Potential Energy In Roller Coasters

Potential and Kinetic Energy Transformations Potential and kinetic energy can be found in things all around us, especially in roller coasters. Potential energy is stored energy in an object, and kinetic energy is energy of motion or speed. On a rollercoaster it can switch from potential to kinetic energy very often. The rollercoaster starts off with a chain and motor and exerts a force on the rollercoaster which pushes the ride to the top of the hill. Throughout the process of going up the hill the ride has built up potential energy, that energy is very important in order to make the ride go as smoothly as possible. When the ride let’s gravity take over, the potential energy turns into kinetic energy because the ride is in motion, thus the kinetic energy keeps building.
We can also apply Newton's first law of
Without the help of physics in rollercoasters people would have a greater chance of dying on a rollercoaster than they do now. For example in the year 1895 Coney Island Amusement Park opened up a ride called the “Flip Flap” there were many reports of passengers getting whiplash and even some reports of a number of people breaking their necks and dying on the ride. This was a result of the loop on the ride not being a centrifugal loop, instead it was a circular loop. The difference between a circular and centrifugal loop is that a circular loop would need to start with a lot of motion in the beginning, when the ride starts. The ride is not able to do that at the beginning because it can not start with a lot of kinetic energy when it is building up potential energy. Without physics and the knowledge of potential and kinetic energy, we might have never figured out why the “flip flap” and other rides like it were hurting people. Now that we know it’s because the loop needed more kinetic energy in the beginning, engineers were able to make different types of loops where no one could get