Does Santa exist?

[Henke]

I'm beginning to have doubts about the existence of Santa. Could it all be a massive scam? It would be terrible, but when you think about it, it doesn't really seem to fit together. Here are a few things:

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. There are still 300.000 living organisms that have yet to be classified, and although most of them are insects and bacterias, the existance of flying reindeers that only santa have seen can not be excluded totally, but it seems quite unlikely.

2) There are 2 billion children (aged under 18 ) in the world, BUT because santa doesn't seem to serve muslim, hindu, jewish or buddhist children, the work load is reduced to 15% of all children -378 million children. With an average of 3,5 childrens per household, it amounts to 91,8 million homes. It is estimated that there is at least one good kid in every home.

3) Santa has 31 christmas hours to work on, thanks to the different time zones and earth's rotation, if we assume that he's travelling from east to west (which seems logical). This means 822,6 visits per second. Which in turn means that for every christian home with good children, santa has 1/1000 of a second to park his sled, jump out with the sack, get down that chimney, fill the socks with presents, leave the rest of the presents under the three, eat some of the snacks that have hopefully been left for him, get up trough the chimney, back up in the sled and get going again. We will now assume that all christian houses are evenly distanced from each other on the earth (which is of course not true, but for the sake of this calculation, we'll have to accept it for now). This gives us 1,2 kilometres between each house. A trip of 120,8 million kilometres in total. This doesn't include pit stops for what most of us would need to do at least once during the period of 31 hours, plus feeding of the animals etc. This means that santas sled is moving at a speed of Mach 3000, 1045 kilometres per second. Compair this with the fastest man made vehicle, Ulysses space shuttle, which is a snail at 43,8 kilometres per second. A normal reindeer has a topspeed of 24Km/h

4) Another interesting thing is the weight of the sled. If we assume that every child doesn't get anything more than a standard sized toy that weights 1,5kg, the sled should weight in at 321000 tons. That does not include santa who is usually described as over weight. Conventional reindeer can pull a load of 220kg max. Even if special flying reindeer can pull 10 times that weight, 8 reindeers won't be enough. We would need 214200 reindeers. This increases sled weight to 353430 tons, four times the weight of atlantic cruiser Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353000 tons travelling at a speed of 1045Km/s creates a massive amount of drag. This will heat up the reindeers the same way a space ship returning to the earths atmosphere. The first couple of reindeers would absorb 143 quintrillion joules of pure energy per second each. They would incinerate almost instantly, which would set the couple behind on fire, and so on. They would also create a deafening bang in their wake. The whole group of reindeers would burn up after approximately 4,26 thousands of a second. Santa would during this time be exposed to centrifugal forces of about 17500 times gravity. A 182 kg santa would then be pushed to the back wall of the sled with a force of 3149961kg.

Sorry kids, but if santa ever delivered christmas gifts, he'd be dead by now.

[Congratulations]

Magic...

[Lambchop]

I'm beginning to have doubts about the existence of Santa. Could it all be a massive scam? It would be terrible, but when you think about it, it doesn't really seem to fit together.

Is "Henke" Swedish for "Scrooge?"

[Bloomfield]

I'm beginning to have doubts about the existence of Santa. Could it all be a massive scam? It would be terrible, but when you think about it, it doesn't really seem to fit together.

Is "Henke" Swedish for "Scrooge?"

Is "Lampchop" English for "Eccles?"

[jim stone]

Grandma got run over by a reindeer
Walking home from our house Christmas Eve.
You may say there's no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Grandpa: we believe!

[Redwolf]

Well, NORAD believes in Santa, and that's good enough for me!

http://www.noradsanta.org

Redwolf

[cowtime]

OK, if he can get down a chimney with a bag full of toys and then go back up the thing, then why can't he withstand the "g"s? If the reindeer can fly, whos to say just how fast or what weight they can pull during flight?And, in order not to founder they would not need feeding or watering during work.

Your theory is faulty. Santa IS real.

[djm]

Try Google.

For flying reindeer, you might want to investigate the word "cryptozoology".

For multiple visits to so many homes, check out "schizophrenia".

Instead of searching for Santa Claus, I am more concerned with the person who once wrote, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." There are no virgins.

djm

[chas]

3) Santa has 31 christmas hours to work on, thanks to the different time zones and earth's rotation, if we assume that he's travelling from east to west (which seems logical). This means 822,6 visits per second. Which in turn means that for every christian home with good children, santa has 1/1000 of a second to park his sled, jump out with the sack, get down that chimney, fill the socks with presents, leave the rest of the presents under the three, eat some of the snacks that have hopefully been left for him, get up trough the chimney, back up in the sled and get going again.

And people wonder why there aren't any REAL PHOTOGRAPHS of Santa. It's obvious that he's never in one spot long enough to get a picture that isn't all blurry!

I saw a comedian once who said he hadn't heard of Santa till he was a little older. He said something to the effect, "Reindeer on the roof? I almost broke my back setting the traps!"

[Charlene]

This is something my father used to trot out almost every Christmas:


A LETTER FROM SANTA

I'm writing this letter to tell you
The government's taken away
The things that all really matter
My reindeer, my horses, my sleigh.

I'm making my rounds on a donkey
That is old and feeble and slow
So if you don't see me at Christmas,
I'll be out on my ass in the snow.

[Wombat]

Take it to the intelligent design thread. This could get nasty.

Didn't you learn Santa physics at school. It's really all done with cold fission. It's very cold at the North Pole in December. Santa, the reindeer, the sleigh and all those presents (including yet another handkerchief set from Aunt Nancy) just fission (like amoebe) and go about their mutiple tasks at normal reindeer and chubby old man speed. The visits to the southern hemisphere and the Aussie beer warm them up enough to fuse again until next Christmas.

[Chiffed]

Henke, don't cut yourself shaving with Occam's razor. Can't prove a negative, and I've got kids. I've got enough trouble convincing them that bedtimes, homework, and green vegetables exist.

[Walden]

----- MEMO -----

To: Southern USA Residents
From: Santa
RE: Replacement Santa

I regret to inform you that effective immediately, I will no longer be able to serve the Southern United States on Christmas Eve. Due to overwhelming current population of the earth, my contract was renegotiated by North American Fairies and Elves Local 209. I now serve only certain areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. As part of the new and better contract I also get longer breaks for milk and cookies, so keep that in mind. However, I'm certain that your children will be in good hands with your local replacement who happens to be my third cousin, Bubba Claus. His side of the family in from the South pole. He shares my goal of delivering toys to all the good boys and girls; however, there are a few differences between us. Differences such as:

1. There is no danger of a Grinch stealing your presents from Bubba Claus. He has a gun rack on his sleigh and a bumper sticker that reads: "These toys insured by Smith & Wesson."

2. Instead of milk and cookies, Bubba Claus prefers that children leave an RC Cola and pork rinds on the fireplace. And Bubba doesn't smoke a pipe. He dips a little snuff though, so please have an empty spit can handy.

3. Bubba Claus' sleigh is pulled by a 1982 F-150 XLT. I made the mistake of lending him a couple of my reindeer one time, and Blitzen's head now overlooks Bubba's fireplace.

4. You won't hear "On Comet, on Cupid, on Donder and Blitzen..." when Bubba Claus arrives. Instead you'll hear, "On Earnhardt, on Wallace, on Martin and LaBonte. On Rudd, on Jarrett, on Elliot and Petty."

5. "Ho, ho, ho!" has been replaced by "Yee Haw!" And you also are likely to hear Bubba's elves reply, "I heared that!"

6. As required by Southern highway laws, Bubba Claus' sleigh does have a Yosemite Sam safety triangle on the back with the words, "Back Off!"

7. The usual Christmas movie classics such as "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a Wonderful Life" will not be shown in your negotiated viewing area. Instead, you will see "Boss Hogg Saves Christmas" and "Smokey and the Bandit IV" featuring Burt Reynolds as Bubba Claus and dozens of State Patrol cars crashing into each other.
8. Bubba Claus doesn't wear a belt. If I were you, I'd make sure you, the wife, and the kids turn the other way when he bends over to put presents under the tree.

9. And finally, lovely Christmas songs have been sung about me like "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" and Bing Crosby's "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". This year, songs about Bubba Claus will be played on all the AM radio stations in the South. These song titles will be Mark Chesnutt's "Bubba Claus shot the jukebox"; Cledus T. Judd's, "All I want for Christmas is my Woman and a Six-opack", and Hank Williams Jr's "If You Don't Like Bubba Claus, You Shove It."

Sincerely Yours,
Santa Claus
(Member of North American Fairies and Elves Local 209)


woops... cut and pasted the wrong message... this is the stock answer for that one...


Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus?Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

[Lambchop]

I'm beginning to have doubts about the existence of Santa. Could it all be a massive scam? It would be terrible, but when you think about it, it doesn't really seem to fit together.

Is "Henke" Swedish for "Scrooge?"

Is "Lampchop" English for "Eccles?"

eccles

n : Australian physiologist noted for his research on the conduction of impulses by nerve cells (1903-1997) [syn: Eccles, John Eccles, Sir John Carew Eccles]

[Tommy]

4) Another interesting thing is the weight of the sled. If we assume that every child doesn't get anything more than a standard sized toy that weights 1,5kg, the sled should weight in at 321000 tons. That does not include santa who is usually described as over weight. Conventional reindeer can pull a load of 220kg max. Even if special flying reindeer can pull 10 times that weight, 8 reindeers won't be enough.
[/quote]

A. There are nine Reindeer.
B. No one has ever been able to stay awake long enough to see him.
C. Math calculations, and theory are abstract data- not scientific data.
E.
F.