

Theoretically, you would oscillate in simple harmonic motion about the core.

Answer 9

you would shoot past, then be pulled back, shoot past a little less, get pulled back, shoot past even less, etcetera, untill you were stuck at the center. However, you would be crushed by the pressure at that depth.

Answer 10

id believe that to be true if the earth still held its magnetic field without the core....