Episode
NOVA: Roller Coaster!
Overview
NOVA takes viewers on the ride of their lives as it explores the science of roller coasters, where physics and psychology meet. New rides of the future may take place entirely in the mind—with virtual reality.
Details
- Series
- NOVA
- Season
- Season 20
- Episode
- Episode 16
- Air date
- 1993-11-16
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
Roller Coaster! is Episode 16 in Season 20 of NOVA. It aired on 1993-11-16. The runtime is 55 min.
Previous / Next
Episode 15: The Real Jurassic Park
With help from director Steven Spielberg, author Michael Crichton and a host of scientific experts , NOVA investigates what it would take to recreate the dinosaur theme park in Jurassic Park. It won't be as easy as it was for Hollywood.
Episode 17: Mysterious Crash of Flight 201
US federal investigators are called in to determine the cause of a mysterious jetliner crash in Panama. Nothing about the accident makes sense, until a key clue emerges.
More episodes from this season
Episode 14: Shadow of the Condor
NOVA soars with the condor, an extraordinary bird that lives a tenuous existence in the California mountains and the Andes of South America. Footage includes never-before-photographed nesting sites in the cliffs of Patagonia.
Episode 18: Great Moments from NOVA
Bill Cosby guides viewers through the most exciting footage from two decades of NOVA in a 20th anniversary salute. Real-life action, adventure, mystery, drama and non-stop discovery fill this 90-minute special.
Episode 13: Dying to Breathe
NOVA covers the tense vigil of three people with terminal lung disease as they await the most complex of all organ transplants—a new lung. Months of waiting end in a few frenzied hours of intricate surgery.
Episode 19: The Best Mind Since Einstein
A profile of the late Richard Feynman—atomic bomb pioneer, Nobel prize-winning physicist, acclaimed teacher and all-around eccentric, who helped solve the mystery of the space shuttle Challenger explosion.
Episode 12: Secrets of the Psychics
Secrets of the Psychics was a PBS NOVA episode following James Randi's work. Also appearing in stock footage are Peter Popoff, Uri Geller, and many others.
In the program, "Randi argues that successful psychics depend on the willingness of their audiences to believe that what they see is the result of psychic powers."
This program is not to be confused with a later UK documentary Secrets of the Psychics, which was transmitted under this title as well as Secrets of the Super Psychics.
Episode 20: Stranger in the Mirror
NOVA explores the nature of human perception through the puzzling condition called visual agnosia, the inability to recognize faces and familiar objects, made famous in Oliver Sacks' book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.
Episode 11: Wanted: Butch and Sundance
Forensic sleuth Clyde Snow and a posse of experts travel to Bolivia in search of the remains of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They find Hollywood and legend got a few things wrong.
Episode 10: The NOVA Quiz
NOVA fans from around the country match wits in a fast-paced contest of general science knowledge celebrating NOVA's 20th anniversary. Famous guests pose questions for the viewers at home. Marc Summers hosts.
Episode 9: The Lost Tribe
NOVA covers both sides of the stormy controversy over the Tasaday tribe. When these isolated cave dwellers were discovered in the Philippines in 1971, they were hailed as a Stone Age relic. Now, many anthropologists denounce them as fakes.
Episode 8: Murder, Rape and DNA
Wherever we shed our body cells, we leave an indisputable identity card: our DNA. NOVA investigates the new science of DNA typing which is putting increasing numbers of murderers and rapists behind bars.