Does Santa exist? My daughter still believes in Santa. I don’t know why, she has been told by classmates that he isn’t real and has asked me for the truth to which I have answered. She is not letting go of the myth of Santa. She refuses to consider any of the inconsistencies and doesn’t want to talk logic. Funny thing is, we don’t go to church and aren’t the least bit religious. In fact, she hasn’t been baptized yet. I’ve suggested that if she want to continue to believe in Santa maybe she ought to go to church, she has rejected that idea completely.
My daughter has even gone so far to suggest that the reason Santa forgets me on Christmas is because I don’t believe in him. As much as it is in my nature to argue that point I have held my tongue in check and let her believe that I get what I deserve. I would never have her read this assessment by the boys at MIT about the truth of Santa, but when she wants to know the truth it’s nice to know I can just have read this.
From MIT:
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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 seemes 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 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
anount, 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 travelling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous 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 – If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now!
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Hilarious! And of course, made more so by my misreading of this: “…to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison – this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.”
I didn’t catch the “the”.
I think it’s wonderful that your daughter still believes. You cannot keep a dreamer down.
I read it the same way. Yes, she’s put on a few pounds over the years but who hasn’t?
I didn’t catch the “the” with Queen Elizabeth either. Good thing you mentioned it.
Oh my gawd, SANTA’S DEAD?????
Awesome post… is the science of Santa. Love it!
I thoroughly enjoyed that, especially the energy calculations resulting in the team’s spontaneous combustion. Now I have a taste for reindeer fritters.
I think it’s sweet to keep the magic alive as long as possible. There is so much that is unmagical in this world. So much hate, so much evil that if the dream of Santa can bring smiles and joy I am all for it.
This is hysterical. Love the idea of reindeers heating up like a Cape Canaveral liftoff. Those hoofed wonders would explode like Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn. In all seriousness, I think it’s great that your daughter still believes in Santa.
I think it’s WONDERFUL your daughter still believes in Santa. I wish I still believed in him!
LOL. RIP Santa.
That was hilarious!
I say keep the magic in her life as long as she wants it. Kids lose it far too early in this world of ‘Keep it real’ Keep it magical, I say 🙂
This is brilliant as well as hilarious. Thanks for a great read. Very clever. And Merry Christmas!