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by game masta on September 9th, 2006

game masta

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If a tunnel was dug through the middle of the Earth from top to bottom and a person was to jump in the hole what would happen to that person?

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Answers. 32 helpful answers below.

  • by Anonymous on March 14th, 2008

    Anonymous

    I would expect that it would go back and forth between the poles slowly losing momentum, each time losing distance from the earth's center until it finally just stops and hovers in the center. Probably there would be 0 gravity at the center of the earth

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  • by PerpetualAFK on March 3rd, 2007

    PerpetualAFK

    There is one interesting fact about this proposition. The time of the trip from one end of the tunnel to the other end is the same, no matter where the two ends of the tunner are located on the earth's surface. If one end was on the equator, and the other end was at the north pole, the length of the trip is the exact same as if the other end was also on the equation, on the other side of the earth. This can be proven using classical mechanics. The length of the trip is approximately 87 minutes, disregarding friction. This time is, not coincidentally, also the time for an orbit of earth.

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  • by Gone. on July 31st, 2008

    Gone.

    I think the friction would burn the clothes off and then eventually burn the persons skin off. I doubt the person would make it to the other side, the same way they went in.

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  • by -O-uknow on March 14th, 2008

    -O-uknow

    The force of gravity would accelerate it through the hole and the weightless center of the Earth. The mathematics would have to worked out whether or not it would gain the momentum to exit out the other side.

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  • by Glenn Blaylock on September 10th, 2006

    Glenn Blaylock

    Assuming there was no air friction and that you did not have to worry about heat or anything getting in your way, then the person would fall through the hole accelerating until he reached Earth's center. As he continued to fall, gravity would now start to slow him down until he came out the other end of the hole. He would just get to the level of the surface before he started to fall back down the hole. If there were anything acting upon him other than gravity to slow him down, then he would do as Roger Kovaciny described.

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  • by Phillis - Zacks little sister on July 31st, 2008

    Phillis - Zacks little sister

    The person would be burnt to a crisp before reaching the center.

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  • by Glenn Blaylock on July 31st, 2008

    Glenn Blaylock

    Asked and answered a number of times, but here is the one with the best answers.

    http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/74265

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  • by nimmi on March 14th, 2008

    nimmi

    F=GmM/r^2
    m mass of ball, M mass of earth, r the distance between ball & centre of earth, F=force of attraction between ball & earth.
    Force of attraction will decrease if r is more & will increase if value of the r is less as evident from the formula.
    The gravity of earth pulls everything to its centre,
    Ball will gain speed ,ball will gain acceleration due to force F-because ball is rolling to centre of earth the value of r is coming down so the value of force F is increasing- near the centre of earth the velocity of ball will be maximum.
    Then due to its momentum ball will go away from the centre of earth - now value of r is increasing ,so the force is coming down,which was earlier accelerating the ball,so speed of ball will come down gradually.As soon as ball reaches to other pole ball will again start its backward journey.(to & fro motion)

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  • by Piso on March 14th, 2008

    Piso

    if there a hole from the north pole to south pole the earth would implode by its own gravity

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  • by basshunteristheshit on March 14th, 2008

    basshunteristheshit

    wow that a good question i thimk it would go all the way to the other side and then go back into the hole and it would go like that for ever in then out.

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  • by Cowboy-Matter of Fact on July 8th, 2007

    Cowboy-Matter of Fact

    How do you tunnel through liquid?

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  • by ChelseaMark on July 8th, 2007

    ChelseaMark

    Who cares , he'd have to be an idiot.

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  • by Carnivalius on July 8th, 2007

    Carnivalius

    Ignoring the searing heat as you passed through the centre and got roasted and friction for a moment you would end up with simple harmonic motion. Gravity pulls you towards the centre of the sun, as you get to the centre your moving at the highest velocity of the trip and go past it. Gravity is now no longer increasing your velocity but is decreasing it as it wants to pull you back towards the centre. You would come out of the other end of the hole at roughly the same distance from the centre of the earth as you were on the other side. Then you would go back down again.

    If however air is in the tube and it is allowed to act on you (cause friction), you'd never make it to the other end of the tunnel as you would reach your terminal velocity very quickly and go no faster, this is not fast enough to get you past the centre of the earth and all the way to the other end of the tunnel before your pulled back again towards the centre.

    This would continue with you achieving less and less height either side of the centre of the earth until you are infact stationary at the centre of the earth.

    You could calculate how far you would get the first time but this would require a pen, paper and a calculator and I left those upstairs.

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  • by Someone on July 8th, 2007

    Someone

    Well, as the center of the earth is way beyond a tempature any human can handle, by the time he got to the middle of the hole, he'd be burned to dust. So sadly, he would never make it to the other side.

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  • by Roger Kovaciny on September 10th, 2006

    Roger Kovaciny

    Studied this in physics, where presumably the authors of the textbook knew what they were talking about; you would fall way past the center but not quite up to the other side, then fall back toward your original hole, and keep oscillating like that until you stopped in the middle.

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  • by GreenFreak on July 31st, 2008

    GreenFreak

    I think you would eventually stop somewhere in the middle. But it would take a very, very long time, as the only force slowing you down would be air friction

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  • by Twhupfold on July 8th, 2007

    Twhupfold

    He'd die... Quite horribly actually : P

    They'd either:

    1) Slam into the sides of the tunnel while falling at their terminal velocity (pretty fast...) thousands of times on their way to the core

    2) Suffocate

    3) Be incinerated upon entering the Mantle

    4) Just die somehow : P

    Also considering the thickness of Earth (Really approximate number, about 12'000 km in diameter) and the average terminal velocity of a human (given average air friction that you have above ground, which you wouldn't have down there) the fall would take just under 3 days : P

    Imagine that, falling for 3 days straight...

    Though actually as I said, you'd die LONG before then, if not from slamming into the sides or suffocation, it will take you only a few minutes to hit the Mantle, at which point you'd very likely burst into flames ; )


    But if you remove all of those dangers, and just consider it a given that you have enough oxygen, water, etc, then you'd past the core and keep going for a while before gravity slows you down, and you begin falling backwards. This goes on a few times until eventually you'd end up stationary at the core.

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  • by Will on July 8th, 2007

    Will

    If he wasn't already, he would end up a Chinaman.

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  • by riauku5 on July 3rd, 2007

    riauku5

    Wait if you get closer to the center of the earth wouldnt that mean less gravity force would be upon you resulting in ...... the person not even reaching the suface of the other side? This is kind of looking at it techniqally, Also the closer you reach to the center the more pressure their is. Is their also a possiblity that he could be crushed?

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  • by riseandconverge on March 23rd, 2007

    riseandconverge

    If the hole is large enough, you would find yourself in a long, thin, elliptical orbit around the center of the earth, with one foci at the center. The orbit would degenerate due to air friction until you would find yourself sitting weightless at the exact center of the earth.

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  • by Nelson L. Squeeko on March 22nd, 2007

    Nelson L. Squeeko

    I've thought about this before. Forgetting for a moment that the Earth's core is a little over room temperature, as well as omitting any other factors, since I'm sure that what you meant, here's what I think would happen. You'd continue to accelerate until you pass the centre point of the Earth. From that point on, you should start to slow down the more you get away from the core. Then you should come out the hole on the other end, have a small amount of hangtime, and drop back down. Repeat the process. But if you take into account some slow down from air friction, you may not make it all the way back. This "hole" question, will get mixed answers because you must decide what forces you'll acknowledge and which you'll push aside. Fun either way though

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  • by holdmysuit on March 22nd, 2007

    holdmysuit

    The weight of air alone would crush you.

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  • by sppb76 on March 22nd, 2007

    sppb76

    You would fry as you reach the center of the earth so you would neither go through to the other side or return to where you came

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  • by ardvarkkid on September 10th, 2006

    ardvarkkid

    If he felled straight through the hole
    If he did not die from fallen so fast
    Eventually he would melt from the magma
    thats in the middle of the earth

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  • by xena-angel on July 31st, 2008

    xena-angel

    OK, we go with your theory that a tunnel could be dug through the middle of the Earth from top to bottom. The jumper would die a horrible death.

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  • by larrymcjon on March 22nd, 2007

    larrymcjon

    You would go to the other end. The force of gravity as you fall would be so great it would toss you to the other side.

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  • by pdvyas on March 8th, 2007

    pdvyas

    Such a situation will result in a simple haronic motion of the man . ie he will oscilate between the two ends of the tuinnel (if there is no friction). Now, to calculate the time just apply
    T=2(pi)*sqrt(l/(omega))

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  • by good spontaneosity on February 15th, 2009

    good spontaneosity

    Without other factors loke the extreme friction or magma, I'm Guessing you'd be pulled apart as you reached the middle from the gravity pulling at you from all directions.

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  • by Eezak01 on November 20th, 2008

    Eezak01

    Let's just say for s__ts and giggles that the person was in a suit that would protect him from any harm and a tunnel built in this manner were possible. The answer is he would pop out the other side in 43 minutes and 47 seconds. Then, if he weren't knocked out of the way he would fall back again in approximately the same amount of time. After a few hundred times he would probably wish he had not attempted this crazy trip.

    And no, I did not calculate this, I am not that smart. So, I dug a tunnel jumped in and had a stopwatch handy.

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  • by jonathan.t.hugo on May 10th, 2012

    jonathan.t.hugo

    if the earth spins and keeps us bound to it because of rotation, then the man would jump through the whole, fall into the earth. I don't think he'd have much a problem getting into the earth. hypothetically, if we lived on a planet that wasn't a living creature to began with, he would be crispy and fire before impacting to the center of the earth. instead he would fall and be pulled towards the center of the earth and when entering the center he would cost all the way through. I'm certain he would make it to the mouth of the other hole. But I am positive he wouldn't come out of the other side. Everything on earth is be pulled to the middle. If we got to the middle, we would float in zero gravity. I don't think people think about what zero gravity is like, but here's an example... say you're in a pool, it's freeing, no restrictions. zero gravity has a restriction. you don't move in zero gravity, something moves you. you can throw your arms all about, but unless u have something to grab ahold of or to push off of, you will stay suspended in air and not going anywhere. which if yall think about it, that's why their so much crap and astroids and or meteors floating throughout space. it once came from some other place and floated from whence it came. it didn't continue moving itself, it just floated there. so that's my stand point, you won't come out the other side, but instead be stuck inside until someone pulls you out with a rope. although your rescue attempts would be exactly that, because you momentum would slow and you can't swim to the rope, but float so you'd be chancing it.

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  • by flyn4mojo on July 13th, 2010

    flyn4mojo

    What would happen if you tunneled through the moon and jumped in/dropped an object of your preference into the hole? Because there are too many variables for consideration using the earth, let's not get wrapped up in that yet; but instead answer the same question about the moon. It is realistically possible for us to send digging equipment to the moon. With our current technology, drilling a hole in that large rock doesn't seem unreasonable and could be done with automated equipment. WALL-E's brother DIG-R could be real...and if Pixar want's to make a DIG-R movie I claim dibs now on the idea. Heehe. The moon has its own constant gravity, but air friction, excessive core pressures and temperatures, lava and some of the other variables are now either taken out of the previous earth equation, or minimized enough so we can proceed with the idea. Because the force of gravity has yet to be defined, maybe it will take this experiment to prove that gravity is a wave from energy and define the spring like constant that may happen with the oscillation theory described above. Ideas??

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  • by eye8rsoulslieq on May 10th, 2012

    eye8rsoulslieq

    Scientists/mathematicians have theorized that any hole or tunnel dug to connect two points on the planet would, all practical considerations aside, take 47 (I forget the exact number) to traverse.. the first half of the journey at heightened speed and beyond halfway decelerating to the other side..

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More Questions. Additional questions in this category.

You're reading If a tunnel was dug through the middle of the Earth from top to bottom and a person was to jump in the hole what would happen to that person? - which can also be phrased in the following ways:

  • If there's a hole straight through the earth, from the south pole to the north pole, and you jump through it what would happen? would you keep falling forever, or fall back down when you get to the middle?
  • If you dug a hole on the north pole to the south pole and threw a a bowling bowl dont the hole what would happen
  • If there was a tube running through the earth and you jumped into it, would you come out the other side, assuming you're protected from the elements and had air?

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