Why do I love rollercoasters?

Why do I love rollercoasters?

Author: BBC World Service September 4, 2026 Duration: 29:09

Your heart pounds, your chest tightens, your stomach drops and your legs feel weak and shaky. Your palms are sweating and a tingling rush spreads through your arms and fingertips as your brain is overwhelmed with feelings of tension and fear. And yet, you’ve asked for this. You wanted to be on this ride, at this theme park, hurtling towards the ground at a frightening speed. But why?

An adrenaline rush is the body’s fight-or-flight response to intense fear, stress or excitement. It sends signals from the brain to the body, releasing hormones and redirecting the flow of blood around our veins. It’s designed to help us survive dangerous situations – so why would we deliberately want to put ourselves into those situations, just to feel the rush?

That’s the question from CrowdScience listener Gunnar, aged 11, in Washington State USA. He wants to know why we try and seek an adrenaline rush by doing wild and crazy things, and CrowdScience’s wild and crazy Alex Lathbridge is on the case.

Andy Hine, from the Rollercoaster Club of Great Britain, gives us a potted global history of the rollercoaster, revealing that it all started with Russian ice. Inevitably it’s not long before we start discussing ‘G-force’, so Canadian astronaut Dr Shawna Pandya explains what that means, and how it affects you when a rollercoaster is hurtling downwards or looping the loop.

But what’s going on in our bodies and brains when we experience these forces? Brendan Walker is Professor of Creative Industries at Middlesex University in the UK. He tells Alex that a rollercoaster is a giant industrial machine which has been engineered to process humans, a little bit like tins in a factory, to deliver an ingredient. That ingredient is thrill – so how do they do it?

Alex takes a ride on ‘Rage’ at Adventure Island in Southend on Sea in the UK to find out. Brendan claims that this ride is, scientifically speaking, the most thrilling rollercoaster in the country. Even Adventure Island owner Philip Miller declines to join Alex for a ride, but will it help Alex understand why Gunnar likes them so much?

Presenter: Alex Lathbridge

Producers: Harrison Lewis and Emily Knight

Editor: Ben Motley

(Photo: Spiraling Roller Coaster - stock photo- Credit: Alan Schein Photography via Getty Images)


Curiosity drives discovery, and CrowdScience from the BBC World Service is built entirely on that principle. Each episode begins not with a scripted lesson, but with a question sent in by a listener from anywhere in the world. These aren't simple queries with easy answers; they are the wonderfully complex, often quirky puzzles about everyday phenomena and cosmic mysteries that make us all stop and wonder. What does silence sound like? Could we ever photosynthesize like plants? How does a crowd's mood physically spread? The team then embarks on a genuine investigative journey, tracking down the specialists at the very edge of our understanding-neuroscientists, ecologists, physicists, and engineers-to piece together credible, compelling answers. Listening to this podcast feels like having a direct line to the labs and field sites where knowledge is being created. The conversations are deep yet accessible, transforming abstract concepts into relatable stories. It’s a collective exploration where listener curiosity sets the agenda, making each episode a unique and democratic look at the machinery of our world and beyond. You become part of a global community pondering life, Earth, and the universe, one thoughtful question at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

CrowdScience
Podcast Episodes
Can we cancel light waves? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
Noise cancelling headphones filter out sound waves that we don’t want to hear. Listener Ahmed in Libya loves wearing his and, as he was listening to them, he had a thought: ‘Could we cancel out light waves in a similar w…
Do multiple choice questions make us biased? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:01
CrowdScience listener Griffith in Ghana, isn’t JUST a CrowdScience listener. He’s also a listener to our sister show on the World Service, Unexpected Elements. But he’s noticed something funny. In the weekly Unexpected E…
Why do I tan more in the US? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
CrowdScience listener Namrata and presenter Chhavi Sachdev have something in common. They both get more tanned in the summer in the United States than back home in India. Namrata wants to know why she came back from her…
Do fish know what they look like? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
There’s something fishy going on in the Czech Republic, where CrowdScience listener Ian lives. He keeps tropical fish, and he’s noticed that when he adds new ones to his tank, they swim with others of the same breed. He…
Why do I find silence unbearable? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:27
Is silence blood-curdling or blissful? CrowdScience listener Ziqi finds it intolerable and thinks that there’s a good reason for it – silence is so rare in nature that it could be a signal for danger. Presenter Marnie Ch…
How do cicadas know what season it is? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:29
Crowdscience listener Ryosuke grew up in Japan, and spent his childhood summers catching cicadas in the park. For people in Japan, the sound of their chirping signals the first true summer day. But until they emerge, the…
Did I inherit my laugh? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:28
CrowdScience listener Limbikani in Zambia is always being told he has his Dad’s laugh, so he set us the challenge of trying to find out whether a laugh can be passed down in our genes or if it’s something we learn from o…
The CrowdScience quiz of the year [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:57
In 2025, the crack team of intrepid presenters here on CrowdScience have been on some incredible adventures. They’ve wondered whether water is wet, and gone a hunt for a missing tangerine. They’ve wondered why animals sw…
How do we adapt to the cold? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:29
When some people are wandering around in shorts and a t-shirt, others are wrapped up in warm coats and jumpers. How come our responses to cold weather are so different? People have been living in cold environments for th…
Can you play the guitar underwater? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:29
Smashing up guitars is a classic rock star activity, but how about drowning them? Seven-year-old listener Cornelius asked CrowdScience to find out what happens if you play a guitar underwater. Could this be the next avan…