The Phisics of Santa Claus

binary_jester
binary_jester Posts: 3,311 Member
edited September 22 in Chit-Chat
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 anoint, 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 spacecrafts 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 17,500.06 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.

Love this and I love the rebuttals

http://web.archive.org/web/20041113092029/http://home.uchicago.edu/~rascalzo/arch/palace/library/humor-tech/santa-physics.html

http://www.angelfire.com/tn/EasyE/texts/proofsanta.html

Replies

  • xarrium
    xarrium Posts: 432 Member
    Haha, well, I was never really one for physics. :tongue:

    Although I do like the point about the fact that one can't rule out flying cloven-hoofed ungulates...
  • Kate_UK
    Kate_UK Posts: 1,299 Member
    :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I LOVE that! Thanks for sharing!
  • BJ, you never disappoint. Thanks, Buddy!!!:wink:
  • sherylhs
    sherylhs Posts: 141 Member
    You forgot to facter in the "magic dust"... man.
  • Scorpiomom222
    Scorpiomom222 Posts: 1,462 Member
    I LOVE this! haha It kinda puts in perspective that it COULD be possible, ya know?
    smiley-char153.gif
  • Lol, that's really cute! Thanks for the link, I will have to share that with my friends =D. I think it's interesting that it talks about delivering only to Christian homes...Christmas actually originated from a pagan holiday as the birthday of a sun god, and Constantine combined the Catholic Church and the Pagans together, so everyone could worship together on the same day, and they just said it was Jesus's birthday, even though there is no way Jesus was born in December. I think it would be more accurate to say Christmas is just tradition rather than a Christian holiday, considering it's never mentioned in the bible and the majority of the activities related to the holiday don't have anything to do with Christ...just a thought =)
  • Scorpiomom222
    Scorpiomom222 Posts: 1,462 Member
    I 100% agree, unworthyservant. lol
  • laddyboy
    laddyboy Posts: 1,565 Member
    You all forgot the most important thing here. The CHRIST in Christmas. With Jesus, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!
    Even delivering all those toys to all those stops in one night. And yes, even holding that 1 stop for over 31 hrs. LOL :laugh:

    Merry Christmas Everyone.
This discussion has been closed.