Physics student calculates how long it would take to fall through a tunnel connecting two opposite sides of the planet

Mar 27, 2015 08:02 GMT  ·  By
Physics student says it would take about 38 minutes to fall through the Earth
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   Physics student says it would take about 38 minutes to fall through the Earth

Ever stop to wonder how long it would take to fall all the way through the Earth? Well, wonder no more, as this little riddle has at long last been solved by a McGill University student by the name of Alexander Klotz.

In a recent paper in The American Journal of Physics, Alexander Klotz uses good old math - the kind of math that makes regular folks all confused and queasy, to be more precise - to show that it would take precisely 38 minutes and 11 seconds to fall through the Earth.

Interestingly enough, McGill University physics student Alexander Klotz is not the first person ever to try their brain at figuring out how much time a person would need to fall through a tunnel connecting two opposite sides of the planet.

Prior to this student's publishing his report in The American Journal of Physics, it was widely accepted that the correct answer to this puzzle was 42 minutes and 12 seconds, Phys Org explains. Apparently, this time frame is not accurate. Or so Alexander Klotz insists.

Well, what are his arguments?

In his paper, the McGill University student explains that those saying that it would take 42 minutes and 12 seconds to fall all the way through the Earth fail to take into account the fact that our planet is not uniform in that its inner layers vary in terms of density.

The physics aficionado goes on to detail that, as shown by studies carried out over the years, our planet's core is considerably denser than, say, its crust. The student claims that these differences in density are sure to influence the speed of a body falling through the Earth.

This is because the gravitational pull affecting a person free falling through the planet would vary depending not just on the distance from the Earth's center at any given moment but also on the density of the layers the person is approaching or leaving behind.

“Numerically, it is found that the time taken to fall along the diameter is 38 minutes [and 11 seconds], compared to 42 minutes [and 12 seconds] for a planet with uniform density,” the McGill University student writes in The American Journal of Physics.

Falling through the Earth would probably be quite entertaining

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Physics student says it would take about 38 minutes to fall through the Earth
Falling through the Earth would probably be quite entertaining
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