movingviolation
In Thrust I Trust
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2003
- Posts
- 112
The truth about Santa
CHRISTMAS
There are approximatley two billion children (persons under 18) in the world.
However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or
Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workland for
Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 379 million (according to the population
reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per houshold,
that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there at least one good child in
each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas work with, thanks to the different
time zones and the rotation of the assuming east to the west (which seems
logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for
each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 th of a
second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking,
distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat what ever snack that have
been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto
the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evently
distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will
except for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78
miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom
stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,
000 times the speed of sound. For purpose of comparison, the fastest man made
vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a
conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. The pay load of the
sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing
more than medium sized LEGO set (2 pounds) the sleigh is carrying over 500,000
tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no
more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times
the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa
would need 360, 000 reindeer. This increases the payload, not counting the
weight of the sleigh, another 54, 000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of
the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). A mass of nearly 600,000 tons
traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would
heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's
atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of
energy per second each. In short, they would burst in to flames almost
instantaneously, exposing the riendeer behind them and creating deafening sonic
booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized in 4.26
thousands of a second, or right about the time that Sant reaches the 5th house
on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of
accelerating from a dead stop to 650 mph in 0.001 seconds, would be a subject to
acceleration forces of 17,000 gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously
slim considering the high calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years)
would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force,
instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of
pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now . . . (fat bastard).
CHRISTMAS
There are approximatley two billion children (persons under 18) in the world.
However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or
Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workland for
Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 379 million (according to the population
reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per houshold,
that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there at least one good child in
each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas work with, thanks to the different
time zones and the rotation of the assuming east to the west (which seems
logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for
each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 th of a
second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking,
distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat what ever snack that have
been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto
the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evently
distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will
except for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78
miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom
stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,
000 times the speed of sound. For purpose of comparison, the fastest man made
vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a
conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. The pay load of the
sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing
more than medium sized LEGO set (2 pounds) the sleigh is carrying over 500,000
tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no
more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times
the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa
would need 360, 000 reindeer. This increases the payload, not counting the
weight of the sleigh, another 54, 000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of
the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). A mass of nearly 600,000 tons
traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would
heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's
atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of
energy per second each. In short, they would burst in to flames almost
instantaneously, exposing the riendeer behind them and creating deafening sonic
booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized in 4.26
thousands of a second, or right about the time that Sant reaches the 5th house
on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of
accelerating from a dead stop to 650 mph in 0.001 seconds, would be a subject to
acceleration forces of 17,000 gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously
slim considering the high calorie snacks he must have consumed over the years)
would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force,
instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of
pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now . . . (fat bastard).
