Hollow Earth Theory

scarecrow

I just heard of this theory on Coast to Coast and to me this sounds fascinating. To think that earth has a thriving environment deep inside of its own crust is amazing. The theory holds that the iron core of earth is actually a "sun" that helps allow vegetation and other living creatures to thrive.

The perspective inside earth is totally different than on earth's surface: continents appear to be floating in the clouds and shadows never move or change shape since everything is static and no rotation.
The most outrageous claim is that there are intelligent beings much more advanced than humans living there and are responsible for mankind's progress.

Here's a link to the site that was mentioned on the broadcast:

http://www.hollowearththeory.com/art...rthHistory.asp

What are the geologists' thoughts on this topic?

Mk

Ha ha, sorry to spoil your fun, but I know physicists would think it is pretty damn near impossible.

For one thing, what stops the upper crust from falling into the lower crust?

Also, I guess the vegetation does not use photosynthesis to derive its energy, because there must be a barrier between the *hot* magma, and organisms, so that they would not fall into it and die.

The crust is loosely attached, in fact its not, its just a bunch'a dirt and rocks. I did some research on Dyson Spheres http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere, and one of the reasons that is so incredibly uneconomical, is that in one architecture of the sphere, the tensile strength of the material would be comparable to the strong force.

I used to listen to Coasttocoast when Art Bell was on. A radio genius Was it Red Elk who talked about it or somebody else? You really have to catch the "Mel's Hole" shows. Those are GOLD. GOLD!

matthyaouw

We know the earth's composition to be as it is because of the way in which seismic waves refract and travel through it after an earthquake. There's no way a hollow earth could produce this pattern:
http://dl.ccc.cccd.edu/classes/inter...s/image028.jpg
http://dl.ccc.cccd.edu/classes/inter...s/image030.jpg

ZapperZ

In addition, the "sun" produces a different type of reaction to produce heat than the iron core interior of the earth. Obviously, the people who proposed such a thing can't tell the difference. I'd like to see them try to account for the recently detected geoneutrinos, and compare that with the typical solar neutrinos.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/7/16

Zz.

Ivan Seeking

As a long time C to C fan I can tell you that you should dismiss at least 90% of the stories, and 99.9999% of the theories found there. It can be fun, interesting, and entertaining, and they have the occasional credible guest, but its a radio show designed for entertainment, that's all.

kleinjahr

The "theory" goes back to, at least, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Tarzan at the Earth's Core", the books not the movies. It didn't help that a few years ago the tabloids were doing articles on the hole at the pole, shown by satellite photos. Uhuh, suuuure. Think blind spot.

selfAdjoint

An American ex military man named Rafael Semmes published a book on the hoolow earth theory in the 19th century. It included the "holes at the poles". I believe it was the source for later references to the hollow earth, including Burroughs' stories.

A completely different theory is the cosmic ice theory (Welteislehre) that so interested the nazis. This holds that we live in a hollowed out sphere in a vast, maybe infinite, field of ice filling the universe. The sun and stars are lights on a smaller sphere in the middle of the hole that turns to give us day and night and all the phenomena of astronomy.

DaveC426913

As Kleinjahr notes, the Hollow Earth theory has been around for many, many years. While few scientists ever really gave it much credence, the advent of seismological technology (allowing us to actually map the Earth's innards down to the core) banged the final nail into that coffin once and for all.

Sir_Deenicus

lollerskates. Please keep in mind that my favorite subject is topology when reading this post.

Mathematically, the two are technically equivalent. We cannot prove or disprove the hollow earth theory, implying that we do not know if we in fact live on the surface of a sphere or not. The waves and what not from seismoloigical evidences would map in just the same way as everything else. The way things are turning out, I would not be suprised that both world views are wrong. meh. Ive learned to not try to put any limit or structure on the way nature must be since my sense of perception is so limited and leaves out so much of the external reality. I do not presume to know what is correct, only what is most likely.

So yeah, this guy named Roman Sexl used to show how diffeomorphism invariance actually allows for an equivalence between the hollow earth and standard view.

Nonetheless for reasons personal, namely that, it is more epistemologically reasonable that a quantum of action is distance invariant rather than being variable with respect to the centre of the "earth" or that light doesnt actually travel in a straight line and other such, I believe the hollow earth theory to be more incorrect than the standard view. Which makes more sense but probably is not telling the whole story. (non classically). Standard view that is.

edit in: see also The Hollow Earth in Science

DaveC426913

I don't know why you would say that, we have pretty good data about the innards of the Earth:

http://schools.matter.org.uk/Content...adow_zone.html
http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/lo.../interior.html

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Sir_Deenicus

what I mean is that both the measurement devices, the measurements themselves, right down to the particles in question would be subject to the nature of the imaging or mapping function (mathematical) such that there would be no way of knowing if things could be otherwise. Check the links i posted.

Basically, a person in a picture cannot step out and look at himself to see how things are actually going. Note that I do not subscribe to the hollow earth thoery, only that with the right definitions (distance dependant concept of action, light only seems to travel straight but actually doesnt, even in flat face etc) , one can consistently map all of modern physics and theories to a hollow earth universe. And there would be no reason to not use one or the other beyond reasons of logical simplicity.

ZapperZ

So it will only work if you modify present-day physics into something that's wrong? And you're comfortable with this?

And you're contradicting yourself. If you argue we we cannot step out of the picture, then no matter how much you argue, I could use the same principle and tell you that you have no way of proving you're right. So why are we bothering with this?

I still am waiting for someone to "map" the geoneutrinos onto this hollow earth thing.

Zz.

DaveC426913

You're calling into question the very perceptions of our existence?

Nonsense. We have data that needs to be explained.

The data from decades of seismic imaging nicely fits an Earth that has a solid core surrounded by a liquid outer layer. How does a hollow Earth explain that data?

fargoth

he doesnt say we have to change every theory to a wrong one, he says the new one would have the same predictions as the conventional theories.
it doesnt seem right to me, but im no expert in topology, so i guess his word is better then my intuition.
and he doesnt contradict himself, he said theres no way to know...

DaveC426913

What theory? Is there a Hollow Earth Theory that explains the data from seismic readings?

Ivan Seeking

From the original post.
but here is the key to the theory...
http://www.hollowearththeory.com/art...rthHistory.asp

And this is much of what you get on Coast to Coast. If some wacko who interviews well writes a book, C to C is the place to sell it. I doubt that many of these people are even serious. They are just selling snake oil.

Sir_Deenicus

It amuses me that most people prefer to enter into something with contention in mind, to show how wrong someone that is not them is.

Firstly I never said I believed or disbelieved anything, I simply stated that others have proven a mathematically equivalence of a hollow earth theory. Talented physicists and mathematicians. I have already provided expository links with the relevant information for those interested. I have already stated precisely what you said, you cannot prove or disprove one or the other.

Secondly the physics is not wrong since it has never been the task of physics to answer the why but rather, the how. To explain and not to question. Sort of like knowing the rules of vs how to play the game of chess. A hitch in doing science is that so many have an expectation for how things should be. The only differences are in suppositions that are dropped and replaced, the situation remains the same, save that they require more explanatory baggage (hence my dislike for it).

But any competant mathematician can tell you that an inversion is a perfectly valid way to construct a hollow sphere universe from our current view; while also having all the standard physics be consistently and logically reworkalble into it. Astronauts in space? Due to an optical illusion that results of the circular nature of the way light travels. There have been many academic discussions into the possibility of such an earth ending with no conclusion.