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} Naughty supplicant,
}
} Some theoretical work has been done on this subject already. I will
} append it to this message, to save some CPU cycles. I am having a dots
} match with the MIT mail router.
}
} The author is unknown.
}
} ************************************************************************
}
} As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help
} from that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I
} am pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.
}
} IS THERE A 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 andgerms, 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 most Muslim, Hindu, 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 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 75-1/2 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 cruise ship Queen Elizabeth II.
}
} 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 a
} spacecraft reentering 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
} acceleration 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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