Re: An Engineer's Analysis of Santa Claus

["Roland" <roland@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am the only Santa. Fat, gray beard and all the trimmings.

"Mark Leuck" <m..leuck@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:rNydnedzX_YGegfYnZ2dnUVZ_tOmnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 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.
>> >
>>
>>
>
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