How to travel halfway across the world for free

Tenochtitlan

Tenochtitlan

Supreme Commander
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Messages
1,647
All we have to do is do alot of drilling, drill all the way to the core from 2 opposite sides, suck all the air out the tunnel, and then fall! If you fall you should reach the other side, and stop at approximately the surface, and once you reach, cling!

Or if it we cannot suck all the air out the tunnel, we try to direct the air current one way or the other?


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Improvements anyone?
 
It has a 0% chance of success, but it is free!

And since it is free, you can't afford not to die!
 
To make it interesting, first person to calculate how much time it takes to get to the other side, gets 10 points!
 
would it be like a pendulum? Assuming the pressue doesn't kill you (ha!), you'd drop in the hole and fly through to the other side and then swing back and forth.
 
ainwood said:
4. At the center, you'd fry.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure in an airless tunnel you'd die before you fry. ;)
 
ainwood said:
1. You couldn't possible drill right through the earth.
2. Drilling certainly isn't free - drilling rigs cost $100,000's per day.
3. You couldn't travel right through - you'd get as far as the center, then start decellerating.
4. At the center, you'd fry.
Click to expand...

When I fall, at the surface I have enough potential energy to get me all the way to the other surface, at the core I would have maximum velocity. (Assuming I'm in a fireproof capsule.
 
Ok, so you would have cut the world in half. Do you think that this would have no effect on the planet's movement? Wouldnt one half collide with the other and end all life on earth? :p
Actually it is an interesting question; supposing that we had developed a liquid which would cotniniously burn a hole through anything anywhere, and managed to sustain it by using air pressure, until we droped it on the earth. Had it opened a continious hole, of small diameter, between two antidiametrically opossite points on the earth's sphere, how would the soil tend to move then? Would it move towards the opened up part, or would it move further away from it, and break the planet in two?
 
Tenochtitlan said:
To make it interesting, first person to calculate how much time it takes to get to the other side, gets 10 points!
Click to expand...

Pah. Using the actual density distribution of the planet? That sucks and is going to be far more of a PITA than the normal uniform density approximation.

Otherwise it's simple harmonic motion.

Ok, so you would have cut the world in half. Do you think that this would have no effect on the planet's movement? Wouldnt one half collide with the other and end all life on earth?
Click to expand...
Hole, not shearing it. :p The world is not 2D.
 
Tenochtitlan said:
When I fall, at the surface I have enough potential energy to get me all the way to the other surface, at the core I would have maximum velocity. (Assuming I'm in a fireproof capsule.
Click to expand...
Friction. You will have no way to suck all the air out, and even if you did, there would be loose particles and liquid rock slowing you down.
 
Wouldn't your spine be compressed when you pass the centre of gravity? At some point your head and feet would each be accelerated at 9.8 m/s/s towards your midriff; assuming you're 80 kg, your spine would be subject to nearly 400 Newtons on either end. Would that be enough to cause damage? I know it takes 3000 N to crack a coconut, but I'm not sure how strong the spine is.
 
or, just tear a hole in space and time, and travel like that!
 
Your world looks like a butt crack.

And as Ainwood said. Drilling is expensive. My father's company has spent millions trying to research technologies that would allow faster, cleaner and more accurate drilling.
 
Taliesin said:
Wouldn't your spine be compressed when you pass the centre of gravity? At some point your head and feet would each be accelerated at 9.8 m/s/s towards your midriff; assuming you're 80 kg, your spine would be subject to nearly 400 Newtons on either end. Would that be enough to cause damage? I know it takes 3000 N to crack a coconut, but I'm not sure how strong the spine is.
Click to expand...

Well sure if you assume that the Earth's gravity is caused by an infinitesimal point at its center with mass equal to the Earth itself. That approximation is ok for surface calculations, but obviously falls apart when we are travelling through the Earth. At the center, you would actually be weightless, since there would be equal forces pulling at you from all directions, outwards not pushing you inwards.

That's also what makes the problem of your transit time a ***** to solve. Your acceleration along the tunnel is a function of your position. It would still be harmonic motion though... can't be bothered to pull out the equations for that. I'll leave it to The Last Conformist & co. :p
 
Taliesin said:
Wouldn't your spine be compressed when you pass the centre of gravity? At some point your head and feet would each be accelerated at 9.8 m/s/s towards your midriff; assuming you're 80 kg, your spine would be subject to nearly 400 Newtons on either end. Would that be enough to cause damage? I know it takes 3000 N to crack a coconut, but I'm not sure how strong the spine is.
Click to expand...
Not at all. The 9.8ms¯² is only because the earth is pulling at us in one direction. At the center [its the logical spelling, use it, grr], the earth will be pulling on us in all directions, thus subjecting us to effectively no pressure at all.
 
As an aside we can also prove that you will not die at any other point in the journey, because your maximum acceleration is actually at the very instant you begin the trip - your body will never feel more than 1G of pull.

That makes me think this voyage is gonna take a pretty long time ;) Even if you fall at a constant acceleration of 1G until you hit the center (e.g., if we take the ridiculous oversimplification that the center "produces" the whole Earth's gravity) you will take days to reach it, I think. And that's an overestimate.

Better to take a 747 and go the "long" way around. ;)
 
Pontiuth Pilate said:
As an aside we can also prove that you will not die at any other point in the journey, because your maximum acceleration is actually at the very instant you begin the trip - your body will never feel more than 1G of pull.

That makes me think this voyage is gonna take a pretty long time ;) Even if you fall at a constant acceleration of 1G until you hit the center (e.g., if we take the ridiculous oversimplification that the center "produces" the whole Earth's gravity) you will take days to reach it, I think. And that's an overestimate.

Better to take a 747 and go the "long" way around. ;)
Click to expand...

Constant acceleration of 1G gets you up to speed pretty quickly. Starting from rest, and experiencing constant 9.8m/s^2 acceleration for one day (86400s), you'd have travelled approximately 36.5 million km. The earth is slightly less than 36.5 million km across. In fact, after just 1 day of constant 1G acceleration, you'd be approximately 1/4 of the way to the sun. After 2 days, 32 minutes and 9 seconds of 1G, you'd have covered the distance from the earth to the sun. So your overestimate is actually a vast underestimate.
 
Assuming displacement of 6378.1 km (says Google) and constant acceleration of 9.8m/s² (for discussion sake), and the equation of displacement being d = .5at²:
solving for time, we get sqrt(2d/a)

That comes to around 1141s, or 19 minutes. assuming the answer isn't negative time. correct me if I'm wrong..

EDIT: I had net connection problems so the post seems as a repeat. anyhow, I calculated to the center of Earth.
 
kingjoshi said:
Assuming displacement of 6378.1 km (says Google) and constant acceleration of 9.8m/s² (for discussion sake), and the equation of displacement being d = .5at²:
solving for time, we get sqrt(2d/a)

That comes to around 1141s, or 19 minutes. assuming the answer isn't negative time. correct me if I'm wrong..

EDIT: I had net connection problems so the post seems as a repeat. anyhow, I calculated to the center of Earth.
Click to expand...
To get to the end-surface from the core takes exactly the same time as it takes from the start-surface to the core. So it's that times 2. But I don't think acceleration is constant.
 
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