[Z-man]

Sorry for the long post, but I thought this would be appropriate to point out here:

Someone sent me this many years ago
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world.
However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist
(except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night
to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau).
At an average (census)rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million
homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones
and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works
out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with
a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump
down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree,
eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh
and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which,
of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations),
we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles,
not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means 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, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a pokey 27.4 miles per second, and a
conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets
nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500
thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more
than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount,
the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them -- Santa would need 360,000 of them.
This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or
roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

Six hundred thousand (600,000) tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air
resistance -- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering
the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy
per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the
reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.

The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about
the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa,
as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected
to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would
be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones
and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist,
he's dead now. Merry Christmas, everybody.

My response:
I believe there is a completely logical explanation of the Santa Dilemma:

Simply put, Santa Clause accepted Einstein's theory of relativity and is
the first person to actually apply the rules! Let me explain by pointing out
several details of relativity and how Santa used them to his benefit.

The first and most obvious point is the weight of Santa, the sled, and the reindeer.
The driving equation of relativity is:
E = MC^2 (Energy = Mass times the speed of light squared)
This equation is derived from the old Newtonian understanding of force:
F = Ma (Force = mass times acceleration)
As one accelerates, one's mass becomes greater. (If you stomp on your accelerator in your car,
your body is pushed back into the seat: you become heavier, so to speak.)
How does this relate to Santa? Simple: to travel the speed of light, one requires infinite mass.
It is stated (above) that Santa needs to travel some 3,000 times the speed of sound. Well, his
setup (sleigh, reindeer, sleigh gear, presents, himself...etc) may not be infinite mass, but
it sure weighs a lot: and according to relativity, he has enough mass to travel at a decent clip.

The second point I wish to make is this: by applying the theory of relativity, Santa's position
on earth can be explained the following way:
The 'classic' wormhole theory: Santa, by applying relativity and travelling at such great
velocities, is able to rip holes into the time and space fabric of reality, thus seemingly being
at more than one place at the same time. One way to visualize this is to picture Santa as a deflated
balloon in a corner of an empty aquarium. As the balloon is inflated, it occupies the whole
tank. Did the balloon move from it's original spot? No. Did the balloon move to another spot in the
tank? Yes. Paradox? NO! Expanding balloons in aquariums happen in real life. Expanding Santas?
Of course: that is why every good child knows to leave Santa a snack: they are just helping
Santa and his application of the theory of relativity.

Finally, I wish to address the 14.3 Quintillion joules of energy that is produced in Santa's
wake. That is simply the left side of the equation:
E = MC^2
Of course Santa will produce that kind of energy at the speeds he is travelling. But we must
not forget that in relativity, everything remains in balance: electrons, protons, neutrons, mesons,
meumesons: all the elements of the building blocks of nature must be balanced. In other words,
if Santa is going to be doing all this relativity-worm-hole-speed-of-light stuff, there's got to be a
payback somewhere! So he fries a couple of flying reindeer every holiday season! (That,
incidentally, explains Rudolf's red nose...) Yes, PETA (The People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals) and other animal rights activists can be upset, but they are mostly atheists:
if they don't believe in God, how could they possibly believe in Santa?

So I ask you: Is there a Santa Claus? Can he apply relativity where others have just theorized?
Has he unlocked the key to the universe? Most importantly: why can't he remember my shirt size
year after year? I have no conclusion: just that things aren't always as they seem...

Then again, Einstein was Jewish, and Santa surely wouldn't have visited him!