If You Fell Through The Center Of The Earth...

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Comments

  • SaltySalty Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 6970Members
    If you could survive the radiation, heat, pressure, and lack of oxygen. Then you should come out feet first if you went in feet first. You would stabalize eventually but you would still have inertia so you woundn't reach the center then just suddenly stop. If you have no friction then you would just come out the other side of the earth. They gravity wouldnt be much stronger or anything. Gravity is only produced by mass. You would probably rotate also a little faster then the earth does if you stayed there.
  • Error404Error404 Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9353Members
    The electromagnetic radiation would probably erase your memory and make you go insane, aka Event Horizon style.
  • SaltySalty Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 6970Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--Error404:+Apr 15 2003, 12:38 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Error404: @ Apr 15 2003, 12:38 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The electromagnetic radiation would probably erase your memory and make you go insane, aka Event Horizon style. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    What the gama radiation?
  • TenSixTenSix Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7932Members
    Gamma Radiation has been whored by so many sci-fi flicks it has lost all meaning <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->

    Character1: So the aliens are attacking us from black holes and a parrallel dimension while the government is enginerring a device to destroy the earth?! How!??

    Character2: GAMMA RADIATION
  • SaltySalty Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 6970Members
    Yeah I'm pretty sure photons don't erase your memory.
  • p4Samwisep4Samwise Join Date: 2002-12-15 Member: 10831Members
    To answer the original question: Barring any external torque (angular force) or initial angular velocity, you'd approach the other side of the earth head first (assuming you dived in head first), and if there was no friction, you'd come out head first as well.

    Naturally, that presupposes no friction, which isn't too likely; even if you didn't get snagged on the edges of the tunnel through the earth, there'd be air resistance, and that'd slow you down sufficiently that you wouldn't quite get to the other side. Further, the air resistance would probably exert torque, since different parts of your body are going to get more drag than others; if you were wearing flippers, your feet would probably act like a drag chute and orient you headfirst, whereas if you were wearing a big hat, your head would be the drag chute and you'd go in feet first.

    Being crushed by gravity is not a concern. As you approach the center of the earth, gravity's effect on you decreases rather than increasing. If you're surrounded on all sides by roughly equal mass (ie, if you're at the center of a planet), you have gravity acting on you from all directions, and it balances out to zero net force, making you weightless. To be more specific, if you're distance R from the center of the earth, gravity acts on you as though you were on the surface of a planet of radius R - the spherical shell that's "above" you exerts zero net force on you (there's some multivariable calculus to back that up that I won't subject you to). Once you hit the center, R becomes zero, and the imaginary planet of radius R becomes nothing, so you're weightless.

    Does this mean you suddenly stop moving? Of course not, because you've been accelerating toward the center the whole time you've been falling, and you have a lot of velocity built up. The lack of gravitational force doesn't instantly stop you any more than letting go of the gas pedal when you're cruising at 100 mph suddenly stops the car. Or, a more accessible analogy, you keep going like a ball keeps going after you throw it (even though it's left your hand and your arm is no longer exerting force on it).

    Given zero friction, you'll end up exactly at the other side of the earth, at which point you'll be at zero velocity; the force of gravity back towards the center of the earth has been slowing you down at the same rate it was speeding you up the entire time you were falling towards it. So once you get to the other side, hold on to something, or you'll fall right back down and end up where you started.

    Of course, zero friction isn't too likely, in which case you'll be slowed down the entire way by friction. You'll hit the center slower than you would have otherwise, and you'll hit zero velocity well before you reach the other side, at which point you start falling back toward the center again. Eventually, you come to rest at the center, and face a very long climb to get back to the surface (though if it makes you feel better, the first part of the climb will be under very low gravity conditions).

    If you want to get a picture of how this works, drop a superball, and imagine that the spot where it just left your hand is the opening point of the hole. Now imagine that the floor is the center of the earth, and once the ball bounces, imagine that your hand is now the other endpoint of the tunnel through the earth, and that the ball is actually continuing in a straight line instead of reversing direction when it hits the floor. (If the floor is a giant mirror, this will be easier to visualize.) The ball will come up almost to your hand, and then fall back down toward the center of the earth, past the center of the earth (*bounce*), back to the starting point, and continue. With each rise and fall, air resistance is at work on the ball, the bounces get smaller, and eventually it comes to rest on the floor (the center of the earth).

    That concludes todays physics lesson. In other news, the center of the earth is HOT.
  • SaltySalty Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 6970Members
    Think of its as you have maximum potential energy before you fall in the hole. You would convert the potential energy to kienetic as you fall. Once you reach the ceneter you would have maximum kienetic energy. Then when you are flung back up with your kienetic energy it is converted back to potential energy. Hence the conservation of energy. Of course this is completly neglecting resistance.
  • Cereal_KillRCereal_KillR Join Date: 2002-10-31 Member: 1837Members
    first of all how are you going to go there? dig a hole? if you do you're still only going to bump on the other side's inner crust so you can't really go out. And precision has it that you can't really predict the spot where you go out. Except if you're ready to dig out a whole country
  • WindelkronWindelkron Join Date: 2002-04-11 Member: 419Members
  • Mr_HeadcrabMr_Headcrab Squee&#33;~ Join Date: 2002-11-20 Member: 9392Members, Constellation
    you'd start to accelerate downwards until 2/3 of the way through, then the mass you passed would slow you down until just passing the core, then the mass of the oppisite side would take over accelerating you until 2/3 of that mass is passed, than youd exit at a slower rate (not enough to exit the Earth's atmosphere) feet first and then, when the Earth's gravity takes over, you'd crater. But the bigger problem is the hole would act as a pilot hole for a complete planetwide disintergration.
  • ZelZel Join Date: 2003-01-27 Member: 12861Members
    edited April 2003
    <!--QuoteBegin--ThinG+Apr 15 2003, 03:55 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (ThinG @ Apr 15 2003, 03:55 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
    The sun heats the surface of the earth, if the sun dies, planet freezes, we die etc etc, so the core only heats lets say 50% of the earth's diameter, lets say the sun does 25% then when you'd pass through the other 25% you'd probably freeze your bullock off  <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    WTH no. a volcano is less than a mile deep, the earth's core heats it about 99% of the way through. all that magma in there is plenty warm.

    it is warmed by the gravity pushing friction upon the atoms of rock, the same way a 2x-jupiter sized ball of gas can light itself into a small star...

    a star smaller than our sun or up to two times its mass will collapse into a metal rock of dull heat when it dies (actually a white hot ball of rock to start with)

    a star larger than that will be white hot longer, and the metal will be super dense, with so much gravity that the atoms will crunch closer together than their radius and the star rests up on its own nuclei. this is a neutron star. they burn for billions of years in this tiny (planet-sized) whte state and slowly cool off and die as some kinda super metal that humans havent really experienced first hand yet.

    a star larger than 5 or 10 tims the size of the sun (the actual factor being a number named after the indian physicist chansedrehksar) will collapse further than its own atoms nuclei and indefinitely into a single point in space with infinite density and so much gravity that not even soemthing going the speed of light can escape it. these are black holes. we call them that because they dont let visible light out. when one speaks of the size of black holes they are actually referring to its mass and therefore its gravitational field size. in reality who cares how big the physical object is if past a certain point no information can return.
    black holes are detectable by the stream of X-Rays (yes, the same kind of radiation used to photograph your skeleton) that are shed by gas that falls into it as it speeds up to near the speed of light along the axis of rotation. black holes actually stream radiation out of their axis!

    and yes i have read WAY too much steven hawking.

    some people think that black holes actually rip themselves into another dimension becasue the curvature of space gets higher and higherand into imaginary time. but lets not get into that, i cant explain it that well....
  • p4Samwisep4Samwise Join Date: 2002-12-15 Member: 10831Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--Windelkron+Apr 15 2003, 06:45 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Windelkron @ Apr 15 2003, 06:45 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Samwise wins. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    WOOO I R TEH WINNAR!!!!1111
  • Cereal_KillRCereal_KillR Join Date: 2002-10-31 Member: 1837Members
    but why would you want to pass through the center of the earth? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
  • KeyserKeyser Join Date: 2003-02-15 Member: 13591Members
    A winner is you... VICTOLY!
  • Error404Error404 Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9353Members
    <!--QuoteBegin--Cereal_KillR+Apr 16 2003, 05:44 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Cereal_KillR @ Apr 16 2003, 05:44 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> but why would you want to pass through the center of the earth? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Shortcut to Australia?
  • BurrBurr Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9358Members
  • TenSixTenSix Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7932Members
    Because you could <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->

    .....


    IF you could.
  • Cereal_KillRCereal_KillR Join Date: 2002-10-31 Member: 1837Members
    to have some wacky discussion on a random forum <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
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