No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 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 seen.

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 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. Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different times zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). That works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/100th 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 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 purpose 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, etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison the fastest man made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second. The 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 leigh 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 1st paragraph) could pull TEN TIMES the amout of normal reindeer, we cannot do the job with eight or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the sleigh - to 353,400 tons. Again, for comparison, this is four times the weight of luxury liner the Queen Elizabeth. 353,400 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft 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, exploding the entire reindeer team behind them, and create the 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 by now.

 

SOMEBODY in Minnesota is gettin' coal in their stocking this year. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

Jaybee

 

You forgot the "magic" factor. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] Next your gonna try to tell us that Superman can't fly. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif[/img] [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Are you implying that Santa isn't real? I think I'm going to cry. All I know is that fat b@st@rd hasn't been eating the cookies and milk and carrots for the reindeer, so I've been having to finish the job for him. Makes me sick just thinking of all the cookies and carrots I am going to have to eat in less than 36 hours.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

good I need to stay warm!

 

I told my sons that when they stopped believing in Santa Claus they would stop getting a present from him. At 19 and 21 they still believe. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

So how does the Easter Bunny do it? .............He just hops RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!.....LOL........caper............ .........

 

bunnys can burrow....there for he/she can go underground and it would take less time :-D