| |
CN8HB > SANTA 23.12.03 19:28l 69 Lines 3674 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 12663_CN8TW
Read: DH0GHU GUEST DL4NWM
Subj: Is there a Santa (Engineering thoughts)
Path: DB0FHN<DB0FOR<DB0SIF<DB0EA<DB0RES<ON0AR<VE3FJB<IK6PYS<ON0BEL<F6KMO<
F3KT<F3KT<CN8TW
Sent: 031222/1851Z @:CN8TW.CAS.MAR.AF #:12663 [Casablanca-Pactor] FBB7.00i
From: CN8HB@CN8TW.CAS.MAR.AF
To : SANTA@WW
Hi All,
I got this message from a friend back in 1995.
Thought you might like this one !!!
Merry Christmas to all
Chris - CN8HB
Is there a Santa Claus ? (Engineering thoughts)
1. No known species or 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 childrens (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since
Santa doesn't (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddist children,
that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to
Population Reference Bureau (1995). At an average (census) rate of 3.5
children per household, thats 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 the different time
zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which
seem 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 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 purpose of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about
.78 miles per houshold, a total trip of 75,5 million miles, not counting
stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours plus feeding
and etc.
This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times
the speed of sound. For the purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made
vehicle on earth the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per
second - a conventionnal reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.
4. The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that
each child get 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 reindeers. 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.
5. 330,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous 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 : Is Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's
dead now !!!!
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
