Topic awaiting preservation: Science and Santa (Page 1 of 1)

A friend share this with me thought you guys would like it:

The Science of Santa

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 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 traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as 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 17,500.06 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.
However, I could be wrong.

If one match can start a forest fire then why does it take the whole box to start a BBQ Grill?

An old classic, but still good though

As one of the Asylum's confirmed Santa-ists, allow me to address each of these points:

1) Like you said, we still don't have all species of life forms on this planet of ours classified.

2) Santa could care less about a household's religion, but he will not show up if he is not invited (that would be rude..). When my ex-wife disinvited Santa, he never again visited our place.

3) There is a theory of Physics that states that if over 8 reindeer and one person are moving together at an altitude exceeding 1200 ft and have reached a speed of 271mph, both Time and Space are 'folded' allowing almost instantaneous travel between two points.

It has been suggested that this also has some age-negating effects on all involved, which might explain why Santa and crew are still with us after all these years.

4) Although an average reindeer on land may be limited to 300 lb., you must remember two things- they are pulling this payload thru the air and these are not your ordinary reindeer....

What do you think Santa and those reindeer do all year round at the North Pole? There is no cable and satellite reception sucks. So most of their time is spent training both in and out of the gym. There are rumors that both Santa and the sleigh crew may not be all natural....but hey, anabolics are not controlled substances at the North Pole. Obviously Santa doesn't do much cardio, but that would actually be counter productive in his case. He just needs to be able to move a very heavy bag a short distance. I've heard that when the Jolly Old Elf feels like showing off he deadlifts the loaded sleigh for reps!

5) I believe we have already addressed this, since we have established that the rate of travel never actually exceeds 271mph.

Bottom line here is that there are always plenty of reasons not to believe, just like there are plenty of reasons to be grumpy, or mean, or just plain jaded by life. Some of us, however, prefer to keep a sense of wonder because of the joy and happiness it brings to ourselves and to others.

So what are u suggesting?
That there is no Santa?

Standard reply to this story: (Yes, I'm recyclin')

and that must be the image that made me laugh the very hardest the first time I've seen it, of all the images I've ever seen.

thank you mahjqa.

PS: Put an Asylum logo in the back, and we'd have a new christmas logo ;-)

I did not say there was no Santa Claus I merely said that these are points that say there is a good chance that he doesn't exist.
Also points that I found funny that somebody has that much time on his hands to figure it out.


Norm, I would also like to make the point that America is one the only countries that originally portrayed Santa as fat. All the others either portrayed him or pportray him as skinny. And now only portray him as fat because of the media and conglomerates.

If one match can start a forest fire then why does it take the whole box to start a BBQ Grill?

Come on, people. The old reindeer-and-sled story is an artifact from the early days of Christmas, when there were far fewer people on earth and Santa was more or less a local phenomenon. It is a well-known fact (at least I thought it was well-known) that Santa now uses cutting edge technology (including but not limited to teleportation and cloning) to make sure Christmas presents are delivered on time.

It is a slightly lesser-known fact that all of that technology the U.S. military/NASA/etc. claims to have invented was actually acquired in shady deals with disgruntled elves. There are some who say that Santa himself made these deals, and in return the beneficiaries of his technology agreed to turn a blind eye to his blatant human (er, elvish) rights abuses. That's most likely just a vicious rumor, though.

___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org | Cell 270 | Sig Rotator | Hooray for linguistic idiots and yak milk!

I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but Santa was real, and still is... in some sense of the word.

I haven't really been working for an IT company in London - that's just my cover during the 'off' season (anytime but winter).

I am, in fact, an IT elf.

My job involves maintaining all the systems vital to our operations up at the North Pole. We run a bespoke version of Linux (a bit like Red Hat, but with a bobble on it and some fur trim).

My most important task however, being a robotics/cybernetics expert, is to repair, maintain, and upgrade Santa - all 1,500 of him!

You see, when the big guy passed on to the great pie-fest in the sky, the operation did not pause for a second. He created his cybernetic clones quite some time ago, as he was getting on a bit and the powers he used to defeat time and space were waning.

The technology we use has evolved rapidly since its creation. The new Santa X4 Series Cyborg units are capable of limited sub-space manipulation, but they more than make up for their short-comings with their capabilities in normal space. While the technology can't hope to match the powers that Santa himself possessed (still a mystery to all of us), the X4 Series can withstand extreme conditions that would destroy any normal creature, which makes them incredible pilots, and popular sex-bots the rest of the year.

The reindeer, I'm afraid, never really could fly. They moved around happily on the ground, but spent most of their time in null-space, sleeping off the effects of all that sherry (Santa was not much into drinking on the job).

The new reindeer can fly though - and their advanced ramjet systems are fuelled on mince-pies and alcohol! They are still not used much in sub-space flight, but they come in damn handy for the high-G re-entry into normal space - bloody good flyers when it all works right.

We're thinking of altering Santa's positronics a little, as he's been developing a few behavioral problems (possibly a positronic schizophrenic conflict as a result of the year-round sex-bot role). There have been rumours that his social programming has shown a tendancy towards, shall we say, a more amorous nature. One witness even claims that he "saw mommy kissing Santa Claus" - a possible symptom of a bug we have yet to rectify.
The units in question have been rigorously analysed, but with no clue as-yet forthcoming.

BTW - this would be a good time to get all your inputs on this. We were thinking of updating Santa's rather stale catch-phrase.

You see, since the attacks against Santa have been increasing of late (with screams of "Who you callin' a ho, mo-fo?!") we have been debating on whether or not Santa should be heard to say something more in keeping with changing trends. We had entertained the idea of "COWABUNGA", but now we're thinking more along the lines of "I'll be back".

Also, does anyone think I might have taken things too far with the X4 MKII's Autonomous Assault Systems? A couple of sleigh-mounted air-to-surface missiles and a chaingun - it is all part of the new policy that comes into affect next year. We'll be giving gifts to the good kids, and terminating the bad ones (with extreme prejudice, and a cheery smile).

Staff requirements will double as the policy's deadline approaches. We'll be looking for people with a millitary background at first (weapons systems and electronics), but recruitment from various prison systems is a real possibility. Should any vacancies fail to find their fill, then I may well be coming back here for volunteers.

There is one small requirement - you mustn't mind being surgically altered. You'll find short limbs are easy to get used to over time...

(Edited by White Hawk on 06-26-2004 18:24)

White Hawk:

Running Linux at the North Pole.....I always figured that Santa was Open Source.

Well, do you think even Santa's workshop could afford licensing on Microtheft's software?