Why roller coaster loops are never circular

Corkscrew roller coasters feature tracks that twist 360 degrees around their axis

Thanks to the incorporation of steel, rides have gotten increasingly versatile, daring, and smooth, performing loops and turns that are much more difficult to safely achieve with wood.

Modern innovations have allowed rides to simultaneously become more extreme and safer

Several ingenious additions to roller coasters, such as extra wheels, magnetic brakes, and hydraulic system safety bars, have largely reduced discomfort and threats such as broken rides or ejected passengers.

Russia is credited with developing the original roller coaster

Roller coasters are believed to have originated in the 1600s with 70-foot wooden ice slides, typically enjoyed by the upper class. Over the past few centuries, the machinery developed into more daunting designs like the modern gigacoaster, which features a drop of 300 feet or more.

The odds of getting seriously injured on a US roller coaster are one in 15.5 million rides taken

Understanding the mechanics of a ride can help explain why they are so safe. Lift hills, launches, and breaks are each crucial components of coasters and are designed to possess numerous safety features in case of any dysfunction.

Millennial tastes in amusement parks have made coasters more family-friendly

As parks raced to make the biggest, longest, tallest roller coasters, costs skyrocketed, and the return on investment became more challenging to achieve. Consumer tastes have also changed, with Millennials in the US preferring more mid-tier rides for family inclusion.

LaMarcus Thompson wanted roller coasters to save people from Satan’s temptations

The inventor and businessman who is known as “the Father of the American roller coaster” was also a religious Sunday school teacher who wished to distract the public from indulging in popular sinful amusements of the time like saloons and brothels.

America’s first roller coaster initially transported coal instead of people

The Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway in the hills of Pennsylvania wasn’t initially intended to be a ride, but over time passengers and businessmen alike took advantage of the lovely tour through nature. The railway eventually reached over 100,000 riders in some years.

Six Flags’ now defunct Green Lantern ride was known to many as a ‘pelvic nightmare’

The Defunctland YouTube channel focuses on telling the stories of extinct amusement rides and experiences, like the ambitious “Green Lantern” coaster that ran from 2011 to 2024. Critics, enthusiasts, and casual riders alike seemed to agree the ride was the worst at Six Flags due to its discomfort on the lower body.

Explore a visualization of curved spacetime under general relativity

While depictions involving bends in elastic fabrics are common to illustrate gravity, they are circular representations that rely on gravity in the real world to depict gravity in the model. The river model instead shows how bends in spacetime convert speed through time into speed through space, producing acceleration.

Zero-g rides get their name from the weightless sensation of being turned upside down

Inversions are when riders are flipped upside down on rides. Zero-g rolls involve turning 360 degrees with inversions, resulting in a temporary experience of zero g-force for passengers.

The high-tech mechanisms of the Roman Colosseum

The Roman Colosseum is one of the most iconic amphitheaters in the world and still partially stands today. Aside from its sheer size, the arena was equipped with some of the most high-tech engineering from the classical world, including sophisticated lifts, a huge retractable awning, and an underground network of tunnels, elevators, and trapdoors.

Boomerang earthquakes reverse direction and ripple back the way they came

Computer simulations show that rapid changes in friction along a fault where an earthquake has traveled for long distances can produce a smaller quake in the opposite direction. Data consistent with the phenomena has only been recorded a handful of times from 2011 to 2023.

The National Mall once had canals and rail lines

In the 1800s, the National Mall looked nothing like it does today. Canals, rail lines, markets, and industrial uses crisscrossed the Mall before later redesigns cleared it into a unified civic landscape.

Pizza boxes are square for practical reasons

Although circular pies have sometimes appeared in circular boxes, they usually travel in square, cardboard boxes. That's because the cardboard industry manufactures them with edges so they can be made in one piece and be easily stacked.

The science of symmetry | The Royal Society

Nature is full of symmetries, from spiral galaxies to florets of broccoli. So why do complex creatures break the pattern?This short video discusses why symmetry came to dominate life on Earth, and how many complex life forms, such as humans, transitioned from radial to lateral symmetry.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

See how Coca-Cola bottle designs have changed over the years

The shape of the Coca-Cola bottle has been given many nicknames over the years, including the "hobbleskirt" bottle, after a fashion trend in the 1910s when tapered skirts that were narrow below the knees were popular.

The first circular particle accelerator was narrower than the average cereal bowl

The 1939 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Ernest Lawrence for inventing the cyclotron. By comparison, the Large Hadron Collider is 5 miles in diameter and is the largest cryogenic system in the world, cooling its electromagnets to temperatures colder than those found in outer space.

The winding journey from Standard Oil to the modern oil industry

Standard Oil’s impact on the business world can be clearly seen today in oil giants like Exxon and Chevron. But the journey from the Rockefellers’ trust to the modern firms was a windy road. After the Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil’s break up, the first step saw it separate into many state-based companies like Standard Oil of California and the Ohio Oil Company. Visualize it here.

Modern workplaces were engineered for efficiency, not work-life balance

Modern work organization traces back to 19th-century scientific management, an approach that optimized output by viewing workers as machine components. That logic still persists today and contributes to burnout, stress, and disengagement. Researchers propose a "circular work" model that combines effort with recovery, learning, and renewal, suggesting productivity and well-being should align rather than compete.

The Koch snowflake has an infinite perimeter enclosing a finite area

Counterintuitively, although it would be impossible to build a fence along the edges of the shape because it would require an infinite amount of materials, this perimeter can be contained in a larger shape with a finite perimeter and limited area. This is equivalent to enclosing an infinitely long spiral that never reaches the center within a circle.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Shape memory alloys 'remember' their previous form and restore themselves if deformed

Nitinol, one such alloy, can bend back into its trained shape if exposed to heat because of a solid-to-solid phase transformation. Some showerheads already use nitinol to regulate hot water and prevent unintentional burns.

O-rings contain fluid within a system

These donut-shaped components, typically made of rubber, block the escape of liquids and gases in low-pressure systems by forming a seal when compressed within a groove. In high-pressure systems, the O-ring is forced into a gap, blocking any leakage.

A V-shaped recovery from a recession is the most common kind

When charted, recession recoveries resemble letters including V, U, W, L, and K. For instance, an L-shaped recovery involves a steep decline that slowly reverses.

Engineering the Overseas Highway connecting the Florida Keys

A 113-mile series of bridges called the Overseas Highway connects Key West—the southernmost point of the United States—to mainland Florida. The route originally served as a railroad but has required regular reconstruction due to major storms. This video traces the history of the project in fascinating detail.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.