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The Science of Santa
Hugh Pickens writes writes "For decades, mystified scientists have chalked up Santa's power to the inexplicable wonder of magic, but North Carolina State University aerospace engineer Larry Silverberg, team leader on a first-of-its-kind visiting scholars program at Santa's Workshop-North Pole Labs (NPL), says that Santa is, in fact, a scientific genius and that Silverberg looks forward to Christmas each year, so he can ponder the remarkable accomplishments of one of the greatest pioneers in his field. 'Santa is not just a jolly old elf,' says Silverberg. 'He really has an understanding of engineering, technology, science that's far beyond our own.' It all starts at the North Pole where Santa has an elaborate technical setup that rivals the nerve center of the CIA including an underground antenna that listens to children's thoughts. 'He takes those signals and finds out whether the child has been naughty or nice, and ultimately, what present the child wants.' Santa's mastery of nanotechnology allows Santa to grow presents on the spot eschewing the necessity of carrying them on the sleigh which would be prohibitive because of the weight. Then there's Santa's sleigh itself, an advanced aerodynamic structure equipped with laser sensors to find the optimal path, and covered by a nanostructured 'skin' that is porous and contains its own low-pressure system, which holds the air flowing around the airborne sled onto the body, reducing drag by as much as 90 percent. Finally there's Santa's greatest invention, the relativity cloud, that bends time and space to allow for his round-the-world Christmas journey and explains why Santa is so seldom seen. 'Relativity clouds are controllable domains – rips in time – that allow him months to deliver presents while only a few minutes pass on Earth. The presents are truly delivered in a wink of an eye.'"
Scientific Inquiry into Santa Claus
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
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.
3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2
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
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 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.
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
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.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
... an O(1) solution to the Traveling Salesman Problem, but he ain't sharing it. Which is a bummer, since that's all I wanted for Christmas.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Santa's mastery of nanotechnology allows Santa to grow presents on the spot
Thereby depriving all the elves of jobs! They did the right things, they followed the rules, they went to elf school, and got advanced degrees in craftsmanship, but they're getting screwed by Santa, who's just rewarding the children he thinks are "nice". You remember when you were a kid? Did the children who were actually nice get the best presents? No! It was always the kids of some corporate fat cat! We see who Santa's rewarding. Occupy the North Pole!
Santa knows what you need, a heavy dose of lighten the fuck up
I love the vague terminology - God touched you? Explain exactly what that means. I'll believe something to do with gods the same way I'll believe anything else - give me enough proof to make it the most likely explanation. I'm not saying there is no posibility of a God, I'm saying that beleiving in one is like believing there is an elephant in my bathtub - It's highly unlikely, and if someone told me it was true, I wouldn't take them at their word.
You say there is no proof you can show me, then why should you expect me to believe it? I'm sure you'd think anyone getting an email from nigerian royalty promising lots of money and beleiving it was stupid, but an old book and promising eternal life? It's different how?
I'm open to the idea - If I'm wrong, you should be able to tell me why I'm wrong, and I'll take that on board. If you expect me to treat it differently because it's religion, or suspend logic for no reason, then no. Logic applies universally, you can't just choose where to apply it or not.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)