The Physics of Amusement Parks

Young and old enjoy rides offered at amusement parks. And although you might not think so, it truly is one of the safety forms of recreation there is. You are more likely to be hurt riding your bike. So why is that? The physics of amusement parks have a lot to do with it and so do safety practices.

Stats show that one in 250 million riders will be killed, and that less than .003% of riders are injured. That’s a very low number! And that number could actually be lower because the number one reason for injury or death is a result of a preventable error. That’s because physics actually keeps you relatively safe while riding the rides.

Let’s look at the bumper car. Bumper cars are designed to be able to collide with no danger to the rider. That’s because the cars are surrounded in large rubber bumper pads that diffuse the impact, while the driver is snuggly buckled in with a five point harness. Newton’s’ third law of motion certainly applies to bumper cars. If you don’t know what that is, it says that “if one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the first body.” In English that’s the jolt you get after you collide with another bumper car.

Riding in a bumper car lets you experience what the impact from a real car would feel like but in a safer environment. As you collide with another car you feel the inertia of your body moving forward even after the vehicle have stopped. The size of the driver will affect the moment as well, as will the speed, and the type of impact – front, side, and corner.

Pendulum rides are very popular. Perhaps because they are much like a swing they remind us of our childhood. It’s like controlled flying. On a traditional swing the harder you pump your legs the more force you get and the higher the swing goes. Rides don’t require you to pump your legs and you can get a great rush from the feeling of weightlessness that occurs.

The feeling of weightlessness occurs because there is a decrease in the gravity force. We can’t feel that, but what we do feel is the force of the seat pushing against our body. When you sit in your chair you feel your chair pushing against you, yet when you are near the top of a pendulum ride you feel lighter and don’t feel the sensation of the push, and if you are at the highest point of the ride if you weren’t buckled in you would actually fall out of your seat. The seat has to supply the centripetal force which equates to double the weight of the rider also called 2g’s or 2 times the gravitational pull.

The roller coaster is one of the oldest amusement park rides around. As you barrel down the track at 50 mph you suddenly do a 360 degree loop and your stomach lands somewhere near your feet. Thank goodness for the harness or you’d be splattered all over the roller coaster.

Roller coasters work on the law of physics. Because the roller coaster has no source of power other then momentum it must convert potential energy to kinetic energy which is what propels the roller coaster forward. The different types of wheels help smooth the ride out and the back set of wheels keeps the roller coaster on the track.

Free Fall rides are not a new concept. Galileo introduced the concept of free fall which stated that “all objects free fall at the same rate regardless of their mass.” So how do free fall rides work. There are three distinct parts – the ride to the top, the momentary suspension, and then the downward plunge.

The ride up is accomplished by force which pushes the car upward. The car then stays suspended at the top for a brief second and then starts the downward plunge accelerating because of the influence of gravity. Now if the car was allowed to hit the ground at that speed. The impact and sudden stop would result in serious injuries but rather the car takes an exit track which allows the car to slowly come to a stop as the momentum runs out.

Rides are actually a lot less dangerous than you might think. Amusement parks are great at using the laws of physics to make you feel like you are in danger when in fact you are not. Understanding the physics of amusement parks is almost as much fun as the rides. I said almost, for there is nothing quite like the thrill of those rides!

Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.