SciShow Tangents - Roller Coasters with Tom Scott!

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Get ready for a stomach-turning, heart-pounding, gravity-defying thrill ride as we plummet down, up, and all around the amazing world of roller coasters! We're joined by legendary podcaster, YouTuber, and roller coaster fanatic Tom Scott who wows us with his encyclopedic knowledge of these engineering marvels. So take a deep breath, strap in, and keep all your limbs inside the ride until the episode comes to a complete stop! Oh, and have fun!SciShow Tangents is on YouTube! Go to www.youtube.com/scishowtangents to check out this episode with the added bonus of seeing our faces! Head to www.patreon.com/SciShowTangents to find out how you can help support SciShow Tangents, and see all the cool perks you’ll get in return, like bonus episodes and a monthly newsletter! A big thank you to Patreon subscriber Garth Riley for helping to make the show possible!And go to https://store.dftba.com/collections/scishow-tangents to buy some great Tangents merch!Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! While you're at it, check out the Tangents crew on Twitter: Ceri: @ceriley Sam: @im_sam_schultz Hank: @hankgreen[This, That, or the Other: All Downhill from Here]https://www.goldreefcity.co.za/theme-park/rides-and-attractions/tower-of-terror/https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20170005323/downloads/20170005323.pdfhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7663089/https://www.ferrariworldabudhabi.com/en/rides/formula-rossa/worlds-fastest-rollercoasterhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8pJiV44hVMhttps://www.iaapa.org/news/funworld/tmnt-shellraiserhttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3281645/https://www.powermotiontech.com/hydraulics/accumulators/article/21883506/want-thrills-go-with-hydraulics[Trivia Question]Annual deaths in roller coaster accidents in the United Stateshttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1730261https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-victimshttps://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/NEISSQuery/Data/Info%20Docs/2023%20NEISS%20Coding%20Manual.pdf​​https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/2023-Fireworks-Annual-Report.pdf?VersionId=61twx_Y4c5dkn6MhfDIT7QhGg2T6Gf1qhttps://www.uspa.org/discover/faqs/safety[Fact Off]Riding roller coasters can help reduce perception of breathlessness/dyspneahttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005796706001653https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954611106003209https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1191/1479972306cd110ra?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmedRiding in the back of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad can help dislodge kidney stones[Ask the Science Couch]Roller coaster stomach drop feeling and the enteric nervous systemhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7495222/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/good-question-why-does-your-stomach-drop-on-a-roller-coaster/https://www.visitkingsisland.com/blog/2020/may/roller-coaster-terminology-101Patreon bonus: Motion sickness and relation to agehttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539706/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4906308/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11135238/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6241144/[Butt One More Thing]Dog-fart-themed steel roller coaster in Denmark’s BonBon-Landhttps://www.mentalfloss.com/article/624229/take-virtual-ride-hundeprutterutchebane-denmarks-infamous-dog-fart-rollercoasterhttps://www.southzealand-mon.com/BonBon-Land

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello, and welcome to SciShow Tangents, it's the lately competitive science knowledge showcase. I'm your host, Hank Green, and joining me this week as always is science expert and Forbes 30 under 30 education luminary, Sari Reilly. Hello. And our resident every man, Sam Schultz is here. Hello.

We've also got a special guest. He's the host of the podcast, Lateral, and a legendary YouTuber who's been seemingly to every place. It's Tom Scott! Hi, Hank. Hi, Sari. Hi, Sam. How are you all doing? I'm great. Where are you right now? I mean, I never give away my location in a...

No, I'm in the lateral studio. Of course I'm in the lateral studio, guys. That's great, but I kind of wish you were, like, inside of the torpedo tube of a nuclear submarine. That's a Destin thing. That's 100% a Destin from Smarter Every Day thing. I was recently on Lateral and it was such a blast. And people should listen to that episode because we had a very good time.

I listened to it, which I always feel is very sort of a little bit navel-gazy to be like, let's see how my jokes went. But it was very fun. It's it's such a good idea for a podcast to I now I sort of like look at the world through the lens of lateral. I'm always like, what could I say to people and they would not believe and would have no idea why.

Let's just do it. I mean, we're going to do a little mini episode of Lateral at the top. Oh, OK. OK. Let's just do it. I'm gonna, we're gonna do a little mini episode of Lateral at the top. So people know what Lateral looks like. All right, all right. You have your question ready. I have my thing. I have my thing.

I want you people to know about it. So during English history, this was, I don't know, sometime hundreds of years ago, everyone, especially in the lower classes, had a particular Bible verse memorized. Everyone. Why? And you're asking why not which one?

No, you don't need to know which one. Doesn't actually matter, interestingly. Okay. So maybe for some kind of legal reason. Hmm, maybe. Okay. Oh, that's a good jump ahead. That's lovely. Sorry, I'm getting podcast confusion here.

Sam was sick, but actually he's just really, really good at lateral thinking. So he was the clinch-hitter of our team. Is there a really common phrase, or a really common turn of phrase that is just a verse from the Bible? No, no, no. They had to learn a specific Bible verse. Okay. But he said it doesn't matter really, right? What did you say, Sam?

Law related? Yeah, something like someone's gonna come ask you, do you know so-and-so? And you have to know it. Yeah, because I was thinking schooling or something that's drilled into you. No, no, no, no, no. It was organically taught by people to each other for a reason. For a legal reason.

So, like, the government didn't want, didn't really want you to know it. Oh, okay. So, was it something that you could, it's not like a get out of jail free card, but it... It's literally a get out of jail free card. Okay. What? Okay. In fact, it's better than that. So, during this period of time, and I didn't do the research that I would have done if I was actually...

That's okay. Normally on Lateral we give the guests a full sheet of A4 with a load of background notes. I'm going to plug here, by the way. There is a book coming out. We have a book coming out soon, and it has the background notes for some questions. Oh, nice. And some brand new ones in there as well. I think they get the plug in. Carry on.

So, because our intros are not long, you guys have done a very good job of uncovering the reality of the situation. There was a time in English law where pretty much every crime was punished by death. And this became a problem because people did crimes all the time. Are you sure that's not like an episode from season one of Star Trek The Next Generation? Because I'm pretty sure that's an episode from season one of Star Trek The Next Generation. Yeah, so, yes, very similarly. And the King didn't like that they constantly had to kill people.

And so they had to create loopholes. And the first one was, okay, if you have anything to do with the church, was, okay, if you have anything to do with the church, then like there's a loophole where people who are priests or who work for the church, they don't have to get put to death because they have some other thing going on. And then that loophole got extended to just anyone who could quote a Bible verse.

And so everybody in London taught each other this same Bible verse. And so they'd get up there on their first offense, taught each other this same Bible verse, and so they'd get up there and on their first offense, they could just quote the Bible verse, and then they could be given a different sentence other than death. That is wonderful. You're right, that would have made a very good lateral question. Thank you for sharing it here as a demonstration of what the show is. I'm really happy with that.

But that's what it's like. It's so fun. Sorry. If you guys thought we were going to have a different conversation than that, we're not because that took up the time that the conversation at the top usually takes. Every week around SciShow Tangents, we get together to try to one up, amaze and delight each other with science facts while trying to be this podcast and not another one. But failing sometimes. Our panelists, there are three of them.

They're playing for glory and also for Hank bucks, which I'll be awarding as we play. And at the end of the episode, one of them will be the winner. But first we must, as always, introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem this week delivered by legendary Tom Scott. There once was a man from Kilbride who took out his phone on a ride. He was thrown out and banned because it slipped from his hand and knocked out the person behind. I was trying to figure out how to bring my cultural heritage and everything like that into a part.

And it turns out limericks. Just limericks. So the topic for the day is roller coasters. And this is apparently a thing that actually occurred, I assume. But we will talk about that before we dive in. We must take a short break. And then we will be back to define and discuss roller coasters. Hello, everyone. We're back.

At what point does it go from being a train to a roller coaster? Incline. I'm sure some kind of grading, I would imagine. Yeah. I mean, arguably when it doesn't have an engine or power on board. Oh, that's a good one. Interesting. When it's given all its power externally at the start or maybe a couple of times during the ride?

Interesting. There aren't any roller coasters that have on-board power. There are, but they are specifically defined as powered roller coasters. So they have, and they have the power in the roller coaster, not in the track? Yeah, like little kiddie rides, like mine trains, things like that. Sure. Sometimes have a little engine on board.

There are also trains that have external power. Yeah, there's a trolley, a train. Oh, okay. Mostly gravity? Yeah, powered by potential energy. A roller coaster is simply a train that goes nowhere. Well, some of them do go somewhere. It's true, there are roller coasters that just go down a hill.

Oh, wow. I genuinely think the definition is, with occasional rare exception, that it gets its power from potential energy that is then converted into kinetic, and back and forth and back and forth until friction takes over. What do you think, Sarah? You did research, probably. Yeah, I mean, this is basically the conclusion of my research. I would also say, based on location, you can maybe contain it. If a roller coaster was placed in the middle of a field, or if it was very, very large and span the country,

then you'd get the lines blurry. But usually we find roller coasters in specific places like amusement parks or theme parks. And there are other elements, whether it is the thrill of the ride or the thematic elements of the ride. So those are the difference between those two. Does it fit into the Fantasy land section of Disney World? Or is it intended to bring you to a place where you can eat a corn dog and try not to throw it up while you are enjoying yourself?

That's interesting, because like they're like there. There is a blurriness there because Space Mountain is a roller coaster. But like Splash Mountain isn't? Because it's mostly like an animatronic ride with a little drop at the end. It's a log flume ride, Hank. Oh, also it's a log flume, just for clarity. But you get what I mean.

You're floating. Yeah, roller coaster is a subset of amusement ride. I think you've got to have some form of track there. I like the idea that a roller coaster is a thing that both rolls and coasts. Well, yeah, because that's the thing about not having power is that you're coasting. Is that where that came from? It is, I think, where it came.

So the history of roller coasters, the people say that the the oldest iteration of a roller coaster pre pre what we would consider a roller coaster are the ice slides constructed in the 1600s in Russia. So this is around the period of Catherine the Great. They would build these giant slides and these wooden ramps, I guess. You couldn't slide down them without getting seriously hurt without the ice, but they would pour water on them.

It would solidify into ice and then people would climb a ladder, sit on a sled, and slide down them. And would they get seriously hurt then? Or... Yeah. Well, look... But you wouldn't get a splinter in your butt. There are still quite a few languages

that have the word for roller coaster as Russian mountain, or maybe a traditional older word for it. I think French has montagne rusRousse, or something close. Again, my pronunciation's gonna be off. That's fun. I assume the Académie Francaise at some point has just been angry about the phrase, lay roller coaster, and insisted on the old one.

That's like you get out there. We do not accept this potential outcome. Is that true? No idea, but I can believe it. It doesn't sound nice. So I mean, like this is different from sledding or just riding on your butt down an icy hill because it was a whole, like, they, I'm sure they started there and then they were like, let's build a thing.

Yes. And then it had, it has that, I guess, gravity element. We built the thing and then gravity is the reason why you were sledding down, which is, I guess, the same thing as sledding down a hill. But then in the 1700s and early 1800s, like 1817 or so, then engineers built roller coasters in France. So France was, maybe that's why they have such strong feelings about the word for roller coasters, but they took it from Russia, brought it to France, and there were wheels attached to

carriages, and those wheels were locked onto tracks. So that is, you can't like fly off the tracks. There's some amount of securing the cart to the track and guide rails to keep them on course and higher speeds. And so those are sort of like the first adjacent to modern roller coasters. And then in the 1870s in America, that was where the first sort of like gravity ride came into existence. But it was a mining railway. So it was a track for mine carts that converted potential energy into kinetic energy to move ore along.

And then we stopped using it for mining, we stopped using it for coal. And then some miners had too much fun. And we were like, maybe we can make money by charging people a couple cents to propel themselves down. The miners are coming to work for free. Instead.

They love it so much. I didn't, did an episode of Citation Needed on that a long time ago. Was that the Flip Flat Rail railway or something like that? Or was that just a different name? Maybe it was a nickname. I have the the Motch Chunk. That's it.

The Motch Chunk Switchback Railway. That's it. We went on a tangent at one point. I knew I'd talked about that at some point. Yeah. So that was in Pennsylvania. And then the first time the word roller coaster was in printed material, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1883 in the Chicago Tribune saying, a curious structure

is now in the course of construction. It will be known as the roller coaster and the objects claimed for it are health and amusement. And they were talking. What are we doing? How's it helping? We're not dying on the ice slide. And they were talking. Health. Yeah. What are we doing? How's it helping? We're not dying on the ice slide.

Keep your blood flowing. Yeah, yeah. We're not falling. I mean, I just looked at a picture of one of these Russian mountains and I'll tell you what, they were not for health. By 1883, they were trying to convince each other that building a roller coaster on the corner of a Chicago

street would be good for your health. And that was a circular gravity railway, so a track that looped, had hills and valleys and the cart would. You'd probably have to drag it up to some point of the top of the hill to get that potential energy. And then you could let it go, let it swirl around. And then they really took off at Coney Island in 1884 when Lamarcus Thompson designed a

coaster called the Switchback Gravity Pleasure Railway. So maybe that's for health too. Like I guess the word pleasure kind of had a different set of connotations. Yeah, it's not one of those, what are they, like the love canal caves or whatever? Tunnel of love. Just to be clear, tunnel of love and love canal, very different definitions. Those are two very different things. So all that to say, there was at some point where we transitioned from sled on ice to wheeled thing on railroad tracks, and at some point there were rollers that propelled them across and then at some point it was wheels.

But that is where the roller of roller coaster came into play. This has just reminded me of a patent that was never made real. And you'll have to forgive me, this is coming from the depths of my memory, someone will have to look up the details of this. This has just reminded me of a patent that was never made real. And you'll have to forgive me, this is coming from the depths of my memory, someone will have to look up the details of this. But there was a Victorian-era inventor who had the idea that trains should just have, like, a bit of track on a long slope at the front, so that rather than trains having to pull over to the side to let something else pass on single road,

they could just kind of go at each other and 10, 20 miles an hour, one would just ride up the other train, go over the top, come down the bus. And the reason it stuck in my head is that it was some phrase in the advertising or the patent that said it would combine the thrill of travel with the joy of a switchback. Now, I'm not sure how much suddenly, you know, being hoisted into the air on your commute would work for that.

I do like the idea. It would be thrilling. I like imagining my morning commute and the amount of times I pass another train and I'm always like, whoa, because I sit by the window and instead you're like, pfft, instead I fly up. Like maybe more frightening, you're the train on the bottom. And suddenly it's like, yeah, yeah.

Who gets who bottoms on the train? On the two train rolling over each other. On the train, it's true. I think I think sometimes they switch. They can do both, they can both go both ways. I feel like I have a good understanding of what roller coasters are, which means that it is time to move on to the quiz portion of our show.

By some estimates, there are 5,300 roller coasters operating worldwide today. And we had to do estimates because some of them are probably weird minecart things Some of these roller coasters take their job of scaring the hell out of you more seriously than others I'm going to introduce you to a few record-setting roller coasters and you're gonna have to guess exactly how extreme they are Everyone got your seat belts on it's time to learn about some weirdo roller coasters. The Tower of Terror at Gold Reef City in Johannesburg lives up to its name with a 50-meter drop that has reportedly produced the highest g-force of any roller coaster on Earth.

Though I don't know if we can call Tower of Terror's roller coasters. Tower of Terror is a genuine roller coaster. This is not like the one in the Disney parks. This has the same name. Oh my god, it's one of these. It is a genuine, swoopy roller coaster, not the one in the Disney parks, this has the same name. Oh, I got it, it's one of these. It is a genuine swoopy roller coaster, not a drop tower. Of course Tom knows that.

So has it produced 4.5G, 6.3G, or 8.6G? Humans could survive any of those. Yeah, but we'd be. I didn't say could. I didn't say we're guaranteed to. Could, but we'd be more or less, less and less okay the higher the number. How much does Space Shuttle do? The Space Shuttle does about three, but that's three continuously for a long time. And there are standards documents from various governments on how long a ride can sustain

various amounts of g-force. So a very brief peak can actually be quite high, but if you're sustaining longer than half a second, longer than a second, longer than five seconds, it really needs to come down. What were the and what were the options? The G options? Four point five, six point three or eight point six. Space shuttle is easy. I could do a space shuttle. No problem. I don't think yet. I don't think the G is actually the main problem with getting on a space shuttle. It's all the other training.

It's all the figuring out how to fly a space shuttle parts. I'm really annoyed by this question because I thought you were going to ask, like, what's the record it set? I was like, oh, that is the highest G for. So now you've asked me the exact number. Oh, yeah. And I have a hunch, but I'm not certain. Okay. Well, we'll have you go last because you know vastly more things than most people. I think the middle one, I think the middle one, whatever that number was, that's the one I picked. Yeah, I was also going to go for the six point

whatever the six point three, because I think in my research for this episode, six seemed like a bad number. Like we try and make loops go under six. And so the fact that this has a moment where you experience six-point-something that feels like, ooh, it's danger. It's terrifying, even. Yeah, that's where I'm... I'm definitely ruling out eight. That's injury-inducing. Four point five seems like there's a few coasters in the world that will hit that briefly.

So if it's the extreme one that's out there, and as I remember it's one that is a bit non-standard, I feel like a brief spike at 6 at the bottom of what I think, if I remember this rightly, is a beyond vertical drop sounds about right. That is correct. That is what that is. All of the things that Tom just said, including the answer, are correct. So I should fill in some details here that I was terrified and had a full-on phobia of roller coasters until about three years ago.

And I did a video for my second channel, which was getting over that fear. And unfortunately, it has turned into a little bit of an obsession to the point where I, you know, I've been on quite a lot now. I also have strong opinions on them and I won't go on many of them. Roller coaster nerds are a bit like train nerds, which isn't really a compliment. Well, it's also, roller coasters are a bit like trains,

so it makes sense. Yeah, but the wonderful thing is they have all been categorized on various places. Well, it's also, roller coasters are a bit like trains, so it makes sense. But the wonderful thing is they have all been categorized on various places. I can look up if I'm going to a park, and if it's tagged with rattle and headbanging and discomfort, I just don't go on it. A lot of the roller coaster nerds will just go on every single ride because they can, to tick it off the list and say they've done it. And I can look at a ride and go, no, that will hurt.

That's not I am old enough now that that that is something I'm going to regret. So do you go around the world, ride in roller coasters? No, but if I'm in a new place, I will look and see what's in the area. What's your favorite one you ever been on? It's probably one called Zadra, which is in a park called Energylandia in Poland. And it is one of a brand new generation of coasters put together by a company called Rocky Mountain Construction, who have basically reinvented what it is possible to do with like wood and steel.

And it's like being, it's like doing aerobatics in a fighter jet. Like what I want from a roller coaster is not to get terrified. I don't want to be scared, I don't want to be just crushed in my seat. I want to feel like I'm flying. I want to feel like I'm doing aerobatics in a plane, without all the expense of doing aerobatics in a plane. Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Question number two. Until it mysteriously closed in January of 2024. Uh-oh. That's all we have on the information. To be honest, can I write down a guess here? You can just tell me what your guess is. Okay, this is the trouble with doing something that is basically my specialist subject now. You don't even know what the question is though, so you might be writing down something I'm

about to sell you. But there's only one coaster that mysteriously closed in January 2024. It's the Formula Rossa at Ferrari World in Dubai. Yes it is. We got an instant fact check from Tom. It was the world's fastest roller coaster reaching 240 km per hour, or just under 100. Oh, now I'm in trouble, Hank. Now I've run out of things that I know about that coaster.

Or just under 150 miles per hour. How long did it take to achieve that pant-soiling speed? Was it 3.2 seconds, 4.9 seconds, or 5.8 seconds? Those are all the same to me. Those are all the same. Even as someone... So, I did an episode of Let's Learn Everything. And again, we talked about speed and we talked

about acceleration and how fast you can go. And the thing about Formula Rossa is that while it hits that speed, it is not the fastest accelerating. But where it sits in those numbers, not a clue. I mean, it's 5.8. I'm going to guess a little slow. I'll go with 5.8, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I'll go with 5.8 too. All right, everybody's going to guess a little slow. I'll go with 5.8, yeah. OK. Sam? Yeah, I'll go with 5.8 too. All right, everybody's got to guess this. You can't all have the same score at the end of this, but OK. Regardless of what the answer is, it doesn't change the results at all because you've all guessed the same thing. But you are, in fact, all wrong.

It was 4.9 seconds. And it uses, rather than that hill gravity thing, it sits on a flat track and is flung forward by a hydraulic system underneath. A catch car under the track was attached to a cable that could be pulled rapidly by a winch powered by hydraulic pumps, powered by compressed nitrogen gas.

That seems like the kind of thing that maybe if it starts to stop working perfectly, you'd close it down. It might close mysteriously. Yeah, there are a few coasters of that model in the world, and there are reliability problems. Which is not what you want! No, these days if they're building a launch thing, they'll use like electromagnetic motors or something like that generally. Yeah, that's the one that they have at California Adventure, which is very exciting.

There aren't many hydraulic launch ones. Yeah, it's like it's the it's the thing that shoots the planes off of the aircraft carriers. But for me and California, for a lot less money. All right. Our last question. The TMNT shell razor at American Dream in New Jersey holds the record for the steepest drop of any roller coaster, hurling riders at an angle more extreme than straight down. So is that.

I'm going to write my answer down for this one, sorry. Okay. You bring a protractor along with you on your roller coaster ride? Well, actually... So, no, but there are a lot of rollercoaster claims that are questionable. Sure, sure. Like, a lot of the places that say we have the tallest are measuring maybe not from the same place as others.

Some that say they're the fastest. Well, yeah, if they turned it up to 100% it's a completely empty car, which they don't do because it's not as safe. There's many things where like, actually, is that? Has anyone checked it? Did they just claim it? I feel like you got to fact check a rollercoaster called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Shell Razor in New Jersey. This has also been mysteriously not operating for a long time as well.

Oh, damn. Well, I'm glad they're taking safety seriously. Have you written down your answer, Tom? Yes, yes, I have. OK. Is it 101.5 degrees, 115.5 degrees, or 121.5 degrees? As opposed to just 90 degrees? Sam? What are your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle vibes

giving you of this roller coaster? Is it like a TMNT Easter egg? They'd be dropping. Yeah. It's their date of birth. They they'd be dropping straight down a straight down 90 straight down 90. So this is more than straight down. Oh, it's more than straight down. They wouldn't take such a risk, actually.

So this is bad. The middle one. OK, good for you. Oh, I'm going to guess the middle one. Okay, good for you. Oh, I'm going to guess the smallest one. It is 121.5. It is 121.5. It is correct. I actually misremembered, I've written down 122.5.

It was somewhere in that zone. No, you're penalized. That's fair. Honestly, that was such a dick move, that honestly, I'm 100% okay with that. So, this begs the question, is that a hill, or is that an inversion at that point?

And of course, there's no official answer, and so the enthusiasts argued and decided that an inversion begins at one hundred and thirty five degrees, which is halfway between 90 and one hundred and eighty as the dividing line between the two. So it is officially still a hill, even though it is also inverted. I don't know about that. That doesn't sound right to me. Well, you know, you're not in the space.

I don't think you can call it steep if it's not a little bit upside down. You'd have to be on the other side of it for it to be steep, I think. I mean, the the idea, though, is that that does create that weightlessness where you are pulling away from the vehicle you are inside of. But Tom came out of that one, unsurprisingly, in the lead, though somewhat surprisingly not that far in the lead. So we're going to have to take a short break and then we'll be back for the fact off and

we will find out how we do. Hello, welcome back. Now get ready for the fact-off. Our panelists have brought science facts to me. Isary and Tom have. In an attempt to blow my mind and after they have presented their facts, I will decide which was the more mind-blowing fact award Hank Bucks anyway I see fit. But first we have to decide who goes first with a trivia question. Here it is.

If you've ever been scared to ride a roller coaster and been egged on by someone by saying it's not really that dangerous, just feels dangerous. Are they actually telling the truth? Well, that's up to you to guess. How many people are killed in roller coaster related accidents annually in the US? Okay. Alright, I've got an answer. I have no... two?

I'm going to say 0.5. Can I try two? Yeah, sure. I'm going to guess one. I wonder if we've all anchored really low here, and it turns out that actually people keep wandering into the unsafe areas and that counts, and people have heart attacks that are unrelated to the coaster safety. I wonder if we've all anchored this too low.

It's thousands, thousands, no it's not, it's four. It's four, which was, you know, you were anchoring low in terms of percentage wise. There are many things, of course, that are deadlier than roller coasters. You've got fireworks around 10 deaths a year, lightning around 20 deaths per year, skydiving around 21 deaths per year. So you could use that to sort of judge the level of,

and this is of course not per capita. I think there are a lot more roller coaster riders than skydivers over the last year. And so you have to kind of consider, I'm not sure if this is counting all amusement park rides or roller coasters only specifically, but there's always like fair rides, there's always some accident that's happening.

But I imagine driving to the amusement park is several magnitudes more dangerous than riding the roller coaster. Yeah, there is definitely a lot more safety precautions on a roller coaster than on you while you're driving a car. But that means that Sari gets to go first. So most of us, and I guess I meant the audience when I was writing this question,

but I guess also us hosting the podcast, have probably felt out of breath at some point, maybe after some vigorous exercise, or when you get sick and all stuffed up, or allergies or asthma or even mental health conditions like anxiety or having a panic attack. But because there are so many potential causes to this kind of breathlessness feeling from muscle constriction around the lungs to nuanced psychological factors, treating it isn't always straightforward. Sometimes, for example, people with conditions like asthma may not report

difficulty breathing during an asthma attack when their lungs are measurably functioning less well because they're just used to less air coming in. Or the opposite might happen. They might feel breathless when their lung function is measurably the same as what it always is because of stress or other emotions. So a 2006 study from Dutch researchers wanted to better understand the effects of stress on breathlessness using roller coasters. They took 25 young women with severe asthma

who used inhaled corticosteroids daily to treat it and 15 young women without asthma to ride a roller coaster and see what happened. They made sure in pre-surveys that everyone liked roller coasters, so no phobias here and had ridden them before, like knew what to expect and what they found was really interesting. So for the participants without asthma, their measured lung function was the same before and after riding the roller coaster twice in a row. So they made sure they really got the roller coaster experience when on a couple of rides.

But these participants, they had a peak feeling of breathlessness right after getting off along with feelings like dizziness, nausea, and heart pounding, all of that rush from riding a roller coaster. They felt breathless. It was kicking in as they got off. But for the participants with severe asthma, their breathlessness was higher right before riding the roller coaster and lower afterward. They felt more confident breathing after the roller coaster, even though the lung function of almost half of them was worse after riding

the roller coaster. So in other words, even though their breathing was physically harder after riding the roller coaster for some of these women, and they still felt dizzy or nauseated, they felt emotionally like they could breathe easier in these reported studies. Maybe because that rush of joy of riding a roller coaster helps them feel better or at least took their mind off of thinking about their asthma and thinking about having trouble breathing. So the takeaway here is not quite roller coasters help with your asthma.

You should ride them. It's more like doing things you enjoy. And your emotional state may have a bigger effect on your perception of your breathing and your perception of your asthma symptoms and can literally help you breathe a little easier. So they didn't design this study specifically where they were like, this is a potential treatment.

They went and being like, this is a way that we will uncover more information. And then we're like, actually, it helped. Yes. Yeah. They went in, the technical jargon that they used was the effects of positive and negative stress on asthma and dypsonia, which is the medical term for breathlessness. Did they identify which roller coaster it was in the paper? Because I feel like there's a big difference in how you feel between something like Space

Mountain where you are just indoors, can't see where you're going, it's designed to scare you and disorient you, versus one of those big swoopy feel like you're flying mega coasters that just kind of take you over hills and sweep you through. I did not see it in the paper in the methods section. It all took place in the Netherlands and they were university students, I assume from their department as it is wanted to be. The paper is titled Rollercoaster Asthma When Positive Emotional Stress Interfers with Dipsnia Perception. So we can write the authors of the paper and say which rollercoaster Tom Scott needs to write it.

That is blatantly some students who are like, can we expense this trip to Wallaby? Yeah, I mean, students all over the country, if you're listening now, test every disease. Just everything. Just we gotta get, we gotta get, whatever you've got, test out amusement parks on how you feel afterward. And somebody will fund that for you. With the exception of neck, back injuries, I'm just reading the warning sign there. I'm just reading the warning sign.

Alright, Tom, what do you got for us? I have a very similar fact. And the first part of this, Hank, you may know, because it turns out you did a SciShow video on this many years ago. I think I already know what it is, but hit me. Okay, what do you think the opening one is? Is it the kidney stone coaster? It's the kidney stone one!

Yes. Yeah, you were saying test all the other ailments. They tested Kidneystones. How much of this can you remember? Yeah, I believe it was Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. And I believe that it was, that there is literally a certain area of the coaster specifically that can reorient a kidney stone to make it easier to pass. You have a much better memory for your videos

than I do for mine. Well, it's a great fact. It's just a great fact. It's a great fact. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, it was the Magic Kingdom, so it was East Coast Disneyland, but they're very close. And yes, there is a study titled, Validation of a Functional Pylocalisial Renal Model,

let's be honest, I didn't know how to pronounce that, for the evaluation of renal calculi passage while riding a roller coaster. Basically, are you gonna dislodge kidney stones while riding a coaster? And this came from a lot of anecdotal evidence. Actually, people were writing this and going, well, yeah, and then a little bit later,

I went and I passed a stone, which is incredibly painful. Like, that is not a magical experience you're having there. No, no. But it is good to have it out and not in there anymore, growing more and bigger. That is not my main fact. My main fact is that that was what came out of it in there anymore, growing more and bigger. That is not my main fact. My main fact is that that was what came out of it in the press.

They won an Ig Nobel Prize for this study. The press was like, ride roller coasters, it'll help with kidney stones. Except it seems to be ride Big Thunder Mountain in the back of the coaster, and you'll dislodge kidney stones. Like, there's like a dose-dependent response, depending on where you are in the coaster. Yes! This is my fact. Because I pulled up the tables that they had in the original study. And in the front of the coaster are one out of eight rides, one out of eight rides, two out of eight rides, for the various sizes of kidney stone.

By the way, terrifying thing in here, I read this as like 64 millimeter kidney stone. I was like, what? That is terrible. No, it's volume. It's 64 cubic millimeters. It is about a four mil diameter kidney stone. That's a big stone. It's not an operation stone. Front of the coaster, that would be what? Four out of 24. Back of the coaster, eight out of 12, seven out the coaster, eight out of 12, seven out of 12, eight out of 12, so we're talking three quarters in the back of the coaster, one quarter in the front.

Did they put people in the middle? They didn't. They, I think, managed 20 rides on this. And to be clear, this is not people. This is a synthetic kidney that they have cast out sort of transparent stuff. Oh! So they have repeatability,

so they can place the stones in various points and test in various things. There is a quote in an interview with them back from 2016, and this is not in the paper, quote, we tried Space Mountain and Aerosmith's Rock and Roller Coaster and both failed. Wow. And I think that's a massive clue that no one's picked up on. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Like, these are not the same things. Like, coasters are different from each other, obviously.

But the fact that the front versus the back matters is bonkers. But it really does. If you're riding a coaster in the front, then you get far less what's called airtime or ejector time. If you're in the front of a coaster going over a hill, you're already a little bit of the way down the hill by the time it starts accelerating the balance tips over. So you kind of fall down and you get less of that kind of jump out of your seat. You're not getting yanked down.

So you're like, this is like tipping where the people at the back are getting yanked. Yeah, but not only are you getting yanked down the hill, you're getting yanked over the hill. So there is a very strong sudden pull downwards if you're in the back. Now, those two other coasters, they're both indoors. And they are... someone I know described them as being like a hug from gravity. You don't get much of that floaty sensation in them. You just kind of push into your seat and jerked about all the time. And it's into a loop and it's tight and it's a lot.

But it's all kind of crushed into your seat gravity. Whereas Big Thunder Mountain, that has airtime. That has hills, that has that kind of floaty feeling. And I cannot believe no one else has gone in and studied this. Yeah, it really seems like worth doing and also not that expensive. Like you actually should do, like you're not going to double blind this, unfortunately, because you know what rubber coaster you're on. Yeah.

But it does, like there's plenty of people with kidney stones that like live in Orlando. And you know, if you were in other countries, maybe you would go and get them professionally removed with ultrasound or something like that. But this is the US and there's a lot of people there without good health care. Yeah. And also, you're going to be, maybe, like, it's an excuse to take your family out and be like, hey, this is going to be like, we'll get the double benefit. This could be a package they sell. You get some fast passes to ride Big Thunder Mountain.

And then after, like, they could maybe do like a little ultrasound therapy right beforehand and then put you on To you increase the response rate and then they could keep your kidney stone put it on Yeah, it'll be like a whole like rack of them Just pebble-dash a building, it'll be fun I did find a response to that initial article, which is evaluation of renal calculi passage while riding a rollercoaster, which is Michael Bailey, PhD, who points out that actually, there is just an ultrasonic thing that can do this. They're working on it right now, that if you want to create that sort of movement and vibration, you can tune ultrasonic waves

to actually move kidney stones that way. And it's probably a lot better way of doing it. But also, we don't know, because no one has done the study. And this is my fact. This is the conclusion of all this. Yes. It's not just that it is go on a roller coaster, it'll help your kidney stones. It is the position you ride.

It is the type of coaster. So I would love someone to go out there with a similar kind of arrangement. Honestly, I'm tempted to do this. Just get like a fanny pack with this inside that you can hide from security. Like, actually, we're going to ride this coaster and this coaster and we are going to take an accelerometer, which they didn't do. They just took the front and back and took it as anecdotal evidence, which is a great initial study. But this is like eight years ago and I cannot find any follow-up studies.

It's wild. Because no one's going to fund that study, right? Why not? No one with an ethics department in a university is going to go, actually yes, we are going to pay this researcher to go to multiple theme parks over multiple days and do all the work required this. When actually what we should be funding is checking with ultrasound and like professional clinical equipment in a professional setting. But I would love someone to actually figure out is there an optimal like G-force.

I just love the idea of taking the ultrasound machine and like, you use the ultrasound machine to give the Big Thunder Mountain protocol, where it does to the kidney stone what Big Thunder Mountain does, but like, so the kidney stone gets to ride on a roller coaster, but like you can stay in Cleveland. This is the other thing about different types of Gs on roller coasters. I avoid roller coasters with rattle. And there's kind of a few different... You can have the big G4 stuff, the big swoopy stuff, and you can have the kind of medium

level where actually it's designed to throw you about a bit and feel like you're going around tight corners like a wild mouse coaster. But then you also have the ones where the track's just really rattly and it's unpleasant, it feels like you're going over bumps in a car and you get a headache. And I hate those. But like, which of these is unpleasant, it feels like you're going over bumps in a car and you get a headache, and I hate those. But like, which of these is better? Yeah. Is it that you're-

Because it's not about what Tom likes, it's about what Tom's kidney likes. It's about what the kid experiences. Right. So I would love to do that study. My fact is not that roller coasters help with kidney stones because that's not true, it is that some specific seats in Big Thunder Mountain help with kidney stones

and we should really figure out why. Well, you came into it in the lead, and you've also been tirelessly advocating for the quality of your fact. I can't keep going on people's podcasts and acting like a dick, Hank. You're setting me up as the bad guy here. And I just have to apologize.

No, much like Iron Chef, everyone is rooting for me to lose, because I guess it's doing such fantastic, wonderful things. You found a research study within a paper. I presented a paper that exists and I feel like there's a concrete difference between those two things. I was gonna say the slightest bit of pressure on Sari could also get her to say, ah, my fact sucked. So.

Oh no. Not that it even did. She would have just said it. So we've got Sari Riley better than Bobby Flay is what my show notes now say. And Tom tireless fact quality advocate. The kidney fact is, is objectively, I think more mind blowing just that the, that like a roller coaster could, could be a medical treatment. And maybe they are tied in any case.

Tom comes out on top. Congratulations, Tom. And now it is time to ask the science couch where we ask a question to our couch of finally, it used to be an actual couch, Tom. We used to record this in a building. I'm finally holding scientific minds. Sam, what's our question?

At the perfect bot Steve4916 on YouTube asked, what is the roller coaster feeling you get in your stomach? Did it evolve specifically or is it just a consequence of a different feeling that was only discovered when we started moving way faster than normal? We recently went over kind of we went over kind of like a like a pretty big like little hill in the car and my son said, I felt that in my balls. OK. And he's right. Like, no one says that because it's really awkward.

But yes, if you have the equipment for that, that's kind of where you're feeling. I guess they're floating around down there, aren't they? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I have a strong opinion on this because I was scared of that feeling specifically. That is the thing that...

Part of it was like the click of the lift hill, everything that goes with rollercoasters, but the feeling I was specifically scared of was that drop, that going over a hump in a car feeling where the world drops out. And I hate to say this, but that feeling is fear. Is it just fear? That feeling is not an inherent part of your body's response to falling. That feeling is fear. And I know that for a couple of reasons.

One is that I don't get that anymore. I still get that feeling if I go over a bump and I'm surprised by falling. I still get that on an indoor coaster if I am surprised by a drop and I didn't know it was going to happen. And I can still get that on a coaster I haven't ridden before if it does something surprising. I can still get that, oh, yeah, you feel it in your balls. But if I can see the bottom of the coaster, and it's like something I've been on before, If I can see the bottom of the coaster, and it's like something I've been on before, I don't feel that. And the counter-argument to that is I once got that exact feeling while, you know, indoor

parachuting or indoor skydiving, where there's just a giant fan underneath. Yeah, I was in that and I could see the fan underneath. Because this was not one of those tubes in a wind tunnel, it was just a big old fan underneath you somewhere in New Zealand. And as that fan spun up, and I realized there was nothing between me and it but the net, I got a little bit of that feeling. I was like, why do I feel that? I'm not floating yet. And it is just fear. And I know that there are going to be people arguing with me about that because they have different...

I'm going off lived experience here. It's fear. I mean, it's also the feeling you get when you have a dream that you fall. So I guess that makes sense. As far as I know, it's not a reaction to falling. It is a reaction to being afraid of falling and your brain going, grab a branch. Right, right. It's not a feeling you get when you are afraid.

It's a feeling you get when you are afraid, it's a feeling you get when you are afraid of falling. Or you are, like, it's a specific falling fear feeling. Although I don't know, maybe none of us have ever been afraid enough to get that feeling in other situations. Maybe that is, you turn the corner and there is a sabre-toothed tiger in front of you, maybe you get that exact feeling. I have been lucky enough never to have that, either in the specific case or the general case. But maybe it is just fear. Sarah, did you do your research align here? Yeah. So I have had similar feelings, and maybe it's because I have like a diagnosed anxiety,

depression, mental illness flavors of it. It is not the same quality as like roller coaster drop, but I've definitely had similar intensity of stomach drop feelings in situations that I'm dreading or situations where I feel like I've made a humongous mistake instead of like, I don't know, a normal level of this is bad. It's like, oh, I can like physically feel

something is wrong in the way that I like break out in hives and have very physical reactions to emotional responses. I think people's bodies do different things. I would say yes, fear and yes, maybe it is a signal, like fear is one way, but it is a way for your body to signal that something is wrong and you are potentially in danger, and we have a lot of those. So, it could be somewhat influenced by physical things. So, I think there are articles out there.

There was like a 2012 article, an interview with a surgeon that said, how your organs are suspended by different ligaments and are attached to the nervous system, especially the enteric nervous system with different connections. And when you have air time on a roller coaster, when you're in that free fall, your organs kind of like gloop around in you

and are in positions that they're not normally in when they're sitting flat. And I don't think the sensation is you feeling your organs moving, because they're sloshing around. You're just like a bag of blood and goop. It's not like astronauts get that feeling all the time or anything like that. But it's your body saying, this isn't normal. I don't expect it to be this way, which is how you can condition yourself to it. Once you expect a drop or once you're familiar with that feeling, you can tell your body

like, oh, actually, I'm not in danger. Your body can or your brain can process to some degree. I'm not in danger. I don't need this warning sign. And therefore, it's probably okay. But there's a lot we don't understand about the enteric nervous system and the specific this gut brain interaction, but we have a lot of sensations that are tied to emotions

like fear or anxiety or whatnot in your stomach, like butterflies in your stomach, or I don't know, this stomach drop feeling, and there's a lot we don't understand, I think, about microbiomes and hormones and all the signaling that goes on, not only to Constrict and relax your digestive system to make sure food can make its way through

But also the ways that that interacts with other things like stress poops like or stress constipation on the other thing Everyone is a little bit different. I think and that's all tied together with with all these feelings It's almost like evolution was like where should we make where should we make these people feel this? And it was like the most vulnerable spot. Right. Like or, you know, there's also like that. It is often the case that evolution is like, let's just pick whatever is available and that the sort of Vegas nerve, like all of that stuff is just sort of very like a it it's kind of a brute force nerves. Like the, the, the nervous innovations of the face are just tremendously complex and fine

tuned so that you can feel very delicately and also move very delicately so we can talk and, and emote and stuff. Whereas it's really kind of brute force in the abdomen. It's just like not a lot of nerves covering a lot of area, which is why a lot of things feel the same. Like diarrhea cramps can feel the same, getting kicked in the nuts. And so it's just sort of like all doing one job

and it feels a little bit like, oh, well like we've got this here doing that. And so if we wanted to create a fear response, it would be sort of use the brute force area of the nervous system that's not being used for much else. And it's a really unhelpful bit of advice for people who want to go on rollercoaster and want to get over the fear. All you have to do is not be afraid and it'll feel fine.

That's not helpful. Well, it seems to, yeah, I guess like do it over and over again, exposure therapy. Also scream into it, like genuinely helps. I don't think my wife would appreciate that on a car ride though. No, absolutely not. But it turns out that if I'm on a new coaster and it's big and I'm a little bit afraid, the difference between me going... and me going, come on, let's have it, as we go down the hill,

actually makes a difference. Wow. Yeah, that makes me want to get a beer with you. Come on. I do go very British at moments like that, yeah. And now for our listeners on Patreon, we're answering a bonus Science Couch question. Sam, what do we got? At MaxRBMC on YouTube and at Lee Flitter on Twitter, that's a fun to say, asked, why was I fine with them as a teen, them being roller coasters,

but by my 30s got very sick on them. If you wanna hear the answer to that question, as well as enjoy all new episodes, totally ad free, head over to our Patreon, that's patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents. At our $8 a month tier, you get new episodes, ad free, and extended shenanigans as we answer a bonus science couch question every episode.

You'll also get a link to join our private Discord server and maybe also some more goodies in the future. Who knows? Also, all of our old goodies are there already for you to enjoy. Our patrons are the best, and we are very grateful for their support. If you want to ask the Science Couch your question, you can follow us on Twitter at SciShow Tangents

or check out our YouTube community tab, where we'll send out topics for upcoming episodes follow us on Twitter at SciShow Tangents, or check out our YouTube community tab where we'll send out topics for upcoming episodes every week, or join the SciShow Tangents Patreon and ask us on our Discord. Thank you to Chris P on Discord, at Savim S on Twitter, and everybody else who asked us questions for this episode. Tom, thank you so much. Tell us more about The Lateral Book. Yep, the tie-in book to Lateral, which is the podcast that Hank has guested on, and which I do every week, is coming out towards the end of this year. Lateralcast.com for the

book pre-order. Also just search Lateral wherever you get your podcasts, and there are weekly episodes including ones that Hank has been on. It's such a cool, weird, fun idea for a podcast. It feels very British. Yes, yes it does. Can I recommend never coming up with a podcast format that needs three different guests an episode and a load of research? Yeah, yeah. It also feels very Tom Scott in that way,

where it was like more focused on like the goodness of the idea than the implementability of the idea. Which I think that's a compliment. I'm not sure. That's the meanest thing I think that's a compliment. I'm not sure. That's the meanest thing I've ever heard you say. No. It's not mean. It's not mean.

It is about a man who is focused on quality. Tom, I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Also, I appreciate every time we get to hang out. You're so much fun. If you like this show and you want to help us out, it's super easy to do that. First, you can go to patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents to become a patron and get access to those new extended ad free episodes and our Discord. Shout out to patron Les Aker for their support. Second, you can leave us a review wherever you listen.

That's helpful. Helps us know what you like about the show and helps other people know what you like about the show. And finally, if you want to show your love for SciShow Tangents, just tell people about us. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank Green. I've been Sari Reilly. I've been Sam Schultz. And I've been Tom Scott. SciShow Tangents is created by all of us except for Tom and produced by Jess Stempert.

Our associate producer is Eve Schmidt. Our editor is Seth Glicksman. Our social media organizer is Julia Buzz-Bazio. Our editorial assistants are Deboki Chakravarti and Alex Billo. Today's game was written by Daniel Kramiski. Our sound design is by Joseph Tunamettish. Our executive producers are Nicole Sweeney and me, Hank Green. And of course, we could not make any of this without our patrons on Patreon.

Thank you, and remember, the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted. But one more thing. There's a Danish candy company called Bonbon, with product names that translate to seagull droppings, ant piss, or dog farts. So naturally, they created a theme park called Bon Bon Land with equally rude attractions. The oldest roller coaster in the park opened in 1993, and its translated name is the Farting Dog Switchback. It's not especially big or thrilling, as it reached a top speed of 30kmph on a track that is 4.5 metres, 15 feet tall at most. But you do get to ride past a statue of a cartoon dog defecating while being serenaded with farts and barks playing through speakers. What are they doing over there?

Why are they doing that? It was on my list of things to film and, you know, for some reason I never got round to it. Never got round to it.