[Looks like this engineer had nothing better to do with his time, so he came
up with a mathematical proof for the non-existence of 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 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 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 travelling 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.
see also
Christmas &
Engineering Sections
 I Can Still Kiss You |
 Church Dinner |
 59 Chev Boat |
 Urgent World War I Message |
 An Iceberg Floated Into Town |
 Walk Sign Timing |
 Family Hands |
 Chocolate Bed |
 Crocodile Floor |
 Texas 911 |
 Walk Sign Ending |
 Mower Handle Extender |
Voted #1 Humor Site
