History Of Roller Coasters

Roller coasters have long been identified as a staple of the American amusement industry, due to the wild success of Six Flags Great America. But roller coasters actually originated in Russia in the 17th century. These original roller coasters were originally known as ice slides that were concentrated in St. Petersburg. They were built out of lumber with a sheet of ice multiple inches thick covering the surface. People that rid these slides climbed the stairs on the back of the slide then sped down the 50 degree drop. These ice slides were built between 70 and 80 feet high that stretched for hundreds of feet and accommodated many large sleds at a time. The French are later given credit for adding wheel to the ice sleds and featured cars that locked to the track. With this new design French roller coasters were even capable of long twists and turns and even loops (The first looped roller coaster was made in France). It wasn’t until the French gradually lost interest in roller coasters, that a man named Marcus Thompson would create the first roller coaster in America. In his original designs Thompson used a lot of the design layouts that the Russians used with their ice slides.

Some early accidents occurred specifically in the late 1800s and early 1900s were roller coaster were still relatively new in America. However countless accidents occurred at Coney Island in the 1900s. Some accidents include in 1937 where two girls were on a ride called the Octopus, when the care they were in just simply went out of order and fell. Another accident occurred in 1925 where a woman riding “The Thunderbolt” was thrown forward and hit her head on the metal bar in front of her. Yet another accident at Coney Island occurred where a train ...

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... when trying to depict the forces acting on a rider on a loop.

In terms of force, friction, potential energy, gravity, velocity, acceleration, and kinetic energy, roller coasters accelerate and change direction frequently and high velocities. When going up a hill a roller coaster is storing potential energy that will be converted to kinetic energy upon it going down the hill. Friction on a roller coaster comes in the forms of wheels to keep the car on the track, brakes to stop the roller coaster at the end of the track, air resistance, and the tracks themselves. In terms of Forces, roller coaster only use gravitational force and the normal force of the seat pushing up on the ride and the weight of the rider. Roller coasters need to overcome gravitational force to overcome hills, and need the normal force of the seat pushing up on the rider to get through loops.