OT Humor: An Engineer's Christmas

[Michael Havens]

I love it!!!!

On Tuesday 17 December 2002 07:57 pm, AZ Pete wrote:
> I thought fellow list members would appreciate this!
>
> >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 (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 w=
est
> >(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
> >around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the
> >chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under th=
e
> >tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chim=
ney,
> >jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.
> >
> >Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed ar=
ound
> >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 s=
tops
> >or breaks.
> >
> >This means Santa=92s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000 t=
imes
> >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 secon=
d,
> >and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.
> >
> >The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming t=
hat
> >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=92t be done with eight or even nine of
> >them---Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, n=
ot
> >counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly sev=
en
> >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=97this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a
> >spacecraft re-entering the earth=92s atmosphere. The lead pair of rein=
deer
> >would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In sho=
rt,
> >they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the rein=
deer
> >behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The enti=
re
> >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 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to
> >acceleration forces of 17,000 g=92s. A 250 pound Santa (which seems
> >ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,0=
15
> >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=92s=
 dead
> > now.
> >
> >Merry Christmas!
>
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--=20
:-)~Mike~(-: