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.

Finding Nemo and the Wonder of Discovery

Finding Nemo

My favorite Pixar movie is "Finding Nemo". I know, everyone from my generation would probably beat me senseless over such blasphemy because my favorite Pixar film should be "Toy Story". (actually, I might like "Toy Story 2" better than the first one; double blasphemy!) It might be because it's been years since I've seen either of the two first Toy Story films, but nonetheless, "Finding Nemo" finds itself at the top of the list. And why not? It's a visually beautiful film, Thomas Newman's score is soothingly serene, and where else would you learn that clown fish aren't really that funny?

But I like it for a different reason. Yes, I'm typically attracted to visually appealing films and pretty soundtracks, but this film had re-awoken something in me that few other films have touched upon: my inner boyhood.

No sooner had the film finished than I was on YouTube, clicking through National Geographic videos of marine life (especially whales), reigniting my boyish curiosity and wonder. The diversity of the multitudinous marine species was astounding to me, even now.

The instructional drawing book my
mother gave me in 1st grade.

As a boy, I was a science nerd. Anything I could get my hands on, I'd just eat up whatever knowledge I could. Ocean wildlife, though one of many topics, was definitely one of my favorites. I dreamed of becoming a marine biologist and working with undersea creatures.

This got me to thinking. Throughout my liberal arts education, I've become painfully aware of the havoc wrought by the modern era. To be fair, there have been some excellent technological advances in the modern age, but to also be fair, there have been some fatal errors in thought that have brought about many modern-day horrors (the Holocaust, moral-relativism, communism, etc.) The one that quickly came to mind was the scientific method.

The scientific method is based on the notion of inductive reasoning, which takes individual observations, makes a general statement (hypothesis) about them, then creates an experiment to test the statement. If properly used, inductive reasoning is a powerful tool for science. This is primarily what is meant by the Scientific Revolution of the Renaissance. It is true that human innovation and technology have advanced more in the past 500 years than in any given 500 years in recorded human history. And it may be true that the power of inductive reasoning is to be given credit for this. However, with the expansion of man's ability to innovate has also come the expansion of man's insatiable desire for material things.

It's not wonder that technological engineering has become the religion of the world. Material gods such as the iPhone, the personal computer, the Blu-Ray, the social network, the feeding of the world's hungry, and even the cure for cancer have driven science to fulfill our material needs. I do not despise the iPhone/computer/Blu-Ray/social network (I possess all four) or ending world hunger/curing cancer. These are not evils in themselves, but they certainly are what we make of them. (and yes, I believe that even the search for a cure for cancer can be corrupted by our desire to cheat death) At the end of the day, the modern world asks of science, "Does it make life easier?"

When was the last time we did something just because we wanted to satisfy our wonder and curiosity? Inductive reasoning tends to rob us of our natural wonder and awe because we hope for results we've already predicted in a hypothesis. We've forgotten that part of ourselves that is always seeking answers; the inquisitive little boy or girl in all of us.

Maybe it isn't science that you're curious or inquisitive about. Maybe you grew up wanting to be a famous artist, and now you're a marketing major or working for a graphic design firm. Or maybe you loved learning about history and ancient cultures, and now you're a politician or a lawyer. Or maybe you are like me, growing up as an inquisitive junior scientist and mathematician, but now you're an engineer or a doctor. If we allow it, we can lose our curiosity.

And is life worth living if we ignore our questions? Yes, our curiosity is insatiable and that's one of the things that makes us human, but feeding that desire fills the soul with wonder. It enables us to see past ourselves and our wants/needs and draws our focus to see the world as it really is: filled to the brim and overflowing with spectacles and amazement unparalleled by any other. Whether it's the depth of space or the ocean, the thick rain forests of South America or the grassy savanna of the African plains, the changes in the weather or the changes in the nucleus of the atom in a nuclear reaction, the world is full of natural wonders to be marveled at.

And return to that innocent inquisitiveness is possible. We can learn things, solely for the sake of knowing and satisfying that curious little boy or girl inside. Just begin by asking yourself: how old are sea turtles?

Opinion: A "Hobbit" Trilogy?

"The Hobbit" is going to be three movies."

Most people might read this statement and think, "what is a 'hobbit'?" I'm sorry if you're one of those few, but feel free to educate yourself here.

I have several reactions to this statement, and hopefully by the end of this blog post, I will have gotten my bewilderment sorted out and (maybe) have a coherent opinion on this news.

First: why? Why are they making three films out of one book? This strikes me as a stupid money-making marketing ploy. I hate it when Hollywood complicates stuff like this and really ruins good films. Because the creative team here is mostly intact and all the original actors have returned to play their respective characters as needed, this "trilogy" will forever be associated with The Lord of the Rings, which is critically acclaimed as excellent. Whether for good or ill, this will be considered as essentially the same story. So if this goes south, LotR is going to go the way of Star Wars and its 3 prequel films and Jackson will be regarded as just another George Lucas who creates your childhood cinematic loves, (LotR is very much this for me) then once you've reached adulthood, he ruins them by using it to get more cash from you. So this thought makes me angry.

Second, how? The Hobbit is about 310 pages long. This is just a little over half the size of the Fellowship of the Ring... the first book in the series of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! And it's about one fifth the size of the whole LotR trilogy. Somehow, they got it so that the original plan was to make two movies out of the Hobbit. Where are they getting this new material from? Apparently, much of it arises from the appendices listed at the end of the Return of the King (the third book in the LotR series) and in Tolkien's other notes. But unfortunately, alot of this was not published by Tolkien as its own work because it was not complete/finished. It might be mentioned in passing in an appendix, but will Jackson and the crew be able to fully realize Tolkien's vision and tell his story? Or is it just material scraped and scrounged to make a Hollywood blockbuster? I'd say this idea makes me doubtful.

Now, my reaction to this news has also been positive. Peter Jackson has done a pretty good job of adapting Tolkien's work to the screen. And while it may not be faithful to every single little detail written in the books, I think it does a good job of illustrating for the viewer in the span of 10ish hours what Tolkien is trying to say. (if you want any more than that, then I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to suck it up and read the books) So with this in mind, I'm a little curious to see how Jackson pulls it off.

Also, Howard Shore will be composing the music. All three of his scores for the LotR trilogy were stellar (with the scores for the 1st and 3rd films garnering Academy Award wins). So, if anything, the extra film will just produce more beautiful music that I will inevitably be buying. An example of this are the additional Pirates of the Caribbean films. I have only seen the first two sequels, but the music that Hans Zimmer wrote for them complement and expand on Klaus Badelt's decent score for the first film (which I believe that Hans Zimmer also had a strong hand in creating). Regardless, I'd say more music from Howard Shore's interpretation of Middle Earth makes me giddy.

In conclusion, I'd say I'm dubiously furious at Peter Jackson's audacity to make what was a simple bedtime story into 3-film cinematic epic, while still remaining inquisitively enchanted at the prospect of there being more of Middle Earth to see on the Silver Screen.