> > >                         IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS?
> > > 
> > > As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help
> > > from that renown scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am
> > > pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into 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 cihldren, 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 seemes 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
> > > and 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 anount, 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 enourmous
> > > 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.  
>