Transcript: Buckets and marbles

Can you put a bucket of water over your head without getting wet? Or pick up a marble, using nothing but a glass?

Both challenges are possible, and use similar science to theme park rides.

Let’s start with the bucket of water. To get it upside down without spilling any, all you have to do is swing it in giant circles, like this. Inertia is the force that is pushing the water outwards, keeping it in the bucket.

It’s the same principle with the marble. To pick it up off the table using only the glass, you need to get it in a spinning motion.

If you spin the marble around the edge of the glass fast enough, you can pick up the glass and the marble will come too. The moving marble wants to fly off in a straight line as it’s flung around, but the glass is holding it inwards.

When the objects are spinning fast enough, inertia pushes against the glass or bucket with a force greater than gravity – just like in these next two theme park rides.