The science of Santa
(by George Will of the San Francisco Chronicle) 12/26/97
"We shall soon be having Christmas at our throats," says a grumpy character who is not the least bit like his creator, the novelist P.G. Wodehouse. Today the nation begins its annual recovery from its collision with Christmas, vowing to shape up and sin no more.
And there you sit, stunned reader, knee-deep in the remnants of gift wrappings. Feeling put-upon? Consider how Santa is feeling this morning.
With the help of calculations from a science newsletter published by the National Association of Scholars, you can apprecaite what Santa accomplished last night. Actually, he did it in 31 hours, thanks to the many time zones and the Earth's rotation.
If we count as children all poeple under 18, there are 2 billion of them. The NAS assumes, unconvincingly, that Santa does not deliver to Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and Buddhist children - as though they don't see Santa at their local Neiman Marcus and demand to board the gravy train.
But if the NAS is correct, Santa's constituency is just 15 percent of the world's children, or 378 million.
Assuming, on the basis of world census figures, 3.5 children per household, Santa must visit 91.8 million homes, or 822.6 households per second. That gives him 1/1,000th of a second to tether the reindeer to the chimney, get down the chimney, distribute the loot, scarf down the Oeros and milk, and get moving again on his journey of 75.5 million miles.
And his sleigh is moving 650 miles per second, which is 3,000 times the speed of sound. The NAS suggests assuming that each child gets only, say, a meduim-size Lego set weighing two pounds. On NAS' assupmtion, the sleigh leaves the North Pole carrying 321,300 tons.
The NAS insists that a normal, walking-around reindeer can pull 300 pounds, tops. However, the NAS assumes that Santa's unconventional reindeer can pull 10 times more than the conventional sort. Even so, Santa needs not eight, but 214,200 reindeer. And that herd increases the weight on your roof to 353,430 tons.
Trouble is, air resistance from 353,430 tons traveling 650 miles per second generates terrific heat, so the two lead reindeer, who won't be that for long, each absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of engery per second. They instantly burst into flame, as then do the next two, and so on. Santa runs through 214,200 reindeer in 4.26 thousandths of a second.
Not that he notices. He is disoriented by deafening sonic booms and by experiencing centrifugal forces 17,500 times the force of gravity. He is slammed into the back of his sleigh with 4,315,015 pounds of force.
The NAS concludes that Santa is dead, but cannot explain who put the lump of coal in its stocking.
