What would happen if you could...?

Question

What if you could drill a hole though the earth I know we cant so dont tell me why we can't. So we got this hole and we drop a ball down it what would happen would it come shotting out the other end or what?

Answer 1

THe ball would fall toward the centre of the earth. Its momentum would carry it beyond that with some force. It would continue up the other side of the shaft but would not have enough energy to reach the surface -- quite. It would then reverse, falling again toward the centre and beyond, and not quite reach the surface again before reversing direction and falling again. t would tehn oscillate, "bouncing up and down the shaft, going upward not quite as far each time, until all its potential energy were drained and it would finally come at rest at or near the centre of the earth.

Answer 2

If it were possible to do this, and let's dismiss the heat, magma, etc. The ball would fall for awhile. It would begin to expand, like a baloon until it explodes.

This would happen because of the gravity of the earth pulling on it from all directions, except for the empty spce from the hole.

If there was a sphere at the exact center of the Earth that was strong enough to keep the Earth from crushing it, and say it was some how possible to create an environment in this sphere that would allow a person to survive (The Barometric Pressure was the same as on the surface) teh person in the sphere would kind of be weight less. He/she would float, but the gravity of everything around him/her would be pulling him/her from the center outward.

Answer 3

The one who answered it would see-saw back and forth until it ends up in the middle has the best answer. Now if you took a beach-ball sized lump of neutron star matter, you wouldn't need to drill a hole. It would punch through the planet, come out the other side, and do it over and over again, until the whole planet looked like Swiss cheese.

Answer 4

Loads of problems here but let's assume that you have pushed a tube through the middle of the earth and out the other side.
If you drop something down the tube it will end up sliding along one wall and loosing energy by friction, this is due to conservation of momentum. These frictional losses + air resistance would prevent it from coming out of the other side so it would stop part of the way up and fall back. After loads of ever decreasing cycles it would end up stationary somewhere near the middle of the tube in zero G. Anyone who says anything different is just wrong!

Answer 5

No it would not go shooting out the other side.
It would shoot past the centre and then slow down, stop and return to the centre. It would go back and forth several times until it came to rest near the centre where the forces of gravity from each end would hold it there.

Answer 6

Theoretically it would end up at ehe center of the earth. It would speed up until it hit the center and then would slow down as it passed the center as gravity would be reversed.

I imagine it would see saw back and forth as it slowed down and ended in the middle.

TFTP

Answer 7

no gravity would keep pulling the ball back to the center of the earth so it would go back and forth for a while and eventually just hover in the center.

Answer 8

it would accllerate untill it reached the centre of the earth and which point it would begin to decelerate proportion to the initial acceleration, so it would reach the other side then fall back towards the centre, at which point it woul ddeceleate until it reached the other side and so forth hope this helps.

Answer 9

I think it will be like damping system and eventually stop at the center (of the earth).

Answer 10

it would burn.. then earth would get all discombobulated b/c of this forgein object.. the gas in the ball would mix with the gas in earths core and BOOM!! we'd be burnt to a crisp