![]() ![]() (The “work” won them a beloved Ig Nobel Prize.) About two-thirds of the time, the kidney stone passed-as long as the rider was seated at the back of the coaster. While wearing a backpack containing a transparent, 3D-printed kidney with a fake stone inside, researchers rode Disney World’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster about 20 times to study how the stone would move with all those ups and downs, according to a 2016 study in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. ![]() You just found out you have kidney stones, what’s next? Go to Disney World! Prescribing patients prone to the condition a trip to the amusement park as a form of preventative care sounds like a pretty wild idea, but wild enough that it works. Riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disney World could help dislodge kidney stones. (For numbers folks out there, you can find a very in-depth mathematical breakdown on Gizmodo.) 5. Taking centripetal force into consideration will dictate the shape and size of the loop. When roller coasters are designed, the engineers’ first job is to establish how fast they want you to go. Simply speaking, this means when you’re traveling on a curved path and velocity is pushing you forward, you’re also being pulled toward the curve’s central point. Secondly, some physics: Centripetal force is what holds keeps you from falling out of roller coaster while it’s upside down. Sure, some roller coasters can loop-the-loop, but have you ever noticed it’s never perfectly circular? To oversimplify things, the loop isn’t a circle itself, it’s roughly the part where two circles hypothetically overlap, sort of like the middle of a Venn diagram. Hauke-Christian Dittrich/picture alliance via Getty Images Visitors ride the roller coaster "Big Loop" in Heide-Park in Soltau, Lower Saxony, Germany. Some say her clout gave roller coasters the credibility to spread into Europe by the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It had wheels that fit into grooved wooden rails, putting the “roller” in roller coaster and allowing the thrill to continue into summer months, as Wired reports. Popularized in upper class circles, Catherine II of Russia had one installed on her property-but hers wasn’t limited to winter enjoyment. Mounted on an ice block with a straw seat, riders could reach up to 50 miles per hour. In the 15th century, Russians really upped the ante on sledding, building giant, wooden slides-some up to 70 feet tall and 100 feet in length-that they covered in slick ice. "Russian mountains" helped to inspire early roller coasters of Europe, like the Promenades Aeriennes that opened in Paris in 1817. “Russian mountains” predated roller coasters-and Catherine the Great improved them. As any curious human would ponder when gazing upon such a zippy device, tourists saw this and naturally thought: “I want to go to there.” In 1873, at its peak, Mauch Chunk carried 30,478 adrenaline-rushed passengers-each for just 75 cents. With that much weight behind them, they could reach 50 miles per hour through the Lehigh Valley. Gravity forced the cars carrying one-and-a-half tons of coal downhill, which were later brought back up by mules when emptied. The Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway was a gravity railway built in 1827 to haul coal about nine miles between coal mines. Predating Thompson’s Satan-distractor by a few decades was a railway that served dual purposes: a coal carrier in the morning and a joy ride in the afternoon. Mount Pisgah with the Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill Switchback Railroad, 1846-47 One of the earliest coasters in America carried coal before it carried thrill seekers. These scenes would often be built to emulate beautiful landscapes around the world Thompson constructed one of the Swiss Alps, for instance, and another of Venetian canals. These were gravity-powered, slow-moving cars that faced outward, rather than forward, so one could enjoy a constructed scene as the car coasted at less than six miles per hour. His initial invention, however, isn’t like the thrill-inducers we know today. Because it was situated at Coney Island, Thompson is often referred to as the “Father of the American Rollercoaster” for establishing its connection to amusement parks. In 1884, disgusted with the uprise of hedonistic amusements like saloons and brothels, LaMarcus Adna Thompson invented the Switchback Gravity Railway, a patented coaster that visitors to Brooklyn’s Coney Island could ride for just five cents. It may be hard to believe with roller coasters named Dare Devil Dive, Steel Vengeance and The Beast, but the rides were initially developed as a distraction from Satan’s temptations.
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