Engineering view of Santa Claus

In the world there are approximately 2 billion children (persons under 18). However, since Santa Claus does not visit Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist, the amount of work for  the new year is reduced to 15 %, or a total of 378 million children (according to the Population Reference Bureau). According to an average of 3.5 children per house, Santa Claus has to visit 108 million homes, if we assume that in any given house there is at least one good child .

Santa has about 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). So Santa Claus has to visit 967.7 houses per second. Thus, for each household with a good child, Santa has around 1/ 1000 second to park the sleigh, hop out, take gifts, jump into the chimney, fill the stockings, find a tree, leave the rest of the presents under the tree, climbed back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (for the purposes of our calculations), we are talking about 1.24 miles per house to another , behind what appears total time of 120.8 million miles, not counting Santa Claus visits to toilet or meal breaks, drinks etc. The above shows that the speed of Santa's sleigh moves at 1080 miles per second (3200 times the speed of sound). For comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, going "only" 45 kilometers per second (162,000 km / h), and normal deer up to 24 km per hour or 0.0066 kilometers per second.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a Lego set of medium size (about 860 grams). Then the total weight of cargo on Santa Clauses sleigh will be over 500 tons. On the ground, a normal reindeer can pull no more than about 138 kg. If we assume that Santa's flying reindeer can pull 10 times, Santa Claus would need around 360 thousand flying deer to pull sleds. Weight of so many deer increases the overall weight of the sled around 54 thousand tons, or about 7 times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

About 600 thousand tons traveling at a speed of 1080 km/second creates enormous air resistance, such resistance would heat up the reindeer in the same way as a heats up space craft reentering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second. Short, they would, burst into the living not a pretty sight torch, exposing deer behind them, and leading to a chain reaction in which all the 360 odd thousand deer vaporized within 4.26 thousands second, or right about the time to Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Santa Claus, as a result of acceleration from 0 km/h to 1080 km/h, would be exposed to acceleration power of 17.5 thousand times greater than that of a small g, ie. 175000 m/s². Santa Claus mass of 115 kg (which is very small for Santa Claus ) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 1,984,906.9 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a pulpy purple, reddish liquid.

Therefore, if Santa ever existed, he is now surely dead.

Inzenjerski pogled na Djeda Mraza

Na svijetu postoji otprilike 2 milijarde djece (osoba ispod 18 godina). Ipak, posto Djeda Mraz ne posjecuje Muslimane, Hinduse, Zidove i Budiste, kolicina posla za Novu godinu se smanjuje na 15%, odnosno sveukupno 378 miliona djece (prema Saveznom zavodu za statistiku). Prema proseku od 3.5 djece po kuci, Djeda Mraz mora posjetiti 108 miliona domova, ako pretpostavimo da u svakoj datoj kuci postoji barem jedno dobro dijete.

Djeda Mraz ima oko 31 sat Nove godine za rad, zahvaljujuci razlicitim vremenskim zonama i Zemljinoj rotaciji, i ako pretpostavimo da putuje sa istoka na zapad (sto se cini logicnim). Tako dobijamo da Djeda Mraz posjeti 967,7 kuca u sekundi. Prema tome, za svaki dobar hriscanski dom sa dobrim djetetom, Djeda Mraz ima oko hiljaditinu (1/ 1000) sekunde da zaustavi sanke, iskoci, uzme poklone, uskoci u dimnjak, napuni carape, nadje jelku, ostavi ostatak poklona pod jelku, popne se natrag kroz dimnjak, uskoci u sanke i dodje do sledece kuce.

Pretpostavljajuci da je svih 108 miliona stajalista jednako rasporedjeno po Zemlji (samo u svrhe naseg proracuna), govorimo o 1,24 kilometra razmaka od jedne do druge kuce; iz cega proizlazi ukupan put od 120,8 miliona kilometara, ne ukljucujuci Djeda Mrazove odlaske u WC ili pauze za jelo/pice. Iz navedenog proizlazi da je brzina Djeda Mrazovih sanki oko 1080 kilometara u sekundi (3200 puta veca od brzine zvuka!). Za poredjenje, najbrze ikad stvoreno vozilo, svemirska sonda Odisej, ide "svega" 45 kilometara u sekundi (162000 km/h), a normalan jelen najvise 24 km na sat odnosno 0,0066 kilometara u sekundi.

Teret na sankama je takodje jedan vrlo interesantan element. Pretpostavimo da svako dijete ne dobije nista vise nego jednu jedinu kutiju Lego kockica srednje velicine (oko 860 grama). Tada je ukupna masa tereta na Djeda Mrazovim sankama nesto veca od 500 hiljada tona. Na tlu, normalan jelen ne moze vuci vise od oko 138 kg. Ako uzmemo da Deda Mrazov leteci jelen moze vuci 10 puta vise, Djeda Mrazu bi trebalo oko 360 hiljada letecih jelena da povuku sanke. Masa tolikog broja jelena povecava sveukupnu masu sanki za oko 54 hiljade tona, odnosno za oko 7 puta mase Kraljice Elizabete (broda, ne vladarke).

Oko 600 hiljada tona putujuci brzinom od 1080 km/h stvara nezamisliv otpor vazduha - takav otpor kakav bi zagrijao jelene toliko jako koliko se zagreije svemirski brod koji ponovo ulazi u Zemljinu atmosferu. Prednji par jelena apsorbirao bi oko 14,3 kvintilijarde dzula energije u sekundi. Ukratko, taj par bi se, cim krene, pretvorio u nimalo lep prizor zivih baklji, izlazuci jelene iza njih, i dovodeci do lancane reakcije u kojoj bi svih 360-ak hiljada jelena izgorelo za oko 4,26 hiljaditina sekunde, odnosno tacno na vrijeme da Deda Mraz dodje do pete kuce na svom putu.

Djeda Mraz bi, kao rezultat akceleracije (ubrzanja) sa 0 km/h na 1080 km/h u hiljaditini sekunde, bio izlozen akceleracijskoj sili 17,5 hiljada puta vecoj od one malog g, tj. 175000 m/s². Djeda Mraz mase 115 kg (sto je vrlo malo za Djeda Mraza) bio bi prikovan za kraj svojih saonica sa 1984906,9 kilograma sile, sto bi mu trenutno smrvilo kosti i organe pretvarajuci ga u kasastu ljubicasto-crvenkastu tekucinu.

Prema tome, ako je Djeda Mraz ikada i postojao, sada je sigurno mrtav.