If we we dig a hole from north pole to the south pole of the Earth and we throw a ball in this hole where would it stop? Will it come back on the surface or it will stop at the centre?
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2Possible duplicates: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/7346/2451 , http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/2481/2451 , and links therein. – Qmechanic Jun 10 '14 at 07:03
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I think you forgot to set it as homework (I think everyone here has this kind of homework) – Antonio Ragagnin Jun 10 '14 at 07:17
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if u drill such a hole and drop a ball then the result will be that it will harmonically oscillate about the centre of earth with the radius as amplitude
however if ball is directly released at the centre. it will stay still since the net gravitational force is 0.
edit:- as has been pointed by the first commentor , thank you. the answer is for a perfectly uniformly dense spherical ball and that too when the hole u drill is sufficiently small to not alter the mass of earth in any considerable way
Mvs_Physics
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It's important to note that this answer does not take into account the nonhomogeneous mass distribution of the Earth. – jinawee Jun 10 '14 at 12:17