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Roller Coaster Data Center
stienman writes "The Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point Amusement Park may have more technology than your data center. From the article: "The parameters within which the Dragster has to operate are so finely tuned that variable load weights from people, wind speed and out-side temperature affect its performance. ... After every third launch, the data are averaged and compared with historic launch data in an effort to create that perfect ride - the roller coaster must go fast enough to clear the top of the tower, but slow to between 7 and 15 mph in order to give riders the maximum lift effect at the top."
Explains why TTD always closes at the WORST possible times ;-)
FWIW, I actually know someone for whom the Dragster didn't launch QUITE quickly enough - it only hit 112MPH...
When I rode it the one time, it was DAMN smooth, DAMN fast, and that was one DAMN steep descent. However, it was over WAY too quickly, and WAS actually boring. Besides, I'm not going to wait 1.5 to 3 hours in line for something that boring. I'd rather have a 2 minute wait (the time it takes to get from the exit to onboard a coaster) for something like Gemini - more fun, BECAUSE it's less smooth, and runs for plenty of time.
The imperfections can help make a ride great. The Revolution at Great America in San Jose, a spinning boat ride that goes over the top, sometimes goes over forwards, and sometimes goes over backwards. You really don't know when it will, or why. Compare that to Superman, the Escape at Magic Mountain, which does exactly the same thing every time, and Superman just seems less interesting.
I must admit, my favorite rides skew to the less predictable. At the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, there is (was) a ferris wheel which consisted of little egg-shaped cages. The rider was given a bar they could pull on to lock the cages in relationship to the wheel, so that they would very slowly spin over the top. No seat belt, mind you, or safety bar or anything, just a little egg-shaped cage with a small bench and a rider flipping around inside, holding their head off the metal with a well-placed, frequently panicked arm. Drop Zone at Great America has a random timer, to ensure that nobody will know when it is about to fall. It's surprisingly good at catching you when you're not expecting it, no matter how many times you ride it. Even The Pirates of the Carribean at Disneyland has people concurrently going through lengthy looped scenes, so that certain boats see the beginning of the loop, others see the middle, and others the end. The rides at California Adventure seemed too controlled and soulless to be a lot of fun, even if they did do so with a bit of showmanship. The best ride there is the white water raft, because it combines the freeform risk of most raft rides with a lot of little technical controlling tricks (like artificially spinning you up).
Personally, I would want to go on the ride when it fell back. That sounds like a lot more fun than just going forwards for 20 seconds. That sounds really, really thrilling. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was left in on purpose, and I'm sure it helps the ride's reputation.
The ______ Agenda
Two points:
;)
1. If we exclude gravity from consideration, the vomit would travel at a tangent to the circle, not away from the centre of the circle. That is to say, once you remove centripetal force, it simply goes 'forward' as momentum demands (for it to go 'away' from the centre of the circle, ie go outside of the 'far' side of the tangent to the circle) would require some other additional acceleration, which isnt there. (gravity excluded)). Hence, if the vomit is let go at the very top of the loop, we would expect it to travel horizontally forward, given that the tangent to the top of the circle meets the circle at a point on the vertical axis of the circle, and the tangent hence must be a horizontal axis.
(we ignore fact the person could, in vomiting, impart a thrust on the vomit - it could be any direction, so cant be generally accounted for. We'll just presume any such thrust will be relatively insignificant (which seems likely, to a degree.)).
If we add in gravity, the vomit will simply accelerate towards the ground at 9.8m/s**2, as well as moving horizontally, according to its horizontal inertia.
2. Roller coaster rides which loop typically are designed so that they approach a minimum of speed at the top of the loop, for maximum "weightless" effect (ie to 'hang' at the top of the loop), this is why most of them are oval shaped with the long chord of the oval aligned vertically, rather than circular.
Hence, if you vomit at the top of the loop, on many rides, there will be a minimum of inertia to carry the loop horizontally outside of the loop. Gravity immediately starts acting on the vomit and also the coaster to start accelerating it down the other side of the loop.
With a modicum of thought (ie consider it is the same force accelerating both of them) you should realise that it's very plausible that the vomit will strike the coaster again somewhere near the bottom, offset slightly by whatever horizontal inertia the vomit had (which might be quite small, for many roller coasters).
Calculating exactly where the vomit will hit the coaster (ignoring air friction, as always) sounds like a really interesting basic problem to give students learning Newtonian mechanics.
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