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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
 Posted - 12/21/2004 : 19:55:45
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I got this from a friend:
> I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the
world, however since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish
or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15%
of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau).
At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108
million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.
> II. 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to
say, that for every household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000 of
a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the
stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever
snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh
and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops
is evenly distributed around the earth (which of course, we know to be
false, but will accept for the purpose of our calculations). We are talking
about 1.25 Km per household, a total of 120.8 million Km, not counting
bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 1040 Km per
second........3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison,
the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 43.8
Km per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 25 Km per hour.
> III. The pay load of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming
that each child gets nothing more than a medium Lego set (two pounds), the
sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On
land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds, even
granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount,
the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them......Santa would need
360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the
sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen
Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).
> IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 1040 Km per second creates enormous air
resistance....this would heat up the lead reindeer in the same fashion as a
space shuttle re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer
would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short,
they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer
behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire
reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or
right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it
matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop
to 1040 k p s in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of
17,500 G's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned
to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing
his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.
> V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.
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You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
Edited by - Paulos23 on 12/21/2004 19:57:05
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 12/21/2004 : 20:05:53 [Permalink]
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Paulos, you are a very sick man. Welcome to the club, brother!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Paulos23
Skeptic Friend
USA
446 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 00:27:46 [Permalink]
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Thank you, though most of my friends think of me as 'normal'.  |
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. -- Robert A. Heinlein
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Aldous Huxley |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 01:08:56 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Paulos23
Thank you, though most of my friends think of me as 'normal'.
"The weirder you are going to behave, the more normal you should look. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person. "
-- P.J. O'Rourke |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 06:59:58 [Permalink]
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Of course Santa doesn't exist. He is just the coca-colized version of 'Sinterklaas' who, of course, does exist. He doesn't fly in a sled (which is obviously impossible), but enters the Netherlands in a big boat from Spain. He only has to serve the Netherlands and the dutch-speaking part of Belgium, which cuts down the number hugely. And he has hundreds of helpers in the form of 'Zwarte Pieten' (black Petes), so he doesn't have to do all the delivering by himself.
Indeed, Santa does not exist. 'Sinterklaas' does though.  |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 08:44:42 [Permalink]
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| As my coworker just put it, if we're going to hypothesize flying reindeer, we may as well hypothesize inertial dampers and heat shields to overcome the problems in points IV and V. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 09:27:09 [Permalink]
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| HYPOTHESIZE!?! There is lots of evidence of flying reindeer! Storm has it somewhere. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 09:47:20 [Permalink]
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| Actually, if you think about it, it's very simple. Santa is a god. He can see all applicable children at all times and knows what they are doing. Obviously the laws of physics do not apply to Santa or his reindeer. I think I need to start a new church though. With 378 million believers right from the get go, there's gotta be some good money to be had. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 10:14:57 [Permalink]
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| The Toy 'r Us of Latter day Santa |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 12/22/2004 : 11:26:52 [Permalink]
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| Or, as Terry Pratchett explained it, any rational second consists of an infinite amount of irrational ones. Thus providing all the time for Jack Frost to paint flowers on the windows, the tooth fairy to provide children with money and Santa (well, actually the hogfather, but who's gonna know) with more than enough time to do their jobs. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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