• Question: If someone drilled a hole all the way through the earth and some one jumped into it where would you stop falling? lets see you answer that one :P

    Asked by jacob to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 15 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I wouldn’t jump – I like fresh air 😉

    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hi Jacob

      I’ve heard this question before and from what I understand,you don’t… If you drilled a hole say from North to South Pole and jumped in, you would basically become like a human bouncy ball going from North to South pole and back again.

      I’ll try to explain, but first we assume there is nothing in the hole you dug, it’s in complete vacuum so no air resistance needs to be considered. Also, let’s assume the earth is a perfect sphere.

      When you start falling, you have most of the Earth’s mass beneath you, so you get pulled down. The further you fall, more and more of the Earth is above you, until you reach the center, where exactly as much is above as below. At this point, the gravitational force you experience is zero.

      This does not mean you stop there… although no force is pulling you down or pushing you up, you still have all the speed you gained in falling from the surface to the centre. So you keep falling towards the South Pole, but you are slowed down by the increasing mass of Earth above you. This second part of the fall is a mirror image of the first half, when you fell from the surface to the centre.

      When you reach the South Pole, you stop but only for an instant because then you have all the mass of the Earth pulling you “up”, towards the North Pole again. So you do the reverse journey, from South to North Pole in exactly the same way.
      Once you reach the North Pole, it all starts again, so you’re pulled down again, and up, and down – a perpetual human bouncy ball.

      For extra points: total trip time from pole to pole is about 40 minutes.

      😀

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Depends where the hole was drilled – obviously South is downhil so if you jumped anywhere in the northern hemisphere you’d just keep going all the way out the other side 😉

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Oh, I can answer it – just probably not correctly! LOL
      Probably about the point the temperature got so high you incinerated. 😉

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      This could be deemed as fantasy or science fiction as on this planet at least it is not possible but lets play devils advocate and assume it is. You have opened your hole and it’s a bonnie hole so you decided to jump in and come out at the other side of the world. WEEEEEEE!!!! Is what I would shout. Anyway you have jumped in your hole, as we know gravity pulls you to the centre of the earth due to the mass and rotation of the planet. Gravity has a affect of accelerating a body/object/mass at 9.82m/s2. So as you fall through this hole you are constantly accelerating, going faster until you reach the dead centre. Where the accelerations are equal, however you would not stop becuase by that time you would have reach terminal velocity. By the time you have reached this point you will be travelling at a high velocity and would continue moving through the hole past this point due to this high velocity. Now as you move past the centre gravity will begin pulling you back towards the centre as before. But it is only slowing your high velocity down it won’t instantly stop you so you are therefore decelerating this deceleration would continue until you reach the opening at the other end of your magnificent hole. Once you reach this end gravity would have stopped you and began accelerating you towards the centre where you begin the process again. For the rest of your life this would happen unless an outside force stops you at some point. (This answer neglects items such as air resistance and coriolis effects, it is based on what would be considered a perfect system) Bet you don’t want to jump into that hole now!!! 😛

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