This isn't military or aviation related (well, it might be) but it's pretty funny. Every so often I get some good emails, if you'd like me to post them even though they aren't military or aviation related I will, just let me know.
Why I Don't Believe in Santa Claus,........
> I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in
> the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim,
> Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for
> Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the
> Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5
> children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming
> that there is at least one good child in each. II. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to
> say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has
> around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down
> the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents
> under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back
> up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.
> Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed
> around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will
> accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about
> 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not
> counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per
> second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
> III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming
> that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two
> pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa
> himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300
> pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the
> normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them ---
> Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting
> the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the
> weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
> IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air
> resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a
> spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer
> would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short,
> they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the
> reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The
> entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a
> second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
> Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating
> from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to
> centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems
> ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015
> pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him
> to a quivering blob of pink goo.
> .......Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.
> Thank You,
>
Why I Don't Believe in Santa Claus,........
> I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in
> the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim,
> Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for
> Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the
> Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5
> children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming
> that there is at least one good child in each. II. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to
> say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has
> around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down
> the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents
> under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back
> up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.
> Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed
> around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will
> accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about
> 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not
> counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per
> second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
> III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming
> that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two
> pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa
> himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300
> pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the
> normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them ---
> Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting
> the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the
> weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
> IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air
> resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a
> spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer
> would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short,
> they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the
> reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The
> entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a
> second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
> Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating
> from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to
> centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems
> ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015
> pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him
> to a quivering blob of pink goo.
> .......Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.
> Thank You,
>
]