Is There A Santa Claus?

[Hom3r]

As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help from that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.

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 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 (appeal) to handle the Muslin, Hindu, Jewish and 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, 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 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 all accept). We are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75 ½ million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per 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 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 pounds), 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 pounds. Even granting that “flying reindeer� (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the nominal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh ~ to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft’s 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 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 2 50-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,31 5,01 5 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams............

[WHISTLED]

I believe!!!!!!

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by WHISTLED

I believe!!!!!!

So do I.

Actually, change that, I know.

[ikthius]

he is real

ik

edit: I have a good mind to report your opening post.........

Besides which that report has failed utterly to take into account the billions of Santa's helpers in the form of stressed out parents single,double and every combination they come in not to forget the grandparents and other members of extended families.

Clarke's Third Law
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

btw, he must be real - every year my children (now 20 and 16, but still continuing with the process) put out a large glass of Single Malt (no ice, no water) and a mince pie, and in the morning they are gone.

[EBO48]

And you seem to forget santa is magic

Are you on the naughty list?

He will be....................

[handyman]

lets not forget to keep track of the chubby present deliverer.#
http://www.noradsanta.org/

[The Hitman]

I don't know about Santa Claus. But I do belive in Santa Fox. He is real. I can prooooove it. I have a pic of him

[greencreeper]

Interesting argument but you've overlooked temporal and quantum mechanics. If you imagine that all probabilities do occur, in different branches of time - sort of like a massive tree. And that movement between branches is possible. Then in theory Santa can, and does, complete the journey in, well, no time at all (i.e. zero seconds).

[CycoSymz]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

Interesting argument but you've overlooked temporal and quantum mechanics. If you imagine that all probabilities do occur, in different branches of time - sort of like a massive tree. And that movement between branches is possible. Then in theory Santa can, and does, complete the journey in, well, no time at all (i.e. zero seconds).

[Chicken]

353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

That makes the weight of the Queen to be ~88357 tons. Maybe she should go on a diet?

[WHISTLED]

Thanks for the Norad Sant thing, thats going to over 350 people at midnight.