Physics of roller coasters

Okay kiddo, when you ride a roller coaster, it feels like you’re flying, right? Well, the reason why you feel like that is because of something called physics.

You know how when you play with toy cars, they go really fast down a ramp and then fly up in the air? That’s kind of like what happens on a roller coaster, except it’s much bigger.

A roller coaster is like a big, fun machine that uses a lot of energy to make you move up and down and all around. The energy that the roller coaster needs to make you move comes from gravity – that’s the force that pulls you down to the ground.

The roller coaster starts out by climbing up a big hill – that’s where all the energy starts building up. Then, when you reach the top of the hill, you suddenly start rushing down at a really fast speed – that’s because of the force of gravity pulling you down.

But the roller coaster doesn’t just go straight down – if it did, you’d go flying off the track! Instead, the track is carefully designed to twist and turn and go up and down in different ways. This way, the roller coaster can safely move you around without you falling off.

As you go through all these twists and turns, something else happens. Because of the way that gravity works, the roller coaster ends up pushing you really hard against your seat or the harness that’s holding you in. This push is called ‘G force’, and it’s what makes you feel like you’re being pushed into the seat or pushed out of the seat.

So, when you ride a roller coaster, you’re experiencing all sorts of forces and energies – gravity, G forces, speed, and more. It’s like you’re on a wild adventure that’s combining all of these things together to make you feel like you’re flying!