ANST - Is there a Santa Clause? -- Christmas humor Post
Fionnghal
fionghal at chaosbutterfly.com
Thu Dec 17 08:47:28 PST 1998
IS THERE A SANTA?
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.
2. There are 2 billion children (under 18) in the world. But since
Santa does not appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and
Jewish children, that reduces the work load to 15% of the total 378
million or so. 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 time
zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to
west. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say
that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has
1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the
chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining gifts
under the tree, eat the snacks, get back up the chimney, get back
in the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each
of these 91.8 million homes are distributed evenly (which we know
to be false but for the sake of these calculations we will accept) we
are now taking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5
million miles, not counting bathroom stops. This means
that Santa's sleigh is traveling at 650 miles per second, 3000
times the speed of sound. For comparison, the fastest man made
vehicle, the Ulysses space probe moves at a poky 27.4 MPS; the
average reindeer runs at 15 MPH.
4. The sleighs payload 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 300 pounds.
Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point one) could pull TEN
TIMES the usual amount, we can not do the job with 8 or even 9.
We need 214,000 reindeer. This increases the weight, not even
counting the sleigh, to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison this is
4 times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth 2.
5. 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates
enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer in the same
manner as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The
lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy,
per second, each. In short, they will burst into flames almost
instantaneously, exposing the next pair of reindeer, and creating
deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire team will be
vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile,
will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times the force of
gravity. A 300 pound Santa would be pinned to the back of his
sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
6. Conclusion: There was a Santa, but he's dead now.
I hope everyone finds this as funny as I did.
Really folks its just a joke.
Merry Christmas.
Always in Service,
Fionnghal Nic Phaidin
Dancer of the Way
(One of those Wardancers)
For every evil under the sun,
There is a remedy, or there is none.
If there be one, seek till you find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
Mother Goose
Check out the the Wetlands RP and FreeWetlands lists at:
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(Please direct all flames to http://www.chaosbutterfly.com/penelope/hatemail.html)
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