WHITIE [log in to unmask]
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Subject: santa claus....is there such a thing?
As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research =
help from that renown 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 flyin=
g
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 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 hom=
es.
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 trav=
els
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 lef=
t,
get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the
next house. Assuming that each of the 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 per household, a total trip of 75 1/2 millio=
n
miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least onc=
e
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 granti=
ng
that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the norma=
l
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 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 vaporized within 4.26 =
thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to
centrifugal forces 175,000.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pou=
nd
Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of =
his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
In Conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve,
he's dead now.
