If you were drill from one side of the earth to the other?

Question

If you were drill a hole straight down from where your standing to the opposite side of the globe would you come out upside down? Never mind the whole "err you wouldnt make it through the core or we dont have a drill that would let us do that" its a simply theoretical question.

Answer 1

As you go down deeper the gravitational force on you will decrease.

When you reach the center the force will become zero.

Case 1(Not a free fall , but rather a crawl descent into the hole):

When you go beyond the center, say with your head first you will start experiencing a force that pulling your legs towards the core. You will feel like wanting to rest your feet somewhere, as if you are falling to the center.

Now its up to you. If you have some mechanism to continue your travel further from the center by travelling against the g force, YES, you will come out head first from the other end.

Case 2(Free fall through the hole):

If say there was a free passage through the center of the earth and you were just dropped head long. You would go all the way to the other way again with your head first and then continue to fall back to where you started, in a two and fro motion , which could continue forever if some kind of friction or viscosity of air does'nt impede your motion ( if something did impede your movement you would finally come to rest at the core).

So YES if you were dropped in the hole that you dug through the center, you WOULD come out the opposite of what you entered the hole as(head/feet first).

Answer 2

As you stepped into the hole, gravity would begin to accelerate you toward the center of the earth.  As you reach the center, the acceleration would stop and you would be traveling at a constant velocity momentarily.  As you pass the center of the earth, gravity would begin to decelerate you and pull you back toward the center of the earth.  Ignoring air resistance or in vacuum conditions, you would travel back and forth from one end of the tunnel to the other...just reaching the edge of the tunnel before you fell back toward the center of the earth.

The answer to your question is "it depends." The answer would depend on how you entered the tunnel.  If you jumped in feet first, you would reach the other end of the tunnel feet first(upside down).  If you dove in head first, you would reach the other end of the tunnel head first(right side up).

Hopefully you thought to dive in head first so you could grab onto something and pull yourself out when you reached the other end of the tunnel!!

Answer 3

no. there is no way that u could come upside down. it would just feel like how u are now (the right way up). hope this helped

Answer 4

This question frightens me.

Answer 5

If possible I think once at the center the gravity shift would mean you would be climbing up.

Answer 6

No. You just drilled down on the ground from one side and when you come out of the hole the drill gets out first. To get out of the drilling machine you'll have to climb out or walk out of it right side up as you would to get out of a man-hole on the street.

Answer 7

No.

Answer 8

Unless you tumble.

Answer 9

This is a well known and well answered question. You will simply undergo a simple harmonic motion with a period of around 8 minutes.

Answer 10

interesting question,because we may do that in future,as a means of transportation.you'd better make sure you brace the tunnel walls against molten rock and continental shift though.

Answer 11

If a vacuum filled hole could be built,  and you could survive the journey,  you would  appear at the other side, upside down, only for an instant before you fell back in.

The journey would take about 45 minutes, and you would reach a speed of about 18,000 miles per hour as you passed through the Earth's centre.

You would actually oscillate with Simple Harmonic Motion with the Earth's centre as the point of zero displacement

It is also interesting to note that, if a straight tube was built to connect any two points on the Earth's surface, and if  a frictionless railtrack  was possible, the journey would still take about 45 minutes, but you would not reach such a high speed.

Answer 12

As you got closer to the center, gravity would be reduced to zero.  As you continued past the center, you would be drilling upwards, and gravity would keep increasing until you reached the surface.  It would be difficult to avoid falling down the hole back to the center.