[meteorite-list] Engineering Christmas
Hi All, Once again, it seems it has befallen upon me uphold the job of official Santa Physics story reposter. So, in the true spirit of the season, here it is yet again. And as always, I have not checked the math. Enjoy. Martin Engineering Christmas: Some points of contention. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist 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, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each dwelling. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has about 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, 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 on to 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 or other breaks. This requires that Santa's sleigh moves at 650 miles per second--3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and conventional reindeer can run at best 30 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500,000 tons, not counting Santa himself. On land a conventional reindeer can pull about 300 pounds. Even granting that the flying reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job just cannot be done with eight or nine of them-- Santa would need 360,000 reindeer! This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 4.600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance-- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere (which may explain Rudolph's red nose). The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. In short, they would instantaneously vaporize exposing the reindeer behind them to the same friction and also creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would vanish within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 Gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering red-hot blob of goo. And yet, he returns year after year. Therefore, the rules of physics obviously don't apply to Santa and his yearly mission. Speaking as an engineer, this guy must know something about relativity that we have yet to discover. HO, HO, OC. __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Engineering Christmas
Einstein would give his eye teeth to ride with the jolly red coat. Pete - Original Message - From: Dark Matter freequa...@gmail.com To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2009 6:27 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Engineering Christmas Hi All, Once again, it seems it has befallen upon me uphold the job of official Santa Physics story reposter. So, in the true spirit of the season, here it is yet again. And as always, I have not checked the math. Enjoy. Martin Engineering Christmas: Some points of contention. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist 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, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each dwelling. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has about 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, 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 on to 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 or other breaks. This requires that Santa's sleigh moves at 650 miles per second--3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and conventional reindeer can run at best 30 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500,000 tons, not counting Santa himself. On land a conventional reindeer can pull about 300 pounds. Even granting that the flying reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job just cannot be done with eight or nine of them-- Santa would need 360,000 reindeer! This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 4.600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance-- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere (which may explain Rudolph's red nose). The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. In short, they would instantaneously vaporize exposing the reindeer behind them to the same friction and also creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would vanish within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 Gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering red-hot blob of goo. And yet, he returns year after year. Therefore, the rules of physics obviously don't apply to Santa and his yearly mission. Speaking as an engineer, this guy must know something about relativity that we have yet to discover. HO, HO, OC. __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Engineering Christmas
However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions H, In light of the current state of global tensions, we may have to revise Santa's preferential circuit. We ought to form a committee! -- From: Dark Matter freequa...@gmail.com Sent: Saturday, December 19, 2009 7:27 PM To: Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Subject: [meteorite-list] Engineering Christmas Hi All, Once again, it seems it has befallen upon me uphold the job of official Santa Physics story reposter. So, in the true spirit of the season, here it is yet again. And as always, I have not checked the math. Enjoy. Martin Engineering Christmas: Some points of contention. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist 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, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each dwelling. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has about 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, 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 on to 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 or other breaks. This requires that Santa's sleigh moves at 650 miles per second--3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and conventional reindeer can run at best 30 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500,000 tons, not counting Santa himself. On land a conventional reindeer can pull about 300 pounds. Even granting that the flying reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job just cannot be done with eight or nine of them-- Santa would need 360,000 reindeer! This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 4.600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance-- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere (which may explain Rudolph's red nose). The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. In short, they would instantaneously vaporize exposing the reindeer behind them to the same friction and also creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would vanish within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 Gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering red-hot blob of goo. And yet, he returns year after year. Therefore, the rules of physics obviously don't apply to Santa and his yearly mission. Speaking as an engineer, this guy must know something about relativity that we have yet to discover. HO, HO, OC. __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Engineering Christmas
This is my first holiday season on the list and the first time I've seen this. Outstanding! Hi All, Once again, it seems it has befallen upon me uphold the job of official Santa Physics story reposter. So, in the true spirit of the season, here it is yet again. And as always, I have not checked the math. Enjoy. Martin Engineering Christmas: Some points of contention. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist 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, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each dwelling. Santa has about 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 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has about 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, 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 on to 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 or other breaks. This requires that Santa's sleigh moves at 650 miles per second--3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and conventional reindeer can run at best 30 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500,000 tons, not counting Santa himself. On land a conventional reindeer can pull about 300 pounds. Even granting that the flying reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job just cannot be done with eight or nine of them-- Santa would need 360,000 reindeer! This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 4.600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance-- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere (which may explain Rudolph's red nose). The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. In short, they would instantaneously vaporize exposing the reindeer behind them to the same friction and also creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would vanish within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 miles per second in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 Gs. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering red-hot blob of goo. And yet, he returns year after year. Therefore, the rules of physics obviously don't apply to Santa and his yearly mission. Speaking as an engineer, this guy must know something about relativity that we have yet to discover. HO, HO, OC. __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
