this is the shell razor a roller coaster built entirely inside the American dream mall in New Jersey it features the steepest wrap in the world it has a max vertical angle of 121.5 degrees which is 31.5 degrees more than straight down if you can imagine that oh boy um it features seven inversions a max speed of over 60 miles per hour in less than two seconds you know what I I gotta go we're about to drop hi I'm Justin Dodd and this is the history of fun an exploration of the origins of humans having a good time today we're looking at roller coasters the engineering marbles that have thrilled and terrified people for hundreds of years I'll be trying to figure out with a Little Help From My Buddy Professor Brendan Walker Thrill Ride engineer and coaster expert exactly why humans are so obsessed with the feeling of almost dying upside down while going many miles per hour let's get started [Music] the first rides to really resemble roller coasters in any way originated in the mountains of Russia or that's at least what a popular name suggests Russian Mountains are the name given to a specific mountain-free amusement ride that started to pop-up in the country in the 15th century and they were essentially really intense sled rides Riders would Trek up a bunch of stairs get into either a cut tree trunk or an ice block fitted with a straw seat and ride that sucker down an ice covered Hill reaching speeds of 50 miles per hour these guys were hauling in 1784 Russian Mountains got a pretty serious upgrade right in Saint Petersburg used carriages for passengers to ride in as well as a grooved track that could go down and up some nice Hills who ordered the construction of what is arguably the first actual roller coaster well that would be Catherine the Great these new and improved Russian Mountains started spreading throughout Europe in 1804 a ride called Le Montana ruse opened in France which featured drum roll please Wheels mind blown now the rides were faster smoother and horrifically dangerous but people didn't seem to mind in fact according to coaster historian Robert cartmell the first recorded instance of injuries to passengers rather than decreasing the popularity of the ride actually increased the attendance they came in droves to fly down a Russian mountain in Paris in the following years new pseudo coasters opened with some much needed safety measures including locking Wheels continuous tracks and powered cables that would Hoist the carts back to the top of the hill Europe kept killing it with new and improved designs throughout the 19th century one of the most iconic roller coaster features today first popped up around this time its inspiration came from an unlikely Source a children's toy popular in England France called the loop-de-loop essentially it was a marble track that used centripetal force to Loop a ball after going down a hill so some wild but brilliant person thought instead of a marble what if that gravity-defying object was a person the first loop-de-loop coaster opened in the 1840s in Paris they were reportedly pretty jarring and uncomfortable the loop was relatively small about 13 feet high and it basically traced A Perfect Circle which was a problem more on that later during the latter half of the 19th century many of the influential roller coasters that resembled the ones we ride today were were being made not in Europe but in America we could think a dude named Lamarcus Thompson for starting the thrilling Trend Thompson was an inventor who over his life accumulated several patents for various roller coaster Technologies he's known as the father of the gravity ride and arguably way cooler the father of the American roller coaster he's most famous for creating Coney Island New York's Switchback Railway which debuted in 1884 and is considered the first modern American roller coaster the Switchback Railway blew people's minds back in the 19th century this thing was sick get this it moved to whopping six miles per hour in what were the coaster cars like they were basically benches that moved slowly people went wild for this thing it cost a nickel to ride and the money started pouring in Thompson made a few other notable impacts on the roller coaster world he eventually introduced tunnels and painted scenery so passengers could feel immersed in the experience think it's a small world but slower incredible all joking is side Thompson really did change the amusement park game soon competitors started popping up all across the country trying to outdo each other leading to some of the coaster Staples we know today the world of Thrill Seekers undoubtedly owes a debt to the father of the American roller coaster but here's where it gets a little bit dicey turns out there might be more than one person in the running for Daddy of the American roller coaster one Contender is John G Taylor of Baltimore he received his patent for improvement in inclined Railways in 1872 well over a decade before Thompson's Switchback Railway opened and while the title might sound like the most boring amusement park ride in history or worse yet simply an improvement of an even duller ride it actually appears to be a novel concept for what is clearly A Primitive roller coaster the ride would mostly be powered via its own momentum going up and down Hills on Parallel tracks however roller coaster researcher Victor Canfield notes that a mechanism for stopping the car at the end of run is not shown or described whoops so maybe it makes sense that Taylor's ride wasn't as much of a hot ticket idea as Thompson's but while for years it was believed that Taylor's coaster was simply an idea on paper it turns out he may have actually built the thing in 1872 the Providence evening press reported on new attractions at the local Rocky Point including a machine for corking soda expressly for the educated bear Katie which I mean so many questions is the soda for the bear is is the bear corking the soda who named the bear Katie but anyway later on they describe a machine that is clearly related to Taylor's patent and say one of these Railways was run at Holly Grove in Baltimore last summer by Mr J.G Taylor the patentee and over a hundred thousand people wrote on it and that a company bought the rights to bring it to Rhode Island so it was built a hundred thousand people rode on it and it was so successful he started licensing all over a decade for that Coney Island nonsense case closed or it would be if while researching this video we hadn't uncovered a really annoying line in the June 1870 Baltimore Sun but the opening of that very Holly Grove even earlier among the new amusements for the multitude is an inclined Railway patented by Mr Eastman and then a description of a seemingly identical ride to Taylor's this thing even had check rooms under the ride reminiscent of modern day lockers at theme parks in case the Thrills made you lose your pocket watching monocle I'm assuming so far we've been unable to positively identify Mr Eastman we have a guest but none of our guests patents seem to match the ride but then it gets more interesting the very next year the Baltimore Sun's report of Holly Grove's opening comments that people were particularly interested by the considerably improved inclined Railway of J.G Taylor Taylor definitely built something but how much it built on this Mysterious Mr Eastman is a possibly open question for future research but this still definitely firm normally predates Thompson and now with an asterisk it's surely case closed but wait what about the mouse chunk Switchback Railway in Pennsylvania mining entrepreneur Josiah white built the track in 1827 as a method to haul coal from Summit Hill to the Lehigh River Landing it was a roughly nine mile Speedy downhill Trek transporting coal was a pretty lucrative business but why let the coal car sit idle in the late afternoon after the miners go home for 50 cents a ride passengers could hop on the cars and fly down the mountain living out every kid's fantasy of being a piece of freshly mined coal the attraction became so popular that white continued to improve upon its design for better and safer rides well actually better coal Transportation but it had the same effect even introduced a ratchet rail system that prevented the cars from Rolling backward which not only added a much needed safety measure but arguably more importantly added the clanking sound that would forever be associated with an ascending roller coaster the mouse chunk Switchback Railway may not technically be a roller coaster by modern definitions but it definitely introduced many people to the concept of a thrilling track based ride it hurled people down that mountain until its closure in 1933. so in conclusion I don't really know it's kind of just up to your own interpretation is a writable Minecart a roller coaster kinda does having the first patent for a pseudo coaster make you the true heir to the roller coaster Throne maybe does being the guy with the longest Wikipedia page of the lot make you the one people will point to through history probably roller coasters really started the takeoff at the turn of the century the first great North American coaster featuring a loop was built at sea lion Park in Coney Island near the start of the 20th century designer Lena Beecher called it the flip flap Railway probably could have Workshop that one a bit before humans were allowed on it was supposedly tested first with sandbags and then with monkeys a natural progression once it was determined the g-forces weren't going to blow people's brains out of their ears human writers got to hop on board but similar to its European counterparts it was uncomfortable and super dangerous a circle Loop just doesn't work that well in large scale designs the rapid upward climb creates too much centripetal force and the g-forces were dangerously High then at the top the coaster would slow down too much and people could fall out not ideal that's why people eventually preferred Edwin Prescott's loop the loop which opened in Coney Island in 1901. its design featured a softer oval shaped design like the ones you usually see today the teardrop shape allows the g-forces to be spread out as well as allowing the designers to control the speed a bit better the loop the loop was very popular although it only stayed open for a few years one of the most famous roller coasters in history opened in 1927 the Cyclone Coney Island's most successful coaster to date its influence and fame spread far and wide for being a thrilling elaborate and most of all fun ride some fun facts about the Cyclone according to Coney Island Legend Aviator Charles Lindbergh wrote in it in 1929.
he said it was greater than flying an airplane at top speed another notable writer who screamed their way down the Cyclone Emilio Franco West Virginia coal miner who had lost the ability to speak several years earlier so let me reiterate Emilio Franco who had been reportedly unable to vocalize sound for six years screamed while going down the first drop of the cyclone in 1975 a man named Michael boodley set a record by writing the Cyclone one thousand and one times over a 45 hour period I can't even fathom what would Inspire someone to do such a thing but 19 year old Richard Rodriguez might he broke the record by writing the Cyclone consecutively for a hundred and four hours stopping only for bathroom breaks reportedly another record holder is Howie lipstein who in 2009 was honored at Luna Park for having ridden the Cyclone at least once a year for 50 consecutive years but it wasn't all smooth sailing from the Cyclone to Millennium Force or the lightning rod in the 40 years after the Cyclone was built the coaster fad started to decline more than 2 000 amusement parks went out of business and hardly anyone was making new roller coasters even with diminished demand the low coaster Supply caused issues there are reports of the few remaining coasters having consistent wait times of up to five hours people got upset and unruly and fights would often break out in line there were even a couple murders I mean waiting in line for ride is not my ideal way to spend an afternoon but yikes guys think of all the lives Fastpass could have saved all the Mayhem led to predictably bad publicity more rides and Parks closed but eventually things started to turn around Disneyland opened the Matterhorn in 1959 it is usually cited as the first tubular steel coaster though modern researchers have pointed to some potential European predecessors but I can't get back on a Thompson Taylor Eastman Terror anyone who's ridden a wooden roller coaster knows that well it's usually pretty fun they can be a bit jarring in the butt area steel coasters that use tubular steel rails and nylon wheels are dramatically smoother steel coasters reignited people's passion for new inventive rides the first Six Flags open soon after in Texas but coasters had a watershed moment in 1972 when Kings Island opened in Ohio historians point this out as the beginning of a specific phenomenon coaster Fanatics who travel to many different roller coasters and theme parks in a concentrated time seeking consistent Thrills now riding roller coasters could become a regular hobby not just the once a year treat wrote all the rides at Kings Island just head over to Cedar Point ride the Maverick coasters became bigger faster and more thrilling the 70s and 80s gave us the modern suspended roller coaster you know where the cars hang below the track and the first standing coaster you know where you stand the moons salt scramble opened in Japan in 1983 and was the first the top 200 feet coasters broke 100 miles per hour in 1997 with the Tower of Terror and Australia's dream world cut to today we now have rides like King Daka which is the tallest coaster in the world at 456 feet high it exceeds 120 miles per hour in under four seconds from launch the car utilizes a hydraulic launch to reach these speeds of technology in a completely different Universe from rides of 100 years ago this takes thrill seeking to a whole new level I mean you're basically hurtling toward heaven for 50 terrifying amazing seconds so for nearly 600 years humans have been trying their darndest to go higher and faster to experience a very specific kind of fun thrill I'm Professor Brendan Walker I'm known as the world's Only Thrill engineer but I hope there are going to be many more to come they work for military aircraft I then retrained in industrial design and then interaction design and people just kept on asking me to make bigger and bigger installations for museums and things and I can hang on I think people can ride these things I was also looking at it from a a psychology perspective as well sort of objective side of engineering the very subjective side of uh of thrill and all that delight and and Euphoria and and arousal and excitements and all those kinds of things why do you think that so many humans are attracted to experiencing thrill or fear in sort of a controlled setting the relationship between sort of thrill fun and pleasure and you know survival are really closely linked so whether it's chasing prey whether it's looking for for sex for reproduction or whether it's evading getting eaten all these things are rewarded with like high levels of adrenaline and dopamine which you know give us that like really terrific Rush fast forward now now you know like uh 50 000 years to where we are today you know the Industrial Revolution and um where we started becoming much more urban dwellers and less you know less risky environments we became de-risked as a as a kind of a species and so we never felt truly alive again because we were no longer facing these kind of dangers or really having to strive for food and so we've naturally sort of recreated that sensation of fun and pleasure and thrill through uh riding the kind of machines which are constantly being evolved in our industrial World The Thrill in itself isn't an emotion but Thrill is the movement between different emotions so if you're taking someone from a very low place to a very high place that and if you do it quickly you'll get a real Rush Brendan is Right thrill can be interpreted as your brain's attempt to regulate your emotions in the face of risk being on a roller coaster is indeed a risk or at least that's how our bodies and brains perceive it so the brain floods our veins with some helpful chemicals other high stress thrill seeking leads to even more dramatic results skydiving bungee jumping Swimming with Sharks holding your friend's newborn baby for the first time knowing that you have a tendency to drop things here's what's going on in that old Noggin of yours when you're doing something thrilling first risk is perceived oh no I'm securely attached to a metal death trap that is about to fling me around and may potentially fly off its tracks like in Roller Coaster Tycoon he got the amygdala reacts by releasing a combination of adrenaline dopamine and endorphins these neurotransmitters help the body deal with stress and are also generally mood boosting but they also function to make your mind and senses hyper focused on the situation dopamine also serves a unique function in stressful situations it basically tells the brain there's a potential reward word in store if the perceived danger is overcome you can imagine why this might be a beneficial signal if you're a b unsure if it's worth venturing out for a prime pollen source for example and I pray that you are or humans sizing up a large source of potential dinner and or violent death this kind of reward system would incentivize you to face a scary situation with a high upside depending on how thrilling the situation is it might be time to release the testosterone hounds throughout the body this might give you a better chance of success if the risk at hand was say fighting a mountain lion with your bare hands doesn't really apply to riding a roller coaster but thanks for trying anyway brain okay now at this point adrenaline is shooting through your body one of its functions is to increase your heart rate get your blood pumping and open up your Airway so more oxygen can get in the oxygen is directed to your brain to keep you alive in this thrilling situation now seeing as how most roller coasters last less than two minutes you're probably arriving back at the platform um any second now congratulations you survived that reward that the dopamine promised you earlier it's back your brain continues to release these good time neurotransmitters you may experience a small wave of euphoria that's why when you get off a roller coaster you often feel pretty amazing like you're walking on a cloud even when you're assuredly walking on ground that a kid has at one point puked on but another interesting thing happens when you're riding a roller coaster your levels of cortisol the stress hormone increase so why are roller coasters still fun that they actively stress us out the crushing weight of existence already does that why would I pay money to do it well it turns out there can be good stress what has been deemed eustress is a kind of positive feeling of stress you from Greek meaning good like Euphoria eustress might counteract the usual symptoms of anxiety and lead to a different perception of reality so our bodies experience eustress shoot a bunch of fun neurotransmitters through our body we experience intense feelings and then we ride that high for a while got it but I wonder which part of the coaster experience is the most thrilling even it starts way early on when you you know see something advertising like oh you imagine yourself going I want to do that then you buy the ticket you're going I'm really going to go and do that so all these little moments can be designed and then you get to the queue line and you can see people so a lot of shoelines are really well designed so you've got the ride hurtling past you with you know several tons of people screaming you going oh my God and then when you got on the ride and you actually get locked in uh What uh studies showed because we were using physiological monitoring so looking at people's heart rate and sweat levels and looking at pupil dilation and other traits we found that um the actual worst bit so I said the worst bits as in probably the best design bits of the ride after that um only reached about 80 percent of the levels of arousal of that the culmination really was being locked in let's say you were talking to like an amateur thrill engineer who was interested in what you do what is like the smallest piece of advice you could offer them I usually start out with playground ride equipment so we start basic you know they all want to do something really crazy the piece of advice I say to them I'm saying who sat next to them who's watching them you can go on the best roller coaster ever but if you're riding it by yourself and not with your friends it becomes a really flat experience you know these kind of emotions fun and play we need to do with other people you know we are animals it's all about communicating and interacting with other people so the best thing to say is to improve any ride experience consider who you're performing to and who you're performing with riding roller coasters and doing exciting scary things are more fun when you do it with other people heck that's part of the reason that we have those on-ride cameras that snap a photo of you and your friends as you fly along the track those cameras by the way were first introduced on log flume rides in the 80s a study done by researchers at the University of South Carolina explored the concept of group mentality when it came to something as thrilling and scary as skydiving here's what they found for many skydiving initiates interpersonal influence had its greatest effect in group situations as several respondents first jumped with friends or with the college skydiving Club some of these divers would not have jumped without the support of others sharing the experience this suggests group polarization a phenomenon in which there is a change from a modestly positive attitude to a very positive one in the presence of peers so that's why you ended up on steel Vengeance with all your friends last summer even though you had no intention of riding that monster it's a shared experience one that afterward you can all high five and exclaim we did it and really mean it human do you remember your first memory of having fun we used to live in a in a in an Old Quarry I mean it was in a valley and it very often used to get flooded my sense of fun as a kid was either getting stranded uh you know as in isolated for days on end in the snow or flooded you can't get to the shops you can't interact with people but you might have your brothers and sisters there and you can play with them and it's the same with the water as well you know with it going over your Wellies and flowing I mean it probably was quite dangerous you know we could you could always get you know um dragged away in the flow but at the time you know making boats and doing all sorts of stuff in that moment so I think it was like sort of it was edgy it was dangerous but also you could play in it as well and sort of imagine there it is again an element of danger and fun there's something innately awesome and exciting about being in vaguely dangerous situations kids recognize it and so do old men like me if you're pretty positive you're not actually gonna die then a thrilling dangerous experience is mostly just fun our brains try to rationalize the scary yet exciting moment and we feel adrenaline in Euphoria and fear and it's awesome but with new technologies like virtual reality is there a world where we can replicate that feeling of thrill without the actual you know close to deathness I want to pick Brendan's brain one last time about the future of throw rides before we wrap up we sort of reached the limits of where roller coasters can go there's so many nice effects you know we're still getting the highest the fastest the most drops you know but they're all starting to become more marketing tools rather than genuine advancements really in the in the the World of Fun and thrill so now I'm thinking well theater and virtual reality and visual illusion um I think they're the areas where we're going to continue to have fun and and to continue to to push the boundaries of uh exploring it if it's not what our body can sustain it's where you know what are the limits of what our minds can support I think it's these kind of it's got a slight subtle changes so I'm not Reinventing the swaying I'm not Reinventing the the carnival ride uh but just by feeding people different visual information we can really help them to to take their worlds to completely different places and so it becomes a storytelling tool and that's for me I think where I'm starting to yeah unlock you know those three minutes that we have somebody's attention it isn't just because I want to throw them around and uh you know make them feel like they've had a beautiful physical experience but we can also it's a great time to immerse them in new worlds and feed them other information and ideas and make it a much richer theatrical production and so that that's kind of what what's exciting me at Studio go go so here we are humans recognize their Need for Speed 600 years ago and never stop chasing we started with sled rides down icy mountains moved to monkeys doing loop-de-loops and ended up in virtual reality I don't know about you but I'm pretty excited to see what other completely absurd and amazing things humans cook up next I'll make sure to be first in line don't forget to give your sunglasses to your mom to hold on to check the secureness of your lap bar and put both hands way above your head for that first drop thanks for watching and I'll see you next time
2022-12-21