Santa Claus - Fact or Fiction (long)
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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 seen. 2. There are two billion children (under 18) in the world, but since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to fifteen percent of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference bureau. At an average 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. That is, for each Christian household with good children, Santa has about 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, we are now talking about .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, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. 4. The payload on the sleigh adds another intersting element. Assuming that each child gets no more than a small 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 with 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 RMS Queen Elizabeth The ship... 5. 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion jou
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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 seen. 2. There are two billion children (under 18) in the world, but since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to fifteen percent of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference bureau. At an average 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. That is, for each Christian household with good children, Santa has about 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, we are now talking about .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, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. 4. The payload on the sleigh adds another intersting element. Assuming that each child gets no more than a small 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 with 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 RMS Queen Elizabeth The ship... 5. 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion jou
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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 seen. 2. There are two billion children (under 18) in the world, but since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to fifteen percent of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference bureau. At an average 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. That is, for each Christian household with good children, Santa has about 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, we are now talking about .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, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. 4. The payload on the sleigh adds another intersting element. Assuming that each child gets no more than a small 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 with 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 RMS Queen Elizabeth The ship... 5. 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion jou
So god didn't roll dice, he just saved Santa!
We say "get a life" to each other, disappointed or jokingly. What we forget, though, is that this is possibly the most destructive advice you can give to a geek.
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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 seen. 2. There are two billion children (under 18) in the world, but since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to fifteen percent of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference bureau. At an average 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. That is, for each Christian household with good children, Santa has about 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, we are now talking about .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, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. 4. The payload on the sleigh adds another intersting element. Assuming that each child gets no more than a small 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 with 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 RMS Queen Elizabeth The ship... 5. 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion jou
There are several countries that celebrate Santa's arrival on December 6th, the first day of Advent. Then there are other countries that celebrates his visits on January 6th, the day of the Epiphany. And still, there are those other countries which celebrate his appearance on December 24th, Christmas Eve. Santa is not all a mystery as you might think, but even if he is, I remembered as a child how much I enjoyed every bit of it. So let the mystery remain. :| William Fortes in fide et opere!
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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 seen. 2. There are two billion children (under 18) in the world, but since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to fifteen percent of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference bureau. At an average 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. That is, for each Christian household with good children, Santa has about 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, we are now talking about .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, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour. 4. The payload on the sleigh adds another intersting element. Assuming that each child gets no more than a small 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 with 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 RMS Queen Elizabeth The ship... 5. 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion jou
Mike and all You might be interested in something I heard of a while ago: There is a plant (I think it was either a mushroom or a flower) in Lapland which has hallucinogenic properties and the reindeers as well as people eat this, what it does is make the eater believe that they can fly. This is where the tale of flying reindeer is supposed to have originated. Ed
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Mike and all You might be interested in something I heard of a while ago: There is a plant (I think it was either a mushroom or a flower) in Lapland which has hallucinogenic properties and the reindeers as well as people eat this, what it does is make the eater believe that they can fly. This is where the tale of flying reindeer is supposed to have originated. Ed
Oh, so drugs were the origin of the flying reindeer? Fine thing to be telling children... :laugh: Is it just me, or did the smiley list once show the animated icons? Now they are just showing a still image. :confused: [edit] Icons are animated in New Message and here in modify message, but not in Reply mode. [/edit] -- modified at 17:55 Sunday 25th December, 2005