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Ankf00
12-09-03, 04:23 PM
Engineering Analysis #1
There are approximately 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, 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 house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

Engineering Analysis #2
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.

Engineering Analysis #3
The payload of 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 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 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with 8 or even 9 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 7 times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

Engineering Analysis #4
We know that 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 5th house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second 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.

Summation
Therefore .......... if Santa did exist, he doesn't exist now.
Merry Christmas :)

devilmaster
12-09-03, 04:39 PM
:rolleyes:

Engineers.

*sigh*

Ankf00
12-09-03, 05:09 PM
with no sexing, we need something to keep us busy... :p

Dr. Corkski
12-09-03, 05:19 PM
Originally posted by Ankf00
with no sexing, we need something to keep us busy... :p Maybe you should ask for some on your wishlist! :D

cart7
12-09-03, 05:44 PM
So, what are you trying to say?? ... huh? ..... That's there's no way there could be a Santa Clause??? ... huh? ... Is that it??? ....


Bwaaaaaaa !!!!!!! :cry:

WickerBill
12-09-03, 06:30 PM
There are only, on average, 4 good kids in the world each year.

They're all he has to visit. The rest is parents spoiling their children.

anait
12-09-03, 06:41 PM
Well, he may be an engineer, but he can't spell. 'Clause'?? :p Oh, unless he wanted to get legal or something... ;)

devilmaster
12-10-03, 12:24 AM
My only question to this is:

Did Ank include himself in the number crunching of his analysis?

I mean, if he included himself, he now has to re-calculate because Santa, after reading that, will put Ank on his 'Naughty' list. Then Santa will not go to Ank's house, and the effect of it will make all of Ank's calculations invalid. ;)

This is why engineers have problems dealing with the real world.... :p

Steve

Ankf00
12-10-03, 04:46 PM
he never came around my way anyways, mom's goat milk and saffron doused cookies weren't Santa-friendly :p

Robstar
12-10-03, 09:18 PM
So... how's the study going ?
;):)