flukey-lukey Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 I found this quite amusing..... (Apologies to those of you that still belive in Santa ) I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 1 in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist 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 that there is at least one good child in each. II. Santa has about 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 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 stockings, 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 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them --- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering 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 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to forces of 17,500 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. V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewen Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Dont believe everything an engineer tells you. Theres not just ONE Santa Claus, theres two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flukey-lukey Posted December 22, 2007 Author Share Posted December 22, 2007 OK so IF there were two they could halve the work, but its still very doubtful they would meet their target. Santa doesn't exist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyT Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Lol. Our limited knowledge of physics is woeful. The sleigh etc are rigged with inertial dampers.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Massey Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 i liked this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 There must be an enormous number of Santas as seen this type of thread more times than I can count. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flukey-lukey Posted December 22, 2007 Author Share Posted December 22, 2007 There must be an enormous number of Santas as seen this type of thread more times than I can count. Trust you Only counts as a repost on here if its been posted on here. If its another forum you've seen it on then thats your fault Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewen Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 OK so IF there were two they could halve the work, but its still very doubtful they would meet their target. Santa doesn't exist :pVery funny I'm sure, but you are not fooling me. I've seen the half eaten mince pies, the footprints on the carpet etc etc. I've even caught a glimpse of him, although why he was on top of my mother, I'm not quite sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flukey-lukey Posted December 22, 2007 Author Share Posted December 22, 2007 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Trust you Only counts as a repost on here if its been posted on here. If its another forum you've seen it on then thats your fault This'll count then. http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=30327 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flukey-lukey Posted December 22, 2007 Author Share Posted December 22, 2007 This'll count then. http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=30327 Three years ago.. doesn't count Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Three years ago.. doesn't count Rubbish. If my missus can use something I said three years ago against me in an argument then the same can go for reposting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobSheffield Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Someone told me its your parents that put the presents out, but i have a plan On Christmas eve im going to stay up really late - ill report back my findings Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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