This was posted on another list by one Thomas Berry, Archivist. I thought
our list members might enjoy his analysis!
best wishes Roger http://www.globalmuseum.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------
Santa - the true story
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. For the sake of our ensuing calculations, we will
assume that there is at least one good child in each.
3. 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 1.2 milliseconds 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 71.6 million miles, not counting
stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at appx 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 mere 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run 15
miles per hour, unless being chased by a pack of wolves.
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
(the boat, not the person).
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous
air resistance - thus heating the chain in almost the same fashion as
spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. As a result of this
friction, the lead pair of reindeer will absorb around 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 milliseconds.
Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500
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.
You point out a number of interesting facts in your letter (below),
contending that one Santa just couldn't do it all, but you fail too
see the obvious conclusion -- FRANCHISING! This also explains
why "Santa"
is often known as "Santa Claus". Let me explain:
1. As you note, Santa would need to make 822.6 visits per second,
or 2,961,360 per hour. However, if we assume that there are
740,340 worldwide Santas (the exact number is known only to the
Salvation Army), then each Santa has to make 1 visit only every 15
minutes.
2. Roughly speaking, this is
5 minutes for travel (footnote below)
1 minute for sorting out that house's gifts
1 minute for chimney diving / lock picking
3 minutes for gift arranging
2 minutes for cookie eating
1 minute for exiting premises and returning to sleigh
2 minutes "slack" time for unforseen events (most commonly,
large dogs)
--
15 minutes
3. "Santa" is, of course, a very sought after title, and the
geographic franchises to be the local "Santa" are subject to yearly
adjustments due to population shifts. The changes in the legal
paragraphs governing geographic territories in the "Santa" agreement
are called "Santa Clauses", a term which eventually has
been commonly applied to "Santas" themselves.
=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:
The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).
If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).
|
