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2003/12/23, 12:33 PM
You mean Santa is dead?
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2003/12/23, 12:39 PM
Ahhh, but you're completely ignoring "theoretical physics" which includes Hyperspace. If indeed it can be proven that there are more than 3 spatial dimentions in the universe, then Santa can bend space and get to each household way within the 31 hour window.
Santa is alive!
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**_Robert_**
Pain is temporary; glory is forever!
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2003/12/23, 10:43 AM
Found this out there, thought it worth posting. Very interesting. And rather humorous.
The Physics of Santa and His Reindeer
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.
There are two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload 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.
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 75½ 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.
If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000/3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons.
The payload on 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 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 above) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, 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. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft 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.
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If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything....
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2003/12/23, 11:16 AM
LMAO! That is too good. I actually remember the first time I saw the physics behind Santa, about 20 years ago, as figured out by 4 CalTech physics students.
Sick, sick, sick......
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Michael
Trample the weak; hurdle the dead!
Chaos, Panic, Disorder.... Yes, my work here is done!
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2003/12/23, 11:34 AM
You've ruined it for me............
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2003/12/23, 12:41 PM
Santa is very much alive! Magic my dear friends. Forget science, science is too boring. Go with magic.
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Pain is but a threshold to greater strength.
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2003/12/23, 01:04 PM
You're right, Robert. According to the most current String theory, we are now up to a possible 11 dimensions. Santa could move "outside" our frame of reference, and therefore, we would just see gifts just appear out of nowhere. One other thing to consider: if going by Relativity instead of Strings, one could say that if Santa was somehow able to move near the speed of light (let's face it - he's been around for several hundred years, so it's not too much of a stretch!), he would have almost all of the time in the world. According to Relativity, when velocity V equals the speed of light C, then time T equals zero. So, the closer something gets to C, the smaller T becomes.
Hmmmmmmmmmm...........
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Michael
Trample the weak; hurdle the dead!
Chaos, Panic, Disorder.... Yes, my work here is done!
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2003/12/23, 01:21 PM
This can also explain why he's been around so long...he's always moving at or faster than the speed of light. Hence, time (and age) slows down for him and his reindeer.
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**_Robert_**
Pain is temporary; glory is forever!
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2003/12/23, 02:32 PM
Now that makes sense!
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2003/12/24, 10:10 PM
Santa lives on pixydust and dreams, this accounts for the high calorie intake and and the high speeds in which he travels. Their is no science for Santa, its pixydust damnit, PIXYDUST!
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May the lift be with you.
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2003/12/24, 11:00 PM
Well according to NORAD, he is just now starting to be picked up on the radar screen. Must be some good magic !
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"A will finds a way"
Ivan Montreal Canada
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2004/01/06, 06:25 PM
Santa ... *GASP* ... is ...
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2004/01/07, 12:40 PM
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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.
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Hahaha! That would be so funny to see! We should get some scientific funding and test this theory out.
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- Its never about how much you can lift, or how many reps you do. Its just about doing it, and doing it right.
- If your hungry all the time, your not eating enough. And anyways, being hungry sucks.
~Brad~
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