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| You know what would be awesome? Because I don't. | | |
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Is there a Santa Claus?
Before you say yes consider the following....
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- The payload on the sleigh 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 point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, 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.
- 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts 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 - To answer that question about if there really is a Santa of course there is. Just iif Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's bits of ash scattered all across the countryside right now. | | |
| English: I was in the mood to update so I decided to do it in German because it's an awesome language, Spanish because I'm taking Spanish, French because it's a Big Five Country, Italian because I like pizza and Portuguese just because. 
German: Ab sofort sind alle meine Pfosten auf Deutsch, weil es eine ehrfürchtige Sprache, Spanisch ist, weil ich Spanischen, Franzosen nehme, weil es ein grosses fünf Land, Italiener ist, weil ich die Pizza und Portugiesen gerade weil mag. 
Spanish: De ahora encendido, todos mis postes estarán en alemán porque es una lengua impresionante, español porque estoy tomando a españoles, franceses porque es cinco un país grande, italiano porque tengo gusto de la pizza y del portugués justos porque. 
French: Dorénavant, tous mes poteaux seront en allemand parce que c'est une langue impressionnante, Espagnol parce que je prends des Espagnols, Français parce que c'est un grand cinq pays, Italien parce que j'aime la pizza et le portugais justes parce que. 
Italian: D'ora in poi, tutti gli miei alberini saranno in tedesco perché è una lingua impressionante, Spagnolo perché sto prendendo gli Spagnoli, francesi perché è cinque un paese grande, italiano perché gradisco la pizza ed il Portoghese solo perchè. 
Portuguese: De agora sobre, todos meus bornes estarão no alemão porque é uma língua awesome, espanhol porque eu estou fazendo exame de espanhóis, franceses porque é cinco um país grande, italiano porque eu gosto da pizza e do português justos porque.  | | |
| I'm so nervous about the Mira Costa conference tomorrow. I keep on thinking I'm gonna get up and forget what I'm going to say. Last year, on the bus ride there, someone from Edison threw up because they were so nervous. I think I just might. | | |
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