[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.
To a warden Utopia is an escape-proof jail. - Mark Twain
Fame is proof that the people are gullible. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Logic is neither science nor an art, but a dodge. - Benjamin Jowett
There would be no Christmas if there was no Easter. - Gordon B. Hinckley
A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost. - Alfred North Whitehead
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin
In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting. - Lord Kelvin
I have the proof, but there isn't room to write it in the margin. - Unknown
Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result. - Oscar Wilde
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. - John Dewey
There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality. - Steven Spielberg
Working constantly may be visible proof that deep inside we do not trust God. - Bill Bright
No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power. - Jacob Bronowski
Mail your packages early, so the Post Office can lose them in time for Christmas. - Johnny Carson
Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa. - Bart Simpson
Scientists discover the world that exists; engineers create the world that never was. - Theodore von Karman
Aviation is proof that given the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible. - Edward V Richenbacher
It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us. - Peter De Vries
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly; devils fall because of their gravity. - G K Chesterton
If 'ifs and buts' were 'candy and nuts', we'd have Christmas every day. - Unknown
Mathematics is the cheapest science. All one needs for mathematics is a pencil and a paper. - George Polya
Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response. - Arthur Schlesinger
No matter how carefully you stored the lights last year, they will be snarled again this Christmas. - Robert Kirby
Hope is tenacious. It goes on living and working when science has dealt it what should be its deathblow. - Paul L Dunbar
We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. - Carl Sagan
Might make a real good Christmas present for the uninformed. The book is called 'Taking America Back.' - Paul Harvey
I gave my young nephew a book for Christmas. He's spent six months looking for where to put the batteries. - Milton Berle
Art is made to disturb. Science reassures. There is only one valuable thin in art: the thing you cannot explain. - Georges Braque
Mathematics is the only science where one never knows what one is talking about nor whether what is said is true. - Bertrand Russell
It is mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the center of gravity of the universe. - Thomas Carlyle
I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent back a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof. - Rodney Dangerfield
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man’s upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground floor. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
So long as the mother, ignorance, lives, it is not safe for science, the offspring, to divulge the hidden cause of things. - Johannes Kepler
Did you read about Starbucks? No more "Merry Christmas" at Starbucks. No more. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks. - Donald Trump
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. - Mark Twain
Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practiced for a good many years. - Prince Philip
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. - Bertrand Russell
When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. - Corrie Ten Boom
Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks; but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house. - Henri Poincare
see also Christmas & Engineering Sections
Modern Santa Claus
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 Build Back Better - Season 2 |  Build Back Better - Season 1 |  Zamboni Date |  Bagpipe Runners |  9 Months On The Inside |
 Noah Called |  The Mighty Stegosaurus |  Get A Dog They Said |  Are You Ready? |  Down Day |
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23-May-2022 |