Imagine you dig a hole through the Earth's axis, all the way from the North Pole to the South Pole.?

Question

Don't worry about the magma/lava or heat. Remember the diameter of the hole is 1 meter and extends all the way from the North Pole through the center to the South Pole. Now you stand at the North Pole and jump in. Neglect air friction, and don't worry about hitting the sides of the hole as you are falling What happens?

Note: Please answer in your own words, no wikipedia, google, yahoo etc...

Answer 1

The force pulling you downward would gradually decrease the further down you went, until you reached the center, at which point the force on you would be zero (you'd be perfectly weightless). You would NOT be torn to shreds by the forces pulling you on all sides--instead, all those forces would cancel out. This is something that can be shown by applying calculus to the formula for gravity.

Note that, even though the downward force decreases as you fall, you still fall faster and faster until you reach the center. That's because any downward force, however weak, is going to add a little bit to your downward velocity. By the time you reach the center, you'll be going faster than 17,000 mph. Your momentum will carry you past the center and toward the other side. As you rise through the 2nd half of the ride, gravity will increase, and will slow you down, until you come to a stop at the other end of the hole at the south pole. At that point, if nobody snags you, you'll start falling back down again, and you'll continue your back & forth ride indefinitely. The trip from one pole to the other will take somewhere around 44 minutes.

Answer 2

Well apart from the fact that the molten core would prevent you making a nice clean hole and would also kill you. I would imagine that you would fall though the centre, out the other side, and if there were no air resistance or anything like that you would begin oscillating, you would get to the same height on the other side of the earth before falling back down into the hole to carry on the process, like a pendulum. With air resistance you won't get as far on each fall or swing or however you describe it. You would eventually slow down and hang in the middle, with gravity pulling on all sides in a manner I imagine would be rather uncomfortable.

Answer 3

without any friction, you would fall into the center of the earth, then your momentum would carry you through to the other side of the earth, where you would reach the surface and then plummet back towards the center, repeating the motion like a pendulum.

Note: this assumes no air friction, and that the earth is a perfect sphere (which of course it isn't!)

it is true that the effects of gravity would cancel out at the center of the earth (if it was a sphere!), but without an unbalanced force acting, you would not stop! An object in motion tends to stay in motion (inertia and momentum! or Newton's first law)

Answer 4

It would be easier to jump in from the south pole, but then the hole would be full of water, because the hole at the north pole would be filling up with water, from the arctic ocean, go fish. and if your body survives the trip to the center of the earth you would not experience anything, cause you drowned and you are dead.

Answer 5

Probably you would die from heat, and it would take a longggg time to dig and fall because the crust of the earth is thick. I doubt, you would even get through the crust.
If you fell,(and lived) you would probably end up falling back in the hole, or landing with a broken something because you would be going at a really high speed.

Answer 6

You would fall to the center of the Earth and once you were there the Earth's gravity would pull on you from all directions equally. I'm not sure whether you'd experience something like zero gravity or be ripped to shreds by tidal forces when that happened though.

Answer 7

That is an interesting thought! You would probably be pulled down to the center of the earth but then stop! Some scientist believe that at the center of the earth has no gravity, because there is nothing that is pulling on it, since it itself the source of gravity! No one really knows until we manage to send a probe down there :D

Answer 8

Neglecting air friction, I imagine that you would fall back and forth continuously or at least for a very long time.

Answer 9

you would be crushed to death before you could notice anything worth mentioning. which im guessing is not the answer you wanted to hear. but i wasnt in the mood to give a sci-fi answer. and there is no way you could counter-act the pressure.

HA, i cant believe i was the only one to mention pressure..

Answer 10

you would fall and get stuck in the center of the earth by the gravity. it would e pushing from all different directions and smash you.i think