Santa Claus and the laws of physics

[Jacques]

There are no known species of reindeer that 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.

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.

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.

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" 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 (the ship, not the monarch).

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 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 17,500 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.

P.S. If we assume that a mere 1% of those 2 billion children (20 million) leave santa a mince pie and each mince pie averages only 100 calories, 3500 calories equating to 1 pound in body fat, that's 5714285 pounds, or 2,592 metric tons gained in one single night.

No wonder he's a fat fucker.

[davewells]

On a particular Christmas season a long time ago, Santa was getting
ready for his annual trip, but there were problems everywhere. Four
of his elves got sick, and the trainee elves did not produce the toys
as fast as the regular ones so Santa was beginning to feel the
pressure of being behind schedule.

Then Mrs. Claus told Santa that her mom was coming to visit. This
stressed Santa even more. When he went to harness the reindeer, he
found that three of them were about to give birth and two had jumped
the fence and were out, heaven knows where. More stress.

Then when he began to load the sleigh one of the boards cracked, and
the toy bag fell to the ground and scattered the toys. So,
frustrated, Santa went into the house for a cup of apple cider* and a
shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered that the
elves had hidden the liquor, and there was nothing to drink. In his
frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider pot, and it broke into
hundreds of little pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get
the broom and found that mice had eaten the straw end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritable Santa trudged to the door.
He opened the door, and there was a little fairy with a great big
Christmas tree. The fairy said, very cheerfully, "Hi Santa. Isn't it
a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like
me to stick it?" Thus began the tradition of the little fairy on top
of the Christmas tree.