Please find below a scientific investigation into Santa Claus.
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are3 00,000 species of
living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects
and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only
Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since
Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish & Buddhist
children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million
according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average census) rate of
3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes
there's at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due 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/second.
This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa
has .001 second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill
the stockings, distribute the remaining presents 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
around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the
purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78
miles/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to
do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding &
etc.
So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/second, 3,000 times the speed
of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on
earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles/second. A
conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/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 lb.), the
sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably
described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more
than 300 lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) could pull10
TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9 reindeer.;
We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of
the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the
ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air
resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a
spacecraft re-entering the earth's 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, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire
reindeer team will be vaporised within .00426 of a second. Meanwhile,
Santa will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than
gravity. A 250-LB Santa (seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the
back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force.
If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are3 00,000 species of
living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects
and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only
Santa has ever seen.
2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since
Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish & Buddhist
children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million
according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average census) rate of
3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes
there's at least one good child in each.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due 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/second.
This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa
has .001 second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill
the stockings, distribute the remaining presents 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
around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the
purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78
miles/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to
do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding &
etc.
So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/second, 3,000 times the speed
of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on
earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles/second. A
conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/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 lb.), the
sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably
described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more
than 300 lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) could pull10
TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9 reindeer.;
We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of
the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the
ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air
resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a
spacecraft re-entering the earth's 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, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire
reindeer team will be vaporised within .00426 of a second. Meanwhile,
Santa will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than
gravity. A 250-LB Santa (seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the
back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force.
If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
