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Is There A Santa Claus?
d_force asks: "Is there a Santa Claus? - an oldie but favorite during the holidays. =)" It was done back in 1991 and attempts to address the question scientifically. It's a humorous look at jolly old St. Nick, but I'm wondering if you readers out there can come up with something better. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a joyous Kwanzaa and Eid Mubarak: Seasons greetings to you all and Peace and Good Will to You and Yours. (michael: And have a happy Atheist-Children-Get-Presents Day, too.)
As a parent, I will anonymously step forward and end this hoax now.
My wife and I bought extra presents for our two children this year. After coaxing them to sleep with the usual stories and bedtime reading of "The Night Before Christmas", we checked on them to make sure they were really asleep, took out the extra presents (a radio-controlled Rockenbock construction set - very cool, and a set of the Bandai 6" Sailor Moon action figures; it's GREAT to have a daughter that's into Anime, she's only 4), then we filled the stockings with chocolates, pez dispensers, toothbrushes, etc, and set up the toys by the tree. The Rockenbock set took 2 hours in the dark. (they work with Lego! VERY cool!), I put the finishing touches on the fireplace, by opening the screen and spilling some ashes out onto the hearth, making it look like a clumsy elf had accidentally kicked some out whilst carrying his load.
I then ate the cookies and carrots, and wife and I went upstairs to bed for some Christmas Eve nookie. (by then it was 2am).
Next morning, our son woke up, and was amazed at how Santa had assembled the Rockenbock - and had remembered without writing it down. He said he remembers waking up in the middle of the night hearing some snapping noises coming from the living room, but didn't get out of bed. Now THERE'S blind obedience to a myth of authority. He heard Santa, and KNEW that if he got out of bed, he'd blow everything.
I often wonder about the morality of this whole thing. I mean, when (not if) my kids learn "the awful truth", will it teach them that they can't trust their parents? Will it teach them that the authority they respected was not really there? Will it make them secure in the bathroom that there isn't a bearded old man peering into his crystal ball and seeing their pee pee? I mean, if Santa isn't real, what about this whole Baby Jesus thing, and God? Can they believe anything?
I got a telescope for Christmas, and for the FIRST time in my geek life, I saw, first hand, with my own two eyes (well, actually, only the right one), Jupiter's moons, and I saw what Galileo saw 400 years ago, that the universe does not orbit around the Earth, as the authorities of the day had everyone believing, and that though I had taken for granted what people had told me about Jupiter's moons, SEEING them really made a big difference. Seeing Jupiter as something other than a bright point of light in the sky made a big difference. I got my son out of bed last night, and had him look, and as he looked (and spotted one of the moons I missed), I wondered if he really knew, and was playing along for my sake, or how he'd react if he ever learned the awful truth.
Then I realized, I don't remember when I found out that there was no Santa. The Hoax was a family tradition when I was growing up. There was no trauma, no distrust of authority that I didn't learn much later in life, (which I hope I can pass on to my kids). But I do remember, one Christmas, laying in bed on my Uncle's farm in Iowa, hearing what later turned out to be the grown ups outside, with a set of jingle bells, and a ladder, risking their lives to walk across an icy sloped roof, ringing the bells, all to perpetuate this hoax, and I can remember the exitement I felt, and the fun the next morning.
Our brains tell us that that spot in the retina of our eyes that doesn't contain rods or cones, is actually seeing. Our entire existence is built from sensory data, massaged into a plausible reality by our brains. And it continues on to higher levels. Believing a beautiful lie is often an integral part of being alive.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Well Santa always lives in North Pole...
When in the end he will open his South Pole branch? The place is as cold as the North, it is much wider, so he can build huge warehouses. It's much more peaceful. No matter he expeditions, Santa does not have to trouble with thousands of airplanes flying around. The place is still living many remains of Cold War. Even NORAD follows him up by the second... (Hope they never miss him for something else). And how many tourists, expeditions, aventurers wlak around?
Going to South Pole may help him a lot. Specially on automatising his work. That place is filled with thousands of free OS stuff, btw...
You've always been the pedantic fuck who nobody else wanted to sit by, haven't you?
Just the women, that's why you haven't seen many posts by me recently.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
what about voodoo day?! i'm tired of being left out! why can't anyone wish my a happy voodoo day? i can't even get anyone to help me bleed this chicken!
Hang on a sec here. The earth is a sphere. Ok, not really a sphere, but it is pretty ball shaped. So the paths from house to house are going to be curved. Especially ocean crossing ones. So shouldn't Santa's sleigh travel upside down to prevent him from being flung into deep space as well as being crushed to jelly and vaporised?
Not really. At the speeds he'd supposedly be going, you can pretty much assume that Earth's gravity is irrelevant to the discussion.
Besides, what would he be flung *by*? I thought Santa was in control of his flight?
It'd be a good idea not to fly in a completely straight line though.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Well, I'm sad enough to have done the calculations, and I think they're at least a factor of 1000 off on their estimate of the force that Santa would experience.
Not to mention that using 'centrifugal' force in this in any way at all is just plain wrong. The only way you should be calculating it is given the time between houses, and the distance between them, what acceleration is needed. To do this, you half the time and the distance, so it gives him time to slow down without completely destroying himself. (You decelerate at the halfway point).
Either way, when I worked it out, it was something like 51 million times normal gravity -- and about 90% the speed of light at the half-way point.
Any scientist who uses the term 'centrifugal force' when working on anything other than (a) a washing machine, (b) a centrifuge, or (c) press releases, deserves to be beaten repeatedly with their own brain.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The SF-favorite Cryptonomicon features an excellent discussion on the nature of gods, about how certain patterns of human existance repeat throughout different cultures:
Just put Santa in the same class with Zeus.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Growing up in NZ (the first place in the world Santa hits on his big night out) I got used to seeing the 'santa radar' on the xmas eve news .... flying up from the SOUTH pole .... I mean we just had those news reports about open water at the North Pole if that's true then he's toast and I know for certain he dropped goodies off with my kids just last night .... so either it's the South Pole .... or a scam .... you decide
If he's going to be breaking into your house and doesn't want to use the windows, why not just use the door? ;)
Because that would be far too easy for a 'leet Linux user.
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DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Yes, d_force, there is a Santa Claus. (Virginia?)
There are many misconceptions about the intelligent race commonly known as `elves.' Elves are the descendants of Adam and Eve before they ate the apple. Though they are often depicted as midgets, elves are not midgets. They are as tall as human beings, and the only apparent difference to the `man on the street' is that elves have pointier ears. However, they age 140 to 150 times slower than humans do. After going to school off-and-on between the ages of 600 and 700 years and learning several professions, they often land a job working at the North Pole Inc. warehouses around the world.
`Santa's helpers' have incredible job security; they generally hold their jobs until age 2,000. They then work at various human jobs for 30 years each, retire, and route the pensions back through the school system and North Pole Inc. until death at around age 11,000. (Yes, like all other creatures, elves die.)
When I questioned my adoptive parents (who happen to be my bio-grandparents) about elves and Santa Claus, I made sure that my teachers agreed that it was plausible. I stopped believing when I set up a homemade burglar alarm around the tree one Christmas in hopes that Santa would trigger it. Nothing happened. After seeing the Disney movie The Santa Clause, I began to form this alternative version of the Santa myth:
It would be physically impossible for one Santa Claus to deliver toys to all the children in the whole world in 31 hours, even considering Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and others who do not celebrate Yule holidays such as Christmas and Hanukkah (or is it Chanukah?). The current CEO and Santa Claus, named Tim Allen, has numerous helpers of both races.
Regional North Pole offices and warehouses employ quite a few elves and one human Santa. The Santa hits the shopping malls and tabulates kids' wish lists. Elves then purchase toys in megabulk from the big manufacturers (Hasbro, Mattel, Nintendo, Sony, Tyco, etc.) with (among other income sources) the fines paid by the families of naughty juvenile delinquents, wrap up the toys, and distribute them by truck or train (the cars say North Pole Express, or `Norpolex') to other regional offices. The mall Santa then handles toy delivery in each town.
Now isn't that a bit more plausible than what your parents probably told you?
(Soon to be a write-up on [E2].)Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I mean, if NORAD is tracking the big guy, you know he exists!
:)
Besides, it's not like the government to waste tax dollars you know *knocks on wood*
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Saint Nicholas actually lived and walked around, and at christmastime is said to have given money and food to prostitutes (not solicitting them, by the way). Anyways, he was a good guy, and the tradition kept building into... whatever it is today.
Eh...
Yes..there are actually several rebuttals. The major one that I have would be that the reason santa lives in the north pole is that he needs to precool all of the reindeer so that they can withstand the extreme temperatures. Another rebuttal is located at tiac.net and there are some more besides that as well. Another good rebuttal is located Here. Some other points that these articles look over is that many Christian households do not believe in Santa, thus he would skip them. In fact, a huge quantity of people do not believe in him, therefore the parents buy the gifts. This causes santa to have MANY less stops.
:)
Some more info on santa claus is located Here and some radar and video coverage of last night's trip is located noradsanta.com I think that after looking over all of this evidence, it proves that these people have absolutely no lives, and I am going to look pretty silly posting a defense for santa.
The anti-salmon
Oi! Lay off Queen Elizabeth, she may be part of the superfluous monarchy but she doesn't weigh 35,343 tons!
Oh, you mean the boat.
This doesn't mention the kilosanta or the megasanta, which makes Santa possible. Now this one does.
I am a bad speler. Please ignore speling meestakes in me poast.
You can see it here.
This explains the reason what there is now no Santa. It is a very good reason.
;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Let's take these one at a time.
1) What defines "Santa"?
If "Santa" is that which gives presents at Christmas, then every parent and child is "Santa".
If "Santa" must be an individual, then St Nick, Robin Hood, etc, must all be candidates.
2) What deliniates "exists"?
If Santa is a concept of goodwill, and that concept exists, then Santa must exist.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Santa as a mem: The idea of good will past down from generation to generation vea a holiday
Santa as a religious icon: Saint Nick...
Santa as a pagan god: "But very few people realize that history clearly shows that Woden was renamed St. Nick or Santa Claus,"
Santa as a spelling error: Could it be Satan?
Santa as a perl module: Santa.pm [Gives gifts to good little varables].
Santa as a Slashdot troll: "First Gift"
Santa as a Linux user: RedHat...
Santa as an evil information gathering dark conspericy: "He's making a list and checking it twice.. gona find out whos naughty and nice" [and sell the information? Think those presents are free?]
I don't actually exist.
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The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
.. is that there actually WAS a real 'Santa Claus' at one point. No flying reindeer, and he worked on a MUCH smaller scale -- that is, he made toys for the children in his town. And, while it may sound kinda cheesy, I think that the spirit of Santa lives on in everybody. Just look at how (most) of you act around the holidays -- what am I going to get Person X? What about Person Y? Generosity exists in most, if not all sentient life. Cheers.
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CitizenC
this is where the major flaw is in their calculations. Children are terribly cruel. I highly doubt that 1 good child per household is a proper base point. Perhaps we could go by the bible's 144,000 people who will be "called home" during the rapture. Considering only 10% of those people are children, this leaves us with only 14,400 stops. Add some asbestos sheilding to the reigndeer and I think he could do it. Not to mention most of those 14,400 kids are going to be in the same orphanges.
They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen
Fish! LipHo
Santa switched to quantum mechanics a few years ago, and as long as no one observes him directly, he is everywhere at once.
The list of "bad girls" is what keeps him so jolly.
We've all seen numerous pictures... And since he's wearing a Red Hat(tm) in each of them, we even know what OS he's running. ;)
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
forget the physical explanations.. Santa is a macroscopic quantum event.
Santa is the observational manifestation of the Christmas spirit, and all the stockings by the chimney and presents under the tree are really just Schrodinger boxes that contain the superimposed waveforms of both a gift and a lump of coal. . that waveform collapses as soon as you look in the box, and since everyone knows in their heart whether they've been naughty or nice, the fact that you're expecting a particular outcome determines what the contents will be.
this model is strengthened by the fact that Santa takes advantage of the time constraints of a relative universe:
Santa can appear in any number of living rooms at precisely the stroke of midnight, because in a relative universe, you can't prove that the stroke of midnight happens in any two houses at exactly the same time. . each house represents an isolated frame of reference whose time scale can only be measured relative to any other frame of reference, so being able to see Santa in your own living room means that you are fundamentally unable to prove that he was anywhere else at exactly the same time.
any connection between two frames of reference that contain Santa is subject to (at minimum) speed-of-light constraints (or more likely, putting-on-slippers- and-a-coat-and-running-next-door- yelling-hey-guess-what-i-saw- whoa-how-did-YOU- get-here constraints), so if either you or the information can get from one frame of reference to another, Santa can get there, too.
the model is further strengthened by the fact that Santa exhibits uncertainty effects:
you might be looking at Santa, or you might just be looking at some guy in a red suit. . the real Santa is simply the locus of minimal uncertainty (or maximal belief) that you honestly are looking at Santa. . the effect can be demonstrated with a simple thought-experiment:
assume that you're walking down a street that has one Santa on each corner. . the position of the real Santa travels along with your point of observation.
when you're right next to the first Santa, you can be highly confident (assuming you're an optimist) that this one really is Santa. . the one at the other corner is too far away to observe, so the locus of maximal belief occurs at the Santa closest to you.
as you walk down the street toward the next Santa, you lose certainty that the one you just left is still the real Santa, and gain certainty that the one you're approaching is the real Santa. . at the point precisely half way between the two Santas, the locus of maximal belief is equally distributed between both. . thus, as far as you can prove from that position, either one *could* be Santa, and that's all you can say.
as you continue to walk toward the second Santa, you become more confident that this really is the one, until you arrive at the same position as this new Santa, only to discover that this is the real one, too.
the model works just as well for a skeptic, except that the real Santa is always the one on the *other* corner.
Of the dyslexic child on Christmas, waiting for Satan to come down the chimney...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Don't forgett:
/etc/passwd > list
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus < north pole > town
cat
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice > giftlist
santa claus < north pole > town
who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | grep bad || good
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}