对圣诞老人的科学探讨(A Scientific Inquiry into Santa Claus)

１。没有任何一种已知的驯鹿能飞。但目前有300,000种生物还没被分类，虽然其中大部分是昆虫及细菌，但不能绝对抹煞那只有圣诞老人才见过的飞鹿的存在的可能性。

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, & 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.

２。世界上有二十亿儿童（年龄在十八岁以下的人类），但据观察圣诞老人不处理回教徒，印度教徒，*人，佛教徒的儿童，这样，根据有关部门的数据，他的工作量将减至原来的15%即３亿７千８百万人。以平均一个家庭有3.5名儿童（US Census, World Health Oraganization, UNICEF)，则共有９千１百８０万个家庭。为计算起见，我们假设每个上述家庭有一个好孩子。

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with. This is due 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/second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has .001 second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down 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/household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles; not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding & etc. So Santa's sleigh must be moving at 650 miles/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/second. A conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles/hour.

３。如果我们假设圣诞老人的旅程是从东向西的（这看来合乎逻辑），圣诞老人共有31小时的圣诞节工作时间，这得要谢谢不同的时区及地球的转。则计算所得的结果是每秒钟822.6次探访。也就是说每个基督徒家庭有一个乖孩子，圣诞老人共有0.0012秒来停车，跳下雪橇，跃进烟囱，放下礼物，吃掉剩下的零食，再回到雪橇，然后去下一站。假定圣诞老人的雪橇不采用量子隧道现象(Quantum Tunneling Behavior)运动，而且这９千１百８０万个家庭是均匀分布在地球表面；我们知道这样的假设的错误，但为计算的关系，我们接受这样的假设；则我们有每家的平均距离为0.78哩，全程为75.5百万哩，其中不包括31小时内大部分人都要去的地方的路程。这样，圣诞老人的雪橇需要一秒钟跑650哩，这是音速的3,000倍。用以比较的话，最快的人造飞行器Ulysses太空探险器，每秒才不过27.4哩。普通的驯鹿要不是给狼群追赶的话，每小时才跑15哩。

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 lb.), 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 lb. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see #1) could pull 10 TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with 8, or even 9 reindeer. We need 214,200. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. This is four times the weight of the ocean-liner Queen Elizabeth.

４。雪橇的负载又添加了些有趣的因素。假设每个小孩所得的不多于一盒中等的Lego（２磅），那雪橇的载重为321,300吨，还不算圣诞老人他自己这位在众多记载中被形容为超重的人物。在地上，一只普通驯鹿能拉大约500磅左右。既使是飞鹿（见１。），在没有地面磨擦力的情况下能拉十倍于正常的重量，我们还是没法靠那八或九只驯鹿。我们大概需要150,000只驯鹿。这使负载在不计算雪橇和圣诞老人的情况下，依然等于353,430吨。用以比较的话，是伊利沙白二世的四倍重（记住，是那艘邮轮，不是人）。

5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles/second creates enormous air resistance. This will heat up the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft reentering 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 .00426 of a second. Meanwhile, Santa will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-lb Santa (seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 lb. of force.

５。353,430吨重的物体以每秒650哩的速度在大气中飞行会遇到强大的空气阻力，就象宇宙飞船由轨道回航一样地把那些驯鹿加热。那领头的一对则要吸收每秒14.3 quintillion (14.2x10^18)焦耳的能量。换言之，他们会立刻化为灰烬，使后面的一对暴露在冲击波前，并且产生出强烈的音爆。这使整对驯鹿在0.00426秒内气化。同时，圣诞老人需要承受17,500g的向心力，这使250磅，该算是苗条的圣诞老人，被4,315,015磅的力压在雪橇上。

If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

若圣诞老人真是这样送圣诞礼物的话，他已经累死了。