Waterpark

I went to my friend's birthday party at the waterpark and although I don't believe my friend sent it an invitation, physics definitely showed up! The fact that we were all pretty tanned and/ or sunburned afterwards proved that the ultra-violet part of the electromagnetic spectrum mitigated the practically futile efforts from our sunscreen. Many of the rides were basically slides of different shapes and forms. If gravity didn't exist, we would not accelerate down the slides and we wouldn't feel the thrill! On one particular ride, Raging River (shown above), there were many points at which we felt like the raft was going to fly off of the slide. However, the opposing force of gravity towards the center of the earth always kept us on the slide. We switched groups and I noticed that when we rode with the bigger guys, the raft was even closer to flying off of the slide. This is because the momentum was greater. Momentum=mv and the heavier guys added to the mass in the raft. Therefore, it took gravity longer to change the direction of the raft and we felt like we were going to continue flying off the slide. I guess it was a good thing that physics came otherwise this party would not have been as fun as it was.