Roller Coaster Physics Essays -- physics roller coasters amusement the

The very inaugural roller coasters were created in Russia in the 1600s, and were nothing like the distinctive roller coaster that comes to mind today. People rode experience steep ice slides on large sleds made from either wood or ice that were slowed with sand at the end of the ride. These sleds required skill to navigate down the slides, and accidents were frequent. A Frenchman tried to cash in on the popularity of the Russian ice slides by building 1 in France, but the warm climate quickly ended his attempts with ice. A waxed wooden slide proved to be much more feasible, along with wooden wheeled sleds. Just as with the ice slides, the necessity of navigation skills caused many accidents, so tracks were produced to keep the sleds in line. In the 1850s, the first shot at a vertical loop was made in France. This Centrifuge Railway offered a rail car that would fail through the loop with nothing property it there aside from its own receptive acceleration. Government offici als quickly shut the operation down after one accident. The beginning of American roller coasters was near the end of the 19th century when railway companies set up amusement parks at the end of their lines to increase business on the weekends. In 1884 the first real roller coaster in America was introduced a gravity driven switchback train. Passengers would climb a set of stairs to board the car, which was then pushed from the station to travel down a hill and over a few bumps. At the bottom, the passengers got out and climbed another set of stairs while workers hoisted the car to the top of the plunk for station. The passengers got back into the car and rode to the first station on a second track.Another attempt at a vertical lo... ...changing their direction of movement from down to up. G-forces that are felt when changing direction horizontally are called lateral Gs. Lateral Gs can be converted into commonplace G-forces by banking turns.Roller coasters today employ clo thoid loops rather than the circular loops of earlier roller coasters. This is because circular loops require greater gateway speeds to complete the loop. The greater entry speeds subject passengers to greater centripetal acceleration through the lower half of the loop, therefore greater Gs. If the radius is reduced at the top of the loop, the centripetal acceleration is increased sufficiently to keep the passengers and the train from slowing too much as they move through the loop. A large radius is unploughed through the bottom half of the loop, thereby reducing the centripetal acceleration and the Gs acting on the passengers.