Everybody has ever wondered, and what will happen if I dig a tunnel through the center of the Earth, then where will I end up? The answer in the psychiatric hospital is funny, but not correct. You can calculate right now exactly where you will go, it is not difficult … Every point on Earth has coordinates. The sphere is conventionally divided into the Southern and Northern Hemispheres, along which latitudes are counted, and the Western and Eastern Hemispheres along which longitudes are counted. So, in order to find a point on the Planet opposite to the given one, it is necessary to change the sign of the latitude, and subtract the longitude from 180 and also change the sign.
But I hasten to upset everyone …
… most of the land is projected through the center of the Earth onto the water surface. A very small portion of the Earth is projected back onto land. It is shown in black on the map.
There are some interesting coincidences. For example, almost all the inhabitants of Argentina and Chile will dig a tunnel to China or Mongolia, and the inhabitants of Portugal to New Zealand. In Russia, there is also a small territory near Lake Baikal, whose tunnel will lead you to the Falkland Islands.
The next logical question: what will happen if water from the World Ocean starts to pour into this tunnel?
Will it overflow and flood everything around? No, even if we take for the sake of simplicity that the temperature in the center of the tunnel will be room temperature, water will start to fill in there and fall with acceleration. If the tunnel is wide enough, then, according to the principle of communicating vessels, the water levels will become the same when there is the same pressure, in our case R1 = R2. Since almost all land lies above sea level, a tunnel filled with water will be almost like a well without a bottom. But the tunnel will most likely be too narrow and the water will not even reach the middle. HER will squeeze out with tremendous pressure.
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What happens if you jump into this tunnel?
For the sake of interest, let's assume that the tunnel is solid throughout (a non-fusible pipe is laid through the molten core) and that you are insensitive to neither temperature nor pressure. Otherwise, everything will end at a depth of a couple of tens of kilometers.
You will accelerate. A little later, the Coriolis force will press you against the wall, and you will slide along it like a slide. Because of the friction, you never get to the far side of the planet. To prevent this from happening, the tunnel must be drilled either from pole to pole, or curvilinearly - an arc will turn out, because of which you will in no way be able to get to the strictly opposite point of the planet.
If the tunnel has the correct curvature, then you will fall into it with normal (initially) acceleration and experience full weightlessness. Meanwhile, the acceleration will gradually weaken, and flying at the point of maximum proximity to the center of the Earth, you will have a speed of about 7 km / sec. If the tunnel runs along the axis of the planet and is straightforward, then the maximum speed will be exactly equal to the first comic for the point from where you started to fall. After passing this point, the acceleration becomes negative and you slow down more and more actively (still experiencing complete weightlessness. Finally, your speed vanishes exactly at the exit from the tunnel. For one second, you can contemplate the Australian landscape, and quickly wave the handle, after which you start to fall back and so - you fly back and forth endlessly.
If the tunnel does not run along the axis of the Earth and, therefore, has the shape of an arc, then a second tunnel will be needed for the return flight - with a bend in the other direction. Naturally, this second tunnel will no longer lead you to the starting point, so for endless round-trip flights you will have to dig up the entire planet with tunnels, which, perhaps, will not be able to close at their beginning. This must be calculated.
Well, if the air still remains in the tunnel, then you can accelerate to a maximum of 200 km / h, and of course, your inertia will not be enough to reach the far side of the planet. You swing several times at great depths, and stop near the center in zero gravity. Finita!
The American Journal of Physics (AJP) found it necessary to publish an article by Alexander Klotz, a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, in which he calculated how many minutes it takes to fly through the Earth.
We are, of course, talking about a hypothetical journey through a tunnel-well, which begins, for example, in London, passes through the center of the planet and ends on the other side of it. If such a tunnel-well actually existed, then its exit would be located on the Antipodes Island, located not far from New Zealand. It is just opposite London in a perpendicular direction.
If you believe the previous calculations made in the last century, then a man who jumped into a well tunnel in London would have flown out of it on Antipodes Island in 42 minutes 12 seconds. And according to Klotz, it turned out that the jumper would be at the exit in 38 minutes 11 seconds.
As the graduate explained, the previous researchers did not take into account the fact that the density of the Earth changes with depth - they took a certain average value. In the interior, especially in the region of the metal core, the planet is much denser. The gravity is stronger there. Accordingly, the acceleration created by gravitational forces is higher.
Klotz made corrections using data on subsurface density at different depths recently obtained from seismic sounding. And he determined: the jumper will fly up to the center of the Earth faster than previously thought. It will fly at a speed of 29 thousand kilometers per hour. Then it will start to slow down, approaching the exit. But in the end, he will still get to the Antipodes Island faster - by almost 4 minutes.
Antipodes Island is the largest in the group of Antipodes Islands located near New Zealand. It is there that the traveler who started from London will take off.
Who else will add anything on this hypothetical topic?