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Santa Claus, an engineer's perspective

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GreasyTony
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SANTA CLAUS<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> AN ENGINEERS PERSPECTIVE<o:p></o:p> 1. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world, however, since Santa does not visit children of Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist regions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million. ( according to the population bureau). At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each home<o:p></o:p> 2. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to different time zones and the rotation of the Earth, assuming he works East to West which seems logical. This works out to 967.7 visits per second. That is to say, for every Christian household with a good child, Santa has 1/1000 of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump on the sleigh and get on to 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 purpose of our calculations). We are talking about 1.25 Km per household, a total of 120.8 million Km, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means that Santa’s sleigh is travelling at 1040 Km per second ........ 3000 times the speed of sound !!! For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, (excluding my bike of course) the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 43.8 Km per second, and a conventional Reindeer can run, at best, 25 Km per hour.<o:p></o:p> 3. The pay load of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium Lego set at two pounds weight, the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional Reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds, even granted that the ‘’flying’’ reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job cannot be done with even Eight or 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. That is roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the Monarch).<o:p></o:p> 4. 600,000 tons travelling at 1040 Km per second creates enormous air resistance, this would heat up the leading Reindeer in the same fashion as a space shuttle re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 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 in their wake. The entire Reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousands of a second, or about the time that Santa reaches the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 1040 Km per second in just .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G’s. A 250 Lb Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to 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.<o:p></o:p> 5. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he is dead now.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> MERRY CHRISTMAS<o:p></o:p> Ha, Bumhug !!!<o:p></o:p>

SANTA CLAUS<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
AN ENGINEERS PERSPECTIVE<o:p></o:p>
1. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world, however, since Santa does not visit children of Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or  Buddhist regions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million. ( according to the population bureau). At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each home<o:p></o:p>
2. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to different time zones and the rotation of the Earth, assuming he works East to West which seems logical. This works out to 967.7 visits per second. That is to say, for every Christian household with a good child, Santa has 1/1000 of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump on the sleigh and get on to 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 purpose of our calculations). We are talking about 1.25 Km per household, a total of 120.8 million Km, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means that Santa’s sleigh is travelling at 1040 Km per second ........ 3000 times the speed of sound !!! For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, (excluding my bike of course) the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 43.8 Km per second, and a conventional Reindeer can run, at best, 25 Km per hour.<o:p></o:p>
3.  The pay load of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium Lego set at two pounds weight, the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional Reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds, even granted that the ‘’flying’’ reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job cannot be done with even Eight or 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. That is roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the Monarch).<o:p></o:p>
4. 600,000 tons travelling at 1040 Km per second creates enormous air resistance, this would heat up the leading Reindeer in the same fashion as a space shuttle re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 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 in their wake. The entire Reindeer team would be vaporised within 4.26 thousands of a second, or about the time that Santa reaches the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 1040 Km per second in just .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G’s.  A 250 Lb Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to 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.<o:p></o:p>
5. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he is dead now.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
MERRY CHRISTMAS<o:p></o:p>
Ha, Bumhug !!!<o:p></o:p>

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