I posted this last year, but being that its that time of year again I figured I'd post it again.
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,
