Hollow Earth Concave Hollow Earths Hollow Earth In Fiction

From Newton's Law of Gravity, it can be mathematically derived that the gravitational force is actually zero everywhere inside a spherically symmetric hollow shell of matter, regardless of the shell thickness (ignoring other masses such as the Moon etc.). Thus, even if the Earth were hollow, someone on the inside would not be pulled outwards or be able to stand on the inner surface, as is popularly supposed; rather, they would be weightless (with some slight residual gravity arising from the fact that the Earth is not a perfectly symmetric sphere). The centrifugal force from the Earth's rotation would pull a person outwards, but even at the equator this force is only 0.3% of ordinary Earth gravity.

In ancient times the idea of subterranean realms seemed arguable, and intertwined with the concept of places such as Greek Hades, Jewish Sheol, and Christian Hell.

In 1818, John Cleves Symmes, Jr. suggested that the Earth was actually a hollow shell about 800 miles (1,300 km) thick, with openings at both poles about 1400 miles (2,300 km) across. With charming naïveté he proposed calling the "inner lands" Symzonia.

Other writers have proposed that subterranean caverns or a hollow Earth are the abodes of "ascended masters" of esoteric wisdom. Antarctica, the North PoleSee also: town of North Pole, Alaska and village of North Pole, New York. A North Pole is the northernmost point on any planet. There are various ways of defining a planet's North Pole. Earth's Pole, however it is defined, lies in the Arctic Ocean. Defini, TibetThis article is on Historic Tibet. Tibet" can also refer to the Tibet Autonomous Region. Tibet ( Tibetan : , (Bod) pronounced Po, Chinese: , pinyin: Xizang) is a region of Central Asia and the home of the Tibetan people. With an average elevation of 4,900, PeruFor other uses, see Peru (disambiguation The Republic of Per ( Spanish: Per Quechua, Aymara: Piruw is a country in western South America, bordering with Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Brazil to the east, Bolivia to the east, south-east and south, Chil, and Mount ShastaMount Shasta a 14,179 ft (4,322 m) stratovolcano, is the second highest peak in the Cascade Range and the second highest point in California (after Mount Whitney). The mountain stands 10,000 ft (3,000 m) above the surrounding area and has an estimated vol in CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located in the western United States, bordering the Pacific Ocean. The most populous and third largest state in the U. California is both physically and demographically diverse. The state's official nickname is "The Golden State", wh, USAThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in, have all been suggested as the locations of entrances to these subterranean realms, with some advancing the theory that these places are the actual homeland of UFOUFO or unidentified flying object in the original, literal sense means any airborne object whose nature is not readily known. Nowadays, the term is generally used to mean those cases that are believed by some to be the spaceships of extraterrestrial aliens.

One such idea was promoted from 1945-49 as "the Shaver Mystery" in the pages of the science fictionScience fiction generally speaking, is a form of speculative fiction which deals principally with the impact of imagined science and/or technology upon society or individuals. There are, perhaps, exceptions to (or at least, some very unusual examples of) pulp magazine " Amazing Stories." The magazine's editor Ray Palmer ran series of stories by Richard Sharpe Shaver, claiming they were factual, though presented as fiction. Shaver claimed the earth was honeycombed with caves that had been built by a superior pre-historic race, and that their degenerate descendants, known as Dero, live there still, using the fantastic machines abandoned by the ancient races to torment those of us living on the surface. One characteristic of this torment was "voices" that came from no explainable source. Thousands of readers wrote to affirm that they, too, had heard the fiendish voices from inside the earth.

1 Concave Hollow Earths

Instead of saying that we live on the outside surface of a hollow planet, sometimes called a "convex" hollow-Earth theory, a few others have opined that our universe is itself on the interior of a hollow world, calling this a "concave" hollow-Earth theory. Neither type of speculation is generally taken seriously by scientists.

One such proponent was Cyrus Teed in 1869, a self-described alchemist who founded a cult called the Koreshians based on the notion.

At least one proponent of a Concave Hollow Earth theory actually proposed new laws of physics to deal with the gravitation problem. Martin Gardner discusses the new model in one chapter of his book On the Wild Side. According to Gardner, this theory states that light rays travel in circular paths, and slow as they approach the center of the spherical star-filled cavern. No energy can reach the center of the cavern, which corresponds to no point a finite distance away from Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. A drill, Gardner says, would lengthen as it traveled away from the cavern and eventually pass through the "point at infinity" corresponding to the center of the Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. Supposedly no experiment can distinguish between the two cosmologies. Martin Gardner does not accept the Concave Hollow Earth Theory, and suggests that the man who proposed it may have had religious motives.

In a trivial sense, of course, one can always define a coordinate transformation such that the interior of the Earth becomes "exterior" and the exterior becomes "interior". (For example, in spherical coordinates, let radius r go to R²/r where R is the Earth's radius.) Since the forms of physical laws are changed by such transformations, however, it does not follow that the interior could be mistaken for the exterior in practice, and thus such arguments tend towards sophistry.

2 Hollow Earth in fiction

Edgar Allan Poe used the idea in his 1838 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Jules Verne, who normally did not stray far from the bounds of scientific plausibility in his works, used the idea of a hollow Earth in his 1864 novel, A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Edgar Rice Burroughs, more concerned with entertainment than plausibility, also wrote tales of adventure in the inner world of Pellucidar (including, at one point, a visit from his character Tarzan). Burroughs's Pellucidar is notable for the fact that, although the inner surface of the Earth is of absolutely smaller area than the outer, those areas which are oceans on the outer surface are continents on the inner and vice-versa, so that Pellucidar actually has a greater land area than the "outer" continents combined. It is also inhabited by primitive humans and by an exciting mix of all those large and dangerous creatures which have unfortunately become extinct on the outer surface, and to which Burroughs did not hesitate to add such improvements as the Mahars, creatures vaguely resembling large intelligent pterodactyls with dangerous psychic powers. Pellucidar is lit by a central miniature sun which never sets, so that the human inhabitants have never developed the notion of time.

In the science-fiction novel The Inhabited Isle, written by the Russian authors Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, an Earthling space traveller lands on a planet where, due to extremely high atmospheric refraction, the native population is convinced that it resides inside a hollow earth. As a result, they cannot accept his interplanetary origin.

The fantasy series The Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, also features a concave hollow earth, beginning in Elven Star, the second book in the series. This world, called Pryan the World of Fire, is a classic hollow earth, and the constant light from the central sun has caused the plant life to grow to such size that all of the people on Pryan live atop the highest trees on a nearly rock-solid network of branches and leaves.

3 See also

Dyson sphere

4 External links

At the Earth's Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Crank.net - Hollow Earth: people who believe
Hollow Earths: a historical list of hollow-Earth proposals

Subterranea UFOs

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