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MechEngDropout
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Joined: 27 Jun 2003
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 Posted: 11/17/04 - 17:34 Post subject: The Facts on Santa (an engineering viewpoint)
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th 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 into 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 purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), 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 granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even 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, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance--this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft 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 vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the 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.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.
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Gogirlgo
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Joined: 25 Jul 2002
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Location: No deal, stalker.
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 17:36 Post subject:
Engineer=buzzkill
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pokychick
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Joined: 02 Oct 2002
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 17:36 Post subject: Re: The Facts on Santa (an engineering viewpoint)
| MechEngDropout wrote: | | Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. |
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Cappy
Excelent
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Joined: 16 May 2002
Posts: 27368
Location: Spreadsheetylvania
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 17:38 Post subject:
What about the toothfairy, the Easter Bunny
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MechEngDropout
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 17:39 Post subject:
| Cappy wrote: | | What about the toothfairy, the Easter Bunny |
It's not right to kill them out of season.
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SantaClaus
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 17:53 Post subject:
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HYPERASHEL
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 18:00 Post subject:
OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED SANTA!!!!
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SantaClaus
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 18:09 Post subject:
| HYPERASHEL wrote: | | OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED SANTA!!!! |
You basturds!!
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HYPERASHEL
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 15397
Location: The South's Sauna, Atlanta
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 18:11 Post subject:
| SantaClaus wrote: |
You basturds!! |
only Kyle will be unaffected by this tragedy
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Floridaboiler
POTFH
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Joined: 18 May 2002
Posts: 11322
Location: Jacksonville, Florida
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 20:47 Post subject:
| HYPERASHEL wrote: | | OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED SATAN!!!! |
And the downside to that is?? 
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gretriever
Hipster Doofus
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Joined: 16 Jul 2003
Posts: 19385
Location: A moving target in a firing range.
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 20:57 Post subject:
| SantaClaus wrote: |
basturds |
Ding-ding-ding What's at the bottom of Bass Lake?
I'll take "Animal Genitalia: The Audio Clues" for $400, Alex.
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rolling rock
The Pinball
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Joined: 15 May 2002
Posts: 16218
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 21:09 Post subject: Re: The Facts on Santa (an engineering viewpoint)
| MechEngDropout wrote: | There are approximately two billion children (persons under 1 in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th 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 into 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 purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), 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 granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even 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, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance--this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft 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 vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the 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.
Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. |
yes dear, i know.
does this Dallas Cowgirl uniform make me look fat?
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JACKED UP
PRESIDENT
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Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 21238
Location: www.johnnydu.com
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Posted: 11/17/04 - 21:48 Post subject:
| MechEngDropout wrote: |
It's not right to kill them out of season. |
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