Let's have some fun. Why not change the parameters of the postulate: Hence,
Santa only delivers to those children who do not follow particular religions
which do not sponsor belief in him.- This would include some Christian sects
as well as the aforementioned. Also, he does deliver to non-Christian
children, when their parents allow this belief. There would probably be some
disparity in figures.
2. Rather than loading the sleigh entirely at one point, Santa prepositions
filled sleighs at certain points around the world, allowing the swapping out
of empty sleighs for full ones as he came past the prepositioning points. It
has never been stated with clarity that Santa has only one sleigh to work
with.
3. Include in the figuring a set amount of coal, the traditional reward for
the non-good children; This would include extra mass and weight, however, it
could be offset by additional prepositioning points as stated above.
4. Santa's suit is red Nomex, and the sleigh is coated with ceramic tiles,
sold by NASA to help raise funds for further operations.
5. Rudolph is actually a warp capable thrust unit replicated to look like a
reindeer, so as not to spook the other reindeer.
6. The "Sleigh" is actually just Santa's nickname for his trusty red and
gold, ceramic tiled '60 TR3
The new postulate would be, given these parameters, could Santa NOW
accomplish the mission previously proven highly improbable?
The short answer: NO! Despite the best planning and equipment possible, the
red and gold, ceramic tiled 1960 TR3 has a minor oil leak, the "Rudolph" was
manufactured by Lucas, and Vicky Brit is backordered on the one and only
part needed to make the TR3 run right. Therefore, Santa will have to call
every parent who's child was on his lists, and advise them of the needed
deliveries. Given the internet, there is about a 63.2% chance of success
this way, based on the assumption everyone has a working ISP.
Scott
De-famed Engineer(of model railroads)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Spence" <dspence@oanet.com>
To: <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2002 12:29 PM
Subject: SANTA CLAUS: AN ENGINEER9S PERSPECTIVE No LBC as Lucas, Dunlop etc
just couldn't cut it
> SANTA CLAUS
> AN ENGINEER9S PERSPECTIVE
>
> I/ There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in
the
> world, however since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu,
Jewish
> or 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 household, that comes to
108
> million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.
>
> II/ 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 967.7 visits per second. This is
to
> say, that for every Christian household with a good child, Santa has
around
> 1/1000 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 purpose of our calculations). We
> are talking about 1.25 Km per household, a total of 120.8 million Km, not
> counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa9s sleigh is moving at
> 1040 Km 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 43.8 Km per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best)
25
> Km per hour.
>
> III/ The pay load of the sleigh adds another interesting element.
> Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium Lego set (two
> 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 ten times the normal
> amount, the job can9t 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).
>
> IV/ 600,000 tons traveling at 1040 Km per second creates enormous air
> resistance....this would heat up the lead reindeer in the same fashion as
a
> space shuttle re-entering the earth9s 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 vaporised 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 1040 k p s in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of
> 17,500 G9s. 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.
>
> V/ Therefore, if Santa did exist, he9s dead now.
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