No sooner did we have this discussion then Art Bell brings it up on his show and slEaZy board swallows it whole! There's even a Real Audio file of the sound available.

Some rumors die hard

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

Answers

Whoops! Do NOT get the wrong idea here folks. There is no well-to- hell in Siberia, it's just an urban legend. Here's a link to a debunker site.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

This needed to be debunked?

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

You never know.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

deep subject

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

I may be showing my age [AGAIN] here, but am I the only one who had adults tell us when we were kids that if we dug a hole deep enough we'd end up in China? It really never occurred to me at the time that the Chinese folks were probably telling kids that if they dug a hole deep enough they'd end up in the U.S.

I don't remember them telling me that I'd have to go through hell before I got to China.

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

Sniffin' up yer skirt again Anita---

I am old enough to remember "digging to China" but it turns out that the antipode of the entire US is the Indian ocean. Well who cared at age 8?

Atipodes of anywhere

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

Lars,

You have just SHATTERED a cherished memory from childhood. Thanks a lot. :)

Tarzan,

Been too busy today to go listen to the audio, but I'll HAVE to check that out this evening.[g]

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

Well, I must be old, too, because *I* remember the "digging a hole to China".....

.....and I actually TRIED it a few times. (Fortunately, Dad was there to get me OUT of the stupid hole.)

(Where's Dad when you need him NOW?)

-- Anonymous, March 13, 2001

Hmmmm,

So if I dig drill a hole straight thru the earth, it would come out in the Indian ocean. Then the Indian ocean would start to drain into the hole but once it got past the center of the earth the force of gravity would reverse.

An exercise for the student: how much of the Indian ocean would be drained by a one-foot diameter hole drilled into it from Topeka?

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Silly question, Lars. With the truth in hand, even the slightest child would need a hole larger than one foot in diameter [to accommodate the life jacket].

I was in the store the other day and a mom had purchased chewing gum for her little boy. She gave it to him and said, "Don't SWALLOW it." I said, "Do you suppose we all have stomachs still full of that chewing gum we swallowed as kids?" She said, "Probably."

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

A friend of mine and I (age 7 or so) tried to dig that hole to China once,only problem was that we were way too close to the telephone pole,we managed to dig about 6-7ft before the rain set in.Well,you can imagine what the result was,and the local phone company was not a bit pleased,nor were our parents for that matter.

We still snickered at the commotion we caused after we were told that they were only kidding about *really* being able to dig a hole to China.And I do believe that was the last shovel I was ever bought.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Actually this whole issue wouldn't exist but for the fact that the early Christian church in the first few centuries after Christ was infiltrated with Hellenistic Greek ideas about the state of the dead.

The Old Testament Hebrews believed (and rightly so) that the dead sleep, until the resurrection. They knew nothing of an "immortal soul" that lived on after death. The Bible says that only God has immortality (1 Timothy 6:16). Humans do not possess immortality innately, according to the Bible.

"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." -- Ecclesiastes 9:5.

"His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." -- Psalms 146:4.

So the sum of the matter is that a burning "hell" does not yet exist. All such events await the resurrections. And there will be two: one unto life, and one unto death 1000 years later.

A long subject.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Lars,

As proof that I need a life (actually, I need to go to bed; I was up most of the night working on the AM), I did the math. Assuming that the hole would fill all the way to the center (4000 miles), that would be about 199051310.5 cubic feet of water. :)

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Stephen,

You get 10% extra credit for your efforts. Now be a good little brown-noser and clean the blackboards.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Lars:

Explain why you think that things would run down your hypothetical hole; rather than having the earth upchuck.

Cheers,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Z--

Coriolis acceleration.

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Lars:

You are an engineer. I need to see some math, including temperature and pressure profiles. *<)))

I know that you can do it.

Cheers,,,,

Z

-- Anonymous, March 14, 2001

Stephen's answer is incorrect. Extra credit for those who know why. Hint, it involves the length of "D".

First we will dismiss the nay sayers who think such a pipe is not possible. After all, if Intel can place 44 million transistors on the P IV cpu, what is YOUR PROBLEM? As your H.S. teachers would have told you, you haven't done it becuase you haven't TRIED hard enough.

With that in mind, we can proceed.

Drilling from KC to the Indian Ocean would produce entirely different results than going the other way. The initial and final conditions are such here that it should be quite obvious. It should be absolutely clear that only an idiot would begin at K.C. unless in love with the pervasion of BBQ served there. One would be able to get to within a mile of the Indian Ocean and find that the logistics of preventing a breakthrough and consequent wipe out of the tube thanks to the pressure of the flooding h2o is not the way to go. Better to stay hungry, wait for the BBQ and start with sub-Oceanic drilling in the Indian Ocean.

It should also be clear that the topic has two major cases for consideration: static and motion. It should also be MOST clear even to a dimwit like the erringchild or carLost, that the simplistic case of the static col. of H2O would not be possible. The Force from the pressure of the Indian Ocean insists that we must consider the Moving Col.

This leads into 2 more questions for consideration:

1. How "fast" is a sample vol. of water moving as it exits on one end and

2. How much H20 would be available to the Citizens of Kansas and ultimately Missouri.... for use in filling Salt Water pools over a given unit of Time?

Both questions can be solved readily with less than advanced Calculus.

Here we see the difference between somewhat educated lay people and Scientific and Engineering types. This problem is far more complicated than the treatments given here. Reality alone over such a distance eliminates the Freshman end of chapter 5 or 6 questions about balls rolling down 'frictionless planes'. Frictionless forces exist only in text books. Reality is whirlpools in the bathtub drain (a theoretical math problem that has never been completely solved, afaik).

The only way to calculate this is to state all the conditions and then break the problem down by the well known paradigm from Freshman Physics aka: "sum of the forces".

HINT: this is a very good way to begin analyzing any and all problems. Starting with a verse from a book as a guideline for action while occasionally successful is not quite as good a method as looking at a problem in Toto and solving it (or at least isolating out all the parameters and possible solutions then choosing the Maximal Path. This IS a comment on "the nature of sin" so plug in the book of your 'Faith' as it applies. )

We could approach this as a steady state problem where the initial conditions require some "Sum of the Work Done" required to get the water into the hole and up to the level of the Earth on the other side. In short, sort of a "pump problem". But the Indian Ocean servers as a Pump and since K.C. is CLEARLY a SINKHOLE the ability of the Ocean to do work will decline over time. (An example of the Second Law at work)..... AND WORSE, if you want to consider it a "moving column" you are looking at the Dreaded FLUX problem of moving vol which involves my little specialty in multi-variable calculus. FLUX in the real world is best solved by SUMMATION as in Sigma SUB I-->F F(X) where X sub 0-N => x(o)+x(1)+...+x(n)).

BUT......he said LOL, that requires measurement for all intervals which is not so easy unless one has access to Irish Leprecauns (they are busy this weekend) who could fit into the casing around the "transport tube" and the consent of their Union Shop Chairman who are not usually favorable to sending members down into the bowels of the Earth when they have worked for years to get Minority Legislation permitting members to stay in the SopraTerra.

That means, the only hope here is theoretical calculations plugging in the limits and praying no Nit picker disallows the use of the Integral because of defects in the use of LIM(F(X) as we integrate.

That would have to be a sum of the following (amoungst many others), F (gravity) less the F(friction ((as the molecules of H20 move downward the movement of the Earth)) ) would enter the picture and create some torque which can be roughly viewed as you let the water out of a sink or tub after you have exited the vessel. Now molecules "swirling" would be going sideways so work would be required to reduce that. To calculate that would require a Test Enviro where one would be able to observe how much would be needed to keep the H20 from wasting time with the F(friction on the walls) and continue on downward.

Next we must take a very close look at exact what the F(Gravity) is as it move to and away from the theorectical "center of gravity". Here the variation would be rather At first glance one might assume that the pipeline hole could be filled with water. However, it is clear that as the water on the exit side rose, the F(gravity) would begin to work.

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

For those who think they have the slightest idea of how to solve this problem, consider the rule of Physics 1a : draw a picture and diagram it with the forces. If you do this, the nature of the many sub-sets of the problem should begin to emerge.

Only one of these is what is the F(gravity) as you approach and leave the theorectical "center of gravity" and what is the maximal "shape" of the pipe that should be used?

It occurs to me that a good engineer would argue the tube should be constructed in such a way as to min. any F(f) and increase the Velocity of the FLUX. Now, the F(Pressure of the Indian Ocean) suggests that there has to be one size that would MIN the Force of friction and max that Velocity. Students familiar with use of thin tubes for propelling spitballs or darts aimed at other students should have some advantage here.

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

For those who think that the smallest pipe would greatly increase the Volume (volumne in the U.K.) of water, best rethink that, keeping in mind the inertia and what could happen if the slightest torque were initiated along the path and not just from friction. Coriolis has not been suspended just for you over the 8,000 miles or so. With the onset of that one gets an exponential increase in the Friction and friction of water and metal creates.....? (Beside heat, Dummies. And a moving charge creates??? So from the EPA point of view, you have conditions that lead to ?????? Which should be enough for the "Chemical Safety Board" (now free from their Y2k Bull shitting)to ask for grant money to study the growing H2 gas problems in pockets of the SubEarth Tunnel.

Last but far from least......wouldn't it be far better to just use the pipeline to move either crude, refined product or Nat.Gas instead of Salt H20??

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

alien life forms mey exist inside the earth

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001

CPR,

Harrumph. My math is NOT wrong. That's the volume of a 1' diameter shaft 4000 miles long (that's the approximate distance to the center of the Earth, which was the question -- NOT the distance all the way THROUGH the Earth).

Now, if you want to know how FAST it will drain, how much water could actually be forced into it, etc., etc., then we can nitpick. But there's really not much to using "Pi-R-squared" on a 1' diameter shaft that's 4,000 miles in length. :)

-- Anonymous, March 15, 2001