Merry Christmas -
Santa, the engineering view...
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 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 most Muslim,
Hindu and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of
the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference
Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per
household, that's 91.3 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 Santas 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.
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
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 cruise ship
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 a spacecraft reentering the earths 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
creating 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 acceleration
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 4,3159015 pounds of force. In conclusion - if Santa
ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
Merry Christmas!
Santa, the engineering view...
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 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 most Muslim,
Hindu and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of
the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference
Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per
household, that's 91.3 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 Santas 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.
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
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 cruise ship
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 a spacecraft reentering the earths 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
creating 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 acceleration
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 4,3159015 pounds of force. In conclusion - if Santa
ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
Merry Christmas!
