If you fall into a bottomless pit, will you hit ground or will you fall through to space?

Question

What even is a bottomless pit?

Answer 1

There's no such thing as a bottomless pit. If it did exist, it would not have a bottom, so you wouldn't ever hit the ground.

Here's an interesting side note that my physics teacher once told us. Imagine hole in the earth at any diameter (hole is straight, goes all the way through, and intersects the center of the earth). If you jumped in, obviously you would be crushed by the gravitational forces or burned to death by the heat of the core. But let's ignore those for a second.

You would fall all the way through and pass the center point coming to a stop at some point on the other side of the center. Then gravity would start pulling you back towards the center again. So once again, you would fall, coming to a stop on the same side as you jumped in, but closer to the center. You would keep doing this until you came to rest at exactly the center. But this would only happen if you take friction into account.

Without friction, you would fall and come to a stop at exactly the same point on the other side. Then you would fall again and come to rest at exactly where you jumped in. In fact, you would keep oscillating for ever until some other force acted on you.

Answer 2

Bottomless Pits On Earth

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
If you fall into a bottomless pit, will you hit ground or will you fall through to space?
What even is a bottomless pit?

Answer 4

Bottonless pit: a hole in the ground that has no bottom. If the hole is vertical, then it would go through the centre of the Earth and "come out" at the anti-podal position.

Such a thing is impossible on Earth. It might be possible on smaller bodies with colder cores. It is certainly "possible" in science-fiction stories. Even then, serious authors do try to apply the correct rules of physics. They don't always succeed (e.g., the movie "Lost In Space" where the Jupiter attains escape velocity by falling through the exploding planet...).

If the hole goes right through the centre: If your latitude is L north and your longitude G West, then you'd come out at latitude L south and longitude (180-G) East.

If you start anywhere in the northern hemisphere, you will not end up in China (which is also in northern latitude). In fact, there is very little land that has antipodal land (this makes sense as almost 71% of Earth's surface is covered by water).

If you ignore friction (and core heat), if you simply jumped in at the surface, you would accelerate until you reach the centre, then decelerate (at symmetrical rates) until you would come to a stop at the surface at the other end; one way trip: a little less than 40 minutes.

(It would be 42 minutes IF the Earth's density was constant all the way to the core, but it is not; Earth is denser at the centre so that you will fall a bit faster than if Earth had a constant density, therefore you will take less than 40 minutes).

You will NOT escape into space at the other end, unless you are already going down at the escape speed when you enter the hole. Whatever speed you gain when falling towards the centre, you will lose climbing out after passing the centre.

If the body is rotating and if the hole is NOT along the axis of rotation, you will almost certainly hit the sides on the way down. As you jump in, you have lateral speed compared to the centre of the planet. However, the sides of the hole have slower and slower lateral speed, until the lateral speed is 0 at the centre (yours is still whatever you had when you jumped in). And the other end of the hole has a lateral speed that is the opposite of yours.

On Earth, if the hole goes from a point on the equator to the antipodal point on the equator (180 degrees away), and if you jump in exactly at the moment of sunrise, then your lateral speed is a little over 1000 mph (1666 km/h) towards the East and towards the Sun.

If you make it to the other end with nothing to stop your lateral speed, you are still going 1000 mph towards the Sun, which is, at that point, to the west (the hole, though is going 1000 mph eastward). Difference = 2000 mph.

If the hole's width is just large enough (almost 667 miles wide) and you jump in from the west side of the hole at sunrise, you smack into the side of the hole at the other end, with a speed of 2000 mph. Bring a cushion.

It is possible to imagine a double hole shaped somewhat like an 8, with the angles calculated so that your lateral speed is taken into account. I remember doing it a long time ago. It is a relatively easy (albeit long) calculation.

Better to imagine the hole along the rotation axis.

Answer 5

There is a theory that if a scientist ever invented a black hole on earth is would fall into the earth and sway back and forth like a pendulum til is came to stop in the center.

I believe the same would happen in a bottomless pit, you'd pass the center of the earth go so far stop then pass the center again and keep doing so til you eventually stopped in the center.

Answer 6

Bottomless pits are fictional. If you fall into a bottomless pit, then you would end up falling through to space. If you hit the ground, then there would be a bottom to the pit.

Answer 7

Technically, there would be no bottom. So if the pit ran through the Earth, you'd come out the other side, then gravity would cause you to fall back into the pit, then you'd almost reach the opening where you first fell in. Then you'd fall back down the hole, almost come out the other side of the world, and fall back into the hole. Eventually, you'd settle as close to the center of the Earth as you could, and stay there.

Answer 8

A bottomless pit would be no matter how you travel inside the pit there would be no end. The only geometry on earth that would fit that characteristic would be a doughnut shaped tunneling.Where you start at one end travel thru and you are back where you started from.
It would be an enclosed prison where there is no end,botom or top end.

Answer 9

I think it's more of an expression used to communicate exasperation. Of course there's no such things as bottomless pits, but sometimes things seem like one, such as a very hungry teenage boy.

Answer 10

There is no such thing as a bottomless pit.