Posted on 12/18/2003 10:33:46 AM PST by stainlessbanner
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Is There A Santa Claus?
Richard Waller
Originally published in Spy magazine, January 1990.
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 anoint, 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 spacecrafts 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, we did go out of our way to have always told our children, from cradle to now, that Santa is a fun game that parents love to play with their children, that they should enjoy the tradition, leave out the cookies, unwrap the presents from Santa (that your mom and I paid for), and should never "spoil the fun" for kids whose parents want to play the game for real with their kids. We do this so our loving, trusting, beautiful, innocent children don't have to have their illusions about Santa smashed with an ax one day when they finally get smart enough to figure out the truth, only to discover that their supposedly loving parents have been lying to them. I don't want my kids thinking, "Gee, if they lied about this Santa guy, what about Jesus?"
Fun is fun, games are games, play them and enjoy them. But my kids won't oneday believe I lied to them. I'd rather they focus on the real "reason for the season".
And Merry Christmas to you and yours! :)
Never heard of him before this.
I've worked in the defense community--which is a lot smaller than you'd believe. Some of my work touched on NORAD, and that's how I met a couple of the people involved in this effort. Frankly, they're a LOT nicer than many of the people they help defend in their regular job--especially you.
Again, this was the literary device known as "sarcasm", poking gentle fun at how the world perceives the Big Bad Republicans who Want to Starve the Elderly. A joke. Whew, folks, turn off your Humor Filters!
For the record, as well, I am making hand-made toys for my children, and assemble free computers from cast-off hardware for poor students and the elderly. Gad, you'd think I was Bubba with this reception.
Do you favor or oppose making English the official language of the United States>
There is a great video called "St. John In Exhile", done by Dean Jones, the old Disney guy. He does a one-man show of the Apostle John in Patmos Prison as he tries to serve the prisoners and spread the word about what Christ did for us. Jones give a really moving performance, as he relates the human side of the Apostles during Christ's ministry. Laughter, pain, joy, fear...it really shows that the Apostles were Just Guys, not perfect. It gives me hope that we folks who are Just Guys can make a difference, even though we fail and fall too often.
Hang in there. You might want to drop in at... The DragonRaid Inn and look in the Storage Room for "My Witness". (Click on the Storage Room on the map graphic.) I am just a guy, but maybe my experience will give you hope and support that there are people trying to do what they claim to believe.
Could've fooled me.
I just don't feel the need to spell check what I write on this site.
Neither do I. I just don't make that many mistakes in one pass to begin with.
It seems you've been getting my point.
If your point is that you're a worthless twit, yes, I got it.
I guess your one of the nice people the defense community protects
A hell of a lot nicer than you. When I thought 50sDad besmirched the folks who protect this nation, I went after him. All I ever did was correct your misperception. You got pi$$y about it.
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