> > From: John M. Danskin > > Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 10:18:53 -0500 > > 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. > > IS THERE A 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 (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 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 will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per > household, a total trip of 75-1/2 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 normal 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 traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air > resistance -- this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a > spacecraft reentering 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 > 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound 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.