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Car falling through Earth


Johnny Duart

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Originally posted by L-1329

If you had a hole directly through the earth, and ignore friction, you could jump in. Then you would accelerate (fall) all the way to the center of the earth. But, you would then continue to decelerate all the way 'up' the other half at the same rate (32 ft/sec^2) until you ended up popping out of the other end at exactly the same rate that you jumped in, essentially zero. You could simply jump in, fall all the way through, and simply step off at the other side.

 

 

Not if you take into account the various friction from air you suffer while falling through the hole. In vaccuum, yes, but not in air.

 

This Oscillation can easily be visualised. Hang a bowling ball on the ceiling using a piece of string. Walk away from the place where the string meets the ceiling with the ball(make sure the string is shorter than the distance from the floor to the ceiling and that the ball cab't touch the floor) until the ball is level with your face and the string is straight. Now let go of the ball. There is no way, that the ball will hit you in the face when it comes back.

 

Concerning 0,999... I had that in high school, it's the simplest thing ever. Using a simple method of translating repeating decimals to fractions, we got 1/1.. yeah, we were astonished:)

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If it were actually possible, wouldn't that car in the commercial where it is falling through the Earth, stop falling at the center of the Earth? Is gravity centered at the middle of the Earth? Also, since I know there are many people on this wonderful forum smarter than I, is it possible to move two objects toward each other for eternity without touching if everytime you moved the objects you only moved them half of the distance toward each other? If there is space, it can be halved, thus leaving half the space in which that can also be halved, blah, blah, blah!!! In addition, what the heck does this have to do with bass?? Wow, I need to get back to practicing "Misty" or something. I've got "being with the inlaws all holiday hangover!!!!"

Remember, Christmas lasts until Epiphany so "Merry Christmas!"Johnny

in regards to the two objects touching thing.

i dont understand this at all, i would have though, if you have two objects, and then move them towards each other, as you say, half the distance, then in the first movement, wouldnt they be exactly in the middle?

* | *

Thats how i see it, if you move them that distance towards each other, after the first movement, wouldnt they be right on top of each other, and therefor touching?

:confused:

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in regards to the two objects touching thing.


i dont understand this at all, i would have though, if you have two objects, and then move them towards each other, as you say, half the distance, then in the first movement, wouldnt they be exactly in the middle?


* | *


Thats how i see it, if you move them that distance towards each other, after the first movement, wouldnt they be right on top of each other, and therefor touching?


:confused:



You move one of them half the distance.

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My science teacher told us about this one years ago.
If you make a straight, friction-free (e.g. it was a vaccum and magnetic levitation was used to keep the 'car' in the centre of the tunnel) tunnel from one point on the Earth to another, then an object dropped into this tunnel would take 42 minutes to travel through to the other side, reaching maximum velocity at the half-way point; it would continue to oscillate from one end to the other.
Of course he was a cranky teacher and didn't show us why it would always be 42 minutes, but I have always believed it to be true.

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Wuts the name of that song =/ its ben bothering me for some time

 

 

I look around and what do I see

Me too. I'd like to know what that song is.

 

 

Anyone notice that when the car falls past Vulcan (the cyclops) that there are 3 people playing cards on the cliff on the left? Who are they?

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I found info about the song here.

As per BBDO DETROIT (The designer of the commercial) the song is performed by a outfit named "ASCHE & SPENCER" and the official song title is "Planet". Now for the bad news...Dodge owns the song rights that was specifically created for the ad campaign, and isn't available to the public.

I tried and failed to optain a copy to enjoy the cocktail type "Tom Jones / Englebert" sounds.


If anyone should have the energy to contact BBDO DETROIT and beg and plead; they could be reached at 248-293-3400

GOOD LUCK and KEEP ME POSTED


This post has been edited by farbeyond on Jan 25 2007, 10:03 PM

 

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My science teacher told us about this one years ago.

If you make a straight, friction-free (e.g. it was a vaccum and magnetic levitation was used to keep the 'car' in the centre of the tunnel) tunnel from one point on the Earth to another, then an object dropped into this tunnel would take 42 minutes to travel through to the other side, reaching maximum velocity at the half-way point; it would continue to oscillate from one end to the other.

Of course he was a cranky teacher and didn't show us
why
it would always be 42 minutes, but I have always believed it to be true.




Because the ultimate answer to the ultimate question of Life, The Universe, and Everything is 42.:thu:

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is it possible to move two objects toward each other for eternity without touching if everytime you moved the objects you only moved them half of the distance toward each other?

 

 

Baseball would be real boring otherwise.

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My science teacher told us about this one years ago.

If you make a straight, friction-free (e.g. it was a vaccum and magnetic levitation was used to keep the 'car' in the centre of the tunnel) tunnel from one point on the Earth to another, then an object dropped into this tunnel would take 42 minutes to travel through to the other side, reaching maximum velocity at the half-way point; it would continue to oscillate from one end to the other.

Of course he was a cranky teacher and didn't show us
why
it would always be 42 minutes, but I have always believed it to be true.



It's 42 minutes because the physics formula for calculating the oscillatory period for a satellite is the same as it is for an object falling through an unspinning earth (in a frictionless environment) or more appropriately any sphere with mass, solid or hollow or in-between.

So the trip back would also be 42 minutes. When added together = 84 minutes which is also happens to be the period of a satellite orbiting the earth if it could at the earths surface (minus air friction, running into a mountain along the way, etc.).

An interesting side note to this. The space shuttle typically orbits the earth between 150 and 300 miles with a period of ~90 minutes - not too far off the 84 minutes at the surface of the earth. With the diameter of the earth at 8000 miles (a lot bigger than 150-300), the numbers all jive up with each other (give or take a few minutes).

Another interesting side note hinted at in your description, is the theoretical universal earth transport network. Any two cities on the surface of the earth (minus the earth's rotation and must be a frictionless environment, again) can be connected by a direct tunnel. The one way trip will _always_ be 42 minutes and does not require any energy (other than the energy imparted by falling into the tunnel which is given back coming out the other side of the tunnel). Doesn't matter whether it is on the other side of the earth or only 200 miles away.

Theoretically you could get to any place on the earth in only 42 minutes. If it were possible that would solve a lot of transportaion energy issues. But hey, that's fantasy land. Sometimes a nice place to visit.

;)

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Another interesting note. As you would get closer to the center of the earth, if you could somehow stop and jump on a rock ledge or something (LOL, I already know that isn't possible, but hey it's fun to think about) you would feel less and less gravity pulling you towards the center as you get closer. In fact if you ever made it to the center and stopped (and if there was some object like a giant sphere to hold the gazzilion pounds of weight pushing in) you would float just like you were in outer space.

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And for anyone nerdy, here's another strange article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...

 

The issue I've always had with this is right in the proof:

 

33190b5d742626c840d4653650ccb472.png

 

0.333 != 1/3. It equals a fraction slightly under 1/3. It's a negligible number that approaches zero as x->inf, but it's still nonzero. You could expand 0.333 out forever but it's not getting there. If 'x' represents the number of digits after the decimal, it would look something like this:

 

lim 0.333...(x) = 1/3

(x->inf)

 

NOT 0.333 = 1/3.

 

If you consider this my way, then we have:

 

lim 0.333...(x) = 1/3

3 * (lim 0.333...(x)) = (3 * 1)/3

lim 0.999...(x) = 3/3 = 1

 

Which is completely valid... lim 0.999...(x) as x->inf = 1... but since x can't ever reach infinity, it's always slightly less than 1.

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