1. SPS Accounts:
    Do you find yourself coming back time after time? Do you appreciate the ongoing hard work to keep this community focused and successful in its mission? Please consider supporting us by upgrading to an SPS Account. Besides the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from supporting a good cause, you'll also get a significant number of ever-expanding perks and benefits on the site and the forums. Click here to find out more.
    Dismiss Notice
Dismiss Notice
You are currently viewing Boards o' Magick as a guest, but you can register an account here. Registration is fast, easy and free. Once registered you will have access to search the forums, create and respond to threads, PM other members, upload screenshots and access many other features unavailable to guests.

BoM cultivates a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. We have been aiming for quality over quantity with our forums from their inception, and believe that this distinction is truly tangible and valued by our members. We'd love to have you join us today!

(If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you've forgotten your username or password, click here.)

Santa is dead....

Discussion in 'Whatnots' started by Septic Yogurt, Jun 2, 2001.

  1. Septic Yogurt Gems: 9/31
    Latest gem: Iol


    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2000
    Messages:
    321
    Likes Received:
    0
    The first thing kids should learn in physics-

    There are approximately two billion children in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist (except maybe Japan) 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 household, which comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each for each 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 stocking, 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 onto 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 purpose 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 and breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second - 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, and moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more then a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds) the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tonnes, not counting Santa himself. On land a conventional reindeer can pull no more then 300 pounds. Even granting that a "flying" reindeer can pull 10 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 tonnes, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the Monarch) 600.000 tonnes, 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 when Santa would reach the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 mps. in 0.001 second, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17.000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which is ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of
    the sleigh by 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.


    Cool huh.
     
  2. Slappy Gems: 19/31
    Latest gem: Aquamarine


    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2001
    Messages:
    1,138
    Likes Received:
    0
    Ah yes science is a wonderful thing. However, Santa is magical and does not obey the standard laws of physics. In particular he has a huge supply of time stop spells from BG2. He uses these to allow himself to get around the world in a nice leisurely fashion. I'm not sure where he finds all these spells though. I'll ask him when I speak to him next ;)
     
  3. Kitiara Gems: 14/31
    Latest gem: Chrysoberyl


    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2001
    Messages:
    633
    Likes Received:
    0
    LOL you read my mind on the time stop spells.... :D
     
  4. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2000
    Messages:
    23,645
    Media:
    494
    Likes Received:
    564
    Gender:
    Male
    [​IMG] Damn you Slappy, I told you not to go around telling people of my little side business of selling Time Stop scrolls! Now everyone will want them. :D
     
  5. DK is back Gems: 1/31
    Latest gem: Turquoise


    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2001
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    [​IMG] What I want to know is how santa could fit in
    a sleigh or stay up in the air for that matter? I mean the reindeer have to be pretty strong to hold santa.
     
  6. The Fat Egg Gems: 15/31
    Latest gem: Waterstar


    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2000
    Messages:
    788
    Likes Received:
    1
  7. Gormenghast Gems: 10/31
    Latest gem: Zircon


    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2001
    Messages:
    374
    Likes Received:
    0
    [​IMG] Haha LOL Septic!!
    :D :D :D
     
Sorcerer's Place is a project run entirely by fans and for fans. Maintaining Sorcerer's Place and a stable environment for all our hosted sites requires a substantial amount of our time and funds on a regular basis, so please consider supporting us to keep the site up & running smoothly. Thank you!

Sorcerers.net is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to products on amazon.com, amazon.ca and amazon.co.uk. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.