Thursday, May 1, 2008

Philadelphia to Chennai in 42 mins!!

History channel says if a tunnel is drilled through the centre of the Earth to reach the other side of the earth and if I utilize nothing but gravity to travel thru the tunnel, I'd reach the other side in just 42 mins.

I can commute to work from Chennai to Philadelphia daily.

That'd be cool!

[P.S : Just saw this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_train]

36 comments:

Zeppelin said...

dude, you have to stop doing weed...like NOW. :P

Rayees Ahamed said...

rombo overa nonduranga pa :D

too much digging i say

Anonymous said...

Slip aana sethariduva theriyum la :)

SK said...

too much! Is this really true? Is there gravity in the centre of the earth??

Rayees Ahamed said...
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Rayees Ahamed said...
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Rayees Ahamed said...
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Shiv said...

aasa dosa appala vada

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of that movie where Vivek falls through a pot hole in Madras and shows up in Mexico!

Guru said...

42 mins ? How did you come up with that number ?

And ' history channel'? Unnmaya appadi oru channel irukka ?

btw congrats on the PR3 bro, i just checked..

Arun Sundar said...

Zeppelin,
Got used to it so much. And Am not a quitter :)

Rayees,
That was hypothetical. Seems its very difficult to dig thru the earth completely, as the core temperature is beleived to be 5000-6000 degree celcius. Maybe one day...who knows?

Vijai,
lol da...

SK,
Really. And Earth's gravity sources from its centre. Its time you read about gravity ;)

Arun Sundar said...

Shiv,
Incidentally, I first wrote the same exact lines at the end of the post in italics. Then considering some non-tamil readers, I removed it. Yaa, I know this whole 42-min commute is aasa dosa wonly.

Anon,
Vivek is clairvoyant.

Guru,
42 mins - I did not come up with that number. Einstein came up with it long ago it seems. And if you dig thru the earth and if you utilize gravity, you can reach from any point A to point B in exactly 42 mins, no matter whether u cross thru the core or not. That means it takes the same time to go from Los Angeles to Paris or from Chennai to Philadelphia. Interesting, huh! And History channel is real wonly - http://www.history.com/. And I hv seen it in India too.

busy-writer said...

lol..damn, i almost fell for this. :P

Sumeet said...

It is impossible to reach china through drilling a hole through the earth. The interior of the earth is so extremely hot that you would be burned to death. If you are, however, speaking theoretically, you would begin to be climbing instead of falling as soon as you pass the very center of the earth. This is because the center of the earth is the center of earthly gravity.

-=A.R.N.=- said...

Sometimes I wonder if progress ever went on too long.
:D

Man those scientists working on this theory must have way too much free time!

Arun Sundar said...

Busy-writer,
Its not a catch/trap to fall. Its a fact to believe. So believe :) And U might not see this in your geography book ;)

Sumeet,
Agreed on the 'earth's core' being hot and it is an impossible feat to achieve for today's humans. I was indeed speaking theoretically. If I fall inside the tunnel, I'd race towards the centre of the earth coz of gravity and once I reach the centre, I would not stop and I would still continue to go coz of the momentum. Now my pace slowly would decrease because of gravity trying to pull me back. And it has become a proved fact that I'd reach the surface of the earth before I get pulled back completely. So, theoretically, I can still reach China or chennai. And this is called 'Gravity Train'. I don't have to tell you to google it out :)

Oh Rahman,
Progress can never go too long. Our era is the most productive timeframe in the evolution of humans. People before us would not have even known what a galaxy is, what a solar system is, what a planet is or how living creatures actually evolved out of nowhere in planet earth alone(or so we sssume). We still do not know how universe was formed (big bang isn't proved yet) or if there is life elsewhere than earth among other mysteries. Technology and such scientists are Gods.

Phew! I dont normally do such long comments - but this very topic of space/universe sucks me in.

Slogger said...

Not to mention the tan you might get on the way. Man all the Westerner will take the trip for sure....

Brood Mode said...

do you live in Philadelphia?

Preeti said...

Oh WOW~!!! Really...?! That would be sooooooo cooolll!! Pinna inime bore adicha i can go to Disney World??? And angayum bore adicha i cn come bak and have marina beach la molaga bajji?!?? Like REALLY...??!??! WOW! :D

Anonymous said...

Too much digging of earth crust is not good...It is not possible too...
All sleeping volcanoes will start erupting...

Rayees Ahamed said...

Arun sundar thinks

m said...

Intha gravity, core temperature intha problems naala thaan naan eppavaum used to imagine having a pair of magic boots or flying carpet...that would be more practical and easy to use stuff...rather than spending light years to dig thru!

BTW, what makes u think that people who lived before us did not have any idea about solar system, what a planet is etc, etc?

Arun Sundar said...

Slogger,
Yes indeed! :)

Brood mode,
I live 15 miles north of philadelphia. U wanna pool with me in the 'Gravity train' ride? ;)

Preeti,
Aaama. Nee disney world'kkum Marina beach'kkum poradhukku dhaan Ivlo research panraanga ellaarum. Idhula Molaga bajji vera!!

Vidhya,
Agreed mam. This whole 'digging' is just a concept.

Rayees,
:)

ela,
Magic boots or flying carpets?? Kettudhu!! By 'people before us', I meant common men. I agree that some enthusiastic scientists did their part of research and laid the foundation for us to continue. But most of the people then based their knowledge more on astrology, etc., than the reality. Atleast my great, greater and greatest grand parents did. Today with satellite and technology, we know a great deal about whats happening around us than in the past. Did u read in the news that there is a lightning storm that ravaging Saturn planet for 5 months continously now? Longest ever known it seems.

Rayees Ahamed said...

Piladelphia la aarambichu , ippo saturn varikkum poirukiinga ..

pappom innum enga enga laam poga porangannu ...


btw : saturn la idi idikkuthaaan .. enna oru aathangam paaru :P

Gayatri said...

you need to get married soon da :) way too much free time!

Sumeet said...

I had to google to just give evidence to what I read as a kid. I had a book in Hindi which mentioned about gravity train. Anyway, keep blogging so that I can comment :)

Preeti said...

Buhahahhahahahahaha! Seri neenga sollunga Mr.Einstein peran...vera edukaga research panranga?

Oru alpa aasai kooda iruka koodadha! Cha! :P

Arun Sundar said...

Rayees,
Vadivel style? lol!!

Gayatri,
Yaa I wish. Need to find my kind of 'Chennai Ponnu' soon.

Sumeet,
You read that in u'r childhood? Maybe u gotta google and make sure u read it right back then ;)
Well, it indeed is funny to have nice little arguments!

PReeti,
Adhula paaru - accelaration due to gravity for earth is 9.8 m per sec. But it varies at different points on Earth. For eg, in Chicago, it is 9.803 m/s and in Rio de Jeneiro it is 9.788 m/s. And when somebody falls freely, it gets multiplied by .....whatever.....the baseline is all this knowledge would in turn lead my thangachi to satisfy her 'alpa aasai'. Purinjutho'no?

Preeti said...

Enaku anda 9.88, 9.45, 98.3 FM numbering la venda...Only Disney land and molaga bajji! ;)

Brood Mode said...
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Brood Mode said...

Oh you are from Chennai! I still like to call it Madras though :-)

And no my post is not "post-love". Ok, now that sounds so cheesy!

Arun Sundar said...

Preeti,
Adhu seri! Acceleration due to gravity led to FM channel number! I'll let you know if I hear more about the 'tunnel'. For now, adjust with Kishkinta or MGM. U anyways have Chennai molaga bajji.

Brood,
Aama. A proud Chennai vaasi naan. Madras sounds good to me too, but I'd like to move along with the flow. If one day they decide call it 'Taj Mahal', I would still go along ;)

Anonymous said...

Good piece of info...The coolest thing about this is the time ( 42 mins) is constant irrespective of the distance.....

Talking Silence said...

wow... that's interesting.

m said...

Arun...this is no argument...but astrology is also a science..i am not talking about normal jyosiyam that some people do on a commercial purpose...commercialisation and misinterpretation happens in every society...the prediction of planetary movements and calenders based on that were there long time back...true indeed we have made quite a stride in space exploration and astro science but u know, most of what is out is extrapolated data....the fascinating pictures that are made by the super computers have a grain amount of real raw data that supports them...

again is this in no way a negative comment...the knowledge we are gathering now is fascinating and we still need to know quite a lot of answers but if asked then looking at what we have achieved with all the facilities that we have, the ones calculated by our ancestors without any facility is still fascinating. Just my view and we need not to carry on this as an argument.

Anonymous said...

mudiyala-da..mudiyala....unakku mattum enga irunthu than eppadi info ellam kidaikatho....LOL....