if you dig a hole from the north pole to south pole then drop a stone in it what would happen?

Question

would it a) fall out the other side. b) stop in the middle or c)go back and forth like a pendulem

Answer 1

The concept is impossible because parts of the earth's core are in a constant liquid state, but for arguments sake...

If you were to put a hollow tube through the earth and drop a rock into it, it would fall, and then probably touch one side of the tube, start to slow down from friction, and eventually stop, possibly mid way through the earth, but probably sooner. To someone looking in, the rock would be seeming to defy gravity, stuck to the tube wall, but it would simply be being affected by gravity the same as anywhere else on earth. It would not "hover" in the center of the tube at the middle of the earth because the earth does not spin on a perfect axis, it wobbles.

Answer 2

Assuming that this is a question about the affects of gravity only, one could assume that the hole is a hollow cylinder (including a path through the molten portion of its travel), that the hole does not collapse under tremendous heat and pressure, that the hole contains a perfect frictionless vacuum, and the the walls of the hole are also frictionless. Therefore; A: the stone would accelerated from the surface to the center of the earth gaining kinetic energy of motion, B: the stone would decelerate losing the kinetic energy as it traveled to the opposite surface, and D; the stone would continue to oscillate between surfaces forever. If friction (air and sidewalls) is present, the stone would oscillate about the earth's center rising less each cycle until it stopped at the center of the earth where there is zero gravitational attraction because there is equal mass in every direction.

Answer 3

It is impossible as you cannot dig through the molten core.

If you could; and your hole had firctionless sides , and it was in a perfect vacuum:
then gravity would accelerate it down to the centre of the earth. On its way back the otherside gravity would decelerate it; but it would get to about the same height above sea-level before accelerating back to the centre again.
Assuming no firction at all, it would come back to exactly the same place it was dropped from, and go back and forth forever.

Answer 4

It would go back and forth since the earth´s center holds the most mass (body attraction) and would attract your stone towards it, as the stone reaches the center it would shoot by (inertia) and start being pulled back again. Since there would be friction this movement would start to slow and the stone would finally stop at the center.

Answer 5

first dig the hole
then i will give you the answer

and just in case you did not know it is hard to dig in Water
Only the South pole is land ,but it has 2 miles of ice on top.
and it is not exactly oposite the North pole.

Answer 6

That is a GOOD question, Think about it, what would happen, it would probably release all the goo from the center of the earth before you could drop the stone I guess.

Answer 7

B but it would oscilate for some time first. However I should like to know how you propose digging through the superheated solid iron core, and also what you intend using to keep out the very hot magma surrounding it?

Answer 8

Assuming you can make the hole and line it with a frictionless material, and there's no heat, no air friction, etc. it would oscillate from one end to the other endlessly, with a period equal to that of a zero-altitude earth orbit or about 84.5 minutes. (This motion is just a "special, degenerate case" of an elliptical orbit with a semimajor axis equal to the earth's radius.)

Answer 9

Assuming no heat it would bounce back and forth until finally stopping in the center.

Answer 10

I want to see you dig this hole personally. This is a question without an answer because it is physically impossible to do.