Hey there, I need some help with a math problem. Let me fill you in!

Hey there, I need some help with a math problem. Let me fill you in!

Since I was a child I've heard that there's no such thing as a bottomless pit, because at one point you're bound to reach the bottom, right?

Fucking wrong. I'll explain with this simple model I made. If we just dig a hole, to a specific point down into the Earth, and then carefully make that hole start turning around the core of the planet, the gravity should be just strong enough to keep pulling you to the centre, until you get around and back into the track at the start, and can keep free falling forever, in this "bottomless pit". It's not really gonna be a pit, but it's going to feel like it's bottomless.

So really, what I'm wondering. At what distance from the core must one enter the "circle"? And at what angle must one fall to keep it going forever? This is important science stuff.

tl;dr: I can make people fall for eternity if you do the math. Give me a fucking prize.

>implying the pressures that far down wouldn't instantly crush your tunnels.

The tunnels would obviously be reinforced with like diamonds or something.

as well as the temperature would kill you a few hundrets meters in

not to mention lack of oxygen, the pumps required to pump in cooled o2 would require waaay more energy than we can produce.

One could either wear a heat-resistant suit with an oxygen supply. Or we could just chuck down something that doesn't need oxygen at all, and see if it falls forever.

it would fucking melt, do you have any idea how hot the earth is near its core? whatever we "chuck down" would melt once it got close enough to the core. and your heat resistant suit would need to be able to stand temps in excess of 10000 degrees f.

You wouldn't reach orbital velocity just from falling into the hole, and maintaining orbit requires constant correction.

wouldnt gravity just drag the person towards the core, slamming them into the ground?

I'm sure we would be able to create a material that could withstand those temperatures. Sciense has gotten pretty far in the last few years.

Nono, it would pull them slightly into an orbit around the core, inside the planet! And they would fall forever and ever. Just need the math right.

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It wouldnt work.

You're essentially trying to create an orbit below ground level. Orbit is basically falling at such a speed that you "miss the ground."

The ISS travels at around 7.5km/s at 400km high. The closer to the earth you are, the faster you need to travel.

Even just 1% into the earths crust, you're looking at having to "fall" at upwards of 15,000km/s. It just won't happen.

Geosynchronous orbit near the core would be very fast, like exceeding Mach speeds I bet. We need a giant vacuum machine or else the air resistance would rob us of our velocity.
Our pit wouldn't be straight down either; you need a rig with a thruster system to adjust to the curvature of the tunnel as we descend.
Really though, we don't even possess the amount of energy required to lift that much mass out of the earth.
But it's probably possible on paper. The math would be weird, u need a legit math guy who knows Newtonian stuff but also adapt it to being within a body of mass, tho idk

It's not to do with how far from the centre you make the circle, you can make an arbritary circle provided you meet the speed requirements to not crash into the sides.

so what you're asking is basically: at what depth is gravity's pull downward towards the core equal to the pull upwards toward the crust?

You got me

So I guess we all agree that given enough time, with enough energy, enough heat-resistance, a giant vacuum-cleaner and a way to gain lots of speed, it would theoretically work?

Lava smartass

just a rough calculation based on density and thickness of the different layers, it'd have to be about 4400 km below the surface... that's in the outer core bro

The earths crusts will never pull up on you because if you're inside it you don't feel it's gravity. You only feel gravity from objects you are not inside of.

i think you mean magma dumbass. lava is at the surface

but with a vacuum there is no terminal velocity and you can accelerate forever. That would also eliminate the problem of heat because there would be too few particles to cause any effects of the heat

This guy gets it.