If i were to fall in a hole that willl never end.....?

Question

If i were to fall in a hole that willl never end, what will eventually happen? Whats the fastest speed i will reach, what will happened to my body ... ect..

Answer 1

That all depends. I would like to note that there was no mention in the original question about a black hole. I would also argue that such a thing cannot exist. Every hole has an end by definition. If it didn't it would be called a tunnel(which even still must have an end), or something else entirely. But for fun, we will pretend. :P
A hole that never ends would obviously not be found on earth. As the "hole" would end at the opposite side of the earth (even though you would never reach it). For argument sake, if it were through the earth, you would fall until your body is destroyed by the heat of the earth's core.
So if you found yourself in such a situation, you would not be subject to earth's gravity, therefore it would be impossible to know how fast you would go. What is the source the force pulling you down? There has to be some kind of force or you could not "fall".
You would obviously die from dehydration first (or suffocation, depending on where this place is found). Your body would probably last indefinitely as there would likely be no microorganisms to break down organic matter.
Really, this is not possible to answer without a lot more details.

Answer 2

It kind of depends on the nature of the hole and the surrounding matter.

If you were to jump out of an airplane flying above the Earth, for example, you would quickly reach a terminal velocity of about 120MPH (assuming you got yourself into the most streamlined position you could, straight down, head first, arms at your sides and legs together). You simply could not fall faster than this due to air resistance.

If you fell into a hole that was bored straight through the center of the Earth and out the other side, you would still eventually reach terminal velocity. Also, as you neared the center of the Earth, the effect of gravity on you would become less and less. You would likely be moving pretty quickly as you passed through the center of mass, and then you would start decelerating (you would be falling up at this point). Ultimately, you would bob back and forth a bunch of times and finally come to rest right at the center of mass of the Earth (well, if we were talking about the Earth, you would be burned up a long time before due to the composition of the Earth, so let's assume for the sake of the argument that the Earth is a solid body).

If you are falling in a vacuum, though (say you bored a hole through the moon), there would not be any terminal velocity (no air to cause wind resistance). You would accelerate until you reached the center of the moon, then decelerate as you neared the surface again. Since the moon does have an atmosphere of sorts (just very very thin), you would eventually be slowed down to a stop in the center of the moon.

Other answers have described what might happen to you if you fell into a black hole (the ultimate bottomless pit).

Answer 3

"Falling" requires gravitational force, and gravitational force requires a sufficiently massive object to accelerate you. Therefore, I will assume that you are describing a hypothetical situation in which you are falling down a hole which passes directly through the centre of the earth. I will also neglect the effect of air resistance (at least for starters)... so we will assume this hole is a vacuum.

The acceleration due to gravity, -9.8m/sec², which is normally thought to be constant, is not in fact constant at all. Rather, it is only nearly constant and depends on your distance from the earth's centre of mass. So, keep in mind that the acceleration due to gravity will change as you fall.

Physics tells us that if you are inside a solid, constant density sphere, the only mass which has a gravitational effect is the mass at a radius smaller than your location. In other words, it is like cutting a spherical shell at the radius you are standing. If you are located at radius R from the earth's centre, you would get a sphere of radius R which had a gravitational effect on you, and a shell containing everything outside that sphere, which would have no gravitational effect. Hence, the gravitational pull as you descended would diminish by a factor of 4πr³/3, where r would be the distance you descend.

So, as you descended, the value of g would decrease - you would continue to fall faster and faster, but as you approached the centre, your rate of acceleration would go to zero. As you passed through the centre, your velocity would peak, and then as you travelled upward, you would begin to be accelerated downward, back toward the centre of the earth. As a result, you would move up at a slower and slower rate until you reached your highest point, after which you would fall toward the centre of the earth again. This highest point, where your velocity is precisely zero, is at exactly the same height as your velocity started from zero... in other words, if you stepped into the hole at sea level, you would reach sea level on the other side of the earth, stop, and begin falling back until you finally reached your starting point. You would continue to go back and forth through the earth, always reaching the same height at each side. Curious, no?

Now, if the hole were filled with air, you would be slowed by it, so eventually you would stop at the exact centre of the earth. However, this would take a very long time, during which you would continue to make ever diminishing flights back and forth past the centre.

One last point: The earth's density is not constant, so this explanation is somewhat over-simplified. However, the end result would be identical, so it is not necessary to take the density into account. Note that the fastest speed reached (your velocity at the centre of the earth) WOULD depend on the variations of density, so if you tried to integrate to find it, your answer would be inaccurate due to the assumption of constant density.

As far as what would happen to your body goes... I am not sure what you mean. Some other people suggested that you would die of dehydration or asphyxiation; this is a rather morbid answer but quite true of course. You would not have to worry about burning up, though, because the speed you attain would never be sufficient to cause that amount of heating from the air resistance. As the person above said, you would max out at terminal velocity.

Answer 4

The answer depends greatly on whether or not you assume air resistance.

If the hole is a vacuum -- well, that would be rather unhealthy. Breathing issue aside, you'd accelerate toward the center of the earth, reach maximum velocity there, and declerate until you hit the surface at the other end of the hole. Then you'd fall back in the other direction, and keep oscillating forever.

The force of gravity only depends on the portion of the Earth close to the center than you, not the whole Earth. Thus, the rate of increase of your speed (the third derivative, as it were), would decline from the traditional 9.8 meters/second/second, reaching zero when you were at the center of the Earth.

If one does assume air resistance, you'd reach terminal velocity, and keep it for a good long time. You'd slow eventually however, as the force of gravity weakened, and only overshoot the center of the Earth a little bit before falling back toward it and eventually in a few more oscillations getting pretty much stuck there.

Answer 5

You will die going very fast.

Since you are falling, let's assume the presence of a gravitational pull.

In a vacuum, you'll keep accelerating constantly until you're travelling close to the speed of light. Your body can't handle the force and will tear apart.

In a non-vacuum, the air resistance will prevent you from accelerating but will continue to fall at a constant velocity known as the terminal velocity. If it's regular air your falling through, then your body will travel at about 70 meters per second (156 miles per hour). I don't think your body will burn up going this fast. However, since you will never stop, you'll mostly likely die from lack of air, water, or food.

So, be careful around those bottomless pits.

Answer 6

Before you got to the edge of the black hole, the gravity tide would pull you into atoms. Then it would pull the atoms apart.

The pieces would fall down into the BH, going faster and faster, until they got almost to light speed.

Answer 7

you would approach the speed of light but never reach it, and you body would be crush by your mass increase as your velocity increased.

Answer 8

Well you will die definetly in 3 days as you will need water and well can you imagne falling down at least 60mph breathing in all that air... Dead man falling.