| When you ride a roller coaster, you probably | | | | the entire course of the coaster, then toward the |
| notice the chain / conveyor belt assembly that | | | | end, brakes are used to bring the train to a stop |
| pulls the train of cars up the first big hill. What you | | | | as it approaches the loading / unloading platform. |
| may not know is that once that conveyor belt | | | | If a continuous circuit coaster has insufficient |
| trip is over, the cars are powered by nothing but | | | | kinetic energy to travel the course after climbing |
| their own kinetic energy. Roller coasters were | | | | the first (and highest) hill, the train can "valley" or |
| invented in Russia in the late 1880s and are a | | | | roll forwards and backwards along the track until |
| specialized type of railroad. The reason they can | | | | it uses up all its kinetic energy. |
| roll on their own kinetic energy is that the trip up | | | | In 1959, California's Disneyland theme park |
| that first hill raises the train's potential energy. The | | | | introduced the Matterhorn Bobsleds, the first |
| higher the hill, the greater the potential energy. | | | | coaster to use a tubular steel track. Previously, |
| The more potential energy, the more kinetic | | | | coasters had been made with conventional rails on |
| energy (or sustained movement) will result as the | | | | wooden railroad ties that limited the shapes |
| cars descend the opposite side of the hill. | | | | coasters could take. Tubular steel, however, can |
| While most coasters feature an initial lift hill, not all | | | | be bent in any direction. This means that loops, |
| of them do. Some are set in motion by a | | | | corkscrews, and other maneuvers can be |
| hydraulic launch, and can attain higher speeds | | | | incorporated into coaster designs. While most |
| more quickly than traditional coasters. Not all | | | | coasters today are steel, there are some wooden |
| coasters run in a loop. Coasters known as "shuttle | | | | coasters still being built. Coaster enthusiasts say |
| coasters" run through the tracks forward, then | | | | that even though wooden coasters can't do loops |
| go backward through the same course. | | | | or corkscrews, they are just as frightening as |
| If a roller coaster is designed correctly, it will have | | | | steel coasters because they have greater side to |
| enough kinetic, or movement energy to complete | | | | side movement during the journey. |