I live near Six Flags Over Georgia and used to visit occasionally. With a few exceptions, their coasters generally don’t get above 60 mph. Mindbender, for example, tops out at 50mph, but feels so ridiculously fast when you’re riding it. In a car on the highway, though, going 50 doesn’t feel like much of an event at all.
Why is this?
In: Physics
The forces that you feel on the ride are less about the speed of the train and more about the acceleration forces of the short trip.
Roller coasters typically don’t travel in a straight line for long, and every turn, every hill, every drop, and every twist changes the direction and speed of acceleration on your body, causing you to feel like you are going faster and faster, as well as purposefully disorienting you.
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