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 23:22:56 GMT
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Viewed:
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74 times
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This is funny, but they forgot to include all of Santa's helpers all over
the world, including Santas who stand in for him from every place from
department stores, to the street corner.
I think if they figured things out, and took into account his many helpers
and just generally kind people at Christmas, that they'd find that Santa has
a lot less of a job to do than they make out, and might actually survive his
sleigh ride!!
--
Cheers ...
Geoffrey Hyde
Scott E. Sanburn <ssanburn@cleanweb.net> wrote in message
news:003b01c06b9f$291b4900$80851b26@default...
> 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!!
>
> : )
>
> Scott S.
> --
> Want LEGO Elements at Great Prices?
> Visit The Sanburn Systems Company
> www.sanburnsystems.com
> Scott E. Sanburn, Owner
> >
> > --
> > Scott E. Sanburn
> > Black & Veatch, Inc. Ann Arbor, MI -> http://www.bv.com
> > Phone: (734) 622-8665
> > Personal Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/~legoguy712
> >
> >
> >
>
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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 (...) (24 years ago, 21-Dec-00, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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