Reindeer can fly
- Attendees
- meter@bmerhbfc
- Colin Kemp 7K76 BNR
- Author
- Colin Kemp 7K76 BNR
- Summary
For your information:
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Dec 04 17:20:00 1995
To: Douglas (D.A.) Sander (BNR) Dept 4Y51 SKY
Patricia (P.A.) Dy (BNR) Dept 7I61 SKY
Terry (T.) Lavineway (BNR) Dept C925 CAR
Colin (C.M.) Puchala (BNR) Dept N112 SKY
Karen (K.) Hunt (BNR) Dept 7Y55 SKY
Jane (J.) Dowsey (BNR) Dept 7I61 SKY
Fred (F.J.) LaLonde (BNR) Dept 4Y26 SKY
Colin (C.W.) Kemp (BNR) Dept 7X85 SKY
Cory (C.J.) Bialowas (BNR) Dept 7C13 SKY
Alan (A.B.) Williams (BNR) Dept X753 SKY
'[email protected]' (BNR400)
From: '[email protected]' (BNR400)
Subject: Santa's dead already?? and MerryChristmas
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With the help of several renowned scientific colleagues I am pleased
to present the results of our recent scientific inquiry into Santa
Claus and his annual Christmas Eve jaunt.
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 and germs, 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 the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and
Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total--378
million according to the population reference bureau. At an average
rate of 3.5 children per household (U.S. census, World Health
Organization, UNICEF), that's 91.8 million homes. For the sake of our
ensuing calculations we will assume there is 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 1.2 milliseconds 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 Santa's sleigh does not undergo quantum tunneling
behavior and that the 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 0.78 miles
per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops
to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours.
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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a mere 27.4 miles
per second. A conventional reindeer can run about 15 miles per hour
unless being chased by a pack of wolves.
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 approximately 500 pounds
on a sleigh. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point 1) can in
the absence of ground-based frictional forces pull TEN TIMES the
normal amount, we cannot do the jot with eight or even nine reindeer.
We need approximately 15O,000 reindeer. This
increases the payload- not even counting the weight of the sleigh or
Santa--to 353,430 tons.
For comparison, this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth
II
(the boat, not the person).
5. 353,430 tons traveling at 650 miles per second within the earth's
atmosphere creates enormous air resistance, heating the reindeer up in
the same fashion as spacecraft returning from orbit. The lead pair of
reindeer will aborb 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
milliseconds. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centripetal
forces 17,500 times greater tnan gravity.
A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to
the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pound of force.
6. In conclusion, if Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve,
he's dead now.
Merry Christmas!
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Subject: Santa's dead already?? and MerryChristmas
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