I found this recently. I was horrified by the fact that someone went to the trouble to figure out the math of this, but it was too funny to pass up. This is what a college education will do for you. Enjoy.
"IS THERE A 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 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.
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 1/1000th 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 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.
5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous 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. "
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Happy Holidays
Ahhh, the holidays. A time of year for peace on earth, no school, and sleeping in until 12. Then you wake up to pumpkin pie burning in the oven, siblings fighting each other, and some important appliance in the house will break, usually something that involves keeping the house warm. This year it was my backdoor.
The word "holiday" is sometimes synonymous with the word "stress." Parties, presents, cards, relatives, and dinners all combine to develop a cacophony of conflicting demands that create stress. For some reason, 85% of all Christmas parties that you are obligated to go to are scheduled on the same day. At or around the same time. I had two this weekend, and had to turn down another one. Oddly enough, people can't seem to understand that their party isn't the most important thing in the world that I have to attend to. So, basically, I am a despicable human being for blowing off the very essence of Christmas itself by not attending. (I may be a little bitter)
Holiday parties are unique. No one has a good time, there is never any good food, the timing is always the most inconvenient, there is never any place to park, and yet, 90% of the people in attendance will leave commenting on how great the evening was. I think there's something in the eggnog. Honestly, I don't see the point. And don't even get me started on white elephant gift exchanges. I mean, nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a useless gift under $5.
Then there's the presents. One of the most important aspects of Christmas that causes the most anxiety. To quote the ever insightful Sheldon Cooper, "I know you think you are being generous, but the foundation of gift giving is reciprocity. You haven't given me a gift. You've given me an obligation... The essence of the custom is that I now have to go out and purchase for you a gift of commensurate value and representing the same perceived level of friendship as that represented by the gift you've given me. It's no wonder suicide rates skyrocket this time of year." That pretty much sums it up.
Then there's the surprise gift, when a peripheral acquaintance has a sudden burst of generosity and remembers you're on the planet long enough to buy you an insignificant trinket. Along with the feeling of surprise comes guilt, because you forget they were on the planet, and the need to respond in kind. Normally, the proper way out of this situation is "oh, I have yours at home and I can't believe I forgot it." My personal advice? Don't bother. This person probably wanted to get rid of a white elephant gift from an earlier party and you were the first sucker that came to mind. Don't take on the added stress of buying yet another gift for yet another person who probably couldn't care less.
Sadly, the holidays prove to be a stressful time of year. So take time out of the hectic hustle and bustle to take a sip of eggnog, walk through a winter wonderland (even if it's just typing "let it snow" into google), and rediscover the joys of Christmas. Being a college student means you're not expected to always act like an adult; take advantage of this. Chill out, goof off, get in a snowball fight at two in the morning. And hope Santa brings a full tuition scholarship for your stocking.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
The word "holiday" is sometimes synonymous with the word "stress." Parties, presents, cards, relatives, and dinners all combine to develop a cacophony of conflicting demands that create stress. For some reason, 85% of all Christmas parties that you are obligated to go to are scheduled on the same day. At or around the same time. I had two this weekend, and had to turn down another one. Oddly enough, people can't seem to understand that their party isn't the most important thing in the world that I have to attend to. So, basically, I am a despicable human being for blowing off the very essence of Christmas itself by not attending. (I may be a little bitter)
Holiday parties are unique. No one has a good time, there is never any good food, the timing is always the most inconvenient, there is never any place to park, and yet, 90% of the people in attendance will leave commenting on how great the evening was. I think there's something in the eggnog. Honestly, I don't see the point. And don't even get me started on white elephant gift exchanges. I mean, nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a useless gift under $5.
Then there's the presents. One of the most important aspects of Christmas that causes the most anxiety. To quote the ever insightful Sheldon Cooper, "I know you think you are being generous, but the foundation of gift giving is reciprocity. You haven't given me a gift. You've given me an obligation... The essence of the custom is that I now have to go out and purchase for you a gift of commensurate value and representing the same perceived level of friendship as that represented by the gift you've given me. It's no wonder suicide rates skyrocket this time of year." That pretty much sums it up.
Then there's the surprise gift, when a peripheral acquaintance has a sudden burst of generosity and remembers you're on the planet long enough to buy you an insignificant trinket. Along with the feeling of surprise comes guilt, because you forget they were on the planet, and the need to respond in kind. Normally, the proper way out of this situation is "oh, I have yours at home and I can't believe I forgot it." My personal advice? Don't bother. This person probably wanted to get rid of a white elephant gift from an earlier party and you were the first sucker that came to mind. Don't take on the added stress of buying yet another gift for yet another person who probably couldn't care less.
Sadly, the holidays prove to be a stressful time of year. So take time out of the hectic hustle and bustle to take a sip of eggnog, walk through a winter wonderland (even if it's just typing "let it snow" into google), and rediscover the joys of Christmas. Being a college student means you're not expected to always act like an adult; take advantage of this. Chill out, goof off, get in a snowball fight at two in the morning. And hope Santa brings a full tuition scholarship for your stocking.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
final(ly) week
welcome, students, to the single most stressful part of college: final exams.
The week of finals is characterized by several different aspects. first of all, there is the epic cram session. Similar to the cramming due to procrastination, these cram sessions contain a frantic, desperate mood and are accompanied by amounts of caffeine so large that they have the potential to induce heart attacks. For many students, their cramming sessions begin with a minor panic attack while they search for the textbook they haven't used in two months.
Another aspect of finals is the late/all nighter. Inevitably, the massive amount of writing/studying/panicking/reading/researching will pile up, mainly as a result of personal procrastination but also because professors can't seem to understand that you have more than one class. Therefore, the result is the late nighter. Or all nighter, depending on how (un)lucky you are. The late/all nighter starts out ambitiously strong; you are inspired in every word you type and you can read five pages of your textbook in under a minute. However, this transitions into the late part of the late/all nighter. The late part is somewhat sad. Your every move is sluggish, you yawn and blink every thirty seconds, and you catch yourself typing "I really don't give a crap about what Shakespeare was trying to symbolize in his 144th sonnet."You have just enough reason left to know that you ought to be going to sleep, but not enough reason to actually do it. As sad as the late part is, it is nothing compared to the all part of the late/all nighter. The all night part is a blur of caffeine, music, books, and for some reason the color purple. At this point, you have lost almost all coherency and you have to reread a page several times before you realize you still can't understand it and continue. The benefit of the all part of the late/all nighter is that you don't realize most of what goes on around you; you are typing with vigor, carefully watching the word-count go up, and you're thrilled that your paper is almost done. It won't be until the next morning that you realize your brilliant ideas are more incoherent than if you had typed them in Yiddish. But at least you'll have four hours or so when you actually feel smart.
During finals, you will come to realize exactly what kind of teachers you have. There's the surprisingly nice professor who only gives the final and maybe a small assignment. There's the teacher who gives the unsurprising amount, typically a final project and a test. Then, there's the malicious professor who gives a big paper, a small assignment, homework, plus a comprehensive final. Teachers' passive aggression has a tendency to show itself during the week before and of finals.
I still don't understand why teachers assign a huge paper that's due the same week as finals. Studying for tests is relatively easy in comparison. And yet, I'm required to write 2,500 words on a topic, find "credible" sources, cite them, assemble all this into a coherent format, pretend that I actually used the sources to write the paper, then submit it on time. In under 12 hours.
Finals are easily the most stressful time of the school year, where the stress of grades, deadlines, classes, exams, papers, flights, homework, assignments, selling books, late nights, and no sleep piles up on you. But when the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train, just remember that after it plows you over, the semester will be over and you'll have a whole month for winter break. Happy studying.
The week of finals is characterized by several different aspects. first of all, there is the epic cram session. Similar to the cramming due to procrastination, these cram sessions contain a frantic, desperate mood and are accompanied by amounts of caffeine so large that they have the potential to induce heart attacks. For many students, their cramming sessions begin with a minor panic attack while they search for the textbook they haven't used in two months.
Another aspect of finals is the late/all nighter. Inevitably, the massive amount of writing/studying/panicking/reading/researching will pile up, mainly as a result of personal procrastination but also because professors can't seem to understand that you have more than one class. Therefore, the result is the late nighter. Or all nighter, depending on how (un)lucky you are. The late/all nighter starts out ambitiously strong; you are inspired in every word you type and you can read five pages of your textbook in under a minute. However, this transitions into the late part of the late/all nighter. The late part is somewhat sad. Your every move is sluggish, you yawn and blink every thirty seconds, and you catch yourself typing "I really don't give a crap about what Shakespeare was trying to symbolize in his 144th sonnet."You have just enough reason left to know that you ought to be going to sleep, but not enough reason to actually do it. As sad as the late part is, it is nothing compared to the all part of the late/all nighter. The all night part is a blur of caffeine, music, books, and for some reason the color purple. At this point, you have lost almost all coherency and you have to reread a page several times before you realize you still can't understand it and continue. The benefit of the all part of the late/all nighter is that you don't realize most of what goes on around you; you are typing with vigor, carefully watching the word-count go up, and you're thrilled that your paper is almost done. It won't be until the next morning that you realize your brilliant ideas are more incoherent than if you had typed them in Yiddish. But at least you'll have four hours or so when you actually feel smart.
During finals, you will come to realize exactly what kind of teachers you have. There's the surprisingly nice professor who only gives the final and maybe a small assignment. There's the teacher who gives the unsurprising amount, typically a final project and a test. Then, there's the malicious professor who gives a big paper, a small assignment, homework, plus a comprehensive final. Teachers' passive aggression has a tendency to show itself during the week before and of finals.
I still don't understand why teachers assign a huge paper that's due the same week as finals. Studying for tests is relatively easy in comparison. And yet, I'm required to write 2,500 words on a topic, find "credible" sources, cite them, assemble all this into a coherent format, pretend that I actually used the sources to write the paper, then submit it on time. In under 12 hours.
Finals are easily the most stressful time of the school year, where the stress of grades, deadlines, classes, exams, papers, flights, homework, assignments, selling books, late nights, and no sleep piles up on you. But when the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train, just remember that after it plows you over, the semester will be over and you'll have a whole month for winter break. Happy studying.
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