An Engineer's View of Santa

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An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby BAW0343 » Thu Dec 07, 2006 2:42 pm

This was part of an E-mail my Grandpa sent to me a few years back, its been a favorite of mine ever scince ;D  Oh, and those who believe in santa may not want to read  :-X :P




An Engineer's View of Santa

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.

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. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

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 1/1000th 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 (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 71.604 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 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 poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

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.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts 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 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 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 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 been vaporized by now



Ouch  ;) :D
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Romulus111VADT » Thu Dec 07, 2006 2:57 pm

Darn and I figured out that Santa wasn't real when I was 8 just by virtue of my dad tackling the Christmas Tree and then dragging it down the stairs when one of the stands of lights got caught on his belt. Man those light bulbs and ornaments make allot of noise popping when they fall down two flights of stairs.... ;)....not to mention my mom and grandparents laughing their ass's off..... :D


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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Akula. » Thu Dec 07, 2006 2:58 pm

/me clutches heart and starts shaking

you... you mean... santa doesnt exist?!?  ;D
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Romulus111VADT » Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:20 pm

Yep, here's the proof-

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The old fart kicked the bucket.....lmao
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Saitek » Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:24 pm

It's an edit. Clever picture. That boy is famous for his picture in infamous llama song. PLEASE don't start singing it.

I hadn't seen the grave before, but that entry also looks suspicious to as Santa Claus.

EDIT: BPB ;)
Last edited by Saitek on Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Romulus111VADT » Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:31 pm

EDIT: BPB ;)


Nah, ya think...lmao....I'm the one that posted it before...lmao Image (borrowed this smilie cause we still don't have a good raspberry smilie)

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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Saitek » Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:27 pm

BPB doesn't stand for Ben Posted Before. ;) BTW the BPB was to the orginal post of course.
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Hai Perso Coyone? » Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:42 pm

LOL!! Thank god we have a laughing smiley now ;D ;D ;D
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby BAW0343 » Thu Dec 07, 2006 6:27 pm

BTW the BPB was to the orginal post of course.



so  [smiley=2vrolijk_08.gif]
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Omen_Nemo » Thu Dec 07, 2006 7:17 pm

It's an edit. Clever picture. That boy is famous for his picture in infamous llama song. PLEASE don't start singing it.

I hadn't seen the grave before, but that entry also looks suspicious to as Santa Claus.

EDIT: BPB ;)


you mean this one ben?
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby DaveSims » Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:40 pm

Anyone notice the dates on the headstone as well?  He was a ripe old 164 years old, no wonder his beard was white.
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby Romulus111VADT » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:40 am

[quote]Anyone notice the dates on the headstone as well?
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby flymo » Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:40 am

[quote][quote]Anyone notice the dates on the headstone as well?
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby murjax » Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:33 am

[quote]Yep, here's the proof-

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The old fart kicked the bucket.....lmao
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I am just a train fan who happens to like flying and attempting to get the better of the mods especially those with 20/20 vision ;D ;D
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Re: An Engineer's View of Santa

Postby BFMF » Fri Dec 08, 2006 11:42 am

Classic ;D
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