Quote:
Originally Posted by Huffmeister
Yeah, "somehow shielding it from the molten core and suck all the air out". Obviously it would be very hot, but let's assume you could completely insulate the tube from the heat of the core. And in a vacuum, there would be no pressure, right?
Can you elaborate on the acceleration? It should just start out at 9.8m/s/s, right?
Also, I was able to find a link to the original Straight Dope article:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...ough-the-earth
According to him: Perfect vacuum == Falling back and forth forever. But throw a little air resistance in and you eventually get stuck in the center. |
yeah, it's only 9.8m/s squared. HOWEVER, do you realize how far it is from the surface of the earth to the core? 6384 km at the equator. in meters, that's 6.384 million meters. you'll hit terminal velocity at a certain point, and assuming you don't have a parachute (which wouldn't work in a vacuum anyway), you would most assuredly die of acceleration alone
(note: I could easily be wrong on this. I'm relying on physics I a few years ago in my undergrad; there's a reason I went into genetics rather than physics--pretty sure my reasoning here is sound, don't feel like digging out a textbook, pen and paper)