We finally have an answer to the age-old question of how much time it would take Old Saint Nick to visit the house of every child on the planet in one night: six "Santa months," or roughly one day Earth time, with the help of some relativity clouds.
According to Larry Silverberg, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, the optimal method for Santa Claus to complete his 122 million-mile journey around the world on Christmas Eve would be bending time and space to his will. To do so, Kris Kringle would need the help of relativity clouds, a construct of relative physics that allows "controllable domains (volumes) within which space-time is controlled," Silverberg explained in a post on the NCSU website. Accordingly, "an observer inside a relativity cloud perceives time, space and light differently than an observer outside the relativity cloud."
In effect, Santa would make his trek in a literal frozen, silent wonderland.
Using this theory, Silverberg, a bonafide Santa mathematics specialist, concluded that a relativity cloud could give Santa enough time to dole out presents to almost 200 million children on planet Earth, or 2.67 children in a total of 75 million homes worldwide — and let months for Santa pass as mere minutes for us.
"While I don't know much about relativity clouds myself, I think it's very possible that a man who flies in a sleigh, lives with elves, and has flying pet reindeer could have the technology needed to utilize relativity clouds," said University of Michigan doctoral student Danny Maruyama in an interview with Popular Science.
As for a more direct answer? Silverberg also concluded that Santa would be able to complete his yearly gift-giving mission in a day if he traveled at 5,083,000 miles per hour.
Via: Popular Science
Photo: DVIDSHUB | Flickr
