🚀 go-pugleaf

robert.santa@mailexcite.com wrote:

> ;) A guy after my own heart! Go for the joke!
>                                  Rob Santa

OK, well, you _did_ ask for it :)

There are 2 billion children in the world, but as Santa aparently doesn't deal with
Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buhdist kids, that reduces his workload to 378 million. At
an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per househld, that is 91.8 million homes.

Santa has 31 hours to deliver his presents, thanks to the time zones and the
rotation of the Earth. That is 822.6 visits per second or 1/100th of a second of
Santa's time per home.

Assuming 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the Earth, then we are
talking about 125.5km per hosuehold, a total trip of 121.5 million km, which means
that Santa is moving at 1,046km per second, 6000 times the speed of sound.

Assuming each child gets the equivalent of a medium size logo set (5kg) then the
sleigh is carrying a payload of 326,151 tonnes, not counting santa (invariably
overweight). This is four times the weight of the QE II (the queens ship).

A total 326,151 tonnes traveling at1046km.s creates tremendous air resistance.
Reindeer will heat up in the same way as a spaceship re-entering the atmosphere. The
lead pair of reindeer will each absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second.
Bursting into flames, they will create deafening sonic booms. The entire reindeer
team will be vapourised within 4.26 thousandths of a second.

Santa, meanwhile, will be subject to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than
gravity (9.8 N.kg). A 113kg Santa would be pinned to his sleigh with 1,937,950kg
(19,379,500N) of force.


Michael K