Re: An Engineer's Analysis of Santa Claus

["Mark Leuck" <m..leuck@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

He also doesn't take into account that multiple Santa's may exist

"Doug" <not@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dFumh.14477$2U4.6804@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Then how  do you explain all the presents under the tree on Christmas
day?.
>
> Doug
>
> --
>
> "Stanley Barthfarkle" <sbarth@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:XkEjh.2399$sR.1246@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Engineers take all the fun out of Christmas...
> >
> > There are approximately two and
> > one-half 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 workload for
> > Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the
> > population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5
> > children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there
> > is at least one good child in each.
> >
> > Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the
> > different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to
> > 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 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump
> > down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents
> > under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up
> > the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.
> >
> > Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed
> > around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept
> > for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.7
> > miles per household; a total trip of 75.6 million miles, not counting
> > bathroom stops or breaks.
> >
> > This means Santa's sleigh is moving faster than 675 miles per second --
> > 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes 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 (at best) run at the rate of
> > 15 miles per hour.
> >
> > The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming
> > that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (about
> > three pounds), the sleigh is carrying approximately 570 thousand tons,
> > not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no
> > more than 300 pounds. Even granting that a "flying" reindeer could pull
> > 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even
> > nine of them -- Santa would need 378,000 of them. This increases the
> > payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 38,000 tons, or
> > roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the
> > monarch).
> >
> > Six hundred thousand tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates
> > enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same
> > fashion as a spacecraft reentering 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 into flames almost instantaneously,
> > exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in
> > their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26
> > thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth
> > house on his trip.
> >
> > Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating
> > from a dead stop to 650 mps. in 0.001 seconds, would be subjected to
> > acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250-pound Santa (which seems
> > ludicrously slim) 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. Merry Christmas.
> >
>
>