The Science of Santa Claus

As a high school junior in physics class, we were released from classes for Christmas break with a short scientific analysis of the plausibility of Santa Claus. I admit, slightly shamefully, I wish I had the personality to be able to come up with these because I really quite enjoy these sorts of reality checks. Alas, I did not come up with this one, but I repost it for your reading pleasure from another website, credited below:

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 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 is 91.9 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 seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children 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 75½ 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, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest manmade 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.

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 their 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.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance — this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer with 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.

 From http://www.chainreactionbicycles.com/santaclaus.htm 

My conclusion to all this: it's more plausible that God became man, remaining both fully God and fully man, and that a virgin conceived this child and gave birth to him, all throughout this process remaining a virgin, than Santa Claus existing.

My History of Coffee

This post is a portion of a larger untitled work in progress...


When birthday or Christmas time rolls around, people ask me for gift ideas for me. Typically, I don’t appreciate this question because that spoils all the fun of getting someone a gift. But I play along anyway. What I usually say is very simply, “Coffee.” I get a laugh or two and then they ask me what I really want for my birthday.

This puzzles me. I just told them. Coffee.

People that don’t know me very well seem not to take that answer seriously. Wait, was I being serious? Was I really talking about the beverage that everybody makes, half-asleep, a couple minutes after dragging themselves out of bed in the morning? Was I actually referring to the chewable, black tar that the bushy-mustached old man makes at the office, referring to it as a “cup of Joe” when it would be more accurate to refer to it as a “cup of– wait a second… is this dirt”? Was I speaking about the beverage that represents just a "caffeine fix", as easily replaceable by Red Bull, Monster, or RockStar?  Oddly enough, coffee is not my source for a caffeine fix.

Coffee is a source for spiritual experiences.

Kaldi, son of Aldi

Given to mankind from the Mug of God himself, coffee has a long and hallowed history. Originating in Ethiopia in the 9th century and discovered by Kaldi, son of Aldi (who himself was the successful founder of a global discount supermarket chain), the drink quickly became known for its healing powers and use in religious ceremonies. It was adopted by many Middle Eastern countries and became a staple as a drink of the Muslim world. Despite the success of the drink in the immediate area, the Islamic nations withheld trade to the Western and Far Eastern countries.

It was not until the early 12th century when Saint Drogo, blessed by the Lord with the ability to bilocate, was able to liberate the bean covertly from the Middle East’s grip and brought it to Italy, thereby earning the title of “patron saint of coffee and coffeehouses”. Unfortunately, the Christian world was not yet prepared to accept the strange brew from the Muslim world. But in 1600, Pope Clement the VIII proclaimed that the drink be made available to all Christians, declaring, “Non magis excusat desideraturus mane Missam!” The western world was ecstatic, blessing God for his infinite goodness and generosity.

The Boston Coffee Party of 1773

Since then, nations all around the world began to discover the black and life-giving treasure. In America before the Revolutionary War, the King of England had laid a heavy tax on tea, prompting the colonial peoples to import coffee as a substitute. After tasting the first arrival of the new beverage, they were astonished at the superior taste and tossed all of the British-imported tea into Boston harbor in celebration. The event was erroneously misnamed because the drink of choice at the ensuing party was in fact coffee, making it accurately known as the “Boston Coffee Party”.

In the early 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte sought to invade and conquer Russia. Despite the Russian’s “scorched earth” tactics, the French army was resolute on entering Moscow. Although two thirds of Moscow lay burned upon their arrival, it was not the ruin and spoil of their prize that disheartened the Emperor of France: the Russians did not have any coffee in the city . Unable to devise a strategy to survive the bitter Russian winter without the soul-warming brew, Napoleon sounded the retreat and his army limped back to France, discouraged, defeated, and de-caffeinated.

Without coffee, Thomas Edison’s 10,000 attempts to invent the light bulb would have been impossible to accomplish during the long days and endless nights of work. Without coffee, Ward Cleaver would have woken up every morning to the sound of Beaver’s voice without the character-fortifying agent that restrains the disciplining backhand. And without coffee, countless research papers and final projects would have lay in ruins before procrastinating student.

Every culture, every land, throughout all of human history, has benefited from this wonderful beverage. If fresh, it is sweet to taste and refreshing to the mind. Though truly fresh coffee is difficult to obtain, roasts abound that harness the power of the bean and still yield not to bitterness.