Topic: How Santa Delivers Gifts in One Night
Ghostrecon's photo
Sun 12/24/06 09:45 PM
How Santa Delivers Gifts in One Night

If you're skeptical of Santa's abilities to deliver presents to millions
of homes and children in just one night, North Carolina State
University's Dr. Larry Silverberg, professor of mechanical and aerospace
engineering, can explain the plausible science and engineering
principles that could allow the Jolly Old Elf to pull off the magical
feat year after year.

NORAD is tracking Santa's movements in the sky. Click to see it live!
<http://www.noradsanta.org/index.php>

With his cherubic smile and twinkling eyes, Santa may appear to be
merely a jolly old soul but he and his North Pole elves have a lot going
on under the funny-looking hats, Silverberg says. Their advanced
knowledge of electromagnetic waves, the space/time continuum,
nanotechnology, genetic engineering and computer science easily trumps
the know-how of contemporary scientists. Silverberg says that Santa has
a personal pipeline to children's thoughts--via a listening antenna that
combines technologies currently used in cell phones and EKGs--which
informs him that Mary in Miami hopes for a surfboard, while Michael from
Minneapolis wants a snowboard. A sophisticated signal processing system
filters the data, giving Santa clues on who wants what, where children
live, and even who's been bad or good. Later, all this information will
be processed in an onboard sleigh guidance system, which will provide
Santa with the most efficient delivery route. Silverberg adds that
letters to Santa via snail mail still get the job done, however.
Silverberg is not so naïve as to think that Santa and his reindeer can
travel approximately 200 million square miles--making stops in some 80
million homes--in one night. Instead, he posits that Santa uses his
knowledge of the space/time continuum to form what Silverberg calls
"relativity clouds." Silverberg explains: "Based on his advanced
knowledge of the theory of relativity, Santa recognizes that time can be
stretched like a rubber band, that space can be squeezed like an orange
and that light can be bent. Relativity clouds are controllable
domains--rips in time--that allow him months to deliver presents while
only a few minutes pass on Earth. The presents are truly delivered in a
wink of an eye."
With a detailed route prepared and his list checked twice through the
onboard computer on the technologically advanced sleigh, Santa is ready
to deliver presents. His reindeer--genetically bred to fly, balance on
rooftops and see well in the dark--don't actually pull a sleigh loaded
down with toys. Instead, each house becomes Santa's workshop as he
utilizes a nano-toymaker to fabricate toys inside the children's homes.
The presents are grown on the spot, as the nano-toymaker creates--atom
by atom--toys out of snow and soot, much like DNA can command the growth
of organic material like tissues and body parts. And there's really no
need for Santa to enter the house via chimney, although Silverberg says
he enjoys doing that every so often. Rather, the same relativity cloud
that allows Santa to deliver presents in what seems like a wink of an
eye is also used to "morph" Santa into people's homes.
Finally, many people wonder how Santa and the reindeer can eat all the
food left out for them. Silverberg says they take just a nibble at each
house. The remainder is either left in the house or placed in the
sleigh's built-in food dehydrator, where it is preserved for future
consumption. It takes a long time to deliver all those presents, after
all. "This is our vision of Santa's delivery method, given the human,
physical and engineering constraints we face today," Silverberg says.
"Children shouldn't put too much credence in the opinions of those who
say it's not possible to deliver presents all over the world in one
night. It is possible, and it's based on plausible science."

joe1973's photo
Mon 12/25/06 02:44 PM
INTERESTING. VERY INTERESTING. WHERE THE "BLEEP" DID YOU GET THIS? OR IS
IT A THEORHETICAL EVALUATION?

sushi's photo
Mon 12/25/06 03:17 PM
Santa is magic. When I was kid Mama, Papa, Grandpaw would all get
snot-slinging drunk(no kidding). We'd be sent to bed, and they stay up
and we'd find them all passed out under the Christmas tree. But by some
miracle, the presents would all be there perfectly display and all
assembled. The parents would still be under the tree. At our house
Sandta didn't get milk and cookies. He'd get a scotch and water and
pastrami sandwich on rye. The reign deer got a bunch of romaine, and it
would have all been eaten, complete with a thank-you note My sister and
I accepted this as normal family behavior. It wasn't until many years
later that we realized the tragdy of it all, but were still in awe as to
how they pulled it off. Not a joke!

widowerseeking's photo
Mon 12/25/06 03:45 PM
GHOST, that is quiet a theory, I know what you have said is something
like the old startrek series. the bending of light and time, to permit
travel much faster and much farther than would normally be possible.