vilakins | Is this China?

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Is this China?

This is kind of cool. If you dug a hole through the centre of the Earth, where would you end up?. Click on the + button to enlarge the maps to fine-tune your position and see where you'd come out. I knew I was opposite Spain, but it seems I'd emerge in Setenil de las Bodegas, between Seville and Malaga. I bet they have better weather than here.

I don't know where the whole China thing came from. You'd have to be in Argentina to end up there.

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Cool! I'd end up in the Pacific Ocean, some way off New Zealand, though, which doesn't bode too well for me.

Canada's just as bad: you'd end up in the sea between Australia and Antarctica. :-(

I would end up not far from the 'border of the Indian Ocean and the Southern Seas due south of New Zealand, I'd better take an inflatable ocean liner with me when I dig myself down to visit.%).

That's very cool.

looks like I'd be somewhere just southwest of Australia...in the Indian Ocean

We were always told if we dug straight through the earth we'd end up in Australia, which I suppose is not THAT far off "in the ocean off the coast of New Zealand" if you have a Eurocentric view of geography...

It was probably pretty accurate for people looking at a schoolroom globe.

I came out at a point a couple of hundred miles SE of South Island.

I'd need a boat too I came out just south of South Island New Zealand.
Mind you that's why us Brits refer to Australia and New Zealand as the Antipodes!

As for digging to China, it seems to be an American Myth. In "One of our dinosaurs is Missing" - the book not the film - the microfilm hidden in the dinosaur contains the plans for "The Great Leap Forward" where under the Communist Party's orders everyone in China was to take a jump forwards at a particular date and time. The resulting Shockwave was supposed to trigger earthquakes in America or Britain (Sorry its so long ago I've forgotten exactly where).
That's the earliest reference I've come across.

Is that before or after The China Syndrome? Where is a nuclear reactor goes haywire it'll melt it's way down through the earth beneath it and come out in China.

Er way before I should think, the book was written before the film which was made in about the sixties (I think)!

Someone said in a phrase origin site that:

Thoreau used this phrase in the 1850s about a hole his neighbors were digging.

Well that must be the first reference then, was Thoreau American?

Yes, Thoreau was an American.

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

It's possible this was the earliest reference to 'digging a hole to China' in print, but I always suspect there is an earlier.

http://homepage.mac.com/sfe/henry/estabrook/crazy-uncle.html

"As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made" (Walden, Princeton ed. p. 58).

Hmm considering today's political climate thats one author who would be considered a"terrorist" nowadays.

Oh, yes, and he'd probably say something to get himself kicked off LiveJournal as well.

The first citation! Cool.

At least you come out on land! I appear to be about halfway between South Africa and Australia.

As for the China thing, it's probably an American idea. We're notoriously bad a geography. :)

I used to read it in kids' books.
"What are you doing?"
"Digging a hole to China."

I suppose it's the closest landmass to where you'd come out. As

azdak said, British children used to dig to Australia. Both lots would get very wet.

I'd be much closer to Australia than China. I think the necessary distortions in making a globe fit a flat map have misled people- when I looked at what was *really* opposite me on a google, it seemed as though it was much closer than other areas.

Hey, I came out bang in the centre of the Atlantic, with no land (not even islands) for miles...

And I can'r swim :(

I'm in the ocean, off the west coast of Australia. *swimming like mad*

I had a lot of fun going all the way down to my house on google- I see they're using an old photo- not only is the palm tree I recently got rid of still there, the swimming pool is full of beautiful crystal blue water. *sigh* So it's before September of last year.

We've had fun finding our house and looking around the neighbourhood too. :-)

If you knew when they were taking the photo you could go to a field or park and spell out things with cars. ;^)

I tried snapping the pics and making it into an animation, but it's way too big to make into an icon. Pity.

You could play with the image and say "I am here" or something. :-)

I've got a photo somewhere, where a bunch of farmers put on either white or black shirts, and arranged themselves in the shape of a cow. :^) THe photo was taken from a plane.

Finding Places

Here is a formula for finding opposite places in the world. Find the latitude of your starting place. Change the direction. For example, if it's north make it south. Find the longitude. Subtract it from 180. Change the direction. For example, if it's east, make it west. The new latitude and longitude will be the opposite point on the globe. Where is the opposite of your home?

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Is this China?

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Did a bit of googling

Re: Did a bit of googling

googled a bit more.

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Re: googled a bit more.

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Interesting formula