Phil, May be the Santa learned some tricks from managers and CEO to delegate work to associate Santa, baby Santa (like baby bell and Ma bell relationship).... ;-) Have a wonderful holiday everybody... if you drink enough, Santa will come on time (flying).. Cheers! jk At 09:04 AM 12/17/99 EST, you wrote: >Hi Technetsters - >Just where would this world be without engineers? In your work and in your >life, try not to overanalyse things. >Happy Holidays to all. >Phil Zarrow >ITM, Inc. >Durham, NH USA >www.ITM-SMT.com > > Is There A Santa Claus? > > 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 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. > > 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 amount, 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 traveling at 650 miles per second creates > enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the > same fashion as spacecraft 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. > > I can't wait to question my parents! > >############################################################## >TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c >############################################################## >To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in >the body: >To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> >To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET >############################################################## >Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional >information. >If you need assistance - contact Gayatri Sardeshpande at [log in to unmask] or >847-509-9700 ext.5365 >############################################################## > ############################################################## TechNet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ############################################################## To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TECHNET <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TECHNET ############################################################## Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information. 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