My favourite roller coaster

My favorite roller coaster would have to be Behemoth at Canada's Wonderland. It is the tallest and fastest roller coaster in all of Canada, reaching a maximum height of 70 m and a maximum speed of 124 km/h. These two factor combine to make Behemoth, in my opinion, the coolest roller coaster in all of Canada.

As soon as you get on the roller coaster, you know you are going to have a blast, because the restraint system only presses down on your lap, leaving the rest of your body free to move around.

As soon as you start ascend up the lift hill, you are captivated by a magnificent view of the park as well as the iconic CN tower if you glance over to your left. As soon as you reach the apex of the lift hill, you start to plummet down a near-vertical hill, reaching death-defying speeds. You then travel up and down the remaining hills, your body alternating between a feeling of weightlessness and a feeling of being pushed into your seat. This lasts for a total of 3 minutes and 10 seconds, 3 minutes and 10 seconds of pure exhilaration and fun.

These are the reasons why Behemoth is my favorite roller coaster.

Here are some pictures of Behemoth:

The physics of roller coasters

If you have visited an amusement park in the past, you have probably been on a roller coaster before. You know that they allow you to experience death-defying drops, extremely tight turns, and dizzying corkscrews without the risk of death or injury that you would expect to be a part of an such an adrenaline-pumping activity.

However, roller coasters a more complicated than that. Much more complicated. With every roller coaster, the laws of physics are at play, both keeping you as safe as possible, and ensuring you didn't waste your money purchasing the admission tickets.

Most roller coasters rely on gravity to supply the car with the energy needed to complete the circuit. The car is winched up to the top of the first hill, supplying it with gravitational potential energy as it starts to come down the first drop. Some roller coasters use magnetic catapults to supply the car with kinetic energy. Magnets allow the roller coaster car to accelerate extremely fast and reach mind boggling speeds in a very short period of time.

Once the roller coaster is going around the track, you experience a lot of G-forces. You feel heavier if you are going up a hill and lighter if you are going down a hill. The rider also experiences centrifugal force when going around a tight turn, and acceleration when going down hills.

While the roller coaster is going around the track, it is not propelled by any motor. It travels all by itself, with its own momentum and gravity as its sole means of propulsion. In the end, just enough kinetic energy is supplied to your roller coaster car for it to make one complete circuit around the track.

Once you complete one circuit around the track, hydraulic brakes are usually used to stop the roller coaster car. The car experiences an acceleration in the direction opposite its motion.

Here are some related to roller coasters:

How to add vectors

This blog entry will explain how to add vectors. If you follow these simple steps, you'll be adding vectors like Albert Einstein in no time:

1. First step is setting your positive and negative axes. This step is crucial because it will allow you to determine whether your vectors are going in a positive or negative direction.
2. Next, you must break down all of the vectors into their individual x and y vector components. For this you use the sine and cosine ratios to find the magnitudes of two x and y vector components. Next, you find the directions of the x and y components based on the positive axes you set earlier.
3. You then organize these vector components in a chart while at the same time applying all of the vector transformations to the vector components. For example the vector 2A would involve multiplying Ax component by 2 and the Ay component by 2. The vector -A would involve reversing vector A and making it go in the opposite direction. Therefore, you multiply Ax by -1 and Ay by -1.
4. You find the net values of all of the x and y vector components. Essentially add up all of the x values and all of the y values.
5. You then use the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the magnitude of the resultant vector.
6. Finally, you use the tangent angle ratio to calculate the angle of the resultant vector while paying close attention to - and +, and N, S, E, W. 
7. Congratulations!! You have just learned how to add vectors.

Deriving Equation 4 from a velocity-time graph

Deriving Equation 3 from a velocity-time graph

Results of the Walking the Graphs Lab

Last week, our class did a lab which involved trying to match various distance-time and velocity-time graphs by walking back and forth in front of a Vernier motion detector. Here are my group's results:

The result for experiment b.

The result for experiment c.

The result for experiment d.

The result for experiment e.

The result for experiment f.

The result for experiment g.