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There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world.
However, since Santa does not usually visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes presuming there is at least
one good child in each.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.
This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the
chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house. Assuming that each of these 108million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our
calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household -a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.
This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, and moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of 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 over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even
granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015
pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.
Merry Christmas!!
However, since Santa does not usually visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes presuming there is at least
one good child in each.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west(which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.
This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the
chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house. Assuming that each of these 108million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our
calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household -a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.
This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, and moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of 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 over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even
granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.
Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015
pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.
Merry Christmas!!
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Dr nebster crippen wrote:
> I take it your a newbie, Oh yes you are.....
yes but not for long
> I take it your a newbie, Oh yes you are.....
yes but not for long
Bloody newbies, I remember when this was all fields...
I take it your a newbie, Oh yes you are.....
Dr nebster crippen wrote:
> Yeah mate although funny coping to try and win is just scummy.
it's not scummy it's crummy cos when you win you sell what you've won and bye lots of toast!
> Yeah mate although funny coping to try and win is just scummy.
it's not scummy it's crummy cos when you win you sell what you've won and bye lots of toast!
yeah, it would be if i was trying to win..
Yeah mate although funny coping to try and win is just scummy.
Dr nebster crippen wrote:
> not copied off a web site I hope? eh?
nooooooo, i worked it out myself, honest..
well, i tried to, got bored and found it on the net..
> not copied off a web site I hope? eh?
nooooooo, i worked it out myself, honest..
well, i tried to, got bored and found it on the net..
Whooo Style! wrote:
> You never know, he might even bring you a dictionary..
nnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
or even socks
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
> You never know, he might even bring you a dictionary..
nnnnoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
or even socks
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
not copied off a web site I hope? eh?
You never know, he might even bring you a dictionary..
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