| From: | MC23 mc23@**********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Fwd: Since it's slow... |
| Date: | Thu, 4 Feb 99 12:40:35 -0500 |
Date: 12/23/96 10:31 AM
Received: 12/23/96 10:31 AM
From: Robert Blackberg III, blackbrc@***.FISERV.COM
Reply-To: Shadowrun Discussion, SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET
To: SHADOWRN@********.ITRIBE.NET
Since the list is a little slow, here's a holiday physics question...
(with all credit due my friend Bart, who actually got an "A" on this
paper.)
Is there a Santa Claus?
A: No known species of reindeer can fly. However, there are
300,000+ species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while
most of these species are insects and/or germs, this does not
completely rule out the possibility of these flying reindeer that
only Santa has ever seen. So I'll let this one slide.
B: There are two billion children (under 18) in the world. But,
since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and
Buddhist children, the workload is reduced to 15% of the original
number - 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau.
At an average (world census) rate of 3.5 children per household,
that's 91.8 million homes. I'll presume that there is at least one
good child in each household.
C: Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, regards to the
differing time zones, and the rotation of the earth. This is
assuming that he travels east to west (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 in the
sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these
91.0 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth
(illogical), the space between the houses is .78 miles; the total
trip is now 75.5 million miles. Not counting stops to do what most
of us have to do at least once every trip (not to mention a 31 hour
trip), plus feeding, etc.
D: This results in a Santa's sleigh clocking in at a phenomenal 650
miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of
comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth (not counting the
Dogde Dart), the Ulyssis space probe, moves a pokey 27.4 miles per
second - your conventional reindeer can run, tops, 25 miles an hour.
E: The payload on the sleigh adds yet another interesting aspect.
Assume that each of the good children gets only a medium sized lego
set (hey, it's a good toy) that weighs a measly two pounds. The
sleigh now carries 321,300 tons (not counting Santa who is invariably
described as being overweight - or calorically challenged). Assuming
the magical reindeer can pull TEN times what their terra-bound
cousins can, you still require not eight, or even nine, but 214,200
reindeer. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of
the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four
times the weight of Delta Burke.
F: 353,000 tons (we will drop the remainder for ease of calculation)
traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance.
This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as the space
shuttle re-entering the atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will
absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy (for all you non-techie
types, that's a whole lot), per second. In short, red nose
notwithstanding, they will burst into flames almost instantaneously,
exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating deafening sonic booms
in their wake. The entire team will be vaporized into a spectacular
light show within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, is
subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity.
A slimmed-down 250 pound Santa (yeah, right) would find himself pinned
to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
Conclusion: No Virginia, there isn't a Santa Claus.
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