Mad Geek
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Spread some holiday cheer!
Is there a Santa? Consider the following:
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.
(NOTE: This appeared in the SPY Magazine (January, 1990) )
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.
(NOTE: This appeared in the SPY Magazine (January, 1990) )
Friday, December 17, 2004
Long time, no post
Well, things have been busy here on my end of things. I've been learning all I can about my new position here so I don't look like a moron when I have to ask the other team leads for help. There have been finals at school (I think I did ok). And to make it all the sweeter, the Christmas program at church is going to be mainly music, which means the choir is practicing a lot!
Some things have changed; mainly my schedule and appetite. I now work the 9AM to 6PM shift here at work. This has the annoying habit of throwing off my lunch hour and my tummy ain't happy about it. It's rather interesting getting to drive to work in daylight, however. There's a completely different feel to the road and the people who drive around seem to be much more brain-dead. Thankfully, they also seem to keep more to surface streets than the early risers (who are more a "freeway-using zombie" type people).
My car had some problems, but they are gone now. For awhile, we were sure that the fuel lines had frozen, or that the engine wasn't getting spark. After trying for a week to get it back up, we finally took it to a mechanic. It turns out that the timing belt has a tensioner hooked to a hydraulic ram. When it got really cold, the gasket for the hydraulic ram cracked and leaked all the fluid out. When the car started, there was no tension on the timing belt and the car shut itself off to prevent damage. So for the week it wouldn't start, it was because the car's computer wasn't letting it start. Smart car, ignorant owner. In the end, we got a new gasket, belt, tensioner and ram. Not cheap.
Car works fine now, though. In fact just the other day I "field tested" it on the way to work. I didn't realize how fast I was going, I just knew I was trying to pass someone. Turns out the car easily breaks 100MPH with no problems. At that speed, the images in my rear view get really blurry.
Last night, Tine and I watched a bit of Iron Chef from Japan. I love that show (as I think I've mentioned here before). There are three main chefs to challenge; French, Japanese, and Chinese. On occasion, there is a fourth; Italian. I personally think that they should have a fifth; Bachelor. It'd be great! I can see it now; The Challenger and Iron Chef Bachelor square off as Chairman Kaga reveals the day's secret ingredient . . . Top Ramen!
There would be Kaga's voice-over: "If memory serves me correctly, many a man have forced to eat only the things they had on hand. I believe my chefs are capable of producing great dishes from these!"
Then they could have "The Day Before Payday Battle" where all they had was margarine, nutmeg (which is in all kitchens, regardless if you use it or bought it or not), and Saltines.
Ala cusine!
Some things have changed; mainly my schedule and appetite. I now work the 9AM to 6PM shift here at work. This has the annoying habit of throwing off my lunch hour and my tummy ain't happy about it. It's rather interesting getting to drive to work in daylight, however. There's a completely different feel to the road and the people who drive around seem to be much more brain-dead. Thankfully, they also seem to keep more to surface streets than the early risers (who are more a "freeway-using zombie" type people).
My car had some problems, but they are gone now. For awhile, we were sure that the fuel lines had frozen, or that the engine wasn't getting spark. After trying for a week to get it back up, we finally took it to a mechanic. It turns out that the timing belt has a tensioner hooked to a hydraulic ram. When it got really cold, the gasket for the hydraulic ram cracked and leaked all the fluid out. When the car started, there was no tension on the timing belt and the car shut itself off to prevent damage. So for the week it wouldn't start, it was because the car's computer wasn't letting it start. Smart car, ignorant owner. In the end, we got a new gasket, belt, tensioner and ram. Not cheap.
Car works fine now, though. In fact just the other day I "field tested" it on the way to work. I didn't realize how fast I was going, I just knew I was trying to pass someone. Turns out the car easily breaks 100MPH with no problems. At that speed, the images in my rear view get really blurry.
Last night, Tine and I watched a bit of Iron Chef from Japan. I love that show (as I think I've mentioned here before). There are three main chefs to challenge; French, Japanese, and Chinese. On occasion, there is a fourth; Italian. I personally think that they should have a fifth; Bachelor. It'd be great! I can see it now; The Challenger and Iron Chef Bachelor square off as Chairman Kaga reveals the day's secret ingredient . . . Top Ramen!
There would be Kaga's voice-over: "If memory serves me correctly, many a man have forced to eat only the things they had on hand. I believe my chefs are capable of producing great dishes from these!"
Then they could have "The Day Before Payday Battle" where all they had was margarine, nutmeg (which is in all kitchens, regardless if you use it or bought it or not), and Saltines.
Ala cusine!
Thursday, December 02, 2004
w00t!
Just for those of you who may wonder what that phrase means; 'w00t' (spelled just like that) is an expression of joy for online junkies and forum geeks.
OK, as to what I am happy about? Well, I just got a new position here at work to be a Team Lead. Not only does this mean I am no longer off the phone and making more, but I get my old window seat back!
Nothing much else happening here, but I thought I'd let you all know!
OK, as to what I am happy about? Well, I just got a new position here at work to be a Team Lead. Not only does this mean I am no longer off the phone and making more, but I get my old window seat back!
Nothing much else happening here, but I thought I'd let you all know!
