Life is full of ups and downs – especially at an amusement park.

• What force keeps the roller coaster moving and prevents it from falling?
• What force do we feel on the carousel?
• What force controls the trajectory of a thrown ball?

Visitors to the exhibition can experience these forces, see them in action, and understand the common principles underlying them – Newton’s Laws of Motion: inertia, acceleration, action and reaction.

The forces governing the amusement park are stimulus and attraction, gravity and friction.

• Gravitational force always pulls directly downward (towards the center of the earth).
• Friction between two bodies always works in resistance to the relative movement between them, thus diminishing or completely preventing it.
• Stimulus and attraction act, of course, in the direction of the stimulus or the attraction.
• These forces operate in accordance with Newton’s Laws:
• The law of inertia: objects at rest remain at rest, and objects in motion remain in motion with the same speed, unless acted upon by a force such as stimulus or attraction.
• The law of acceleration: the stronger the force applied, the greater the change.
• The law of action and reaction (also known as the law of stimulus and response): for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

When visiting the roller coaster, carousel, and bumper car exhibits, can you tell which of Newton’s laws is the driving force behind each?

The exhibition is a joint venture of the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem and Technoda Dorset, Givat Olga, with the support of the Edmund Benjamin de Rothschild Caesarea Foundation.

---

Curator: Dr. Diana Alderoqui Pinus

Scientific Consultants: Professor Peter Hillman, Dr. Gadi Mador, Dr. Paul Glick, Dr. Amir Ben Shalom.

Exhibits: Dr. Amir Ben Shalom, Yossi Antokolitz, Yossi Bachar

Design: Ami Derech, Dov Genashero

Graphic Design and Illustrations: Vadik Backman

Engineering Design: “Innovative” Engineering

Educational Program: Nurit Snir, Dr. Nava Shaul, Na’ama Even Paz

Production Manager: Uri Sinai

Production and Construction: Workshop staff, Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem