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ortho_2872 · Apr 6, 2008, 09:54 AM

Can man in any future travel inside earth so as to reach the otherside ?

N0help4u · Apr 6, 2008, 09:56 AM

They claim Admiral Byrd went inside the earth from the North Pole and there is suppose to be an expedition going to go there sometime in the near future.
Look up hollow earth theory.
AOL Search results for "hollow earth theory"

Fr_Chuck · Apr 6, 2008, 10:10 AM

While of course in science many things may one day be possible, but the issues of drilling though rock, then the issues of the presssure on the machine as well as the heat. I could not see it possible myself, but then people though moon travel was not possible in the 40's either

N0help4u · Apr 6, 2008, 10:24 AM

I think it might be possible without drilling look at all the underground caves and so forth,
Only now are they finding that many of them connect. Like the ones in Kentucky or somewhere in the south they say they have found link to ones in I think Virginia.
And just a couple years ago they said that illegal aliens were in tunnels that connected to top secret tunnels of the government near Area 51. So if they are only discovering these things now I think it is quit possible the tunnels already could exist just not discovered.

firmbeliever · Apr 6, 2008, 11:15 AM

Journey to the centre of Earth | Research | EducationGuardian.co.uk
Journey to the Center of the Earth | Earth Science | DISCOVER Magazine

Some interesting articles you might like to read.:)

Stratmando · Apr 8, 2008, 07:17 AM

I would bring some Burn Spray, That Magma has to be tough stuff.

ebaines · Apr 9, 2008, 12:36 PM

Sure you can drill tunnels through rock - so one could theoretically construct a 12,500 mile long tunnel just below the surface of the earth to go from one side of the earth to the other - like a very long "chunnel.". But I think the OP was asking about traveling straight through the center of the earth to come out the other side. The estimated temperature at the center of the earth is 7000 K, and the pressure about 360 billion Pascals, or 3.5 million atmospheres. The best submarine today gets crushed at about 0.01% of that. So it won't happen without some incredible discoveries of materials to withstand the heat and pressure at the core of the earth, and a stupendous cooling system to keep humans alive in such conditions.

N0help4u · Apr 9, 2008, 02:56 PM

But isn't it the water pressure of the ocean that 'crushes'?
If you don't have to deal with water pressure you would still have to deal with the 'hell' heat. :rolleyes:

ebaines · Apr 10, 2008, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by N0help4u

But isn't it the water pressure of the ocean that 'crushes'?
If you don't have to deal with water pressure you would still have to deal with the 'hell' heat. :rolleyes:

The earth is not rock all the way through, but rather has liquid magma below a certain depth. So you do have to deal with "magma pressure," which like water pressure for a submarine would have to be withstood by the walls of the submarine, or the tunnel tube, or whatever that's going to protect our intrepid travelers from the elements. At the very core current theory holds that there is essetially a large ball of solid nickel/iron - made solid due to the tremendous pressure. What would happen if you tried to drill through that is anyone's guess, but I suspect that at the pressures we're talking about no tunnel would be able to resist collapse, as the material wouldn't have enough strength to maintain a rigid shape.

Stratmando · Apr 10, 2008, 06:11 AM

When Travelling to the center, a Compass would be useless, What time zone you're in could be difficult, Not to mention Satellite navigation.

ebaines · Apr 10, 2008, 06:14 AM

Originally Posted by Stratmando

When Travelling to the center, a Compass would be useless, What time zone you're in could be difficult, Not to mention Satellite navigation.

And you'd be weightless

Stratmando · Apr 10, 2008, 06:24 AM

I forgot about the Gravity? Increase?
Ebaines, in magma the pressures would be great as you mentioned, What would happen to Air at that depth. Air in the Mountains is thinner than at the surface, how Thick would it be at the center.

ebaines · Apr 10, 2008, 09:32 AM

Originally Posted by Stratmando

I forgot about the Gravity? Increase?
Ebaines, in magma the pressures would be great as you mentioned, What would happen to Air at that depth. Air in the Mountains is thinner than at the surface, how Thick would it be at the center.

Gravity decreases as you descend down a well towards the center of the earth - its magnitude is roughly proportional to your distance to the center of the earth (assuming constant density of material throughout the earth). This is not difficult to show from Newton's equation of gravity. So at the very center your weight is 0 - just like an astronaut in orbit (though for entirely different reasons).

As for the air pressure at the bottom of a well that goes all the way to the earth's center - wow, that's an interesting question. Trying to calculate density of air at varying altitudes is very difficult, since air is compressible and it's density is dependent on pressure as well as temperature. So it would take a pretty good computer simulation to come up with a reasonable guess. However, it's possible to put upper and lower bounds on the calculation. Let me try:

First, as an upper bound - air pressure above the earth's surface falls approximately in half for every mile of altitude. If this same pattern applies to a hole that's 4000 miles deep, that would mean the air pressure at the bottom would be 2^4000 atmospheres! Yow! That's impossible - at those pressures you would no longer have molecules or even atoms, but it would be more like the center of a neutron star. So this estimate isn't very good.

Another estimate: assume air is incompressible - a bad assumption, or course, but one that will give a lower bound to the problem. The density at any point is determined by the weight of all the air above,and that weight would be proportional to the height of the column of air above. So at the very center you can find the pressure from:

$<br /> Press = \int _0 ^ {R_e} C r dr\ =\ 1/2 C R_e ^2<br />$
where $R_e$ is approximately 4000 miles.

We can find an estimate for $C$ knowing that the air pressure at the surface of the earth is 1 atmosphere. If we assume the column of air above the earth's surface is 2 miles (just to try a number), you get:

$<br /> 1 atm= \int _ {R_e} ^{R_e + 2} C r dr\ =\ 1/2 C [(R_e +2)^2 - R_2 ^2]\\<br />$

From this you get $C = 1.25 x 10^{-4}$ . Put that value back into the first equation, and you find that the pressure at the bottom of a 4000 mile well is about 1000 atmospheres. This seems like a more reasonable answer, though because it assumes that the air is incompressible it underestimates by quite a lot the weight of the column of air.

In any event, your submarine would still implode!

JimGunther · Jul 2, 2008, 03:50 PM

In addition to what has been said above, and as was mentioned, the center of the Earth is under an incredible amount of pressure. As a machine dug down with a drill, laser, or whatever, they would eventually come to a point where the pressurized material being disturbed would act like a bursting bubble and would likely blast the machine out of the shaft like a bullet followed by an emense blast of extremely hot molten material. This could presumably occur at some of the molten lava levels not far under the surface.