A deep knowledge of how most feedbacks work within and between Earth's systems is still lacking.ģ.8 Earth's climate is an example of how complex interactions among systems can result in relatively sudden and significant changes. These new changes may take the form of "feedbacks" that can increase or decrease the original changes and can be unpredictable and/or irreversible. Components of Earth's systems may appear stable, change slowly over long periods of time, or change abruptly with significant consequences for living organisms.ģ.7 Changes in part of one system can cause new changes to that system or to other systems, often in surprising and complex ways. Earth gains mass from the impacts of meteoroids and comets and loses mass by the escape of gases into space.ģ.6 Earth's systems are dynamic they continually react to changing influences. Earth gains and loses energy through incoming solar radiation, heat loss to space, and gravitational forces from the sun, moon, and planets. Earth is a complex system of interacting rock, water, air, and life.ģ.3 Earth exchanges mass and energy with the rest of the Solar System. In this project, we are only talking about gravitational potential energy.Big Idea 3. *Note that there are other kinds of potential energy, like elastic potential energy (the energy you get when you stretch a rubber band). So if you had trouble, go back and try making your starting hill taller. You have to make sure your marble has enough potential energy to make it through your whole track. If you had any long, flat segments, the marble might have rolled to a stop because of friction. Since some energy is always lost to friction, your starting hill has to be taller than any other hills or loops in your coaster. To build a successful paper coaster, you had to take these factors into consideration. If the track is too long, friction might eventually cause the coaster to come to a complete stop. For example, the coaster cannot go through a loop or over a hill that is taller than the starting hill, because going higher would require more energy than it has available. That means coaster designers have to make sure the coaster has enough initial potential energy to make it through the rest of the track. This process continues as the coaster goes through loops, hills, and turns, until eventually it comes back to the beginning.ĭue to conservation of energy (the total amount of energy in the system must be conserved, or stay the same), the total amount of kinetic energy and energy lost due to friction can never be greater than the initial amount of potential energy that the coaster has. Some of the energy is also converted to heat due to air resistance and friction with the track, gradually causing the coaster to slow down. When the coaster goes back up another hill, it will lose kinetic energy (it will slow down) and gain some potential energy again. When the coaster starts going down the hill, the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, or the energy of the motion. Potential energy is "stored" because of an object's elevation, or height off the ground. Instead, they rely on gravitational potential energy*, which they gain by initially being towed up a large hill. Roller coasters are all about physics! Unlike other vehicles like cars and trains, roller coasters do not have an engine that propels them along the track.
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