h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

...so what is Santa going to leave in my shoe? Is it a sack of ashes (as claimed by my Irish freind) or a lump of coal (the only thing I've ever heard ever, ever, ever until now)

Please help...

zantic

Sack of ashes, I'm afraid.

But then, I'm Oirish too! I did have a friend once who did really truly receive a sack of ashes

A sixpence and an orange.

Perhaps it depends on where you are. It could well be that Santa is deeply sensative to the cultural hertige of each country he delivers to, and so adapts his 'naughty child' desposit depending on local customs.

Here in England, I believe it should be a lump of coal, else I'm not sure.


Geggs

I'm Irish too, but I was always told Daddy Christmas would leave a lump of coal if I wasn't good.

Santa
An Engineers view of Santa (don't tell the kids)

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000'th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses spaceprobe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run at 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them --- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in 0.001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Merry Christmas!

Is the lump of coal not a Scottish first-footing thingy?

We used to get lumps of coal if we'd been *good*.

You, You Bastard! You killed Santa! *sob

Yes Luck Star it is a first footing tradition in Scotland.

Aye, yu get first footed by a tall dark stranger wi a lump of coal, a black bun and a bottle o whiskey.

However, that is summat else entirely. when I was told the whole santa story, I'm sure it was lumps of coal or stones he left in the bad kids shoes. Ah well...

zantic

and... though... may we ask... why have you been a 'bad person' this year?

*sniff-sniff*

I can definitely smell roast reindeer in here.


~jwf~

I thought if you left a bottle of beer out for Santa on Chr*stm*s Eve, that it made up for any lapses in behaviour for the previous year. Always worked for us .

But only* if it was a bottle of beer filled with beer... rather than... something else

What the engineers failed to count in their calculations was that in Europe alone, different countries and cultures version of Christmas means that there's a small, localised Christmas night on almost every night from mid-December until the end of February (granted the English speaking world causes a bit of a problem...)


I have the answer!


Franchise!!!!!!!

Inc.

I think it's down to Santa's discretion. (And whether you've been naughty with Santa. )

Silly engineer, everyone knows that Santa has harnessed neutrinos and dark matter in order to get his antigravitics and antiinertials going at all times. He also has all year to set up quantum-linked protons to help with some minor teleportations, too. Because they seem impossibly magic to you just means *you* are victim of Clarke's Law.



If you are particularly fond of ashes, I suppose you could burn your lump of coal. How much ash can one get from one lump; a whole sacks' worth? Perhaps you should be extra naughty from now on to get more lumps.

That's funny 'cos I was going to post and say that of course Santa can get round everyone in an evening, because he's , obviously.

If you've been very, very bad he may leave his phone number and email addy...