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Simulation specialist reveals what would happen if you rode a rollercoaster without a harness

Not that you'd want to try it.

Imagine you’re at a Six Flags theme park, and after waiting an hour in line, you sit down in the front seat of The New Revolution, a looping roller coaster that hits top speeds of up to 55 miles per hour. The ride operator calls, “All clear,” your coaster takes off from the loading station, and you make your way up a lift hill. As the car goes clack clack clack, you realize that the lap bar was never secured and there’s no way back.

What would happen if you were stuck on a looping roller coaster and the harness stopped working? Could you hold on to the person securely seated next to you and make it through the loop, or would you be thrown out of the car for what would be a tragic ending? Popular YouTuber Zach D. Films, who specializes in digital recreations, showed what would happen if you rode a looping roller coaster without a harness, and the good news is that there’s a decent chance you will survive. (Not that you'd want to try, though.)

What would happen if I rode a rollercoaster without a harness?

“If the bar came loose while you were riding a roller coaster, you'd probably expect to immediately fall out, but that probably wouldn't happen,” Zach D. begins his video.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

According to Zach D., the competing forces of gravity and the speed at which you’re moving counteract each other, most likely keeping you safely in your seat. “You see, as you're being pulled into the loop, gravity tries to pull you down towards the ground, but because of the speed you're going and the direction of the tracks, a special force actually pushes you further down, outweighing the pull of gravity and keeping you in your seat,” Zach D. says in his video.

Another example of these forces is filling a bucket with a few inches of water, attaching a rope, and swinging it around your head. If you forcefully spin the bucket, the water will remain inside, even without anything to restrain it from falling out.


Even though science shows that it is possible to ride a looping rollercoaster without restraints, there aren't many people out there who want to try it. In November 2024, a passenger on the Desert Storm coaster at Castles and Coasters in Phonix, Arizona, claimed that his restraint released while he was on the ride. The restraint failure happened as the coaster climbed its first lift hill so he could exit quickly and make it to the emergency stairs near the coaster's peak.

"We started going up, everything seems to be OK. And then, when we get closer to the top, I hear a click. Different from the click of the roller coaster going up on the chain," he said. "So I check my bar, and when I pushed it, it released. It opened." The incident was caught on camera, and the footage is chilling.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

While the idea of riding a roller coaster without a lap bar is horrifying, Zach D. proves that physics may be your unexpected friend in case of a lap bar failure. That being said, let’s keep those restraints locked and double-checked. Roller coasters are meant to be fun, not a test of your centrifugal force knowledge.

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Dear Mr. Trump: All 6 U.S. science Nobel Prize winners this year so far are immigrants.

At a time when anti-immigration rhetoric is at an all-time high, it's imperative we look at the bigger picture.

“I think the United States is what it is today largely because of open borders."

That comment comes from Scottish-born naturalized U.S. citizen Sir J. Fraser Stoddart. When he said this to The Hill, he'd just won the Nobel Prize for chemistry.

This statement was bold, especially in an election year where the topic of immigration has been a hot-button issue filled with troublesome rhetoric.

Stoddart had a good reason for the comment: All six American Nobel laureates in science announced so far this year are immigrants.

Every year, the Nobel Foundation awards this prestigious honor to the most innovative scientists, writers, researchers, and peace-builders around the world for their outstanding contributions in the world of physics, chemistry, physiology, medicine, literature, and peace.

All six science Nobel Prize winners from the U.S. Photos by (clockwise) Scott Olson/Getty Images; Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge/Getty Images; Scott Eisen/Getty Images; Kayana Szyymczak/AFP/Getty Images; Mickael Vis/AFP/Getty Images; Denise Applewhite/Princeton University/Getty Images.

Stoddart was recognized for his breakthrough research in creating new ways to energize and steer molecules that could revolutionize how we treat illnesses and help develop more powerful computers.

The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Duncan M. Haldane, who is British; David Thouless, also Scottish; and Michael Kosterlitz, who is originally from Aberdeen, Scotland, and was born to Jewish refugees who fled Hitler's Germany. Their theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter could have a tremendous impact in electronics and computing.

Finally, Oliver Hart is from Britain, and Bengt Holmström is from Finland. Both are being recognized for their contributions to economics.

(On Oct. 13, 2016, the foundation also announced that beloved singer-songwriter Bob Dylan earned the coveted Nobel Prize for literature for "new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Not too shabby, America!)

This science lineup is a big deal, especially now.

At a time when Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is taking an unapologetically tough stance on immigration by proposing "extreme vetting" (and promising to build a massive wall and deport undocumented immigrants who are already here), this award lineup speaks volumes about why we need inclusive immigration policies.

It proves we can greatly benefit from inviting immigrants into our country. It shows that when we abandon our fear of differences, we'll find that folks from other places have a lot to offer in terms of science, education, and technological advances.

These six winners are literally making the world a better place.

The Nobel Foundation Prize Award Ceremony in 2008. Image by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.

As Stoddart pointed out to The Hill, America's incredible scientific progress can remain strong "as long as we don't enter an era where we turn our back on immigration."

These Nobel Prize winners make an excellent and irrefutable case for nurturing our immigration system.

“I think the resounding message that should go out all around the world is that science is global," Stoddart said.

It's imperative we look at the bigger picture instead of just focusing on the negative aspects of immigration. Many of our amazing and impressive scientific innovations are here because of immigration.

We can accomplish amazing things when we have no barriers — physical or otherwise.

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Hertha Marks Ayrton was a total badass. Google just honored her in an awesome way.

Never heard of Hertha Marks Ayrton? That's OK. Neither had I. But let me tell you why I'll definitely be remembering her.

Ayrton would have been 162 today, so Google decided to honor her with a Doodle designed by artist Lydia Nichols.

Image from Google.com

Ayrton was the first woman to present a scientific finding to the esteemed British Royal Society, way back in 1904.

A painting of Ayrton. Image from Mme. Darmesteter/Wikimedia Commons.

This is the same society that heard presenters like Charles Darwin and Michael Faraday (one of the great founders of modern electric knowledge).

Ayrton's work was "The Origin and Growth of Ripple-mark," which helped explain ripple marks, those weird lines on beaches.

Image from Margaret W. Carruthers/Flickr.

If that seems silly, this is no eighth-grade science experiment. Fluid dynamics is incredibly weird and difficult, but Ayrton was a powerhouse of math and physics knowledge. Her discovery helped us better understand how fluids like air and water move, which affects things from water delivery to electric turbine design.

This wasn't Ayrton's only contribution to science.

Image from A. Rintel/Wikimedia Commons.

At the turn of the century, a new form of lighting had hit Britain: the electric arc lamp. The lights were bright and dependable but also had a weird tendency to hiss when they were turned on.

Well, it was Ayrton who figured out what that noise was. In 1899, she presented a paper, "The Hissing of the Electric Arc," to Britain's Institute of Electrical Engineers. She explained that the noise was from craters forming in the lamp's carbon rods. Two days later, they elected her as their first female member.

Unfortunately, the scientific community sometimes tried to hold her back because of her gender.

In 1901, she wrote another paper about electric arcs and tried to present it to the Royal Society. But the society had a man present her work instead.

"An error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat," she once said — a quote that I think might resonate with a lot of other female scientists.

Nevertheless, Ayrton continued to make significant contributions to electrical engineering.

She was never one to let people hold her back because of her gender, though. She was a keen supporter of women's suffrage in England.

A suffrage meeting in England circa 1908. Image from The New York Times/Wikimedia Commons.

She took part in a lot of marches and demonstrations, was a member of the Women's Social and Political Union, and either founded or help lead many other suffrage societies. She also opened her home to women who had been jailed after demonstrations and hunger strikes.

She was also a prolific inventor, and her inventions saved lives in World War I.

Image from Ernest Brooks/Wikimedia Commons.

By the time she died, she had 26 different patents under her belt. In 1915, Ayrton invented a fan that saved soldiers from the poisonous gas weapons of World War I.

Over 100,000 fans were sent to the battlefield.

Hertha Marks Ayrton was an awesome engineer, mathematician, physicist, inventor, and proponent of women's suffrage.

It kind of sucks that more people haven’t heard of her and that we needed a Google Doodle to find out about her. But it's still pretty powerful to see a big, public reminder of the huge number of amazing women who have had an impact on our world.

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