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f6twister · 11-20-2004, 08:51 PM

A post earlier today asked if members thought it was okay to tell their kids about Santa or if it was a parent lying to their child. I thought this would be a good opportunity to study Santa a little closer.

1. Santa's Workload
There are two billion children in the world, but since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Budhist children, the reduces his workload to 15% of the total, or 300 million. At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 85.7 million homes. 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. This works out to 767.9 visits per second. So for each household with good children, Santa has about 1/1,000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the presents, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, into the sleigh and move on to the next house.

2. The Time/Distance Factor
Assuming that these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the Earth, we're talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles.

3. Calculation of Estimated Speed
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving a 650 miles per second, or 3,000 times the speed of sound.

4. Santa's Payload
Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-size Lego set (about two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as "heavy". On land, normal reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds, and even granting that flying rendeer could pull 10 times the normal amount, Santa's going to need 214,200 reindeer to pull his sleigh. This increases the payload to 353,430 tons, or four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

Conclusion
A craft of 353,430 tons, traveling at 650 miles per second, creates enormous air resistance. This will heat up Mr. Claus and his sleigh like a spacecraft reentering Earth's atmosphere.

Translation: If there is a Santa, he's toast.

As printed the book Cyber Jokes, edited by Doug Mayer

11-20-2004, 08:51 PM	#1 (permalink)
f6twister Addict	Is There A Santa Claus? A post earlier today asked if members thought it was okay to tell their kids about Santa or if it was a parent lying to their child. I thought this would be a good opportunity to study Santa a little closer. 1. Santa's Workload There are two billion children in the world, but since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Budhist children, the reduces his workload to 15% of the total, or 300 million. At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 85.7 million homes. 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. This works out to 767.9 visits per second. So for each household with good children, Santa has about 1/1,000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the presents, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, into the sleigh and move on to the next house. 2. The Time/Distance Factor Assuming that these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the Earth, we're talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles. 3. Calculation of Estimated Speed This means that Santa's sleigh is moving a 650 miles per second, or 3,000 times the speed of sound. 4. Santa's Payload Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-size Lego set (about two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as "heavy". On land, normal reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds, and even granting that flying rendeer could pull 10 times the normal amount, Santa's going to need 214,200 reindeer to pull his sleigh. This increases the payload to 353,430 tons, or four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. Conclusion A craft of 353,430 tons, traveling at 650 miles per second, creates enormous air resistance. This will heat up Mr. Claus and his sleigh like a spacecraft reentering Earth's atmosphere. Translation: If there is a Santa, he's toast. As printed the book Cyber Jokes, edited by Doug Mayer __________________ A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. Calvin