Holiday Madness

[DoS Archive]

Date: 12/22/97 9:58 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: Wil Savage

"Computer on." >Computer on......input code< "Wil Savage....Agent 541....Interplanetary Intelligence and Security...Sector H-42....Code 44-98358-2209." >voice match.....confirmed.< >waiting< "Requesting Analysis" >ready< "Seems some of the people on Rhydin have a certain belief regarding the current seasonal period that they are experiencing. I've seen the same belief on the planet known as Earth. Once every revolutionary period around the star this belief would suddenly arise within the populaton on a planet-wide basis. I need more information." >ready for input.< "Keywords Christmas, Santa Claus, reindeer, sleigh, presents. Seach data banks and cross-reference." >Searching.....data found.....cross-referencing.....analysis complete.< "Tell me about the one known as Santa Claus. Use all cross-references." >Santa Claus travels by flying reindeer. No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species of living organisms on Earth 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. >There are 2 billion children -- persons under 18 -- on the planet Earth. But since Santa doesn't appear to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau data banks. At an average census rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each. >Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of Earth, assuming he travels east to west -- which seems 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 whateversnacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around Earth -- which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept -- we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75,500,000 million miles, not counting stops to do what most humans must do at least once every 31hours, plus feeding, etc. >This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound on Earth. For purposes of comparison, the fastest human-made vehicle on Earth in that time period, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run 15 miles per hour maximum speed. >The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized "Lego" set at 2 pounds each, 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" could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, Santa cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. Hewould need 214,200 reindeer. 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 ocean liner of that period. > 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance in the planet's atmosphere. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft would be heated when re-entering the Earth's atmosphere at that speed. 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 createdeafening 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 Earth's gravity. A 250-pound Santa -- which seems ludicrously slim according to all data -- would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force. > In conclusion: if Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.< > Analysis complete < Agent Savage sat back in his chair, tapping his chin with the end of a pen while thinking. "Save data." > Data Saved....waiting.< "Log off." The computer shut down and Savage stood and shook his head. "Just as I thought. These people are crazy! I have got to get off this planet!"