If we had the technology to break through gravity, can we drill a hole on the earth and go to the other end?

Question

I have been wondering about this all my life. Please answer if you know. =D

Answer 1

I'll try and summarize some of the answers given so far.

Gravity actually assists you in a ride through the Earth, although it gets weaker as you get to the center.

However, the main point here is that you have conservation of energy. You have a certain potential energy due to gravity when you jump in the hole. This is converted to pure kinetic energy (velocity) when you reach the center. Conservation of energy says this is just enough starting velocity to get to the other side (as gravity provides a breaking mechanism).

When you pop out on the other side, you have exactly as much total energy as you did before, now again in the form of gravitational potential energy, so you have come to a stop. This takes about 84 minutes (as a previous poster has noted).

This ignores friction, but that's not the biggest problem involved in tunneling through the Earth, by far. Essentially, you have to have thermal shielding, something that withstand 10,000K (hotter than the surface of the sun). As well as a drilling mechanism which can breach the surface of a super-pressurized solid iron core. Not to mention something that can withstand the pressure stresses to begin with.

Summary: Gravity isn't the problem, it's the solution. The technology you need is to withstand conditions inside the Earth. Good luck!

Answer 2

Yes.

Anything we can conceive, we can accomplish. It's only a matter of how much we want to.

Answer 3

Gravity isn't the problem - there's nothing to 'break through'.  Besides rock, of course.  As you go deeper into the Earth, the gravitational force actually goes down because there's less mass between you and the center of the Earth.

So I suppose we could drill a hole all the way through, but there's a lot of magma down there and I think there's a good chance we'd set off a volcano or something, or at least melt the drill.  But theoretically, ignoring those problems, yes, we could.

And then you could jump in the hole and oscillate back and forth between the two sides of the Earth until finally coming to rest in the center.  Where it's really hot.

Answer 4

no.  you would be able to go a certain distance until you came upon the mantle;  then you would melt.

Answer 5

Sure,

And the time taken to reach from one end to the other

will be given by,

T=2pi[sqr(L/g)]

with L=Radius of the Earth

Then, T=84 minutes, 27 seconds.