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what would happen if you drilled a hole through the earth and dropped a stone

by Alexis Sporer Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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What happens to a stone when it is dropped through a hole drilled through the Centre of the earth? We toss a stone into the hole. The stone is pulled down towards the center of the earth. It falls all the way to the middle of the earth once it reaches the middle, theres no more pull of gravity.

It would go up a ways, then (due to the pull of gravity) fall back in the other direction, back towards the center. This back and forth oscillation around either side of the middle point of the earth continues for a while. Eventually it stops, because all the while there's air that slows down the motion of the stone.

Full Answer

What happens when a ball falls through a hole in Earth?

And to make things simple we'll assume our Earth is all made of the same kind of rock, there's no friction in the hole, and our fake Earth isn't rotating. So what happens? Well, as the ball drops through the hole it picks up speed - that's the acceleration due to gravity.

What would happen if you jumped through two holes at once?

You would then travel back through Earth and come back out of the hole that you originally jumped into. This would go on indefinitely as you yo-yo back and forth through the two holes. Of course, this is all theoretical, and I’m sure there would be quite a few more problems.

Can We drill a hole through the center of Earth?

First, let us state the obvious: You can't drill a hole through the center of the Earth. Saying that we lack the technological capabilities to accomplish this momentous feat is a grand, grand understatement. But of course, we can drill holes in the Earth. And how deep can we get? To date, the deepest hole is the Kola Superdeep Borehole.

How long would it take to dig a hole through the Earth?

Unless you’re cursed with bad weather or a delivery driver running behind schedule, that would be roughly 42 minutes and 12 seconds, give or take a minute or two. And of course, the biggest ‘what if’ factor in this equation: you were actually able to dig a hole directly through Earth from one side to the other.

How does gravity affect the speed of a ball?

What happens when it's a slow news day?

Who is David Stevenson?

Who makes NPR transcripts?

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What if you dug a hole through the Earth and jumped in?

If you jumped into the tunnel, you'd fall down towards the center of the Earth, accelerating constantly, thanks to gravity. By the time you reached the halfway point, after falling for 21 minutes, you'd be traveling at 28,000 kilometers per hour.

What happens if you drop something through Earth?

Assuming you had a maintainable clear path through Earth, with no air resistance, then the object accelerate to the center. Once it's inertia carried it through the center of Earth the net gravity acting on it would slow it until it started falling back through the center. It would ten oscillate falling back and forth.

Is it possible to drill a hole through the Earth?

First of all, no, it's not possible. Sorry to disappoint. After all, you would have to dig through: More than 8,000 miles of solid rock and molten magma.

Can humans survive the speed of light?

Based on our current understanding of physics and the limits of the natural world, the answer, sadly, is no.

Why can't we drill to the center of the Earth?

It's the thinnest of three main layers, yet humans have never drilled all the way through it. Then, the mantle makes up a whopping 84% of the planet's volume. At the inner core, you'd have to drill through solid iron. This would be especially difficult because there's near-zero gravity at the core.

How far have humans drilled down into the Earth?

After five years, the Kola well had reached 7km (about 23,000ft). Work continued until the project was abandoned in 1989 because the drill became stuck in rock at a little over 12km (almost 40,000ft or 8 miles) deep. That is the current record for a depth reached by humans.

What was found in the deepest hole on Earth?

Microscopic plankton fossilsMicroscopic plankton fossils were found six kilometres (3.7 mi) below the surface. Another unexpected discovery was a large quantity of hydrogen gas. The drilling mud that flowed out of the hole was described as "boiling" with hydrogen.

Can we reach Earth's core?

Scientists are not able to reach the Earth's core, which makes it hard to study. What they can do are geophysical studies and experiments that simulate the conditions deep down in the Earth.

Can you throw something around the Earth?

In concept, launching rockets to orbit is effectively throwing something around the Earth. Anything in orbit should fall to the ground, but becuase it's forward velocity is in a constant counteraction to gravity, it never comes back into the atmosphere.

Is it possible to throw an object around the Earth?

7900m/s would cease to be nearly sufficient to go around the world. The third reason this isn't possible has to do with the angle of attack increasing. At such high speeds above the speed of sound the compression of air causes a massive increase in temperature.

Can you fall from space to Earth and survive?

You won't immediately freeze or explode when you fall from space without wearing a space suit. You will have consciousness for around 15 seconds, post which you are likely to black out. Death will occur in around three minutes due to asphyxiation.

What would happen if you fell through the middle of the Earth?

Just getting to the center of the Earth and surviving is impossible. The Earth's core is about 9,000°F—as hot as the sun's surface—and would instantly roast anyone who found himself there. Then there's the pressure, which can reach roughly three million times that on the Earth's surface and would crush you.

A hole is drilled through the centre of the earth and a stone ... - Quora

Answer (1 of 4): It’s an interesting question, but requires making an assumption that isn’t true. That is, if one assumes that the Earth is a solid sphere of uniform density (that’s the part that isn’t true), using Newton’s gravitational force law, you can show that although the gravitational fo...

How long would it take to dig a hole in the Earth?

Unless you’re cursed with bad weather or a delivery driver running behind schedule, that would be roughly 42 minutes and 12 seconds, give or take a minute or two. And of course, the biggest ‘what if’ factor in this equation: you were actually able to dig a hole directly through Earth from one side to the other.

How hot is the Earth's core?

First off, start by creating a protective heat suit that can withstand the Earth’s molten core, which scientists estimate to be upwards of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 6650 degrees Celsius). That’s about 2000 degrees hotter than the surface of the sun, just to give you some perspective.

What would help your travels into the depths?

What would help your travels into the depths would be a vacuum tunnel, which would eliminate any air resistance you’d encounter under real world conditions. Otherwise the rules behind terminal velocity would have you in a weightless state when you reached the Earth’s core and you’d be stuck there, floating. Cool idea for a few minutes, a little more sinister when you realize you haven’t packed anything to eat and you have no way of making it any further.

Does the Coriolis effect occur between the poles?

You can probably imagine the results of that impact, so we won’t get into the gory details here. However, the Coriolis Effect doesn’t occur between the planet’s poles, so that’s where you’d want to start tunneling if you wanted to keep some reality in the mix here.

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How does gravity affect the speed of a ball?

Well, as the ball drops through the hole it picks up speed - that's the acceleration due to gravity . It reaches its top speed at the very center of the globe and continues rocketing toward the other side. Now here's the tricky part - because gravity is tugging on it, as it heads for the other side of the world, it starts to slow down, at first a little bit, and then more as it approaches the surface.

What happens when it's a slow news day?

Occasionally, when it's a slow news day, we wind up with holes in the show; gaps of a minute or two that the news of the day doesn't quite fill.

Who is David Stevenson?

PALCA: David Stevenson is a professor of Planetary Science at Caltech. He offered to help make sure I get this right.

Who makes NPR transcripts?

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary.

How does Venus feel pressure?

Just as you feel pressure when you swim deep down into water, you feel pressure when you have more air on top of you (this is why Venus’ thick atmosphere would squish you flat ). On our own planet, you’d only have to drop around 31 miles (50 km) before the pressure in the tube became as high as the bottom of the ocean.

How fast would you be moving to the center of the Earth?

Namely, the rotation of the planet. In short, about halfway to the center of the Earth you would be moving sideways about 1,500 mph (2400 kmh) faster than the walls of your tube. This fact is obviously terribly bad for your long-term health. You would bounce and bang and careen off the sides of the tube and, well, die.

What would happen if you developed a tube that allowed you to safely pass through the searing magma?

And even supposing that you managed to overcome this obstacle, if you developed some kind of tube that allowed you to safely pass through the searing hot magma, the very air would kill you. Or rather, the air pressure would.

How deep is the Kola hole?

To date, the deepest hole is the Kola Superdeep Borehole. Drilling started in the 1970s and finished some 20 years later when the team reached 40,230 feet (12,262 meters). That is about 7.5 miles, or just over 12 km. That’s not even a hair’s breadth when compared to the diameter of the Earth.

How far would you hit magma?

But if you did somehow manage to go even deeper, you would hit magma about 30 miles beneath the surface of the planet ( 48 km). At which point, you would be incinerated. Not so fun times.

What is the fun of theoretical physics?

Part of the fun of theoretical physics (and, if you ask me, the best part of theoretical physics) is that you get to ask absurd questions and calculate the (often equal ly absurd) answers. Take, for example, looking at what would happen if you were to drill a hole through the center of the Earth and jump through it.

How hot is the Earth's core?

This is because Earth’s core is liquid metal and reaches temperatures exceeding 9700°F (5400°C). And at just 7.5 miles, the team was already seeing temperatures exceeding 350°F (about 170°C).

Why does the mantle turn hard?

The mantle’s rock would be molten hot. But instead of staying in its melted state, the mantle would turn hard. That’s because of the extreme pressure. Moving on to the bottom of the mantle. A mere 1,000 km (600 mi) down, you would experience the force of mantle blobs. These are supercharged plumes of hot rock.

How long would it take to get from one side of the Earth to the other?

If it’s created correctly, you could get from one side of the Earth to the other in about 42 minutes using a gravity train. But as I mentioned before, traveling through Earth would be the easy part. It’s the drilling that would be hard. If we could engineer such a feat, it would revolutionize travel.

How hot is the outer core?

And boy, would it be hot. The temperatures around you would range from 4,500 °C to 5,500 °C (8,132 °C to 9,932 °F). At 5,000 km (2,107 mi) below the surface, you’d reach Earth’s inner core.

How thick is the mantle?

The mantle is about 2,900 km (1,801 mi) thick. You wouldn’t see much inside it, except for one dazzling exception. At this depth, the enormous pressure and heat form diamonds. They make their way to the Earth’s surface through volcanic activity. And that’s where we humans find them.

How deep is the Mariana trench?

And at 11 km (36,037 ft) underground, you’d be deeper than the Mariana Trench is. At 12.26 km (7.61 mi), you would reach the same depth as that Kola Superdeep Borehole. It’s the deepest hole we’ve ever dug.

How far down is Mponeng gold mine?

And believe me, you wouldn’t enjoy the 60 °C (140 °F) temperature down there. Then gravity would take you further down. At 8.8 km (5.5 mi) below Earth ’s surface, you’d have traveled further than the height of Mount Everest.

What would happen if you jumped into the depths of the Earth?

If you just jumped into the depths of the Earth, you would get burned to a crisp and crushed into a pancake. So hop on the gravity train. This train would accelerate using only the force of gravity. And it would protect you from the searing heat and extreme pressure.

What would happen if a dropped object collided with the center of the Earth?

So for this to work, the dropped object would have to bounce elastically off the front and rear walls, and would be oscillating back and forth very rapidly as it approached the center of the earth. After all, your initial horizontal speed is nominally 465 m/s relative to the center, using an equatorial radius, so that gives a fairly rapid oscillation back and forth between the walls of our idealized well as you approach the center. Neglecting the fact of how hot the center is, and the fact that your object would melt, and your hole would close - Oh, well, this is all silliness to begin with. But blithely proceeding in the face of real-world facts, if you maintained the hole and the elastic collisions, things would get more extreme on the way up toward the opposite side of the Earth since the elastic presumption would imply that the velocity perpendicular to the radius would approach twice the 465 m/s, so if the object emerged from the hole, it would go zinging off at 930 m/s, almost mach 3. So it's best not to stand close to the hole.

How long does it take for a traveler to pop up on the opposite side of the Earth?

The traveler would pop up on the opposite side of the Earth after a little more than 42 minutes.

What is positive r?

Taking positive r as outward from the center of the Earth: This is the same form as Hooke's Lawfor a mass on a spring. It would cause the trans-Earth traveler to oscillate back and forth through the center of the Earth like a mass bobbing up and down on a spring.

What is the net gravity force on an object from that mass?

For a spherically symmetric mass, the net gravity force on an object from that mass would be only that due to the mass inside its radius, and that would act as if it were a point mass located at the center. When this is analyzed in detail, you find that the gravity at any radius r less than REarthwill be linearly proportional to ...

What is your initial acceleration?

Your initial acceleration would be the surface acceleration of gravity

Does the hole through the center of the Earth work?

So the hole through the center of the Earth really doesn't work , but this example has generated some interesting comments. Having swept all these difficulties under the rug in posting this example, it yet gives some interesting correlations to orbital velocities and surprisingly to Hooke's law.

How does gravity affect the speed of a ball?

Well, as the ball drops through the hole it picks up speed - that's the acceleration due to gravity . It reaches its top speed at the very center of the globe and continues rocketing toward the other side. Now here's the tricky part - because gravity is tugging on it, as it heads for the other side of the world, it starts to slow down, at first a little bit, and then more as it approaches the surface.

What happens when it's a slow news day?

Occasionally, when it's a slow news day, we wind up with holes in the show; gaps of a minute or two that the news of the day doesn't quite fill.

Who is David Stevenson?

PALCA: David Stevenson is a professor of Planetary Science at Caltech. He offered to help make sure I get this right.

Who makes NPR transcripts?

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary.

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1.What would happen if you drilled a hole through the …

Url:https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-you-drilled-a-hole-through-the-center-of-the-Earth-and-dropped-something-down-it

13 hours ago It would keep bouncing back and forth for years, shorter and shorter at each trip. If you drilled the hole anywhere else the Earth’s rotation would cause what you dropped to keep bouncing off …

2.So theoretically, if we could drill a hole through the Earth …

Url:https://www.quora.com/So-theoretically-if-we-could-drill-a-hole-through-the-Earth-and-we-dropped-a-coin-or-something-into-the-hole-what-would-happen-when-it-comes-out-of-the-other-side-Would-it-fall-up-and-defy-gravity

17 hours ago Drill bits start to melt and the “rock” you’re drilling into gets softer and softer. When you pull out the drill bit the rock you just bored into “oozes” back together. So how can we overcome this? …

3.Videos of What Would Happen If You Drilled a Hole Through the Ea…

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14 hours ago  · After about 40 minutes of jumping into the original hole, you would eventually come out of the hole on the other side and then fall back into that same hole again. You would …

4.A Ball Dropped Through The Earth Becomes A Permanent …

Url:https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=211434213

5 hours ago  · This map shows where you would end up if you dug a hole to the other side of the world. Source imgur. At 7.5 miles (about 12 kilometers) in length, the Borehole is just a teensy …

5.What Would Happen if You Jumped Through the Center …

Url:https://futurism.com/what-would-happen-if-you-jumped-through-the-center-of-the-earth

36 hours ago A Ball Dropped Through The Earth Becomes A Permanent Pendulum What happens when you drop a ball down a hole drilled through the center of the Earth? The answer might surprise you. …

6.What If You Drilled a Hole Through Earth? | What If Show

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27 hours ago What would happen if you drilled a hole through the earth and dropped a stone? The stone is pulled down towards the center of the earth. It falls all the way to the middle of the earth once …

7.Solved Consider what would happen if you drilled a hole …

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29 hours ago Namely, the rotation of the planet. In short, about halfway to the center of the Earth you would be moving sideways about 1,500 mph (2400 kmh) faster than the walls of your tube. This fact is ...

8.Hole Through the Earth Example - GSU

Url:http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Mechanics/earthole.html

8 hours ago A mere 1,000 km (600 mi) down, you would experience the force of mantle blobs. These are supercharged plumes of hot rock. And if they surfaced, they would become devastating …

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