Santa Clause? A Mathematical Proof of Non-Existence

[Looks like this engineer had nothing better to do with his time, so he came up with a mathematical proof for the non-existence of Santa Claus…]

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 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 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 travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous 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 17,500.06 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.

QuotaBills
Engineering with fabric. - Jean Muir

Love is metaphysical gravity. - R Buckminster Fuller

Politics is an inexact science. - Otto von Bismarck

There is no gravity. The earth sucks. - Graffito

Christmas comes, but once a year is enough. - American Proverb

The writer is the engineer of the human soul. - Joseph Stalin

Logic is neither science nor an art, but a dodge. - Benjamin Jowett

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. - Immanuel Kant

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Management is a practice where art, science, and craft meet. - Henry Mintzberg

I'm walking backwards for Christmas Across the Irish Sea. - Spike Milligan

Mathematics is the science which uses easy words for hard ideas. - James Roy Newman

I now touch nothing stronger than buttermilk: 90-proof buttermilk. - WC Fields

To err is human; to try to prevent recurrence of error is science. - Unknown

Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy. - Benjamin Franklin

The Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached its goal. - George Bernard Shaw

I know that this defies the law of gravity, but, you see, I never studied law. - Bugs Bunny

The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin

If my Valentine you won't be,
I'll hang myself on your Christmas tree. - Ernest Hemingway

I built my church on Easter services, Christmas Eve services, and Norman Vincent Peale. - Robert H. Schuller

True and solemn meaning of Christmas, which is a time for peace and quiet contemptation. - Archie Bunker

The patient does not care about your science; what he wants to know is, can you cure him? - Martin H. Fischer

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us. - Peter De Vries

If you thought before that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part. - Richard P Feynman

If 'ifs and buts' were 'candy and nuts', we'd have Christmas every day. - Unknown

The Bermuda Triangle got tired of warm weather. It moved to Alaska. Now Santa Claus is missing. - Steven Wright

I still have my Christmas Tree. I looked at it today. Sure enough, I couldn't see any forests. - Steven Wright

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a family all wrapped up in each other. - Bill Vaughan

Truth in science can be defined as the working hypothesis best suited to open the way to the next better one. - Konrad Lorenz

In the sick room, ten cents' worth of human understanding equals ten dollars' worth of medical science. - Martin H. Fischer

Statistics: the only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions. - Evan Esar

I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent back a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof. - Rodney Dangerfield

So long as the mother, ignorance, lives, it is not safe for science, the offspring, to divulge the hidden cause of things. - Johannes Kepler

Did you read about Starbucks? No more "Merry Christmas" at Starbucks. No more. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks. - Donald Trump

It is reasonable to expect the doctor to recognize that science may not have all the answers to problems of health and healing. - Norman Cousins

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. - Shirley Temple

I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, "Well, that's not going to happen." - Unknown

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. - Corrie Ten Boom

The physician should look upon the patient as a besieged city and try to rescue him with every means that art and science place at his command. - Alexander of Tralles

see also Christmas & Engineering Sections
Modern Santa Claus

Santa Claus or Santa Clause?

Mathematical proof of Non-Existence

19-May-2022