14 DAY TRIAL // Whether the Grinches and the Scrooges of the world like it or not, Christmas is just around the corner. This can only mean that good old Santa Claus is now busy ironing his red suit, loading up his sledge and getting ready for another trip around the world.
Word has it that, each Christmas Eve, Santa travels around the globe and delivers presents to those who were on their best behavior throughout the year. Mind you, some say that he even takes the time to snack on cookies in each and every house he visits.
The thing is that, to be able to successfully complete his mission, this old and fairly plump guy has to travel at impossible speeds and endure some seriously tough conditions. Simply put, scientifically accurate Santa Claus is a force to be reckoned with.
How Santa is way faster than the speed of sound
As you probably know, not all faiths celebrate Christmas. Besides, seeing how Santa's elves don't make much else except toys in their factory, it's kids alone that get presents from this old guy on Christmas Eve. Even so, Santa still has some 378 million folks to deliver presents to.
On the bright side, there are plenty of families that have more than one kid. On the downside, it appears that, even when the average census rate is factored in, Santa still has some 91.8 million homes all across the globe to visit in just one night.
Provided that his journey takes him from East to West and, therefore, matches our planet's rotation, this means that Santa has a total of 31 hours to get the job done. To succeed, he must visit some 822 homes per second and take just 0,001 seconds to get through the chimney and into the house.
Besides, he must travel at a speed of about 650 miles per second (1,050 kilometers per second), which is an impressive 3,000 times faster than the speed of sound, DM explains. Otherwise put, his reindeer are undoubtedly the fastest creatures ever to walk the face of the Earth.
Not the easiest and definitely not the smoothest journey
Apart from traveling way faster than the speed of sound, Santa and his reindeer circle the world carrying at least 320,000 tons worth of toys, and that's assuming that each of the kids he visits gets a gift whose weight is one of just 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms).
Given the fact that the average reindeer can carry some 300 pounds (135 kilograms) and assuming that Santa's helpers aren't on steroids, this means that the sledge is pulled by an army of about 214,200 of Rudolph's brothers and sisters.
Mind you, this isn't even the most impressive thing about our beloved scientifically accurate Santa Claus. On the contrary, it's the fact that, while circling the globe at 3,000 times the speed of light, this guy is exposed to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity and somehow manages to survive that is bound to turn some heads.
In fact, researchers are still trying to figure out how and why Santa and his reindeer do not simply burst into flames while on this journey. The one possible answer to this riddle is that they are some seriously cool fellows.
