An Engineer’s perspective on Santa Claus

dgreen | Posted in General Discussion on December 25, 2009 02:26am

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 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 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 round 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, 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 onto 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 thousands tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the “flying” reindeer can pull 10 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 reentering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would each absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. 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 miles per second, in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 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. Merry Christmas!!

Replies

roc | Dec 25, 2009 03:03am | #1
dg, dg, dg,

You have failed to factor in the "magic dust". Please see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWGBeADI_8E&feature=related

Another little known fact is that he uses the infinite improbability drive. Being a master of the drive he is able to maintain his cool froodiness when other less experience elves may tend to jump species etc., . . .

"The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds; without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. As the Improbability Drive reaches infinite improbability, it passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe almost simultaneously. In other words, you're never sure where you'll end up or even what species you'll be when you get there. It's therefore important to dress accordingly. The Infinite Improbability Drive was invented following research into finite improbability which was often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess' undergarments leap one foot simultaneously to the left in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy. Many respectful physicists said they wouldn't go to stand for that sort of thing, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties."

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_(book)

That and you probably have noticed that when you have way too much to do and not enough time to do it in time passes way more quickly. It's like that but much more. Much much more.

( your post made for very interesting reading in any case. Are you sure about the ground speed of a nonmagicated reindeer ? they haven't a chance if running from a wolf pack etc. Or maybe wolves don't eat reindeer just mostly mice. See old movie Never Cry Wolf. )

roc | Dec 25, 2009 03:15am | #2
Hey there seems to be no way to delete or cancel a reply so I am typing that here otherwise I would have deleted this reply. I was able to spell check during the last reply so it is nice to find my water cooled super duty spell checker is now interfacing with all this blue stuff.

Awwww I see what I did. There was no edit button so I poked "reply". There is an edit on this reply so I tried it out.

fun

fun, fun, fun,

mikeddd | Dec 25, 2009 10:08am | #3
When ever you get an engineer involved they always mess up everything.

Merry Christmas

Mike

P.S. He made it to my house and I can't smell no burnt reindeer hair.
oldusty | Dec 25, 2009 10:50am | #4
d ,dude , I want some of what ever you had .

Merry X

d
RalphBarker | Dec 25, 2009 11:12am | #5
Yes, engineers do tend to raise all these mechanical/physics issues, only to be complicated further by the lawyers who insist that he stay within the posted speed limits due to liability concerns.

The fact that NORAD is able to track the old guy is good enough for me. ;-)
Jfrostjr | Dec 25, 2009 11:40am | #6
If I may add my observations:

"traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer"

Is this how Rudolph got his red nose?

It seems that you have overlooked a fact in your otherwise outstanding calculations; Based on the number of Malls I have visited over the years, there appear to be MORE THAN ONE Santa. In fact there seem to be many Santas and notwithstanding suggestion of a 250# weight, I suspect there is considerably more variation.

Calculating, based on multiple Santas, can you provide an estimate of the reduced effects that you have enumerated?

Merry Christmas - Another Engineer

roc | Dec 25, 2009 07:52pm | #8
Jfrostjr,

>there appear to be MORE THAN ONE Santa. In fact there seem to be many Santas<

The fact that you are seeing more than one Santa at a time indicates that you have some how shifted between "branes", that is membranes, in the space/ time continuum of the eleven or so dimensions of reality and I recommend you get this checked immediately. Otherwise you may begin to understand the convoluted "logic" of congressmen and senators and be doomed to become one of them there by entangling yourself hopelessly in their black hole of do nothing but yackness for all time.

All good if you are into paradox but not so good if you tend to think linearly in which case you will become quite mad in a short period of time. Sitting on your haunches in the front yard, barking/padded cell kind of mad.

Fun for a while but the food isn't that great and you will no longer be allowed to play with sharp objects so woodworking is right out.

See:

. . . an observable with finitely many potential outcomes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleason's_theorem

roc | Dec 25, 2009 08:09pm | #9
Ah ! Found it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PVjNlXj2WQ

Be patient. The end is it and is pretty cool.

Wow even better

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3g9yrahP8

Taigert | Dec 25, 2009 10:02pm | #10
Roc,

You have reopened one of the largest problems in my life. These are the things that have tormented me for years. I keep looking for the answers to these giant questions.

Einstien could never get his head around the idea of Quantum Mechanics. But without Quantum Mechanics, we would not be working with these small powerful laptops we have today. People would be amazed if they only knew where those mathematical formulas have taken us. Let alone where we will be in say twenty years from now. In some ways the things we will learn from the research being done and will be doing in the future will blow the current beleifs out of the water.

There are some factions in our society that don't want this research to continue for those exact reasons.

Such as the Vatican, per say, they have been making a fairly large amount of coin selling their version of the way life was, is and will be. The things that will result from the future of reseaarch could very well put them out of business.

Just something to think about, could you imagine if there are eleven dimensions. Perhaps Heaven and Hell could really exist. Or proven to be nothing more than fiction..........?

Taigert

roc | Dec 25, 2009 11:50pm | #11
Taigert,

Here may be some of the future thought that you refer to as far as religion.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121813448

I don't think the church will be in danger of extinction. It may have to tighten it's belt a bit as the rest of the world is having to do.

My Santa obsession has, in the last several decades, turned into more of an appreciation. Didn't stop me from watching the heck out of a bunch of Santa/Christmas movies, reading The Night Before Christmas out loud with much gusto ( the First Lady's public reading was a hard one to live up to ) and totally getting into the whole deal.

The church (s) still have a place.

Granted there are some scared people out there who think they need to "control" things. Pushing a pea up a wall and all that. There are going to be A LOT of people come up against a monster wave called reality in the next decade and into the next (if mankind is extremely lucky ( translation: yanks it's head out of its dark place in time).

Religion or not; "belief" in global change or not.

As the ghost cross country skier on top of the train in the movie Polar Express said "Should be interesting".

>really exist<

As you know if we look at all this too close we discover there is more space in us than "stuff" and the stuff is just made up of light. So you and I don't REALLY exist so how could the two "H"s ? It is complicated isn't it?

AND we have stepped over that line of religion so I better stop there and say :

How about that new quantum varnish ? When you open the can to look at it, it is no longer in the can but on the furniture in one quantum leap without leaving a single drip between the two. At least that is what the quantum mechanics student putting her self through school by working at the paint store said.

: )

forestgirl | Dec 25, 2009 04:02pm | #7
Fabulous information, Don! Really puts things into perspective, LOL.

I heard about a family tradition introduced by a young girl when she was aabout 5 years old....on KUOW the other day....she decided that since she never saw any wires on Rudolph, his nose must be battery-powered, so in addition to cookies and milk, she started putting out extra C-batteries to keep him going. Would they survive the flight?
davcefai | Dec 26, 2009 02:37am | #12
dgreen,

The fatal flaw in your excellent santanalysis is that you stayed within the limits of conventional spacetime.

For example, Santa could travel at the speed of, say, a flock of geese, make his first deliveries, reset the clock (his or ours, does it matter?) and start again with the next lot.

Merry Christmas to all.
Jfrostjr | Dec 26, 2009 08:58am | #13
I just discovered the link below, which reinforces your proclamations.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/24/cnet.norad.santa.tracker/index.html
Frank Vucolo | Dec 27, 2009 11:44am | #14
DG,

You seem to have had a great deal of fun scientifically disproving Christmas and, as a 'just in case' proving Santa's death. It was fun to read, too.

But you left out the magic! There's magic in Christmas. It's something you just can't explain in words or with scientific facts and figures. But it keeps showing up, year after year... that magic.

For example, there's proof in your message that even atheists and anarchists can experience joy from Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you and health and happiness in the New Year.

Frank