The Science of Santa: Doubts Debunked

Naysayers of the existence of Santa have been rather vocal in years past. They come armed with all sorts of defenses as to why a single man in a red suit could never accomplish all he claims to do each and every Christmas Eve. Everything from the toys to the sleigh to the reindeer to timing are subject to attack. I say that there are two sides to every story. So I am here to attempt to debunk the many false claims that spew from the mouths of the doubters.

Claim: Santa’s sleigh could never hold all of those gifts.
Explanation: Throughout the evolution of Santa’s sleigh there have been many modifications made to improve its structural integrity. The current model employs state of the art materials that provide a lighter frame with the strength to carry even more toys than in years past. Engineers working in the NPPL (North Pole Propulsion Laboratory) are also contractors with the U.S. Department of Defense. This allows for open sharing of design and material improvements. It is rumored that the concept for the Air Force’s new F-22A Raptor comes from a recent sleigh prototype.

Claim: Santa could never make all those toys in just a year’s time.
Explanation: The Industrial Revolution and the introduction of interchangeable parts into manufacturing allowed for an increase in productivity at the North Pole. As the global population grew over the course of the next several centuries, so too did Santa’s labor force. Recruiting from some of the best universities and corporations across the planet, Santa also contracted with resource management specialists and efficiency analysts to make his organization run more smoothly than ever. Santa’s board of directors, which consists of CEOs and executives from companies like Apple, Mattel, and Science Museum Oklahoma, meets annually to approve new techniques in manufacturing and design.

Claim: Santa does not have enough time to visit all those homes in one night.
Explanation: To begin with Santa has 31 hours of Christmas Eve to work with thanks to time zones and the rotation of the earth as he generally travels East to West from his home in Northern Finland. It is also generally accepted that he does not visit children of devout Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim families except under special circumstances (although this has fact has not been verified. Researchers are still investigating this claim). As the number of homes visited each Christmas began to grow beyond a manageable number, Santa needed help. He turned to the top scientists of the day to solve this problem. In 1472 Leonardo da Vinci developed Santa’s first flying sleigh. Until this point he had always followed a land route across Siberia and into Asia and then doubling back through South Asia into Europe. Santa’s expansion into the New World came with the assistance of English Chemist and Physicist Michael Faraday. Faraday’s work in magnetism provided additions to the sleigh that allowed it to travel much further and much faster than ever before. The final improvements to Santa’s technological arsenal came in the late 1940’s as a team, directed by Albert Einstein, developed a gravity drive that is used to fold space-time and allow Saint Nick to simply step through a gateway into the location of his choosing. This speeds up the gift distribution process and takes a large amount of stress off of the herd of reindeer traditionally tasked with tens of thousands of miles of travel.

Claim: Santa could never fit down a chimney. What about all the homes without chimneys?
Explanation: Santa actually hasn’t used a chimney since December 24th, 1785. On an especially cold Christmas Eve in North Hampton, England, Wilbur and Betty Maupin forgot to extinguish the flames in their fireplace before bed and Santa narrowly missed suffering painful burns to his backside. This experience prompted Santa and his legal team to lobby for the Open Door Act (passed later in the newly formed United States of America as the Santa Freedom Bill). This act, later adopted by the United Nations through a unanimous vote, provides that all lock manufacturers produce locks that can be opened by a series of skeleton, or master, keys.  The exact number of skeleton key models is unknown and Santa’s legal department is pretty tight-lipped on this information. Experts assume that Santa still must carry right around one hundred keys, but as with electronics and DVDs, it is assumed the skeleton keys tend to be the same in given regions. This saves him from making a dangerous descent down chimneys across the globe and allows for a safer gift giving experience.

Many thanks to an historian by the name of Bret Mahoney for his hard work and dedication to the POS cause (Proof of Santa). For a more complete explanation of the Science of Santa, visit ScienceofSanta.com.

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