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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 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa (apparently) doesn't 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 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and other things.
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.
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.
353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts 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.
There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa (apparently) doesn't 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 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and other things.
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.
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.
353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts 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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That was very interesting. I'd give you credit if you actually had written it yourself.
Yeah santa exsists he's that gezer that sits in the pub all day long looking for a job .
thats very interesting. btw my birthday is on christmas eve, if anyone feels like sendin me summat
Dear SR users,
i was sent a note written in newspaper artical letters from Santas Reindeers, They want 800,000 carrots by July 12th. Or they'll shove a Xmas pie up santas as*. What shall i do? And no this isn't another scam 2 get myself more carrots. So send all those carrots 2 me, so i can send them 2 da reindeers. Unless he doesn't exist, then send them 2 me anyway, as they also have the Easter Bunny hostage.
i was sent a note written in newspaper artical letters from Santas Reindeers, They want 800,000 carrots by July 12th. Or they'll shove a Xmas pie up santas as*. What shall i do? And no this isn't another scam 2 get myself more carrots. So send all those carrots 2 me, so i can send them 2 da reindeers. Unless he doesn't exist, then send them 2 me anyway, as they also have the Easter Bunny hostage.
I think Santa exists, but I took the mick out of Rudolph so he's stopped sending me presies!
Bummer!
Bummer!
'Constapation Street' hahaha
Santa does exist, but he's a bit of a git.
I sent him this letter when I was 5:
Dear Santa,
I wud lika a kool toy spce ranjur for Xmas.
Iv ben a gud boy all yeer.
Yer Frend
Iron Monkey
Then I got this reply:
Dear Monkey,
Nice spelling. You're on your way to a career in lawncare.
How about I send you a f*cking book so you can learn
to read and write?
I'm giving your older brother the space ranger. At
least he can spell.
Santa
*sniff* that was my worst xmas ever.
Fat bearded git.
:P
I sent him this letter when I was 5:
Dear Santa,
I wud lika a kool toy spce ranjur for Xmas.
Iv ben a gud boy all yeer.
Yer Frend
Iron Monkey
Then I got this reply:
Dear Monkey,
Nice spelling. You're on your way to a career in lawncare.
How about I send you a f*cking book so you can learn
to read and write?
I'm giving your older brother the space ranger. At
least he can spell.
Santa
*sniff* that was my worst xmas ever.
Fat bearded git.
:P
santa does not exsiste it was only halitionations from the magic mushrooms around the north pole (who would have thought of that) so when people saw the tobogan coming they throught that it was flying with a red fat wierdo in it strange side affects of colour if you think about it,it makes sence really have a think about it some man was out killin stuff for dinner his wife comes with a huge esciomoe mushrooms. Fairy also are always in books sitting on red and white mushrooms hailutionations definatly think what makes a difference.
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