The cars on a typical roller coaster are not self-powered. Instead, a standard full-circuit lift-powered coaster is pulled up with a chain or cable along the lift hill to the first peak of the coaster track. Then potential energy becomes kinetic energy as the cars race down the first downward slope. Kinetic energy is converted back into potential energy as the train moves up again to the second peak. This is necessarily lower as some mechanical energy is lost due to friction. Then the train goes down again, and up, and so on. However, not all coasters run this way. The train may be set into motion by a launch mechanism (flywheel launch, linear induction motors, linear synchronous motors, hydraulic launch, compressed air launch, drive tire, etc.). Some coasters move back and forth along the same section of track; these roller coasters are called shuttles because of this motion and usually run the circuit once with riders moving forwards and then backwards through the same course. Some roller coasters are powered by a kind of locomotive.
A properly designed roller coaster under good conditions will have enough kinetic, or moving, energy to complete the entire course, at the end of which brakes bring the train to a complete stop and it is pushed into the station. A brake run at the end of the circuit is the most common method of bringing the roller coaster ride to a stop.

The earliest roller coasters descended from Russian winter sled rides held on specially constructed hills of ice, especially around St Petersburg. They were usually built 70 to 80 feet tall and consisted of a 50 degree drop. By the late 1700s their popularity was such that entrepreneurs elsewhere began copying the idea, using wheeled cars built on tracks. One such company was Les Montagnes Russes à Belleville which constructed and operated a gravity track in Paris from 1812. The first loop track was probably also built in Paris from an English design in 1846, with a single-person wheeled sled running through a 13-foot diameter loop. None of these tracks were complete circuits. To this day, a number of languages (Danish, French, Portuguese, Spanish) use the equivalent of Russian mountains to refer to roller coasters.



The first roller coasters in the USA were based on gravity switchback trains developed in the 1880s. These primitive coasters were run to provide amusement by railroad companies on weekends when ridership was lower. The earliest complete circuit track appeared in 1884, and in 1885 Phillip Hinkle introduced the concept of the "lift hill."

As roller coasters grew in popularity, experimentation in coaster dynamics took off. As early as the 1880s, the concept of a vertical loop was explored, and in 1895 the concept came into fruition with The Flip Flap, located at Sea Lion Park in Brooklyn, and shortly afterward with the "Loop-the-Loop" at Olentangy Park near Columbus, Ohio. The rides were incredibly dangerous, and many passengers suffered whiplash. Both were soon dismantled, and looping coasters had to wait for over a half century before making a safer reappearance.



By 1912, the first underfriction coaster was developed by John Miller, often called the Thomas Edison of roller coasters. Soon, roller coasters spread to amusement parks all around the United States and the rest of the world. Perhaps the best known historical roller coaster, The Cyclone, was opened at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York in 1927. Like The Cyclone, all early roller coasters were made of wood. Many old wooden roller coasters are still operational, at parks such as Kennywood near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Blackpool Pleasure Beach, England. The oldest operating roller coaster is Leap the Dips at Lakemont Park in Pennsylvania, a side friction roller coaster built in 1902.

The Great Depression marked the end of the first Golden Age of roller coasters. Theme parks in general went into a decline that lasted until 1972, when the Racer was built at Kings Island in Mason, Ohio (near Cincinnati). Designed by John Allen, the instant success of the Racer began a second golden age, which continues through this writing (2006). The first modern-day roller coaster to perform a 360-degree inverting element was the Corkscrew located at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California, which opened in 1975 and was designed by Arrow Dynamics of Utah.

In 1959, the Disneyland theme park introduced a new design breakthrough in roller coasters with the Matterhorn Bobsleds. This was the first roller coaster to use a tubular steel track. Unlike conventional wooden rails, tubular steel can be bent in any direction, which allows designers to incorporate loops, corkscrews, and many other maneuvers into their designs. Most modern roller coasters are made of steel but wooden roller coasters are still being built.

New roller coaster designs and state of the art technology push the physical limits on what type of experiences can be had on the newest coasters. For example, coasters like the Incredible Hulk Coaster feature launched lift hills to create a unique experience.