If you imagine yourself at the center of the earth your are floating since the pull is the same around you. But let us say you could turn up the gravity as much as you want. Why aren’t you pulled apart? The net forces are zero, sure. But wouldn’t the body experience tension?

Question

If we compare it to a rope pulled by two equal forces in each end. The net forces would be zero and you would have static equilibrium, but the rope would still break if pulled hard enough.

Additionally, wouldn’t a metal ball uniformly surrounded by powerful magnets be pulled apart as well?

I am not sure why I can’t wrap my head around this, when it comes to the center of the earth.

In: 83

Answer 1

In order for there to be tension, there needs to be different forces acting on opposite sides of the object. Inside a hollow sphere, all points have the same net force of zero due to the [shell theorem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_theorem). It’s not just that the total force on the object as a whole is zero, the force is zero *for every point* on the object.