The twister in the tail
QUESTION
I saw some footage of a terrifying roller-coaster-like amusement park ride that consisted of two twisting towers. Riders are fired up one, rocket down backwards, then go up the other. Where and what is it? IN 1996, Premier Rides of Maryland changed the roller- coaster landscape forever with the launch of two installations both named Outer Limits: Flight of Fear.
The rides at Paramount’s Kings Island, Mason, Ohio, and Paramount’s Kings Dominion, Doswell, Virginia, introduced Linear Induction Motors (LIMs) to the thrillride industry.
LIMs utilise electric ‘motors’ that create opposing magnetic fields to propel a conductive or magnetic plate connected to the train.
The old cables, pulley, and huge counterweight systems were horrible to maintain and launch speeds and intensity were limited, with top speeds of less than 60mph in six seconds.
The Outer Limits installations saw similar top speeds but accelerated to that speed i n half the time.
Swiss roller- coaster designer Intamin readily adopted this new technology to create an exhilarating thrill ride called the Linear Gale which was 630ft long, 180ft high with a max speed of 70mph and opened at Tokyo Domed City in 1998.
Dubbed an Impulse Coaster by Intamin, this worked like the one described, but it didn’t feature a twist. It was demolished in 2010.
In 2002, Intamin improved on the design by incorporating a twist.
Its first roller-coaster of this type was called Superman: Ultimate Escape (length 704ft, height 180ft, speed 70mph) at Six Flags Ohio, in Aurora, Ohio.
In 2006 the ride was dismantled and re-erected at Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom, Allentown, Pennsylvania, where it’s now called Possessed.
There are currently six working Intamin Impulse Coasters with a twist (including Possessed) functioning worldwide.
The others are Screaming Condor, Leofoo Village Theme Park, Guanxi Township, Hsinchu County, Taiwan (length: 630ft, height: 185ft, speed: 65mph); Vertical Velocity (V2), Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, Illinois ( length 630ft, height 185ft speed: 70mph); Steel Venom Valleyfair, Shakopee, Minnesota (length 630ft, height 175ft speed: 68mph) and the fastest Wicked Twister, Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio (length 675ft, height 215ft speed: 72mph). The Wicked Twister is one of the most exhilarating rides I’ve ever been on, offering a terrifying 90-degree drop – it’s certainly not for the faint-hearted.
John Day, Berkshire.
QUESTION
Where does the word ‘tombola’ originate?
A TOMBOLA is a now rather old-fashioned way of running a raffle.
The tickets are placed in a wooden barrel which is spun on an axle to mix them up, and then a winning ticket is drawn.
The word comes from the Italian tombolare meaning to ‘fall upside down’, and the word came via France to England.
We can see from its first recorded use in the 1880 novel Moth by Ouida (pen name of Maria Louise Ramé) – where a character remarks: ‘You have a tombola for a famine, you have dramatic performance for a flood, you have a concert for a fire’ – that in Britain the tombola has always been associated with fundraising purposes.
Stephen Aiano, Painswick, Gloucestershire.
QUESTION
When did marriage start and how did it spread? ANTHROPOLOGISTS believe the first humans, living between five and 1.8 million years ago, lived in groups. Families consisted of as many as 30 people, with several male leaders and multiple women shared by them, and children.
In the subsequent period (between 1.8million and 23,000 years ago), couples formed temporary connect i ons r ather t han l ong- t er m marriages.
To enhance the likelihood of their offspring’s survival, couples are thought to have stayed together for a three- to four-year period before one or the other would wander off to start another family.
This is pretty much the length of time at which divorce rates peak in modern marriages.
As hunter-gatherers settled down into agrarian civilisations, society needed more stable arrangements. The f i rst recorded evidence of marriage ceremonies uniting one woman and one man dates from about 2350BC, in Mesopotamia.
Over the next several hundred years, marriage evolved into a widespread institution embraced by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans.
Marriage in ancient societies was important because it ensured the continuation of the family line and provided social stability.
Arranged marriages were the norm, in which the couple had often never met, and in many early societies there were even bridal auctions where women were sold to the highest bidder.
Marriage’s primary purpose was to ensure a man’s biological line. In the betrothal ceremony of ancient Greece, a father would hand over his daughter with these words: ‘I pledge my daughter for the purpose of producing legitimate offspring.’
Among the ancient Hebrews, men were free to take several wives; married Greeks and Romans were free to satisfy their sexual urges with prostitutes and even teenage male lovers, while their wives were required to tend to the household.
If wives failed to produce offspring, their husbands could give them back and marry someone else.
For much of human history, couples were brought together for practical reasons, not love. In time, many marriage partners came to feel deep mutual love.
As far back as the Mesopotamian period there is evidence of romantic love in the titles of various poems such as: ‘ Sleep, begone! I want to hold my darling in my arms!’ and ‘When you speak to me, you make my heart swell till I could die!’
But the notion of romantic love as a motivating factor behind marriage dates only from the Middle Ages.
In the 12th century, Andreas Capell anus produced his treatise De Amore (‘About Love’) describing the dos and don’ts of courtly love.
Many similar tracts followed such as Richard de Fournival’s Advice On Love. And literature featuring courtly romance proliferated, perhaps most famously in Lancelot and King Arthur’s wife Guinevere’s illicit affair. The idea of monogamous marriage was cemented by the growing power of the Catholic Church.
By the eighth century, marriage was widely accepted as a sacrament. The sacramental nature of marriage was written into canon law by the Council of Trent in 1563.
Fiona Appleyard, Norwich.
QUESTION
How long has the pole vault been an Olympic sport?
THE pole vault has been an Olympic sport since the Games were renewed in 1896 in Athens, although it was not part of the Ancient Games.
Pole-vaulting has its origins in the marshes of eastern England and provinces such as Friesland in the Netherlands.
The idea was that poles were used as a practical means of passing over natural obstacles without getting wet and avoiding tedious roundabout journeys over bridges.
One of the earliest pole-vaulting competitions where height was measured took place at the Ulverston Football and Cricket Club, Lancashire in 1843.
Modern competition began around 1850 in Germany, when pole-vaulting was added to the exercises of the Turner gymnastic clubs by Johann C.F. GutsMuths and Friedrich L. Jahn. The modern pole-vaulting technique was developed in the United States at the end of the 19th century.
Initially, vaulting poles were made from stiff materials such as bamboo or aluminum.
The introduction of flexible vaulting poles in the early 1950s made from composites such as fiberglass or carbon fiber allowed vaulters to achieve greater height.
The current Olympic champion is Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie; the women’s champion is American Jenn Suhr.
Lavillenie also holds the men’s world record at 6.16m, breaking Sergey Bubka’s mark of 61.4m which had stood for 20 years.
Yelena Isinbayeva is the women’s record holder which continually improved since 2004 and which stands at 5.06m.
Stephen Moore, by email.