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Lool-the-Loop
As you go around loops on a roller coaster, most people worry that they're about to fall out. However this is impossible due to the acceleration force the inertia creates to glue you to your seat. As you move around the loop, the net force acting on you in always changing. At the very bottom, or the blue star in the picture below, the acceleration force is pushing you down in the same direction as gravity, making you feel very heavy. At the top of the loop, or the green star in the diagram, gravity is pulling you out of your seat while the acceleration force, which is stronger, is pushing you into your seat. The forces are close to balancing, so you feel very light.
The intensity of the acceleration force is determine by two things: the speed of the coaster and the angle of the turn. When the coaster first enters the loop, it has maxium kinetic energy and as it moves through the loop, it slowly looses some of it, thus moving slower. Originally, they tried to make the loops in perfect circles, however this was rather painful to the riders because the acceleration force is constant the whole way around the loop, and in order to be able to make it to the top of the loop they had to enter at an extremely high speed, causing an extremely high force on the occupiants. Now, they use the elipse shape for the loops because it is much easier to balance the forces, so there isnt an overwhelming amont of force.
