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Re: Santa Claus: The Reality



How does he do it all?  Its Chirstmas magic.  He is a saint, after all,
isn't he?


Thomas Berry wrote:

> 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 Population Reference Bureau.  At an
> average census rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8
> million homes.  For the sake of our ensuing calculations, we will
> assume that 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 each of these
> 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 .78 miles
> per household, a total trip of 71.6 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 appx 650 miles per
> second, 3,000 times the speed of sound.  For purposes of comparison,
> the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves
> at a mere 27.4 miles per second - a conventional  reindeer can run 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 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 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 Queen Elizabeth
> (the boat, not the person).
>
>  5.  353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous
> air resistance - thus heating the chain in almost the same fashion as
> spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere.  As a result of this
> friction, the lead pair of reindeer will absorb around 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 centrifugal forces 17,500
> times greater than gravity.  A 250-pound Santa (which seems
> ludicrously slim)  would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by
> 4,315,015 pounds of force.
>
>  In conclusion - If Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve,
> he's dead now.
>
>  You point out a number of interesting facts in your letter (below),
> contending that one Santa just couldn't do it all, but you fail too
> see the obvious conclusion -- FRANCHISING!  This also explains
> why "Santa"
>  is often known as "Santa Claus".  Let me explain:
>
>  1.  As you note, Santa would need to make 822.6 visits per second,
> or  2,961,360 per hour.  However, if we assume that there are
> 740,340  worldwide Santas (the exact number is known only to the
> Salvation Army), then each Santa has to make 1 visit only every 15
> minutes.
>
>  2.  Roughly speaking, this is
>      5 minutes for travel (footnote below)
>      1 minute for sorting out that house's gifts
>      1 minute for chimney diving / lock picking
>      3 minutes for gift arranging
>      2 minutes for cookie eating
>      1 minute for exiting premises and returning to sleigh
>      2 minutes "slack" time for unforseen events (most commonly,
>        large dogs)
>     --
>     15 minutes
>
>  3.  "Santa" is, of course, a very sought after title, and the
> geographic franchises to be the local "Santa" are subject to yearly
> adjustments due to population shifts.  The changes in the legal
> paragraphs governing geographic territories in the "Santa"  agreement
> are called "Santa Clauses", a term which eventually has
>      been commonly applied to "Santas" themselves.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Thomas Berry, Archivist
> Historical Construction Equipment Association
> 16623 Liberty Hi Road
> Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
> Phone 419-352-5616
> Fax 419-352-6086
> tberry@hcea.net
> http://www.hcea.net
>
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> Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

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Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
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Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>