Teacher Professor

what would happen if there was a invulnerable tube going through the earth and someone jumped into it?

would they get stuck in the middle and get ripped apart from gravity? Would they fly through and shoot out the other side? would they slow to a stop and get stuck in the middle or would there be a tittering effect then get stuck in the middle? I understand it is impossible no matter what, but me and my teachers that ive asked are curious.

Public Comments

1. The world would come to an end...
2. A person traveling in a tube through the center of the earth would oscillate up and down, eventually settling in the center. When they initially enter the tube, gravity is strongest because there is the most mass exerting a force on them. As they travel towards the center, the mass above them can be ignored because the force it exerts cancels out with that exerted by the opposite side of the earth. They eventually reach the center, but overshoot it (by this time they will be moving at a pretty high velocity). As the move past the center and begin exiting out the other side, they experience a force in the opposite direction, pulling them back to the center. But hey again overshoot it. This repeats over and over until they eventually stop in the center.