Saturday, 21 May 2011

Fear seekers and roller coasters PART III

A question that I find interesting is why people find joy in riding scary roller coasters? This may be caused by chemical reactions in the brain. The chemicals that cause such reactions are called "neurotransmitters". By chemical reaction, these chemicals allow signals to pass between neurons in the brain. Some scientists believe that some people enjoy activities that cause fear because their brain causes them to have higher levels of a specific neurotransmitter called dopamine, because of fear. According to what I've been reading, I think dopamine is usually related to a human's ability of feeling reward and becoming motivated to do something. When a person's brain chemistry has more dopamine than usual, activities and sensations often become more pleasurable. The person may also even experience euphoria.


http://static.travelmuse.com/docs/artwork/amusement-parks/overview/amusement-parks-overview-six-flags-magic-mountain-tatsu-ride-full.jpg



It’s hard to say which roller coaster is the scariest in the world because they can be compared in speed, height, length, number of loops, or how twisted they are.


Here I’d like to present feelings that are accompanied by G-force:


• -1 g – feeling of tightness inside your head very much like when standing on your hands. It’s safe unless its long. It feels like if you would be falling out of a chair.

• 0 g – weightlessness.

• 1 g – every day load factor.

• 2 g – feeling of heaviness.

• 3 g – movement becomes difficult.

• 4 g – movement becomes practically impossible. The feeling of disorientation.

• 5 g – Possible problems with sight.

• 6 g – Most passengers have problems with vision. Some experience trouble breathing. It’s possible to lose conscience.


Some Discovery video that explaining this process:

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/time-warp-roller-coaster-science.html



Since we know much more about roller coasters I would like to go back to presenting (mentioned in the first part) Six Flags. Six Flags Magic Mountain, just outside the Los Angeles area, has more rides than any other amusement park in the world. Currently there are 18 rollercoasters, many of them being record breakers. You can find all kind of rides there: the classic wooden variety as well as steel. Carriage or hanging (where your legs are hanging freely). Some attractions drop you from a great height while others send you through complete loop. One of the best ride is Magic Mountain’s X, the first roller coaster in the world that spins in four dimensions at the same time. Those who ride Superman experience 6,5 seconds of weightlessness.


Below, I present a map of this park.

http://mappery.com/map-of/Six-Flags-Magic-Mountain-Theme-Park-Map



Other attractions offer the possibility of purchasing gadgets from movies. During my time visiting this park, I’ve seen many people buying Batman or Superman cloaks and riding on rollercoasters while wearing them. That looked quite amazing. What’s more, it’s even possible to buy a photo of yourself taken during the ride, and afterward take it home as a souvenir or perhaps as a proof.

Not far away there is also another Six Flags park – Hurricane Harbor. This one is dedicated mostly to water entertainment. But it’s not just simply a water park, to the contrary, Hurricane Harbor also features extremely thrilling water rides.



And now some of the worlds records of the roller coasters:


Record

World


Europe Poland

Tallest

Kingda Ka (USA)

137m

Silver Star (germany)

73 m

Tic-Tac Tornado

21 m

Fastest

Formula Rossa (ZEA)

240 km/h

ring°racer (germany)

217 km/h


60 km/h

Longest

Steel Dragon 2000 (Japan)

2479 m

Ultimate (great britain)

2268 m


ok. 700 m

Biggest downfall

Kingda Ka (USA)

127 m

Silver Star (germany)

65 m


20,5 m

Biggest angle of a fall

Mumbo Jumbo (great britain)

112°

Jet Star

ok. 45°

Biggest G-force

Tower of Terror (RPA)

6,3 g

Sky Wheel (germany)

5 g

Tic-Tac Tornado

4,2 g

Biggest acceleration

Dodonpa

2,7 g

ring°racer

2,46 g

-



(table from Wikipedia)



Here is a video of the fastest ride in the World. You can find it in F1 theme park located in Dubai:



And now here are some videos of the most thrilling attractions:








Would you like to try one of them?

Do you personally like fear? Do you find it exciting?


How do you think amusement parks will look like in the future? Do you have any ideas as to what other parks could feature?



Here is some concept art for Dubai’s marvel superheroes’ comics theme park:

http://www.ramascreen.com/dubais-marvel-superheroes-theme-park-concept-art




Do you think this is how the future of theme parks will look like? I wonder if there will ever be a real-life theme park like Jurassic Park, as depicted in the Steven Spielberg film of the same name:








10 comments:

  1. An interesting presentation, I didn't know that somewhere in the world are so fast rollercoasters.
    Nevertheless, it would be nice to go once there, specifically to dubai. I want to feel the speed what develop this RC. Surely it would be an interesting experience :)
    However, with a similar experience that probably rollercoasters provide, I would recommend a aquaparks in Europe and almost vertical water slides, which provide truly a lot of emotion.
    A few years ago when I was in spain with my parents, I visited a water park in Lloret de Mar, which is called Waterworld. There are two quite high and fast water slides, I had the opportunity to ride on the faster slide and I can honestly say that this was a very interesting experience. In the middle of a slide, when I get fast, I was gently lifted up on the water and I thought that it's over. Yes, it was something! Really recommend!
    'Kamikaces' slides photo:
    http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22218019
    And WaterWordls home page:
    http://www.waterworld.es/uk/

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  2. Rollercoasters are great. What a shame I don't know many in Poland. I'd like to try all of them. Once they took me and my friend a photo while riding one - i looked totally stupid:) It's adrenaline, speed, the wind in your face...

    I would love to see a park like the one from Spielberg's film. It probably won't go this way, they won't resurrect the dinosaurs but they could do something equally exciting. If there was a whole island turned into an amusement park - i'm going!

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  3. WOW this is brilliant. I knew that rollercoasters exists but I have never heard about it's speeds. It shame that in Poland we don't have such:( and if I could i'd probably ride them all day or even weeks;]

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  4. Oh, in this part you present Ferrari World I mentioned in the previous part. So it’s my favourite part of presentaion ;d
    Of course I’d like to try them! I can say that is my biggest wish, dream and everything. Do I find fear exciting? Also YES. I think, If you are afraid of something that means you feel alive.
    My imagination is not rich enough to imagine how an amusement parks could look like in the future but Jurassic Park looks cool! The only one thing I’m worried about is that I do not know if my heart just stand up to the dose of adrenaline ;)

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  5. Great movie with alonso and masa :D. Look how their chicks were deformed by the force of acceleration. In your presentation is great table showing a main statistics of rollercasters. Nice piece of interesting knowledge in a small pill. I am curious how my body would react with 6,3 g-force. It would be amazing experience. I'm sure of it.

    Back to your questions. You ask would I like to try one of them? Ofcourse I would! All of them!

    Do I personally like fear and do I find it exciting?
    I think my last answer is also an aswer for this one. I like fear but only in appropriate doses. Rollercaster are one of the "fearmakers" that I really enjoy.

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  6. Awesome stuff! I especially liked the one with F1 drivers ;) I had no idea that roller-coasters can go so fast nowadays! 240 km per hours - un(freaking)believable!

    Ah yes and Jurassic Park - one of the classics from my childhood :) I don't think we will ever have the possibility to visit a park like that one, even though I would really love to. I'm a big fan of dinosaurs you know. My second career choice was archaeology - really :)

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  7. Yes, I would love to try. I do really enjoy all attractions making the adrenaline goes faster and stronger...but I have to feel confidence. I am able to try almost everything but I need to feel safe in that. I won't participate in any kind of 'sick' ways of extreme fun, i.e. cave parachuting or cave sky diving - see movie:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTrIrRKtKzI

    That's too much for me.
    I believe that some day we would be able to visit something similar to Jurassic Park. If our air pollution gone further and native forests died, all present animals would always die. Then we would able to call them 'ancient', recreate some species in a special park - worth to see after buying ticket and trespassing the fence.

    What is the future of fun parks? I do not know. But I can imagine that attractions would become more dangerous and risky. Nowadays people are able to stand much more then other days.

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  8. I have been one of rollercoasters and I am quite shure that I will not be on any of them again. However it was led as say fun and I can recommend such ride to all of you. The official version is that I only felt some sort of excitation. No fear of course :D In the future probably amusement parks will use virtual reality.

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  9. I got dizzy just from watching those movies ;) - but still I would like to try some of them, maybe not all because some of them looks too scarry for me ;> When I am at some rollecaster I always have images from the movie final destition and I wonder whether everything will be ok :D
    Once I was in Germany on a thing like pendulum, it was dangling from left to right higher and higher and finally it went 180 degrees and stopped that I had my head down and saw my shoes (which I left not to lose them) - it wasn't good believe me ;>

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  10. I was lucky to ride on a rollercoacter which presented to you in Tsatsu video. I've enjoyed it a lot, especially the way we were siting in it, or I should rther say "hanging". We were like bees attached to the rail with nothing under us. One thing that missed were handles on the sides so I could hold them and feel like I'm really flying. Feeling as an eagle would boost much more my rollercoaster ride experience.

    I'm still very curious about your ideas for a new theme park? Personally, I was thinking about something dedicated to Star Wars or some video game. I'm sure it would be very popular and full of fun. Loads of funs from all over the world could gather together and have a great time in this special place.

    ReplyDelete