11-08-2004, 09:36 PM
Do Santa Exist
There are roughly 2'000'000'000 children on earth. But Santa don't want to visit Muslims, Hindu, Jews or Buddhists, which reduces the number to 15%, or 378 million. With a world average of 3.5 kids per family there would be 108 million houses to visit, if we assume there is atleast one good kid in each family.
Santa have because of earths different timezones and rotation aproximately 3.4 hours to get the job done, if we assume he is traveling west, which is the most logical thing. He will then visit 967.7 homes per second. Which means, that for every christian home with atleast one nice kid, Santa has about 1/1000th of a second to park the sled, run out and jump down the chimney, hand out the presents, say Ho three times, drink two shots (Actually: Snaps or dram) go back up the chimney, in the sled and away to the next house.
If we assume that the houses that are going to be visited are eavenly distributed there is roughly 1km (0.621371192 miles for you backwards people) between them.
Santa would hereby travel at aprox. 1000km/second (621miles/s) the speed of sound is 0.3km/s at sea-level. By comparison can be mentioned that the fastest man made craft, spaceprobe Ulysses, travel at about 50km/s. Also to note is that a normal reindeer can reach speeds of up to 30km per hour.
The cargo of the sled is another intressting subject. If we assume that each child gets present equal to 1kg (gee, just move on to the metric system already. 2.20462262 pounds), the sled would have a total cargo of 500'000tons (1ton = 142.857143stones or 1000kg), Santas weight not included. On land an average strenght reindeer can pull about 200kg's. Even if we assume that the special flying reindeer can pull 10 times that, the sled wont move an inch, unless Santa gets roughly 360'000 willing reindeer. This will give the sled a total weight of around 600'000ton. 600'000ton that fly at a speed of 1000km per second will generate a huge amount of air-resistance. This will heat up the reindeer, sort of like a meteor entering the earths atmosphere.
The two leader reindeer will then absorb an amount of energy equal to 14 300'000'000'000'000'000'000 joule per second, or 14'300'000'000'000'000'000'000 watts. The lead reindeer will simply incinerate, the reindeerbehind will be subjected to a soundbarrier bang and then incinerate themselves. All reindeer will meet their maker in less then 4.26 thousands of a second, which is about the time Santa reaches his fifth house.
This is all hypothetical though, because as the sled accellerate from 0 to 1000km per second, the sled will be subjected to a g-force about 17'500 times higher then gravity. A santa of about 150kg (weight based on existing copies) would be nailed to the back of the sled by a force equal to around 3 million kg's, which would instantly crush every bone in his body and transform him into a wet spot.
Conclusion, if Santa ever existed he is most certainly DEAD now!
There are roughly 2'000'000'000 children on earth. But Santa don't want to visit Muslims, Hindu, Jews or Buddhists, which reduces the number to 15%, or 378 million. With a world average of 3.5 kids per family there would be 108 million houses to visit, if we assume there is atleast one good kid in each family.
Santa have because of earths different timezones and rotation aproximately 3.4 hours to get the job done, if we assume he is traveling west, which is the most logical thing. He will then visit 967.7 homes per second. Which means, that for every christian home with atleast one nice kid, Santa has about 1/1000th of a second to park the sled, run out and jump down the chimney, hand out the presents, say Ho three times, drink two shots (Actually: Snaps or dram) go back up the chimney, in the sled and away to the next house.
If we assume that the houses that are going to be visited are eavenly distributed there is roughly 1km (0.621371192 miles for you backwards people) between them.
Santa would hereby travel at aprox. 1000km/second (621miles/s) the speed of sound is 0.3km/s at sea-level. By comparison can be mentioned that the fastest man made craft, spaceprobe Ulysses, travel at about 50km/s. Also to note is that a normal reindeer can reach speeds of up to 30km per hour.
The cargo of the sled is another intressting subject. If we assume that each child gets present equal to 1kg (gee, just move on to the metric system already. 2.20462262 pounds), the sled would have a total cargo of 500'000tons (1ton = 142.857143stones or 1000kg), Santas weight not included. On land an average strenght reindeer can pull about 200kg's. Even if we assume that the special flying reindeer can pull 10 times that, the sled wont move an inch, unless Santa gets roughly 360'000 willing reindeer. This will give the sled a total weight of around 600'000ton. 600'000ton that fly at a speed of 1000km per second will generate a huge amount of air-resistance. This will heat up the reindeer, sort of like a meteor entering the earths atmosphere.
The two leader reindeer will then absorb an amount of energy equal to 14 300'000'000'000'000'000'000 joule per second, or 14'300'000'000'000'000'000'000 watts. The lead reindeer will simply incinerate, the reindeerbehind will be subjected to a soundbarrier bang and then incinerate themselves. All reindeer will meet their maker in less then 4.26 thousands of a second, which is about the time Santa reaches his fifth house.
This is all hypothetical though, because as the sled accellerate from 0 to 1000km per second, the sled will be subjected to a g-force about 17'500 times higher then gravity. A santa of about 150kg (weight based on existing copies) would be nailed to the back of the sled by a force equal to around 3 million kg's, which would instantly crush every bone in his body and transform him into a wet spot.
Conclusion, if Santa ever existed he is most certainly DEAD now!
