Although i have "ride-phobia" and i have never even been on a merry-go-round but however all those big rides always make me wonder that what makes them work? Today we are going to discuss the king of rides- the roller coaster! Have you ever considered that what makes a roller coaster work? The answer is kinematics! Kinematics is the the study of motions. From studying kinematics we can know the acceleration, position, time taken, displacement and velocity of a certain object.
The three laws of Newton that apply to the roller coaster are:
1) "All objects will remain in a state of rest or continue to move with a constant velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."
2) "The acceleration of an object depends inversely on its mass and directly on the unbalanced force applied to it."
3) "For every action force, there is an equal and opposite reaction force."
With the help pf these three laws and kinematics one can understand the physics behind a roller coaster and can even build one.
Another important thing behind the physics of the roller coaster is the law of conservation of energy. This law states that the energy cannot be created or destroyed. We know that energy therefore converts from one form to another. In a roller coaster, the potential energy is converted into kinetic energy and vice versa. Not only this but a roller coaster may convert and transform this energy in several different forms such as heat energy and light energy.
The picture of roller coaster given below won first place for technical merit in 2009 and was made by the students of A.Y Jackson!
No comments:
Post a Comment