Rodney Clough

[Jamie123]

Ever heard of a guy called Rodney Clough? There's a short bio of him here: World Top Secret: Our Earth Is Hollow!: About the Author.

His ideas are colorful to say the least, but he is an LDS member who served a full-time mission. (Not that that necessarily means he isn't either barmy or a bizarre fantasist.) Of course, I've heard of the "hollow earth" theory before: Sir Humphrey Davey (1778-1828) who was the leading British scientist of his day believed something similar, and his ideas were used by Jules Verne in Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Edgar Allen Poe wrote about it too, but it's news to me that anyone takes it seriously today.

I've not particularly researched Clough's theory, but a few ideas spring to mind:

1. Holes in the north and south poles - even if relatively small - would have been noticed by now by explorers, not to mention by satellites and aircraft, submarines passing under the north polar ice sheet. (To be fair, Clough does claim that the American explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888-1957) flew an aircraft into the earth's northern aperture, and that his report was suppressed in typical conspiracy-theory fashion.) Furthermore, the position of Scott and Amundson's "pole" would have to be wrong - why has no one noticed this?

2. If the earth is hollow, with a shell only 800 miles thick, how is there enough mass to create the observed gravitational field? Either the earth's crust is MUCH denser than we think it is, or else the universal gravitational constant is wrong by several orders of magnitude. Also other planets would need to be hollow to make the same theory apply to them.

3. How could any naturalistic process explain a hollow planet's formation? I'm no expert, but it seems sensible that interstellar dust should coalesce under gravity to form solid spherical bodies. A hollow shell would suggest something akin to "bubble" formation - with some fluid or gas trapped inside. Is this possible? (I don't know.) Of course, the other possibility is that the hollow earth (and other hollow planets) did not form by natural processes at all, but were intelligently constructed.

4. There is also the whole theory of seismology. Again this is not my subject, but the earth's inner has (I understand) been deduced from the passage of seismic waves through its core. If the core is hollow, a lot of currently-accepted theories will need to be wrong.

I know its not of much practical importance, but I've also found such speculations rather interesting. Does anyone else have any thoughts/opinions?

Edited April 7, 2009 by Jamie123

[Hemidakota]

I remember years ago in the reading a book called the HALLOW EARTH. I have read papers outside of this book that many explorers had a hard time in explaining in seeing vegetation floating from ice pack and warm waters felt on both polar locations. I always wondered if the lost ten-tribes were hid from the world by our own physical sight until that day when the Lord tells them to return to the Zion.

It must be the same premise as those who believe the hollow moon theory.

[Jamie123]

It must be the same premise as those who believe the hollow moon theory.

Who knows - maybe the tall selenites Joseph Smith spoke of are living inside the moon.

[WillowTheWhisp]

If the world was hollow why doesnt all the water from the oceans flow down the holes?

[HiJolly]

Back in the 70's I read The Hollow Earth as well. I thought it sounded plausible.

Now I think it's not at all plausible. Someday I'll know for sure.

HiJolly

[TheAngelPalmoni]

I hardly doubt that we really think that the lost ten tribes are living in the hollow earth... That is simply ridiculous.

It would make for an interesting Church Lesson though...

Angel Palmoni

web.me.com/angelpalmoni

[Jamie123]

If the world was hollow why doesnt all the water from the oceans flow down the holes?

Gravity is created by mass and by the proximity of that mass (Newton's F=GMm/r^2 law). For a solid earth, gravity would act uniformly towards the earth's center, and decrease as one approached the center. At the center, a person would be weightless, since he would be surrounded by equal concentrations of mass on all sides, whose gravitational effects would cancel out.

In the case of a hollow earth, the situation is different: The gravitational pull would not necessarily be towards the earth's center, but towards the earth's shell. The direction of gravity would depend on which side of the shell you were on: For someone on the outside the force would be downwards towards the center, while someone on the inside would feel the same force acting outwards. A person who tunneled half way through the shell would feel no gravity at all, since he would have equal amounts of mass on either side.

Given the symmetry of the situation, the ocean on the outside of the earth would have no more reason to flow into the earth than the ocean on the inside would have to flow out.

Edited April 8, 2009 by Jamie123

[LittleWyvern]

4. There is also the whole theory of seismology. Again this is not my subject, but the earth's inner has (I understand) been deduced from the passage of seismic waves through its core. If the core is hollow, a lot of currently-accepted theories will need to be wrong.

Yeah, geology does a handy job at refuting this theory.