the.com/roller coaster
Gravity, sold back to you as fun, with a seatbelt for legal reasons.
means A track-based ride that hauls you up high and then lets gravity fling you through drops, loops, and turns at speed.
from Possibly rooted in early winter sled rides down ice-covered wooden hills (popular in parts of Europe), where riders literally rolled on tracks of logs or rollers to slide back up. Some of the earliest American versions were mining and quarry cars repurposed for thrill-seekers, and the gravity railway rides at amusement parks in the late 1800s cemented the name — 'roller' for the wheeled cars, 'coaster' for the coasting plunge once the chain-lift lets go.
- origin
- evolved from 1700s Russian ice slides
- physics
- no engine after the first hill, just momentum
- peak height
- tallest exceeds 400 feet, taller than Niagara Falls
- safety
- statistically safer than the car ride there