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Is it possible to dig through from one section of the earth to the opposite section without going through the centre thus not burning up?
 No.First, you'd have to pass through 22-44 miles (35-70 kilometers) of continental crust (3-6 miles/5-10 kilometers on the ocean floor) followed by 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) of mantle. After that, you'd have to traverse a Mars-sized outer core of liquid iron churning as hot as the sun's surface (10,000 degrees F, or 5,500 degrees C), then a solid, moon-sized inner core, and, some studies suggest, a liquid innermost core [sources: Angier; Locke; NOVA].

For sake of argument (and survival) let's pretend the Earth is a cold, uniform, inert ball of rock. While we're at it, let's ignore air resistance.

At the Earth's surface, gravity pulls on us at 32 feet (9.8 meters) per second squared. That means that, for each second you fall, you speed up by 32 feet per second -- but only near Earth's surface. Gravity is a function of mass, and mass is a property of matter. On the surface, all of Earth's matter lies below your feet but, as you fall, more and more of it surrounds you, exerting its own gravity. These horizontal tugs counterbalance each other and cancel out, but the increasing proportion of mass above your head exerts a growing counterforce to the proportionately decreasing mass below, so your acceleration slows as you near the core. At the planet's center, your acceleration due to gravity is zero -- Earth's mass surrounds you, gravity cancels out and you are weightless [sources: Locke; Singh].


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