# The Secret of Santa



## bookslover (Dec 16, 2006)

I finally figured out the answer to the question all kids ask at one time or another: how can Santa make it to every house in the world all in one night?

Simple, as it turns out: he has warp drive and one killer GPS system.

Now all I gotta do is figure out how he gets into the houses and apartments without chimneys (chimnies?)...


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## chaz (Dec 16, 2006)

It's my understanding that he enters through attics, and enters through doors with the help from the elf that's a locksmith. He also takes advantage of the the time zones. He normally starts in the East and travels West.


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## Richard King (Dec 16, 2006)

If you really want to be hard core just tell them...Santa is a lie and a lie can travel all round the world before the truth gets its boots on.


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## BobVigneault (Dec 16, 2006)

Santa stops time, I thought everyone knew that. Actually, he's not stopping time as much as he's making use of the infinite increments of time in the 6 or so hours he needs to deliver the presents. It's very similar to Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Instead of distance, however, Santa is dealing with increments of time. If he needs more time he simply breaks the remaining time into even smaller increments and utilizes his new allotment.

1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + ....... and so on.


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## bookslover (Dec 17, 2006)

Richard King said:


> If you really want to be hard core just tell them...Santa is a lie and a lie can travel all round the world before the truth gets its boots on.



Ah, so _you're_ the guy who gets lumps of coal every year!


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## bookslover (Dec 17, 2006)

BobVigneault said:


> Santa stops time, I thought everyone knew that. Actually, he's not stopping time as much as he's making use of the infinite increments of time in the 6 or so hours he needs to deliver the presents. It's very similar to Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Instead of distance, however, Santa is dealing with increments of time. If he needs more time he simply breaks the remaining time into even smaller increments and utilizes his new allotment.
> 
> 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64 + ....... and so on.



OK, now you're scaring me!


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## kvanlaan (Dec 17, 2006)

Tsk, tsk, brothers. Look to science; science will never lead you astray...

The Truth about Santa 

After much research, we present the annual aeronautical engineers report on the theory of Santa: 

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 & 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 that there's at least one good child in each. 

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due 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/second. That is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has .001 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/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to do what most of us do at lease once every 31 hours, plus eating etc. So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/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 pokey 27.4 miles/second. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/hour. 

If every one of the 91.8 million homes with good children were to put out a single chocolate chip cookie and an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk, the total calories (needless to say other vitamins and minerals) would be approximately 225 calories (100 for the cookie, give or take, and 125 for the milk, give or take). Multiplying the number of calories per house by the number of homes (225 x 91.8 x 1000000), we get the total number of calories Santa consumes that night, which is 20,655,000,000 calories. To break it down further, 1 pound is equal to 3500 calories. Dividing our total number of calories by the number of calories in a pound (20655000000 / 3500) and we get the number of pounds Santa gains, 5901428.6, which is 2950.7 tons. 

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 lb.), 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 300lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) can pull 10 TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9, reindeer. We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth. 

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering 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 .00426 of a second. Meanwhile, Santa, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 lb. Santa, being very conservative in terms of guessing Santa's weight, would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force. If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.


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## MrMerlin777 (Dec 17, 2006)

chaz said:


> It's my understanding that he enters through attics, and enters through doors with the help from the elf that's a locksmith.



Isn't that breaking and entering? Or maybe just unlawful entry?


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## bookslover (Dec 18, 2006)

kvanlaan said:


> Tsk, tsk, brothers. Look to science; science will never lead you astray...
> 
> The Truth about Santa
> 
> ...



Now, listen carefully: stand up, and slowly back away from the computer...


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## govols (Dec 18, 2006)

Anyone that has ever watched Star Trek knows how he gets into houses. That is why he takes time off for 364 days out of the year, his atoms are fried beaming into and out of houses all night long.


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## BobVigneault (Dec 18, 2006)

Christmas Eve you will be able to track Santa as he delivers toys on Google Earth. I mean, it's not rocket science.... no, I guess it IS rocket science.

http://earth.google.com/santa/


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## BJClark (Dec 18, 2006)

> eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.



Count my house out of the snack giving....santa is too fat to begin with and needs to diet...

I mean come on...women may not be as 'visual' in the spousal looks department that men are...but honestly...what woman REALLY wants to be married to a man who has belly that when he laughs jiggles like a bowl full of jelly???  

But seriously, I don't give gifts 'from Santa' I do put them 'From Jesus' though, acknowledging that really is where the money came from in order to purchase the gifts to begin with...


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