Forget it...

This digging lark sounds like a right pain in the neck. I'm busy researching Scram Jet technology to fly at Mach12 *around* the world, instead of *through* it.

GOT to be easier.
F = [m dot * V]e - [m dot * V]0 + (pe - p0) * Ae

"Even Mozart had his critics"

I've had e-mail from some sort of 'scientist' full of misplaced anger at "The implications of tunnelling directly through the centre of the Earth's core" and that "The core is an incredibly volatile environment" that is "unpredictable in nature". He kind of tailed off at this point with a few more concerned exclamations at my "Ignorance towards the safety of Mankind" and that it was "Surely illegal to dig on this magnitude". Luckily, he then seemingly reversed his previous concerned statements saying "Good Luck, I'm sure I’ll see your face across the press in the coming months".

Fantastic, I could do with some drumming up of support, not to mention the lack of sponsorship looming over the project.

Quantum Physics

If quantum physics is anything like the physics I remember from GCSE in'94, it'll be a breeze. As far as presenting my ideas to the planning permission board/potential sponsors goes, the best route is to patronise them and loose them in technical jargon. Obviously the addition of lots of little symbols from the Character Map in Windows95 can't do any harm towards making them think I’m mentally and physically equipped to last the distance with this project.

For the time being, here are my preliminary plans:

R= Exit
E= Success
C= Circumference
T= Tunnel
O= Entrance
M= Movement

So.. E=MC2 (Success = Movement through the Circumference)

Probably loosing a few people here... I'm aware that these kind of complex equations are certainly not something you can learn over night. Bear with me; I'm still trying to ascertain the mental capabilities of my audience while digging deep within the world of quantum physics. It's a real tight rope.

Preparation begins.

I presume I'll need to apply and present my idea to two separate boards entirely for the planning permission application. I'll be pitching the 'Entrance' - London, Hyde Park to Westminster Council and the 'Exit' - Sydney, Hyde Park to erm, Sydney Council. I must say; bloody good coincidence having a Hyde Park on almost exact opposing sides of the world!

I've not visited Hyde Park in Sydney yet but with my GCSE 'C' grade in Geography guiding me, I'm assuming it's a pretty substantial part of Australia so it'll be a easier to *aim* my tunnel's exit path. Fortunately for the success of my Gravity Train venture, a friend of mine is a quantum physicist. This should aid the preparation before actual tunnelling begins. Sadly he's on a world trip until the middle of 2006 so in his absence I'll be drawing on my GCSE 'C' grade in Physics to plan out the entire project.

Gravity Train, one ticket to hell please!

Right here's how I understand this if you were to go directly through the centre of the earth: Technically (with little technical knowledge of the subject) the speed you gather on your journey to the centre will be and equal and opposite force to slow you down on the journey out the other side; as long as you take that pesky wind resistance out of the equation, your body could travel at 7900 meters every second. Naturally you'd die a rather painful death from the immense pressure gathered from a gravitational decent of several thousand miles but you'd be at your destination in 42 minutes, even if you were the size of a squashed walnut.

EDIT: Hang on...no that's not right, you'd become weightless the closer you got to the centre! So it'd only be the incredible heat from the centre of the earth to *worry* about.

Here's the link to gain your own view before it's introduced in say... the year 2109

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

I wonder what the planning permission of this kind of thing is? I'm assuming that tunnelling into the centre of the earth could cause some pretty disastrous volcanoes? That'd be hard to explain.