Christmas Fun

Santa Claus: An Engineers 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 house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 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 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 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 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.

III. 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 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 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).

IV. 600,000 tons traveling 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 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 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 accellerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. 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.

Christmas Accidents

Some scary Christmas stats from Britain!

3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.
31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the Christmas lights were plugged in.
142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all the pins from new shirts 58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.
19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.
British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after cracker pulling accidents.
101 people since 1999 have had broken parts of plastic toys pulled out of the soles of their feet.
18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.
A massive 543 Brits were admitted to hospital in the last two years after opening bottles of beer with their teeth.
5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars.
In 2000, eight Brits cracked their skull whilst throwing up into the loo.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the casa
Not a creature was stirring, caramba! Qué pasa?
Los niños were tucked away in their camas
Some in vestidos and some in pijamas.

While Mamá worked in her little cocina,
El viejo was down at the corner cantina.
The stockings were hanging with mucho cuidado,
In hopes that Saint Nicholas would feel obligado

To bring all the children both buenos and malos
A nice bunch of dulces and other regalos
Outside in the yard, there arose such a grito
That I jumped to my feet like a frightened cabrito

I ran to the window and looked afuera,
And who in the world do you think that it era?
Saint Nick in a sleigh and a big read sombrero
Came dashing along like a crazy bombero!

And pulling his sleigh, instead of venados,
Were eight little burros approaching volados.
I watched as they came and this quaint little hombre
Was shouting and whistling and calling by nombre:

Ay Chato! Ay Pepe! Ay Cuca! Ay Beto!
Ay Pancho! Ay Chopo! Maruca y Nieto!’
Then standing erect with his hand on his pecho,
He flew to the top of our very own techo!

With his round little belly like a bowl of jalea,
He struggled to squeeze down our old chimenea,
Then huffing and puffing, at last in our sala,
With soot smeared all over his red suit de gala;

He filled the stockings with lovely regalos,
For none of the niños had been very malos.
Then chuckling along, seeming very contento,
He turned like a flash and was gone like el viento.

And I heard him exclaim and this is verdad,
‘Merry Christmas to all, Feliz Navidad!’

Love it!!! 🙂