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

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