missed this at the time, but enjoyed it when I found it just now. Thanks. dana
On 12/19/06, Rick Root <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have two amusing christmas items to share... here's one, it's an oldie > but goodie! > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help > from that renown scientific journal spy magazine (january, 1990) - I am > pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into santa claus. > > > #1 - No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species > of living organisms 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. > > #2 - There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world, 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. 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. > > #3 - Santa has 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 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 whatever snacks 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 the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the > purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about > ..78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not > counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 > hours, plus feeding and etc. > > This means that 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 on earth, the ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 > miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per > hour. > > #4 - The payload on 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 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" > (see point #1) could pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the > job with eight, or even nine. We 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. > > > #5 - 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air > resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as > spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. 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 create deafening 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 gravity. A 250-pound santa (which seems > ludicrously slim) 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. > > However, I could be wrong. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;56760587;14748456;a?http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=LVNU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:223392 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
