Original subtitles

CHARLIE: What's up guys? Charlie here, you know my sister Kirby!

KIRBY: Hey guys!

Today we're hanging out in Jackson, New Jersey at a theme park.

CHARLIE: Cause nothing gets us more jacked up than talking about science and experiencing

more G-forces than an astronaut during take-off.

It's time for Weird But True!

(theme music plays).

Hey guys! KIRBY: Hey!

CHARLIE: Alright we're glad you're here cause Kirby and I have a confession.

KIRBY: We have no shame in admitting it.

CHARLIE: We're generally open minded.

KIRBY: Fearless.

CHARLIE: Willing to try new things.

KIRBY: But there's one thing we just can't handle.

CHARLIE: Roller coasters.

KIRBY: Charles has a pretty strong gut.

He can eat weird things.

Ride in a boat in the ocean.

And even fly in a helicopter!

No problem!

But for Charlie, a ride on a roller coaster is a sure fire way for him to end up

tossing his cookies... If you know what I mean.

CHARLIE: And Kirby is pretty all around fearless.

She can train huge vicious birds of prey.

Handle all sorts of scary insects.

And swim with sharks. No problem.

But when it comes to riding roller coasters.

She's filled with absolute terror.

KIRBY: Ahhhh!!!

CHARLIE: Now it's time for things to change!

KIRBY: I'm done being scared!

CHARLIE: I'm tired of getting sick!

So today we're unraveling the world of...

KIRBY: Rollercoasters!

CHARLIE: Alright guys, let's get to know what we're working with here.

KIRBY: Rollercoasters.

They come in a bunch of different varieties to please every sort of coaster lover.

CHARLIE: Or coaster phobic.

KIRBY: Or coaster thrower upper.

CHARLIE: Let's check them out.

Good morning Madam welcome to the Roller Coaster Café, my name is Charlie.

How may I help you today?

KIRBY: Um do you have any suggestions?

CHARLIE: For first timers I would suggest a wooden roller coaster.

Oh simply a classic.

KIRBY: Hmmm, what kind of steel coasters do you have?

CHARLIE: We offer a variety of specials today including the inverted roller coaster,

the flying roller coaster, and the fourth dimension roller coaster where riders on either

side of the track, and their seats whip around on their own axis.

KIRBY: Hmmmm nothing's catching my eye.

Roller coasters kind of freak me out.

CHARLIE: No worries madame they make me sick to my stomach.

KIRBY: So many different roller coasters to avoid.

CHARLIE: So many different ways to throw up!

KIRBY: Until now!

So I did some research, and I found out that you, my friend, get motion sickness.

CHARLIE: Yeah that sounds about right.

KIRBY: So scientists aren't really sure why people get motion sickness,

but the current accepted explanation is the Sensory Conflict Theory.

Alright, here's the deal.

Your brain uses a bunch of different things to keep track of your environment.

And the two big ones are the vestibular system in your ear which keeps track of your

body's movement.

And your vision which is a bit more self-explanatory.

And the two, most of the time, work quite nicely together.

When I look up I see the sky.

When I look down I see the ground.

But in very unfamiliar situations.

Like on a roller coaster, you might get some conflicting information.

And when there's a conflict between those signals your brain gets confused,

so the natural response for people like Charlie is the complete expulsion of one's

stomach contents, aka launching the food shuttle, aka blowing your beets,

aka tossing your tacos but, there's a potential solution.

It was developed during the training of US Navy Fliers: conditioning.

95% of aviator trainees got over motion sickness by familiarizing themselves with

the speed and the motion of the jets.

And then flying over and over and over until they knew what to expect.

So Charles.

If we're going to nip this in the bud, there's only one place to go...

A theme park!

We hopped over to Jackson, New Jersey.

This is the place to tackle our fear of coasters because it's home to the tallest and

fastest roller coaster in North America.

Kingda Ka.

CHARLIE: Weird but True guys, Kingda Ka is 456 feet tall.

That's like if you took three statues of liberties and stacked them

right on top of each other.

Super tall!

Ugh I don't know Kirb...

KIRBY: What's up?

CHARLIE: I think we bit off a little more than we can chew here.

KIRBY: You good?

CHARLIE: I'm feeling...

KIRBY: Uh-oh. CHARLIE: Feeling a little...

KIRBY: It's ok Charles, let's snap back to headquarters for a deep breath.

CHARLIE: Oh boy!

KIRBY: Alright Charles deep breaths.

I know the park is gonna take some getting used to.

So we're gonna be hopping back and forth all day to really ease into it.

CHARLIE: I don't know about this Kirb.

KIRBY: Don't worry I got you.

We're gonna help you master the movement and motion of roller coasters

just like the US Navy Fliers and their jets, so that when you do finally ride,

you'll know what to expect.

And I'm gonna break it down into a language that you understand...Physics.

CHARLIE: Naturally.

KIRBY: Understand the physics. Understand the movement.

CHARLIE: Food will remain inside my body.

KIRBY: You got it, why don't you help me kick things off back at the park.

We got a Weird but True fact for you.

All roller coasters don't have motors.

They don't even have engines propelling 'em forward.

CHARLIE: They don't need 'em, but they can still run because they're all based on one

simple physics principal.

The law of conservation of energy.

KIRBY: Here's how the rollercoaster system works.

The whole system has a certain amount of energy.

Throughout the ride, some energy is lost to things like friction and air resistance.

The energy that is in the system at any one time, is in two forms:

Kinetic energy, the energy of speed,

and Potential Energy, the energy of height.

The faster something moves the more kinetic energy it has.

The higher something is off the ground the more potential energy it has.

CHARLIE: So a super key part of the roller coaster system is that initial input of

energy that the roller coaster uses up over the course of the ride.

So there are two ways of doing this in the roller coaster world.

Classic roller coasters have massive hills that lifts

drag them all the way up to the top.

KIRBY: As the chain lift drags the roller coaster up the hill it's adding potential energy

into the system that the coaster uses up throughout the ride on the way back down.

CHARLIE: More modern roller coasters don't use lifts.

They have launch tracks.

KIRBY: The launch tracks speed up the cars really quickly,

adding a bunch of kinetic energy into the system right off the bat to make it fast.

After launch, the system has stored enough energy

to last throughout the entire ride.

And it's converted between the two main forms: Potential and Kinetic.

CHARLIE: This is also why, if you check it out, the tallest hill on the rollercoaster is

always gonna be the first that you go over.

Because the system is constantly losing energy, in order for it all to work every

other hill has to be shorter than the first.

KIRBY: Now you're getting it, Charlie.

A track like this will work.

Because even though it's losing energy, the roller coaster car has enough to

travel over those hills.

But a track like this will not work, because the car doesn't have enough energy to climb

higher than the point where it starts.

CHARLIE: So here's a great example of it all in action.

El Toro, the wooden coaster behind us.

So first the system has no energy when it's at rest during the boarding process.

KIRBY: And then, when the coaster is brought over that first hill by its lift system,

that lift system is bringing energy to the whole thing.

CHARLIE: At the top of the first hill it's at its maximum potential energy.

And that's converted from potential to kinetic as it goes down speeding up,

and slowing down, up and down hills.

KIRBY: And throughout the entire ride, the system is losing energy because of

air resistance and friction.

And the whole thing eventually comes to a slow stop.

CHARLIE: And the rides over!

Its roller coaster physics...

ANNOUNCER: Welcome back riders. How was your ride?

KIRBY: How ya feelin bud?

CHARLIE: I am feeling VERY prepared!

KIRBY: You know what that means!

It's game time.

Just like the US Aviator Trainee.

We just gotta jump right in.

CHARLIE: Let's do it!

Now that I understand the physics better, I want to put my stomach to the test!

Wooo! Here goes nothin'! Oh buddy!

(screams).

Whoa! Oh!

I barely kept it together on that ride!

Oh! Wooo!

MAN: You alright?

CHARLIE: Maybe I should do it again.

Oh my god!

Wooo!

(screams).

Wasn't so bad the second time.

Let's see how I do on another.

Woo!

And another, and another!

(screams).

When will it end?

Oh my gosh!

KIRBY: You okay? CHARLIE: That was great.

KIRBY: No throwing up? CHARLIE: No throwing up!

KIRBY: Way to go man!

I knew you'd conquer your motion sickness!

CHARLIE: Alright guys we've gotta take a quick break, but when we come back.

It's time for Kirby to tackle the roller coasters.

KIRBY: Wait, what?!

Weird but True, a roller coaster in the United Arab Emirates can reach

149 miles an hour!

CHARLIE: What's up guys welcome back, today Kirby and I are helping each other treat

our roller coaster related ailments.

I just got over my motion sickness.

So now, I'm good to go.

KIRBY: That's great Charles, but I still have an issue.

CHARLIE: Oh yes, Kirby so tell me...

What scares you specifically about roller coasters?

KIRBY: Oh, everything.

CHARLIE: Could you be a bit more specific?

KIRBY: Sure.

Well I'm going about a million miles an hour and I'm in a metal box on a track made of

sticks and I don't know the last time the thing has been inspected...

CHARLIE: Hmm

KIRBY: Or If I'm going to hit a bird, or if it's going to break down.

Loop-de-loops make no logical sense to me, I'm sure to fall out.

And the worst part is, at the tops of hills it feel like I'm going to fly out of my seat.

At the bottom of hills, I feel like my heart is being crushed by my chest.

CHARLIE: Well Kirby, it looks like there's a lot to unravel here.

KIRBY: We got a lot to unravel.

CHARLIE: Let's start with the basics.

Roller coaster safety is not something that you should

spend too much time worrying about.

Before anyone gets on one of these things, safety experts have to check off a long list

of standards from a variety of organizations with fancy names.

And Kirby, these people, they check for everything.

They perform accelerometer tests,

check slope height limits,

and perform daily inspections.

And on top of that, every ride is tested multiple times a day.

Maintenance personnel literally walk along the track looking for anything that

might be wrong.

KIRBY: Okay, okay, okay, I guess that's not something I should be too worried about,

but what about the whole loop-de-loop, and flying out of my seat thing?

CHARLIE: That's also not an issue.

I'll tell you what I mean back at the park.

All of the forces we experience on roller coasters, that press us back into our

chairs or lift us up in the air, they're forces we experience due to the

acceleration of our bodies.

Another name for them is G-forces.

That's what you're feeling, Kirby. G-forces.

KIRBY: Well G-forces scare the heck out of me.

CHARLIE: To understand G-forces, we need to understand Inertia.

Cool science word! Inertia!

Inertia's the idea that an object tends to resist any change in motion unless

another force acts upon it.

Imagine you're flying down a hill on a roller coaster.

At the bottom of the hill, the roller coaster follows the tracks and goes straight.

But your body's inertia wants to keep heading in that downward direction.

The result?

The body presses hard against that seat.

Those forces pressing you against your seat?

Those are positive G-forces.

During everyday moments we live at 1 G.

But on roller coasters we might experience moments of 2 or 3 G's.

And our bodies feel a lot heavier, too.

If you weigh 100 pounds at 1 G, at 3 G's your body will feel like it weighs 300 lbs.

So it's much harder to raise our arms and move around.

So at the bottom of the hills we feel like we're being pressed into our seats,

but at the top of the hills the opposite happens.

Our bodies wanna keep going upward, but the roller coaster isn't going upward anymore.

So the G-forces are pulling us up from our seats this time.

Those forces lifting us off our seats are negative G forces,

but they're very helpful.

G forces and inertia are the very reasons why we don't have to worry about falling out of

our seats on loop de loops.

While riding a loop de loop, we're constantly experiencing a G force that's pressing us

into our seats, throughout the whole loop.

According to physics, it's practically impossible to fall out of one of these bad boys.

Let's try a little role reversal here Kirby and

you explain it to me back at the park.

KIRBY: OK, as long as I'm not the one on the coaster.

So as Charlie rides this ride right here, he experiences positive G's when he's going

up those hills being pressed into the back of his seat.

When he's zooming down the hill, he experiences negative G's

which are moments of weightlessness.

Positive G's, negative G's.

CHARLIE: Yeah, Kirb, you did it!

Oh, um, sorry, yes, so, um, wonderful job.

KIRBY: I mean, I know these things aren't gonna break down.

And that my risk of injury is pretty small, and that I'm not gonna

go flying out of my seat on a loop-de-loop.

So I feel like I'm ready to give it a go.

CHARLIE: To prove you are finally cured of your roller coaster ailments,

you must finally ride a roller coaster.

KIRBY: Okay. Let's do this!

We're walking up to the Harley Quinn crazy train!

It's tiny but mighty.

It's weird, it's true, it's roller coaster physics!

Whooooo! Best physics class ever!

We're going again!

Positive G's right now! Here we go, here we go!

Negative G's! Whooooo!

Whooooo!

So excellent, so many Gs.

CHARLIE: Kirb couldn't take it...

KIRBY: I can't take it

CHARLIE: You had to go for the Harley Quinn.

KIRBY: Don't you be talking smack. The Harley Quinn was serious.

CHARLIE: Victory to Charlie right here.

KIRBY: No way, victory to the Kirb.

Time to try a coaster together.

(Screaming and cheering).

Small but mighty.

CHARLIE Hey, it looks like we're cured!

We can ride anything!

Anything...?

There she is Kirb!

KIRBY: I don't know...

CHARLIE: We can't claim victory over our fears until we take the ultimate ride.

Kingda Ka...

KIRBY: Whoa.

Weird but True, an early version of the roller coaster, was built out of ice!

CHARLIE: Kingda Ka.... Aw she's incredible.

MICHAEL: Why thank you.

CHARLIE: Who are you?

MICHAEL: I'm Michael, I'm one of the engineers.

KIRBY: You helped make this beast?

MICHAEL: I along with a few other people.

Ah, you guys look a little nervous.

CHARLIE: What are you talking about we're not nervous!

MICHAEL: You're nervous... CHARLIE: Yeah...

MICHAEL: But I can help with that...I'll show you some things, come on.

CHARLIE: Alright.

KIRBY: This guy's got the coolest job ever.

Michael's an engineer that designs and builds rollercoasters.

His favorite Weird but True fact, the first roller coaster to go upside down

was designed in 1840!

CHARLIE: Describe the situation, what are we looking at right now?

MICHAEL: Alright, so this train is coming out of the station.

CHARLIE: Yeah.

MICHAEL: It is going to the launch position.

And when it stops, it connects up to what we call the catch car.

KIRBY: Okay. CHARLIE: Okay.

MICHAEL: And that catch car will push the train right down

that track, 0 to 128 miles an hour in 3.5 seconds.

KIRBY: Right. MICHAEL: Here it comes.

CHARLIE: Ohhh!

MICHAEL: And in 10 seconds you are all the way at the top, 456 feet.

And then it's pure free fall as you come down, and then you come up over this big hill

right here and you hit a bunch of brakes that you'll see up on the top of the hill coming

down, that takes out all of the energy.

CHARLIE: Looking at this, my heart is in my throat.

I'm like genuinely kind of...freaking out right now.

MICHAEL: That makes me happy.

Like I love when people are scared to get on a ride but then they,

they still get on anyway.

CHARLIE: What can you tell us to make us feel better about this?

MICHAEL: I can show you how it all works.

First of all the ride is controlled by a programmable logic controller,

PLC is what we call those.

And the PLCs monitor everything that's going on in the ride at once.

Any time it senses that there's a problem or there's

something fails to function the way it should, it shuts the ride down in a safe mode.

CHARLIE: So for a ride as tall as Kingda Ka, you're building up a lot of energy

but it stops so quickly.

How does that happen?

MICHAEL: Kingda Ka utilizes a principle in physics called Lenz's Law.

And it involves magnetic fields and non-ferrous materials.

CHARLIE: Cool science word, non-ferrous metals.

They're metals that can't be magnetized, like stainless steel, copper, and aluminum.

MICHAEL: So to give you an example, I brought along a little copper tube,

and here in my back pocket I have super high-strength magnets.

Now, if I just drop these magnets they fall,

just like anything else does because of gravity.

CHARLIE: Yeah.

MICHAEL: However, if I drop these magnets inside this tube...

KIRBY: What?!

MICHAEL: There, it comes out the bottom.

KIRBY: That's crazy! CHARLIE: Whoa!

Here's how Lenz's law works.

The copper tube represents the break plates on a roller coaster track.

The super strong magnets represent the magnets mounted on roller coasters.

When the magnet with a magnetic field travels through the copper tubes,

it produces small electric currents in the tube.

Those currents produce their own magnetic field that repels

the magnetic field of the magnet.

Slowing it down.

The result?

The roller coaster slows down, nice and smooth.

Physics for the win!

Alright so we got the braking system down, but I feel like we need a huge input of energy

right off the bat to go zooming down that launch track.

MICHAEL: To explain that, I'm gonna take you to the pump room.

It's a lot easier.

KIRBY: Here we go.

CHARLIE: Michael, this thing is huge!

MICHAEL: Right. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

KIRBY: What's going on?

MICHAEL: So...because Kingda Ka is different than a traditional roller coaster,

it doesn't drag you to the top of the hill and let you go.

It launches you.

Those pumps will push the fluid into that long cylinder.

As the pumps push the fluid into the cylinder, the nitrogen compresses.

It's like a super soaker that's, that's waiting for the trigger to be pulled.

And when they launch the train, a valve opens up and it releases the fluid and it is

explosive, I mean it comes out of there fast.

Alright guys, that's enough talking.

I think it's time for us to get on this ride.

KIRBY: Ei-yie-yie!

MICHAEL: You ready for this?

CHARLIE: Oh my go... are you sure?

KIRBY: It's time. Let's go. MICHAEL: Come on let's go.

CHARLIE: Oh!

KIRBY: Just breath. Charles, breathe. Breathe.

CHARLIE: Guys, it's time to conquer the Ka. Let's do it!

Ahhh! Oh man!

KIRBY: Ahhh!

(Screaming and cheering).

CHARLIE: Ohhhh! KIRBY: It's over!

CHARLIE: ohhh! Ho HO ohhh!

KIRBY: Bodies are shaking.

CHARLIE: Whoooooo! We conquered the KAAAA!!!!!

KIRBY: Woo! We did it!

CHARLIE: Wooo! The world is a blur when it goes past you.

KIRBY: You can't even think.

CHARLIE: You see nothing! It's gone...the world is gone!

Alright, Weird but True guys, on Kingda Ka riders experience a moment of weightlessness.

I'm here to tell ya...I felt it....

Thanks so much man we had a blast today.

MICHAEL: Of course! Glad you guys came, it was awesome.

KIRBY: Thank you! It was so fun.

CHARLIE: Alright guys, we're going to hop over to HQ,

but we'll see you there in a few minutes.

See you soon.

KIRBY: Weird but True, the world record for longest marathon on a roller coaster

is 405 hours and 40 minutes, that's almost 17 straight days!

CHARLIE: Hey guys welcome back!

KIRBY: I am so fired up right now!

CHARLIE: We just rode the tallest and fastest roller coaster in North America!

KIRBY: Way to go Charles, you didn't vomit.

CHARLIE: Acclimation and conditioning.

I just had to get used to it. You didn't seem scared at all.

KIRBY: Embrace the G-Forces.

You're not falling out of those loop de loops.

CHARLIE: Well Kirb, I got you something to remember this day.

KIRBY: No way, I got you something too...

CHARLIE: An official trophy to prove you've gotten over your coaster phobia.

KIRBY: An official trophy to prove you've gotten over your motion sickness.

CHARLIE: Hooray! KIRBY: Hooray!

CHARLIE: What else did we learn today?

There were so many Weird but True things!

KIRBY: Roller coasters don't have motors to propel them.

CHARLIE: The highest hill on a roller coaster ride is always the first one.

KIRBY: Magnets can slow a roller coaster when they come into contact with

non-ferrous metals such as copper.

What's going on here Charles?

CHARLIE: Ah perfect Kirb take these.

KIRBY: Okay...Why?

CHARLIE: So you know how we mastered rollercoasters right?

I feel like it's time for something a bit more extreme.

And fighter pilots experience like 9 G's during flight.

KIRBY: Good! A little bit of conditioning before the real jets.

CHARLIE: You got it Kirb! Ignition on!

Alright guys, thanks so much for coming by today but it looks like we've

got a new project on our hands.

KIRBY: Thanks for coming by!

CHARLIE: Come by again when we discover more things that are weird.

KIRBY: But true!

CHARLIE: We'll see you later! Hit it Kirb! Ahhhhh!

Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.