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Re: [Phys-L] gravity + tunneling to the antipodes

And you'd have to be pretty careful to design the tunnel to avoid Coriolis effects. "Straight down" is not a simple concept. Almost anywhere on the surface of the earth you will be experiencing both gravitational effects from the earth's mass and centripetal effects from the earth's rotation. Going straight down will not take you through the earth's core. You could dig "down" continuing to follow the local reference, but in free-fall you'd still hit the wall due to your angular momentum at the surface.

Paul


On Jan 3, 2013, at 11:45 AM, brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Hmmmm....depends how far along the axis from physicist's model to reality you wish to stray....
constant density Earth, frictionless walls, airless hole
to
dense core Earth with increasing temperature
to the core...

This is a helpful depiction..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3aEarthGravityPREM.jpg

Brian W