netjeff.com Humor collection Is there a santa clause: a mathematical proof

 As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research
help   from  that renown scientific journal SPY magazine (January,
1990) - I am   pleased  to  present the annual scientific inquiry into
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 cihldren, 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 seemes 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 anount, 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
enourmous 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.

netjeff.com Humor collection Is there a santa clause: a mathematical proof