To one and all may you have a safe and happy christmas surrounded by your families and friends, and may the coming year prove to be fruitfull and prosperous and filled with adventure and excitement.. Drive safe and for goodness sake Dont be a bloody idiot & drink and drive
The Physics of Christmas
(or why Santa is dead)
Try not to think of this the next time your child asks you to truthfully answer the age-old question:
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
Happy Holidays
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 (1 Kilo), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tonnes, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 150 Kilos. 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 tonnes. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth Cruise Liner.
Think of the weight on your roof !!!!
5) 353,000 tonnes 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 120 Kilo Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by almost 2,000,000 Kilos of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.
I got this from another forum, just thought you may enjoy the read..
jimricho said
06:04 AM Dec 22, 2010
Spoil Sport!
Just as well little kids don't understand physics!
Anyway, I still believe in Santa!
PS: What power of 10 is a quintillion? and isn't a quintillion joules per second quintillion watts?
-- Edited by jimricho on Wednesday 22nd of December 2010 06:06:37 AM
DellieMay said
09:43 PM Dec 22, 2010
You mean to say.... THERE'S NO SANTA!!!!!!!!! No way Bucco!!!!! He's real alright. I for one , just love him.
Merry Christmas
Dellie
lyn-n-ken said
06:41 AM Dec 23, 2010
well thank you very much GRUMPY, i for one didnt want that info. now we know why your called grumpy. MY XMAS IS RUINED
MERRY
CHRISTMAS
EVERYONE
jimricho said
07:48 AM Dec 23, 2010
Yes Grumpy, There is a Santa....read on:
(quote)
Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.
"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. "Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. "Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
"VIRGINIA O'HANLON. "115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
(end quote)
(don't worry, I do realise your post was light hearted "tongue in cheek")
-- Edited by jimricho on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 07:52:05 AM
goinsoon said
09:47 PM Dec 23, 2010
Of course there is a Santa and just to prove it here is a photo I managed to get of him
To one and all may you have a safe and happy christmas surrounded by your families and friends, and may the coming year prove to be fruitfull and prosperous and filled with adventure and excitement..
Dont be a bloody idiot & drink and drive 
Drive safe and for goodness sake
The Physics of Christmas
(or why Santa is dead)
Try not to think of this the next time your child asks you to
truthfully answer the age-old question:
IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
Happy Holidays
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 (1 Kilo), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tonnes, not
counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On
land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 150 Kilos.
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 tonnes. Again, for comparison - this is four times the
weight of the Queen Elizabeth Cruise Liner.
Think of the weight on your roof !!!!
5) 353,000 tonnes 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 120 Kilo Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)
would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by almost 2,000,000 Kilos
of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas
Eve, he's dead now.
I got this from another forum, just thought you may enjoy the read..
Just as well little kids don't understand physics!
Anyway, I still believe in Santa!
PS: What power of 10 is a quintillion? and isn't a quintillion joules per second quintillion watts?
-- Edited by jimricho on Wednesday 22nd of December 2010 06:06:37 AM
well thank you very much GRUMPY, i for one didnt want that info.
now we know why your called grumpy.
MY XMAS IS RUINED
MERRY
CHRISTMAS
EVERYONE
(quote)
Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.
"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
(end quote)
(don't worry, I do realise your post was light hearted "tongue in cheek")
-- Edited by jimricho on Thursday 23rd of December 2010 07:52:05 AM