SANTA CLAUS - THE REAL STORY
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world, but since Santa doesn't appear to handle Buddist, Jewish, Hindu and Muslin children, that reduces his work load to 15% of the total, ie 379 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average consenses rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there is at least one good child in each!
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas work, thanks to the different time zones and rotation of the earth, assuming that travels east to west, which seems logical. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. He therefore has 1/100th of a second to park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat what snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, into the sleigh and off to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth we are now talking of 78 miles per household, a total trip of 75 ½ million miles, not counting for stops for what most of us must do at least twice every 31 hours plus feeding the reindeer, etc.
That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 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 and a conventional reindeer can run tops at 15 mph.
The pay load on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set, weighing two pounds, the sleigh is carrying 321 300 tons., not counting Santa, who is invariably described as over weight. On land conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' could pull ten times their normal load because of reduced resistance we would need 214 200 reindeer. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, to 353 400 tons, which is four times the weight of the passenger liner the Queen Elizabeth 11.
353 400 tons travelling at 650 miles per hour creates enormous air resistance and this will heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a space craft entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second, each and would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake of stupendous proportions.
The entire team will be vapourised within 4.26 thousandth of a second. Santa meanwhile will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Father Christmas 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!!!!
Have a happy Christmas, anyway,
Andre 40
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world, but since Santa doesn't appear to handle Buddist, Jewish, Hindu and Muslin children, that reduces his work load to 15% of the total, ie 379 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average consenses rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there is at least one good child in each!
Santa has 31 hours of Christmas work, thanks to the different time zones and rotation of the earth, assuming that travels east to west, which seems logical. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. He therefore has 1/100th of a second to park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat what snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, into the sleigh and off to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth we are now talking of 78 miles per household, a total trip of 75 ½ million miles, not counting for stops for what most of us must do at least twice every 31 hours plus feeding the reindeer, etc.
That means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 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 and a conventional reindeer can run tops at 15 mph.
The pay load on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set, weighing two pounds, the sleigh is carrying 321 300 tons., not counting Santa, who is invariably described as over weight. On land conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' could pull ten times their normal load because of reduced resistance we would need 214 200 reindeer. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, to 353 400 tons, which is four times the weight of the passenger liner the Queen Elizabeth 11.
353 400 tons travelling at 650 miles per hour creates enormous air resistance and this will heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a space craft entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second, each and would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake of stupendous proportions.
The entire team will be vapourised within 4.26 thousandth of a second. Santa meanwhile will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Father Christmas 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!!!!
Have a happy Christmas, anyway,
Andre 40
