Someone emailed this to me the other day. I have no idea who the original author was, but I thought of all you AT geeks might find this entertaining. I did nonetheless 
I apologize about the format this text is in. I copied it from a PDF, so it may post a little strange.
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 300000 species of liv-
ing 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
children, that reduces the workload to 18.9% of the total - 378 million ac-
cording to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of
1.95 children per household, thatÕs 193.8 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 seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to
say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has
1/1737th 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 193.8
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 15/24 km per household, a total trip of 121 1/2 million
kilometers, 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 1000 kilometers per second, 3000 times the speed of sound.
For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses
space probe, moves at a poky 44 kilometers per second.
A conventional reindeer can run - tops - 25 kilome-
ters 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 (1kilo), the sleigh is carrying 321300 tons, not
counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional re-
indeer can pull no more than 150 kilograms. Even granting that flying rein-
deer (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot
do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214200 reindeer. This in-
creases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh
to 353430 tons. Again, for comparison this is four times the weight of
the Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353000 tons travelling at 1000 kilometers per second creates enormous air
resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as space-
crafts re-entering the earthÕs atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeers 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. San-
ta, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17500.06 times
greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)
would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4315015 pounds of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's
dead now.
I apologize about the format this text is in. I copied it from a PDF, so it may post a little strange.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 300000 species of liv-
ing 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
children, that reduces the workload to 18.9% of the total - 378 million ac-
cording to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of
1.95 children per household, thatÕs 193.8 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 seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to
say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has
1/1737th 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 193.8
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 15/24 km per household, a total trip of 121 1/2 million
kilometers, 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 1000 kilometers per second, 3000 times the speed of sound.
For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses
space probe, moves at a poky 44 kilometers per second.
A conventional reindeer can run - tops - 25 kilome-
ters 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 (1kilo), the sleigh is carrying 321300 tons, not
counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional re-
indeer can pull no more than 150 kilograms. Even granting that flying rein-
deer (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot
do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214200 reindeer. This in-
creases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh
to 353430 tons. Again, for comparison this is four times the weight of
the Queen Elizabeth.
5) 353000 tons travelling at 1000 kilometers per second creates enormous air
resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as space-
crafts re-entering the earthÕs atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeers 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. San-
ta, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17500.06 times
greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)
would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4315015 pounds of force.
In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's
dead now.
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