Scientific proof that Santa does not exist... :o(

[darre1]

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 west (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 the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto 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 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 stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that 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't 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).

600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 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 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. 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.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

[Mark Sreeves]

Don't tell filburt - he'll be gutted!

[darre1]

shocking isn't it!

And to think i'd been really good this year and its all for nothin'

[Jim Brown]

108 million tots of Sherry would put him way over the limit for DUI everywhere. And that's a whole heap of ginger snaps.

"Is this your sleigh, Sir?"

[barrk]

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the skies,
Air defenses were up, with electronic eyes.
Combat pilots were nestled in ready-room beds,
As enemy silhouettes danced in their heads.
Every jet on the apron, each SAM in its tube,
Was triply-redundant linked to the Blue Cube,

And ELINT and AWACS gave coverage so dense,
That nothing that flew could slip through our defense.
When out of the klaxon arose such a clatter,
I dashed to the screen to see what was the matter,
I dialed up the gain and then quick as a flash,
Fine-adjusted the filters to damp out the hash.

And there found the source of the warning we’d heeded,
An incoming blip, by eight escorts preceded.
“Alert status red!” went the word down the wire, as we gave every system the codes that meant “FIRE”!
On Aegis! Up Patriot, Phalanx and Hawk!
And scramble our fighters let’s send the whole flock!
Launch decoys and missiles!
Use chaff by the yard!
Get the kitchen sink up!
Call the National Guard!

They turned toward the target, moved toward it, converged,
Till the tracks on the radar all finally merged,
And the sky was lit up with a demonic light,
As the foe met his fate in the high Arctic night.
So we sent out some recon to look for debris,
Yet all that they found, both on land and on sea,
Were some toys, a red hat, a charred left leather boot,
Broken sleighbells, white hair, and a deer’s parachute.

Now it isn’t quite Christmas, with Saint Nick shot down.
There are unhappy kids in each village and town.
For the Spirit of Christmas can’t hope to evade,
All the web of defenses we’ve carefully made.
Just look how the gadgets we use to protect us,
In other ways alter, transform, and affect us.
They keep us from things that make life more worth living,
Like love for each other, and thoughts of just giving.

But a crash program’s on:
Working hard, night and day,
All the elves are constructing a radar-proof sleigh.
So let’s wait for next Christmas, in cheer and in health,
For the future has hope: Santa’s coming by stealth!

[kedaman]

Realist = teh l0s4r

[Alphanos]

Silly, Santa is MAGICAL. He freezes time

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by kedaman
Realist = teh l0s4r

Everyone wants to talk like me now...

[nishantp]

Originally posted by Alphanos
Silly, Santa is MAGICAL. He freezes time

Damn right!

[Sastraxi]

Originally posted by Alphanos
Silly, Santa is MAGICAL. He freezes time

Ahhh, you missed the vital point, darre!