Subject:
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Re: Santa (Physics, you gotta love it! : ) )
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Thu, 21 Dec 2000 22:50:52 GMT
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Viewed:
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706 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Scott Edward Sanburn writes:
> To All,
>
> I thought this was amusing, even though it has LEGO mentioned in it, I
> don't know if it needs to be here or in .geek or something.
>
> Subject: NASA's Notes Concerning Santa
>
> IS THERE A SANTA?
>
> In the late 1800s a little girl named Virginia asked the New York Times if
> there was a Santa Clause. The reply is now famous. Someone thought it
> would be fun to ask the scientists at NASA the same question.
> Here is their reply:
>
> 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 seen.
> There are two billion children (under 18) in the world. But since Santa
> doesn't appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish children, that
> reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 138 million or so.
> At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million
> homes.
> One presumes there is at least one good child in each. Santa has 31 hours
> of Christmas to work with, thanks to time zones and the rotation of the
> earth, assuming he travels east to west.
> This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each
> 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 gifts under the tree, eat snacks, get back up the chimney,
> get back into the sleigh, and move to the next house.
> Assuming that each of these 91.8 million houses are distributed evenly
> (which we know to be false but for the sake of these calculations we will
> accept), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip
> of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops.
> This means that Santa's sleigh is traveling at 650 miles per second, 3,000
> times the speed of sound. For comparison, the fastest man made vehicle,
> the Ulysses space probe moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second. The
> average reindeer runs at 15 mph.
> The sleigh's payload adds another interesting element. Assuming that each
> child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (2 pounds), the
> sleigh is carrying 321,300 TONS, not counting Santa, who is invariably
> described as overweight.
> On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds.
> Even granting that "FLYING reindeer" (see first paragraph) could pull TEN
> TIMES the usual amount, the job cannot be done with 8 or even 9 reindeer.
> Santa will need 214,000 reindeer.
> This increases the weight, not even counting the sleigh, to 353,430 tons.
> Again, for comparison this is 4 times the weight of the British luxury
> liner Queen Elizabeth II.
> This combined total weight of 674,730 TONS (with reindeer and the sleigh,
> not Santa) is traveling at 650 miles per second (yep, for every second
> that goes by, he moves 650 miles) creating an enormous air resistance
> which causes heat.
> This will heat the reindeer in the same manner as a 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 in flame almost instantaneously, exposing the
> next pair of reindeer, and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake
> until it all filters down to the last pair.
> The entire team will be vaporized within 4.26 THOUSANDS of a second.
> Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times
> the force of gravity.
> A 300 pound Santa would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,325,015
> pounds of force (or 2,163.51 tons) before he too would become vaporized.
>
> CONCLUSION: There was a Santa, but he's dead now.
>
> MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
... to all, and to all a good night!
james
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Santa (Physics, you gotta love it! : ) )
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| To All, I thought this was amusing, even though it has LEGO mentioned in it, I don't know if it needs to be here or in .geek or something. Subject: NASA's Notes Concerning Santa IS THERE A SANTA? In the late 1800s a little girl named Virginia asked (...) (26 years ago, 21-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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