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(meteorobs) Forwarded humor

Hope no one minds too much for filling your mail slot, but talk about a 
fireball!!!!(see part # 5). (And to Neil, sorry about the cheap shot in #4)
Wayne


>>AN ENGINEER'S APPROACH:  IS THERE A 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 (2 poun  
>ds),
>> 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 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 tons.  Again, for
>> comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.
>>
>>  5)  353,000 tons 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 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously
>>slim)
>> would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.
>>
>> In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, 
he's 
>> dead now.