Wednesday, February 29, 2012

What energy conversion takes place on a roller coaster?

Can you also explain how energy is conserved according to the Law of Conservation of energy.

Please TodayWhat energy conversion takes place on a roller coaster?
Roller coasters convert gravitational potential energy to kinetic energy. When the car is at the top of the highest hill (at the beginning) and stationary, its energy is in the form of gravitational potential energy. When it coasts down the track, its velocity and thus its kinetic energy increase due to the acceleration of gravity, while its potential energy decreases because it is losing height. If we neglect friction, the sum of its potential and kinetic energy remains the same throughout the whole ride, which is known as conservation of energy and which is why the car can never rise higher than the first hill. (If we consider friction, we see that some of the energy is in fact converted to thermal energy, heating up the car and tracks, but that's not very important to this question).

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