Santa Claus:An Engineer's Perspective

Last week as the weather was getting cold, it reminded me of Christmas. In fact, many people are preparing for this forthcoming holiday in Cambodia although it's not a part of Cambodian culture. Still, it's quite popular here to exchange gifts and cards. I read some jokes on one website: www.jokeswarehouse.com and found this joke quite interesting and related to Christmas. Hope you enjoy it!



I. 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 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 house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 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 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 stockings, 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 on to 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 poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. 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 could pull ten 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).

IV. 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 absorb 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 centrifugal forces of 17,500 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.

Jackie Chan in Phnom Penh Again!

‘You know? Jackie Chan is coming on November 10th! And there will be a concert!’ ‘Are you kidding me? I’m sure to be there to see him!’ This conversation was in two weeks ago when we were first informed of Jackie Chan’s visit. Everyone in UC was very exciting and looking forward to the great event, and you could hear students asking whether they were going, how they managed their time so as to go to the concert, about the avenue and time the concert was going to be held, and so on.

The concert was organized in the studio of SEATV—Southeast Asia Television, a new TV channel run by HE Dr. Kao Kim Hourn and sponsored by Dr. Haru Hisa Handa. It was a concert focused on ‘Culture of Peace’. It was started from 4 to 6pm.

UC students were given tickets for the concert. Unfortunately, not all the students got it, for the seats are limited. Luckily, I got one in time before it was out of stock. I was very excited because it’s the first time I’ve been to a concert and especially I’d see Jackie Chan in person which is the biggest purpose of going there.

At around 3 pm, Nareth and I arrived there and found out that the security was extremely strict—we had our motors checked; bags kept; no camera allowed; body searched; and so on. We personally felt a bit unhappy about these requirements. We believed that we’d get a good seat since we arrived one hour before time, but we were still directed to an almost-the-last row of seats. There were many empty seats at the other side; however, they were not for students. It was really annoying that finally those students who were coming later than us were allowed to sit at the better seats than ours! It’s the second thing that I didn’t like about it because we could hardly see the performances.

Jackie Chan arrived at the studio at 5:30. Some of the audiences (mostly UC students), including us, were arranged to welcome him at the doorway of the TV station. After his car got into the station, there was a small turmoil since people who were outside of the station and didn’t have a ticket forced into the building and the security were not able to hold them back. So at last, there were some outsiders successfully sneaked into the studio.

The performance was great in terms of light, music, and performers. We had Preab Sovat, Him Sivorn, Meng KeoPecheta, and other popular Khmer singers. Jackie Chan offered three songs in sequence. The songs were 国家, 明明白白我的心, and WE ARE THE WORLD. Even though we didn’t have a clear view from the back seats, we were still very enjoying.

Jackie Chan also went to UC for a lecture on the same topic— ‘Culture of Peace’ yesterday afternoon (November 11). Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to participate in it. My friend told me that it was quite impressive, and I really want to know how impressive it was! What a pity!

Although he has been in Cambodia for three times including this visit, he, in Cambodian people’s heart, is quite welcome and loved because of his marvelous acting talents in Hollywood films and humanity activities.

This is the last performance when Jackie and all Cambodian singers are on the stage singing the song 'We are the World' althogether. It's not very clear due to distance and phone limitation.

Let's Say it Altogether!

May it be a sweetest time in your life and this sweetness sustaining all thru your life!

Happy Birthday to You!

Tom’s Husband, a short summary

This is a short story that is recently studied....

‘Tom’s Husband’, written by Sarah Orne Jewett in 1884, is a short story of a couple, Tom and Mary, who make changes to the marital roles supposed by the society.

Tom and Mary both come from a business family whose fathers managed manufacturing factory. Tom has got a stepmother and a sister, Alice. He is not interested and has no talent in business; instead, he is good at managing the house which he spends most of his time doing before his marriage with Mary. Adversely, Mary is inborn with business talent. Before getting married, she was ‘always her father’s right-hand man’, meaning she was a good assistant of her father’s business. Doing business is her favorite and is what she can only do. Household chores are difficult stuff for her. However, they cannot do what they like after their marriage since the society demands that man earn money to support the family and woman do housekeeping. Both of them feel really uncomfortable with the new order of things.

Since his father’s death, Tom has stopped running the factory due to his inability and illness and has been thinking of selling it if a reasonable price is offered. One night, a mail from his sister in Japan arrived, suggesting restarting the mill so that she can get more money to support her husband. This is also agreed by his stepmother who and he are the executors of his father’s will. However, Tom feels pessimistic and discouraged. After long negotiation, Mary proposed to run the mill and is finally allowed even though Tom feels that people might laugh at them since the role is reversed.

Mary seeks help from experienced people such as Jack Towne and some old clerks who used to work for Tom’s father. At first, people do laugh at her; however, they soon have to respect her talent and success because she can learn things very fast and manage to earn some profit just at the end of the second year. Meanwhile, Tom also enjoys his quiet life at home and does his favorite things.

In the early days of her business life, Mary consulted important business matters with Tom who was also trying to show interest in business which he actually didn’t. Gradually, they seem to spend less time together than before because Mary is busy with her business rather than staying around with him. He started to hate doing housework and finally asked Mary to leave the mill for a while and have a six-month trip to Europe with him. Mary agreed understandably.

The story implies that women can also do what men can and even better. Also, a person’ talent should not be blocked by society’s restriction, stereotype, or preconception. We can never know whether we are able to do it or not if we don’t have a try. What is more, we should do what we think is right and is good for us but not we are supposed to do, and we should not be afraid of how people will look at us because they will soon realize that we have been doing the right thing.

UC Scholarship

This is the third year that UC(University of Cambodia) has offered full scholarship for a bachelor degree to fresh grade 12 graduates. UC is granted funds by a Japanese, Mr. Haru Hisa Handa. The exam covers general knowledge in Khmer and English test. Interested applicants have to buy a form and apply it before 13th of September, and the exams will be held on the 16th. I am also one of the scholars in the first-year exam. I have again volunteered to be a proctor in this exam. I think I will have a good time with all my friends in helping the university, and I am also very happy that I can help ensure the transparency and justic in this scholarship; at the same time, I gain some experiences in managing the exam. I was a proctor last time, and this time I am 'promoted' to be a building controller. There are more responsibilities and it requires more commitments. I believe I can do it well.

Long Absence

It's been a long time that I haven't updated my blog since there aren't any things really special and important to jot down. I have been on a vacation from RULE after the second-year final exams. After that tough moments when I had to bury my head in the books, I still stick to UC's assignment and preparation for the upcoming exam in one week. Recently, I have been very lazy. Except for reviewing the lessons in UC, I should have time to prepare for the courses in my third academic year at RULE. However, I've read nothing. This is the thing I feel much unforgivable to myself. There will be many things to do in the upcoming academic year as I have heard from my senior. How should I prepare myself well for it when I always procastinate in doing things like this? I always have a plan but then just put it away after some time. The plans seem to be difficult to be implemented! I hope I could be more active and work harder.

Driving License

Having heard that those drivers who don’t have driving license will be seriously punished, we have finally decided to take the driving test to obtain the license. Of late, I’ve just learnt the driving lesson at N.C.X. as mentioned in a previous post. We’d been looking for the place where the test is held. From several people we’d asked. Finally, the day before yesterday (2009/08/11), we had found it and had successfully passed the test the next day, waiting for the license in two weeks.

The process of the test was tiring. There were so many candidates, approximately 150, making the whole building really stuffy. We started theory test at 2:00 and finished at 2:30. There was a very heavy rain, but everything still went on.

Here are some photos on the day: