Suppose you could drill a hole all the way thorough the earth and jumped through it?

Question

Would you be stuck in the center because you cannot fall up can you

Answer 1

There is no gravity at the center of the Earth, but you would still have velocity from your long fall. Assuming no air resistance, you would come to a stop on the other side of the Earth.

Answer 2

If you could make it through (hypothetically speaking of course) you'd also make the postal system completely obsolete, since you'd be able to get from one side of the Earth to the other in about 42 minutes. Here's why:

we know that F = -GmM/r^2 (where m is your mass, M is the mass of the earth, r is its radius and G is the gravitational constant). We also know that M = PV (where P is the density of the earth and V is its volume). If we approximate the Earth to be a Sphere (not quite true, but close enough) then V = 4/3(pi)(r^3). Substituting that back into the original expression you get:

F = -GmP(4)(pi)(r^3)/3r^2 Which equals:

F= -[(4)(pi)mGP/3]r

[(4)(pi)mGP/3] is a constant, call it k

so we have now F = -kr Which is just an expression for simple harmonic motion (k would be the restoring force in this case). And for simple harmonic motion, the period (T) is given by:

T = 2(pi)sqrt(m/k) So substituting in our k we get:

2(pi)sqrt[3m/4(pi)mGP] = (pi)sqrt[3/(pi)GP].

We also know that the density of the earth is about 5.5x10^3 kg/m^3 and that the time to get from one side of the earth to the other (through the center) would be half the period (1/2)T. If you plug in the numbers you get that time equals 2534.32 seconds which is 42.2 minutes. Of course the trick is actually drilling a whole through the center of the Earth...So if you could do it, not only would you make to the other side of the Earth in 42.2 minutes, but you'd also stop momentarily and then get pulled back to the side you started on.

Answer 3

Ha ha ha, you're funny! This is the best answer I could find, I guess you deserve it.
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Weekend Edition Saturday, June 17, 2006

Let's suppose -- just for sake of argument -- that you had a drill capable of plowing below where you are standing right now and grinding its way straight through the middle of the planet to the other side. Where would you end up?

Well, for all of you reading this in North America (and specifically in the 48 contiguous states) with very, very (I can't overemphasize this, so make it very, very, very, very) few exceptions, you would come out in the middle of an ocean. The U.S mainland is antipodal to the sea that is west of Australia, down near Antarctica. So if your mother puts you in the backyard and says "Dig a hole to China," bring along a wetsuit.

Unless -- and this is the fun part -- you happen to be standing in three (by my count) lower 48 state locations that are opposite land. They are near a Colorado highway, a Junior College campus also in Colorado and part of a Montana town. In all three spots, you could drill straight through and come up in a place where you might bump into the occasional seal and, in one place if you arrive at the right time of year, a scientist or two.

But don't take my word for it. Wikipedia has a map of world antipodes that you can look at. I found that map -- and a "find the opposite tool" -- on a blog run by Ze Frank.

Ze is a perfomer, satirist, essayist, composer, dancer and wonderfully weird guy who challenged his audience last month to create the world's first "Earth sandwich."

To make an Earth sandwich you must:

1. Put a piece of bread on the ground.

2. Have someone else put a piece of bread on the ground directly on the other side of the Earth from you.

3. Do this at the same exact time, so the Earth at that moment is "sandwiched" between two pieces of bread.

To inspire his audience, Ze composed a ballad, "If the Earth were a sandwich…"

It's hummable. Beautiful even.

So for the last few weeks, all over the world people have been rushing about, emailing, texting and trekking in an effort to arrange a simultaneous sandwich moment. This past week, apparently, it happened. Somebody in Spain put half a roll on the ground, and somebody in New Zealand put something breadlike opposite. Ta Dah!

(Except, instead of lying parallel as they would on a normal sandwich, the two pieces of bread may have been perpendicular to each other, making a kind of X-like structure. But... who's quibbling?)

It was Ze's challenge that got me thinking about antipodal Earth geography.

I found two towns in Illinois that were founded in the 1820s by settlers who thought they were on prairie directly opposite Chinese cities: Peking, Ill., and Canton, Ill. (Thank you, Ian Frazier, for writing an essay on this subject in The New Yorker.)

With my engineer, Manoli Wetherell, and help from my NPR colleague Robert Smith, we decided to see where you would have to go on this planet to be able to dig a whole straight through to China.

So if you happen one day to be in Concordia, Argentina, which is about 150 miles north of Buenos Aires near the Uruguayan border, a concerted effort at digging would have you emerging somewhere pretty close to downtown Shanghai. Don't everybody buy a ticket there at once.

If you want to serve sandwiches along that route, I'd suggest something like chow mein tapas, on a roll.

Answer 4

An interesting question but I think you would melt at or most likely well before you got to the center of the earth.

Answer 5

You would become 'one with the center'. As you approached it the g-force would turn you into dust, just as you were created from.
Then again you might get lucky and find yourself in some asian whore house but you would be upside down and that would be akward.

Answer 6

gravity and rate of fall are irrelevant, thermal heating would make you into instant charcoal ash to be dispersed with the next breeze

Answer 7

yeah. you're attracted to the earth's center of mass, so once you hit that, you'd stay there.

Answer 8

In theory you could. if your mass was going fast enough to break the pull of the core you could pass thru it.

Answer 9

the earth rotates. would we even get half way or would we be spat back out the way we came. Who knows.

Answer 10

u w'd turn to ashes n w'd become another species of creature.

best wishes.