"Santa didn't come this year"

[NightStorm]

A Physicist\'s Christmas by William “Dr Bill” Gibbs ©1999

I. 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 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.

II. 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.

III. 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).

IV. 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 centrifugal 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.

V. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he\'s dead now. Merry Christmas!

[FlyingDoggyJake]

lmao... that\'s hillarious

[Sp3culuM]

lol, I posted something like this a few months ago, seems pretty similar:

[quote]Scientists have tried to answer the question, "Does Santa come with flying reindeer to deliver presents at Christmas?" This is what they have found:

No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species of living organims yet to be classified. Although most of these are insects and bacteria, this does not rule out flying reindeer.
According to the Population Refeence Bureau, 378 million people celebrate Christmas worldwide. With an average of 3.5 children per home, that's 91.8 million homes for Santa to visit.
Thanks to different time zones, Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, assuming he travels east to west. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. That means for each celebrating household with at least one good child in it, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, place presents under the tree, eat the cookies and return to the sleigh.
Assuming that all 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed throughout the earth, the total trip time will be 75.5 million miles. That means Santa's sleigh must move at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth (the Ulysses space probe) moves at 27.4 miles per second.
Assuming that each child get nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (weighing 2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying a payload of 321,300 tons, not counting jolly ol' Saint Nick himself.
A standard reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even if flying reindeer might pull 10 times more than a normal reindeer, Santa would need 214,200 reindeer to pull the sleigh. The reindeer, payload, Santa and sleigh would therefore weigh more than 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the Q.E. II cruise ship.
This 353,430 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates tremendous air resistance, heating the reindeer in the same manner as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would therefore absorb 14.3 quintillion joule of energy, per second, each.
The lead reindeer, as a result will burst into flames, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating massive sonic booms in their wakes. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 0.00426 seconds. Santa will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity. Assuming that Santa weighs 250 pounds, he would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,375,000 pounds of centrifugal force.[/quote]

Funny stuff though /good.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'(Y)\' />

[Wingx]

reindeer goo anyone?
I bet ada smiled after reading this /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

[Jim]

If she didn\'t I don\'t know what would make her smile /blum.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':P\' />

[RuffRyders]

Santa was officially assassinated by the boogey monster after attempting to put the presents under the bed because the family didn't have a Christmas tree for the presents to be placed under. /cry.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\':(\' />