PSX5Central
Non Gaming Discussions => Off-Topic => Topic started by: luckee on December 30, 2001, 12:10:30 AM
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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 (except maybe in Japan) 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 there is at least one
good child in each.
Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the
earth, assuming east to west (which seemslogical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that
for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop
out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever
snacks have been left for him, get back up the cimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto 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 purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per
household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles
per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a
medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousands tons, not counting Santa
himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying"
reindeer can pull 10 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). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second
creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering
the earth\'s atmosphere.
The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 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 intheir 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 650 m.p.s. in .001
seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 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.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, he\'s dead now.
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Or perhaps it\'s all magic and Santa has a Star Trek-esque instant transporter. :)
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Merry Christmas!!
Anyhow, I think your numbers are a little messed up. Considering that a major part of the equasion is based upon the "Supposition" that all 378 million christian children are good. In a theory that number may work, but it does not have real world applications. I would estimate that about 1200 of those 378 million children are actually good enough to warrant a special surprise from Santa. (out of which only 12 are probably good enough to be eligable for entrance into heaven according to some christian doctrines)
The rest of the rotten little brats of the world are have their "Santa presents" bought and wrapped for them by their parents in a subversive blackmail/bribery attempt to keep them from driving their parents insane for another 364 days until next years Christmas.
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I\'m gonna use that against little kids when they are all hyped up about Santa.
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And so are these forums.:laughing:
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Originally posted by Ryu
Or perhaps it\'s all magic and Santa has a Star Trek-esque instant transporter. :)
naw dude, the transporter is too limited. He would propably have one of those lost Iconian gateways. :p
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Santa has been dead here for years..
Or Ive been a naughty boy.. :sleepy:
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or he is SUPER SANTA!!!!!!!!!! Faster than a speeding bullet!
:hat:ScottyJ:hat:
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The Ikonian gateways, at least with what we saw, were far too random in their placement. Besides that, the interval in between houses would be far too long of a wait.
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Ahh there\'s the trick, not only is Santa very aware of modern technoligies (more so then we silly humans) he\'s also gifted with magic. He\'s used his wast knowladge to recreate some gateways and put atleast one on every country. He uses the gateways to travel from country to country, but while with in the countries he uses his magic sled to travel. Transporters are used to beam the gifts under the tree. He uses the tree\'s decorations to lock on.
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Makes sense to me. The gateways are pretty big though, perhaps he uses some type of cloaking technology to shield them? I figure if he put it in a place that no one ventures, they would be ok there. I wonder if his sled has a quantum slipstream drive....