OBI WAN
12-13-04, 09:50 PM
NOT INTENDED FOR CHILDREN UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research
help form that renowned scientific journal, Spy Magazine,
(January, 1990), I am pleased to present the annual scientific
inquiry into Santa Clause.
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But, there are 300,000
species of living organisms yet to be classified and while most
of these are insects and germs, this does not entirely rule out
flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion Children (persons under the age of 18) in
the world. BUT since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim,
Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload
to 15% of the total or 378 million according the Population
Reference Bureau,1990. At an average rate of 3.5 children per
household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there's
at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he
travels east to west, which seems logical. This works out to
822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian
household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to
park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the
stockings, distribute gifts under the tree, eat whatever snacks
have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the
sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of
these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed, (which we know
to be false but for the purposes of our calculations will accept
anyway), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a
total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what
most of us do at least once in 31 hours after consuming
countless snacks.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per
second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of
comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth (besides
Santa's sleigh), is the Ulysses space probe. It moves along at
a poky 27.4 miles per second. A conventional reindeer can run,
TOPS, 15 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element.
Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized
Lego set (2 lbs) the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not
counting Santa, who is invariably describes as overweight. On
land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds.
Even granting that "flying reindeer"" (see point #1) could pull
ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight or
even nine reindeer. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases
the payload – not even counting the sleigh – to 353,430 tons.
Again for comparison, this is four times the weight of the Queen
Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons, traveling at 650 miles per second, creates
enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the
same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere. The
lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of
energy. PER SECOND. EACH. In short, they will burst into
flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them,
creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire
reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a
second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal
forces 17,5000.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb Santa,
(which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of
his sleigh by 4,315,015 lbs of force.
The conclusion:
If Santa ever DID deliver presents to all the good little boys and
girls on Christmas Eve, He's dead now.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good-night.
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research
help form that renowned scientific journal, Spy Magazine,
(January, 1990), I am pleased to present the annual scientific
inquiry into Santa Clause.
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But, there are 300,000
species of living organisms yet to be classified and while most
of these are insects and germs, this does not entirely rule out
flying reindeer, which only Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion Children (persons under the age of 18) in
the world. BUT since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim,
Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload
to 15% of the total or 378 million according the Population
Reference Bureau,1990. At an average rate of 3.5 children per
household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there's
at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he
travels east to west, which seems logical. This works out to
822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian
household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to
park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the
stockings, distribute gifts under the tree, eat whatever snacks
have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the
sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of
these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed, (which we know
to be false but for the purposes of our calculations will accept
anyway), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a
total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what
most of us do at least once in 31 hours after consuming
countless snacks.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per
second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of
comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth (besides
Santa's sleigh), is the Ulysses space probe. It moves along at
a poky 27.4 miles per second. A conventional reindeer can run,
TOPS, 15 miles per hour.
4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element.
Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized
Lego set (2 lbs) the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not
counting Santa, who is invariably describes as overweight. On
land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds.
Even granting that "flying reindeer"" (see point #1) could pull
ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight or
even nine reindeer. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases
the payload – not even counting the sleigh – to 353,430 tons.
Again for comparison, this is four times the weight of the Queen
Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons, traveling at 650 miles per second, creates
enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the
same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere. The
lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of
energy. PER SECOND. EACH. In short, they will burst into
flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them,
creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire
reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a
second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal
forces 17,5000.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb Santa,
(which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of
his sleigh by 4,315,015 lbs of force.
The conclusion:
If Santa ever DID deliver presents to all the good little boys and
girls on Christmas Eve, He's dead now.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good-night.