# Digging to China and vice versa
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 18, 2000, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356 "2000-10-18T02:24:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TheBori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBori)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2000, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/1 "2000-10-18T02:24:45Z")
When I was little I used to start digging a hole in the backyard and confidently announce that I was going to dig “all the way to China”. I realize that the opposite side of the earth from New Jersey is not China, but I’ll leave that for another thread. I am wondering where little Chinese kids used to dig to? Or kids in England or Zimbabwe? Is there a common (if incorrect) presumption of “the other side of the world” wherever you are or is it a uniquely American phenomenon?
I fear that there are a lot of little kids with no clear digging direction out there.
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### Author:  [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2000, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/2 "2000-10-18T04:06:49Z")
When I was a young doofus, I had an earnest debate with some young doofuses from Denmark. I had asserted that China was on the other side of earth from the United States, and they assured me that this could not be - that China was on the other side of the earth from Denmark. Obviously, none of us were full cognizant that Denmark, the U.S., and China are all in the Northern Hemisphere!
I think China as “the place on the other side of the world” is a very ancient perception, from medieval Europe, which was even more map-challenged than I was as a young doofus. I think it is related to the huge lengths of trade route from Europe to China, across the bulk of Eurasia. Really, it’s not a three-dimensional perception - it’s two-dimensional. The world, to a European spice merchant, was Eurasia, and perhaps a little Africa. At one side of the world were Britain and Spain, at the other side, China, in the middle, India and Russia. So the question of hemispheres didn’t really enter into it, and the possibility of going _all the way around_ the world was still a thing of the future. So China was sort on the other side of the “world” from just about any point in Europe, just as Spain or maybe Iceland was on the other side of the world from India, and Mongolia, and Malaya.
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2000, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/3 "2000-10-18T04:56:08Z")
I think most of the places in the northern hemisphere have the South Pacific as their opposite point on the globe.
Sadly, this has led to the drowning of many young doofi.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2000, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/4 "2000-10-19T22:54:21Z")
Did kids of long ago used to dig all the way to the turtle’s shell?
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### Author:  [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/5 "2000-10-20T04:18:12Z")
Personally, I think it’s more profitable to dig FOR china.
Then go directly to ‘The Antiques Road show’. 😉
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/6 "2000-10-20T05:37:58Z")
Data point: In Jules Verne’s _Around the World in Eighty Days_, China (specifically southeast China) is referred to as being the antipodes, or point opposite on the Earth. It’s not specified whether this is meant to be opposite the characters’ home of London or Verne’s Paris.
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### Author:  [@MattTheCroc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MattTheCroc)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/7 "2000-10-20T07:57:25Z")
It’s China in Australia too. Stupid… At least we’re in the Southern Hemisphere, though. That’s _something_, at least…
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### Author:  [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/8 "2000-10-20T09:24:50Z")
Although some kids in the Netherlands dig to China, most of them actually dig for New Zealand. Which is the closest country to our perfect opposite postition. This could of course be influenced by the fact that it’s named after a Dutch province - Abel Tasman and all that. Or maybe we’re just not as map-challenged as you all seem to be 😉
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/9 "2000-10-20T10:13:59Z")
My best friend, and many of my other schoolmates when I was a kid, were Dutch! Maybe they got there by digging?
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### Author:  [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/10 "2000-10-20T11:24:13Z")
I dunno Guano, could be. Where they completely burned down to the bones? In which case I’d say yes, they probably dug their way to Kiwi 😉
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### Author:  [@scratch1300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch1300)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/11 "2000-10-20T13:06:58Z")
The way the earth is, most people won’t find anything interesting on the other side of the globe. The U.S., for instance, has its opposite in the Indian Ocean. Europe has its opposite in the Pacific Ocean. There are a few interesting antipodes: IIRC, New Zealand is exactly opposite from Spain; Hawaii is opposite from Namibia. That’s the _antipodes_. There’s a term _antiscians_ for the point on the globe that’s the same longitude as you, but the opposite latitude, for instance, here in New England our antiscians is Patagonia. And there’s _another_ term for that point on the globe that’s the same latitude, but the opposite longitude. And, for the U.S., that _would_ be China! But…_I can’t remember the name of this term!_
Little help?
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/12 "2000-10-20T16:27:51Z")
The antiscians point is the other spot on the globe with the same velocity vector you have. Other spots are moving with relation to you. Many of them quite quickly. A fact alluded to in Larry Niven’s old teleportation stories.
As to that other point, and common positional errors:
One time I wrote a program to extract data from the standard comments in the old UUCP map files. This included an entry for the geographical position of the site. I had it check against a bordering rectangle for the country to flag grossly erroneous data, and try to correct it if the mistake was obvious. People everywhere made errors. However, on the east coast of the US, people would enter their longitude as “east” a lot, seemingly assuming that the “east” / “west” tags on longitude must be US-centric. That would normally put them over somewhere by Tashkent. Significantly, people normally only switched their longitude / latitude a lot in places where the longitude was \< 90 degrees, so they were aware of the ranges involved. However, that includes most of Europe and, again the eastern part of North America. It didn’t seem to occur to somebody in New York City that 74 degrees north placed them above the Arctic circle.
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### Author:  [@don\_willard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_willard)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/13 "2000-10-20T20:44:50Z")
There is a Doctor Who story in which a mad scientist is digging and the Doctor warns that if the crust or something is broken into, it will destroy the earth. In the Cerrone disco song SUPERNATURE, man has so disturbed the ecology that the Monsters Down Below come up and I imagine them discoing with the people but I think they are angry and will get us. I wonder if you put on a special asbestos suit and dug down you could get through the hot center, etc. and come out on the other side, or would you find the earth hollow and the molten center would be the sun, as in TANAR OF PELLUCIDAR by Edgar Rice Burroughs? Anyway, once the tunnel would be dug and you fell into it, you would whiz past the center and come out just short of the other side and then yo yo back and so forth, eventually coming to rest in the center.
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Tana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Tana)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2000, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/14 "2000-10-20T20:59:29Z")
This subject reminds me of an article that I had read earlier this year. In it the author described how the emporer of China had suspended work on the Great Wall because of the “westerners” plans to infiltrate from beneath. This realization prompted the emporer to begin the little known project of the ‘great floor’ of China. It also was never completed beacause of the invention of the hot-air baloon.
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### Author:  [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2000, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/15 "2000-10-25T06:20:29Z")
When I was little, I used to try to dig to China. No one told me it couldn’t be done. I finally realized it was impossible when I was twelve and I burned my hands on the earth’s core.
:eek:
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### Author:  [@quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quasar)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2000, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/16 "2000-10-25T22:52:15Z")
**scratch1300 said**
> [@](#):
>
> There’s a term **antiscians** for the point on the globe that’s the same longitude as you, but the opposite latitude.
On the same subject **yabob** said:
> [@](#):
>
> The antiscians point is the other spot on the globe with the same velocity vector you have
It is clear that these definitions contradict each other. While scratch1300’s conceptualization restricts an antistician point to a particular longitude, yabob’s includes every possible longitudinal coordinate for a specific latitude since rotational speed is depending solely on the latter and not the former. Can someone clarify which definition is correct? With a cite, perhaps?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2000, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/17 "2000-10-25T23:30:27Z")
Both definitions agree, at least if we ignore complications due to the nonsphericity of the Earth. **yabob** said velocity vector, not speed: Velocity implies speed and direction. Any spot with the same latitude plus or minus will have the same speed, but in a different direction, so it’s different velocities.
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### Author:  [@quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quasar)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2000, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/18 "2000-10-26T00:45:33Z")
Thanks **Chronos**!
I was thinking about the direction of Earth’s rotation in clockwise/anti-clockwise terms. Now that you mention it, it is evident that **yabob** meant tangential direction which would definitely vary with longitude. Should read more carefully next time. :rolleyes:
> [@](#):
>
> _Originally posted by DrMatrix_
> When I was little, I used to try to dig to China. No one told me it couldn’t be done. I finally realized it was impossible when I was twelve and I burned my hands on the earth’s core.
You were lucky not to have burned your friend downstairs. Auch!
BTW, you are a great digger. Maybe the Armageddon producers should have sent you to drill the hole in the asteroid. Who needs Bruce Willis when you got Dr. Matrix? 😃
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2000, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/19 "2000-10-26T16:21:43Z")
Finally checking back in on this thread - yeah, thanks, Chronos.
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### Author:  [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2000, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/digging-to-china-and-vice-versa/37356/20 "2000-10-26T17:25:26Z")
Growing up, I calculated what it would take to dig to China from my hometown in Colorado. Basically, I’d start with a 65[sup]o[/sup] declining tunnel (65[sup]o[/sup] down from horizontal, that is) that went due west, slowly leveling off (as per my plumb line), then digging up until I came out near Port Arthur, China.
Unfortunately, after I’d dug about 72 miles of tunnel, I was about 65 miles under the Colorado/Utah border. There, I ran into an inpenetrable wall of ignorance. Wish I had had Uncle Cecil with me. :D:D
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