MM: “But the closest country seems to be New Zealand, which very much is. It sounds wrong, doesn’t it?”

Why do you think it sounds wrong? Can you explain?

     by Matej on March 12, 2007 at 8:05 am

Well, maybe because I tried digging from where I live in Belgium and guess what? The closest country seems to be… New Zealand! Perhaps everyone ends up around NZ and the site is just the elaborate scheme of some witty New Zealanders (or a stunt of the Ministry of Tourism, trying something else than banking on the LOTR trilogy to get tourist revenue :P)…

     by ARF on March 12, 2007 at 8:27 am

Matej: I assumed I’d end up further north, closer to Japan. I guess it depends on how you cut through the Earth. This seems to cut through the globe like a Norwegian O, so like this: Ø

But what if you cut through horizontally? Like the Greek letter theta: θ Where do I end up then?

Hope these characters show up correctly.

     by Michael M. on March 12, 2007 at 8:37 am

Michael, sorry to nitpick, but every hole through a sphere is basically horizontal. Especially if you dig through the very centre

     by pengovsky on March 12, 2007 at 8:46 am

seems logic to me. if you’re digging from northern hemisphere through the core, you should come through on the southern hemisphere

     by cija on March 12, 2007 at 8:58 am

Peng: I already admitted I was poor at diggology. But I meant horizontal with the imagined ground. Or bottom of the earth in this case.

     by Michael M. on March 12, 2007 at 9:12 am

MM: “I guess it depends on how you cut through the Earth.”

I think it is assumed that you cut through the center of the Earth. As you say Ø. So Ljubljana is approximately at 46 deg N(orth) and 15 deg E(ast). If you dig through the center you would end at 46 deg S(outh) and 165 W(est), which is near (~1600km) New Zealand.

If you dig like θ and if I got you right, then you would finish at 46 N, 165 W, which is still in Pacific, some 4000 km from Japan.

     by Matej on March 12, 2007 at 9:16 am

I can give you a small exercise. Try to find places (on land) where you dig a hole and not end up in the ocean. You will see it is quite hard to find them.

     by bojo on March 12, 2007 at 10:20 am

Michael M., “antipode” means a point diametrically opposite to the reference point.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes

This is why Australia is referred to as “down under” by the British, because Oz is located on the antipode relative to the UK. Since geographically, Belgium and Slovenia aren’t that far apart, by world standards, it does make sense for NZ to be the closest antipodal country for both Slovenia and Belgium.

     by Anonymous on March 12, 2007 at 10:22 am

Bojo: You have a point. That’s because 70% of the Earth’s surface is ocean after all.

     by Anonymous on March 12, 2007 at 10:26 am

Actually I’m not surprised Slovenia ends up in NZ, as they are 12hrs apart in timezones (hence on the opposite face) and in different hemispheres. I spent roughly half my life in NZ and the more I think about it, the more NZ and Slovenia shared a lot of things. Or NZ and Europe in general (architecture and food are not some of them)).

     by JS on March 12, 2007 at 11:00 am

I wonder what these folks would think about this discussion?

theflatearthsociety.org

     by pirano on March 12, 2007 at 11:32 am

The Ljubljana-based Russian conceptual artist Vadim Fishkin has a project that deals specifically with this issue. It’s called “What’s on the Other Side?” and he’s done research about Ljubljana’s exact antipode. You can check out his project here: www.dum-club.si/vaf/otherside/os.html

     by rolig on March 12, 2007 at 12:09 pm

bojo: If you look at Vadim’s map, you will see the places on the earth where land is antipodal to land: www.dum-club.si/vaf/otherside/land.htm
Vadim was somewhat obsessed with this issue for a while, and even has a project where he finds the antipode of the Antipodes Islands (which are in the S. Pacific). He’s quite a fascinating conceptual artist who combines science with a schoolboy’s wild imagination.

     by rolig on March 12, 2007 at 12:18 pm

Cool link, rolig. I salute you!

Also, according to the flatearthers Pirano linked to, nobody knows what’s under Slovenia. Their guess: a bnnch of rocks and/or turtles.

     by Michael M. on March 12, 2007 at 1:24 pm

Here’s a link to video podcaster Zefrank’s Earth Sandwich challenge: www.zefrank.com/sandwich/

     by Dave on March 12, 2007 at 1:35 pm

This reminds me of a project Ze Frank was doing last summer, trying to get people to make an Earth sandwich by placing pieces of bread on the ground at the same time at opposite antipodes. I’m pretty sure that the “winners” (if that’s the word) did it in NZ and Portugal.

Of course, it’s dead easy to make an open-face Earth sandwich.

     by A. Medved on March 12, 2007 at 1:35 pm

I tried digging from several places, and always end up someplace in the Indian Ocean. What’s up with that?

     by Katja on March 16, 2007 at 5:26 pm