Roller Coasters are one of the most thrilling things we experience. That is if you like roller coasters of course. I am a huge roller coaster fan and love going to amusement parks. There are definitely those massive intimidating roller coasters though that sometimes make me think while I’m in line “why am I doing this?” When the ride is over I want to do it again and absolutely love the rush you get.  All the different forces we experience on roller coasters is what makes it so fun.

Roller coasters test the limits of gravity by accelerating and changing position to the ground causing many different forces to act on your body. First, we need to understand the basics. 1 g is equal to the force of acceleration due to the gravity near Earth’s surface. In other words, we experience 1 g while we are just standing still on the ground not in motion. In terms of acceleration this is about 9.81 meters per second squared according to Physics Buzz. When we go down steep hills, through cork screws, and flips on roller coasters people will experience roughly four times the acceleration of 1 g. This is what causes us to get that weird churning feeling in our stomach.

While we are accelerating down a steep hill, gravity is pulling us down while an acceleration force wants to pull us up. These forces will balance out at a certain point of acceleration making us feel weightless. The reason we sometimes get lifted up out of our seat is if we accelerate down a hill fast enough. This causes the upwards acceleration to be greater than the force of gravity thus lifting us up out of our seats. While it is terrifying for some people, this is my favorite part about roller coaster rides. How do we stay on track and in our seats through a loop-the-loop? It’s simple. We accelerate fast enough where our apparent weight and acceleration force are greater than the force of gravity pulling us down. So when we go upside down, these forces combined with the harness keep us from falling out. In fact, the forces are strong enough on their own that we would not need a harness to keep us in.

Coasterpedia has some really cool information about G-forces and roller coasters. The highest g-force recorded on a roller coaster is 6.3 Gs! That is roughly six times the amount of acceleration from when we are standing still. This was on the Tower of Terror in South Africa. The most amount of g-forces experienced on a ride in the United States is 5.9G. This is on a ride called Shock Wave in Arlington, Texas. One of the most notable and largest roller coasters in the world is Kingda Ka where people will feel 5.0G. Here is a video of the thrill of riding Kingda Ka.

We experience an absurd amount of g-forces on roller coasters, nevertheless it is one of the most thrilling feelings in the world.