On 09/11/2011 09:21 PM, Warp wrote:

>    That's not the only crazy hypothesis that some people seriously believe.
> Another one is the hollow Earth hypothesis. There really are people out
> there who seriously and honestly believe this (or at the very least consider
> it plausible). And not only that the Earth is hollow, but that there's an
> "inner sun" and an advanced civilization inside the Earth.

You've got to admit, if there really *was* an unknown inner-world hidden 
right beneath our feet, that would be extremely cool. Who wouldn't want 
to believe that? Oh, yeah, I forgot - anyone who wants to be taken 
seriously ever again. :-P

>    There many several-hours-long pseudodocumentaries about this subject
> (some even shown on TV channels such as the History Channel; go figure),

Fantasy makes good TV. It's entertaining if not exactly factual.

> but for the life of me I cannot find even one single source that would
> even *attempt* to explain the physics of this

That's not greatly surprising, given the multiple simultaneous ways in 
which this is completely impossible.

>    In fact, most of these pseudodocumentaries are extremely vague about
> the details. They often don't even mention *where* exactly this supposed
> advanced civilization resides. On the inner surface of the hollow crust?
> Somewhere else? Where? They all only talk about a civilization living inside
> the Earth without going into more detail. Just inside there, somewhere,
> somehow.

That's probably because if you actually engage your brain and THINK 
about that for a moment... you start realising how utterly absurd it is, 
and immediately stop believing such nonsense.

>    The thing is, even if the shell of the hollow Earth would be strong enough
> to not to collapse under its own gravity (which btw is physically impossible,
> as no material is even nearly that strong, taking into account the mass of
> the Earth), anything on the inner surface of this shell would fall into the
> central "inner sun" due to that sun's gravity. There is no force of gravity,
> or any other force pointing outwards inside this hollow shell. An "inner sun"
> would cause anything on the inner surface of the shell to fall into it.

1. If the Earth is hollow, wouldn't that *significantly* alter its mass?

2. A hollow Earth-sized structure with a vacuum inside would surely 
collapse pretty quickly, no matter what you made it of, but if it was 
filled with an atmosphere of some kind, at absurd pressure, it might 
work. (Isn't that what a bubble is, after all?)

3. It's not quite correct to say that "no force" would hold people's 
feet onto the anti-ground. There is one: centrifugal force due to the 
Earth's rotation. Sure, it's a force several orders of magnitude too 
small to make the slightest shred of difference, but it's real.

4. A *star* inside Earth? Um... do these people know how big stars 
actually are? If you hollowed out the Sun, you could fit one million 
copies of the Earth inside it - and the Sun isn't a particularly large star!

(The Sun also has 333,000 times Earth's mass, and at its surface it has 
28 times as much gravity as at Earth's surface...)

Still, I guess when you look up at the Sun [DO NOT EVER DO THIS!], it 
looks quite small... :-P

Post a reply to this message