In the "Heatherns (sic)" thread below someone suggested the plumb bob was pointed towards China.
Well, guess what. For most of us, going straight down to the center of the Earth and continuing would dump us somewhere in the Indian Ocean nowhere near China. Therefore, one would need to dig sideways to come out at one of the borders of China.
The challenge, math fanatics, is: To get from your office to the nearest point in China by digging a straight tunnel what would be A) your starting bearing and B) the length of the tunnel. Please ignore the minor problem that would result in your tunnel getting flooded when you enter or come out of the subsoil into the Pacific Ocean waters.
Mr. Cow, you are full of bull.....
I have my hands full enough, with trying to solve little boundary problems, let alone your crazy problems.
I'll give you my lat lon if YOU want to figure out how to get to china from here, but I quite simply don't have the time!
(Ok, I am just being picking back at you)
N
Must have been that durned curved plumb line that threw him off...
not really knowing what this is all about - We here in Australia often refer to 'digging through to China' or similar.
So that saying and all its connotations must have some origins? Not sure what as the post above obviously points out that China isn't directly below you, just as I don't think China is directly below us either.
Earth Browser is good for a play - may not answer your question though.
Digging "straight down", I would come out in the Southern Ocean?, about 260 miles NE of the Crozet Islands. Penguins there. China is a long way away. Well, that bursts that bubble.
antipode, and I come out closer to South West Australia than anything, but still wet...
Neat map.
I end up about a third of the way across the Indian Ocean from western Australia headed toward South Africa.
I'll bet that very few of us would have to be concerned about being flooded with seawater while digging a "straight" tunnel. More likely we would all punch through the crustal layer into the mantle at about 100km deep, and then be flooded with lava at about 1,000 degrees.
And if you start digging in downtown Beijing China you will pop out in Argentina. I wonder if that's a saying there? "I'm going to dig me a hole to Argentina".
Forgetting the seawater and lava, could you actually dig more than half way?
Would gravity keep you from going beyond the "point of no return"? Would the earth "above" you fall into you?
If you could dig all the way through would you "fall" into the halfway point and then accelerate beyond it only to be pulled back by gravity and then accelerate beyond the midpoint and oscillate until you stopped at the center?
not to mention what happens when you dig through the geoid...
> not to mention what happens when you dig through the geoid...
This guy sends his goons after you
If he's by himself he's pretty easy to avoid, just stay away from his natural habitat...bars.
