OT: NORAD Santa Tracker

[bluejeangirl76]

Track Santa's progress!

http://www.noradsanta.org

(sorry... I just like this!)

[strangegrey]

My favorite x-mas time joke: Santa Physics!

* 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.

* 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 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.

* 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 seemes 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 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 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 ever made on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second (a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour).

* 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 anount, 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 (the boat, not the monarch).

* 353,000+ tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enourmous air resistance; this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts 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 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.

[stevew2]

i dont care what anyone says i saw him when i was a kid

[jrnychick]

We use the NORAD Santa tracker every year, and my daughter thinks it's incredibly cool. I love that she still believes. I think it's wonderful that children accept the answer "it's magic" when they ask how Santa can get to so many houses in such a short amount of time. When she gets older, I'm really going to miss this age of innocence.

[bluejeangirl76]

I think it's wonderful that children accept the answer "it's magic" when they ask how Santa can get to so many houses in such a short amount of time.

We didn't have a fireplace, so naturally I wanted to know how Santa got into our house.
I was told that Santa, of course, has to use the front door at homes that don't have fireplaces.
Ok. Made sense.

At my sisters' mom's house, there was a fireplace, but the flue was really narrow (or at least, the visible opening was)... on careful inspection, I realized that Santa on his best day wasn't gonna fit through it, so again I asked, "how does Santa get in?" One of my older sisters told me when Santa comes down the chimney, the opening magically widens for him. I didn't buy that for a minute. The front door was a much more reasonable answer. I mean, even as a child, I was always on the side of logic rather than fantasy but still, it didn't take much to figure out that a chimney flue isn't just going to open up and stretch like Santa trying to squeeze into yoga pants.

My big scary Santa moment, during the short time I believed, was my aunt's neighbor dressing as Santa and coming into her house. I was convinced I wasn't going to get any presents unless I got home immediately, and I begged my dad to take me home because it was late and Santa had caught me out of bed.

[Rick]

i dont care what anyone says i saw him when i was a kid

I did too. He was at Woods Drug store in McAlester Oklahoma, handing out candy canes.

[stevew2]

i dont care what anyone says i saw him when i was a kid

I did too. He was at Woods Drug store in McAlester Oklahoma, handing out candy canes.

i saw him out the basement window sled, passed in front of the moon

[Sarah]

I think it's wonderful that children accept the answer "it's magic" when they ask how Santa can get to so many houses in such a short amount of time.

We didn't have a fireplace, so naturally I wanted to know how Santa got into our house.
I was told that Santa, of course, has to use the front door at homes that don't have fireplaces.
Ok. Made sense.

At my sisters' mom's house, there was a fireplace, but the flue was really narrow (or at least, the visible opening was)... on careful inspection, I realized that Santa on his best day wasn't gonna fit through it, so again I asked, "how does Santa get in?" One of my older sisters told me when Santa comes down the chimney, the opening magically widens for him. I didn't buy that for a minute. The front door was a much more reasonable answer. I mean, even as a child, I was always on the side of logic rather than fantasy but still, it didn't take much to figure out that a chimney flue isn't just going to open up and stretch like Santa trying to squeeze into yoga pants.

My big scary Santa moment, during the short time I believed, was my aunt's neighbor dressing as Santa and coming into her house. I was convinced I wasn't going to get any presents unless I got home immediately, and I begged my dad to take me home because it was late and Santa had caught me out of bed.

How did you feel when you watched The Santa Clause? Fireplaces grow for him in that movie. :p

[Rhiannon]

Track Santa's progress!

http://www.noradsanta.org

(sorry... I just like this!)

Did you seriously post this?
You geekass.

This must've been what my cousin's son was watching Wednesday night. Every few minutes "Santa's in Scotland! ... Santa's in Iceland! ... He's back in Ireland?!" My cousin Brian says "I like how they do that and make it seem so real." To which my Aunt Sandy quipped (on account of all the children in earshot), "That's because it IS real." Nice save.

[bluejeangirl76]

Track Santa's progress!

http://www.noradsanta.org

(sorry... I just like this!)

Did you seriously post this?
You geekass.

[Rhiannon]

No cheap Virginia tobacco and produce brought back for those with rotten 'tudes.

[bluejeangirl76]

No cheap Virginia tobacco and produce brought back for those with rotten 'tudes.

What are you doing online... get rolling. The weather isn't getting any better up here, and you're going to wander into the middle of it. My backyard is already flooded!