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Article
The comfortable roller coaster — on the shape of tracks with a constant normal force
| Authors: |
Nordmark, A., Essén, H. |
| Document Type: |
Article |
| Pubstate: |
Published |
| Journal: |
European journal of physics |
| Volume: |
31
1307 - 1317 |
| Year: |
2010 |
AbstractA particle that moves along a smooth track in a vertical plane is influenced by two forces: gravity and normal force. The force experienced by roller coaster riders is the normal force, so a natural question to ask is: what shape of the track gives a normal force of constant magnitude? Here we solve this problem. It turns out that the solution is related to the Kepler problem; the trajectories in velocity space are conic sections.
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