## 2. PHYSICS

#### Subsections

- 2. physics - general
- 2.1 physics poetry
- 2.2 physics quotes
- 2.3 physics puns
- 2.4 pseudo physics (cat physics, cartoon physics)
- 2.5 new physical theories
- 2.6 learning physics
- 2.7 not learning physics (featuring Heavy Boots)
- 2.8 physical proofs
- 2.9 physical one-liners
- 2.10 quantum mechanics (starring Schroedingers cat!)
- 2.11 relativity
- 2.12 measure the height of a building with help of a barometer
- 2.13 physicists
- 2.14 astronomy
- 2.15 electrons
- 2.16 electro-magnetism and light
- 2.17 Newtons's laws and classical dynamics
- 2.18 thermodynamics
- 2.19 in the lab
- 2.20 strange but real findings
- 2.21 the buttered bread on cat problem

### 2.8 PHYSICAL PROOFS

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physics
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    Special Category: Afterlife

                            HEAVEN IS HOTTER THAN HELL

    The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed.  Our
    authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as
    the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as
    the light of seven days."  Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
    radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much
    as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all.  The light we
    receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the
    Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will
    heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to
    the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much
    heat as the Earth by radiation.  Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for
    radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the
    earth (300K), gives H as 798K (525C).  The exact temperature of Hell
    cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the
    fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which
    burneth with fire and brimstone."  A lake of molten brimstone means
    that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C.  We
    have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
                    -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972

physics
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    Special Category: Christmas Science Jokes
    From: sirius@wam.umd.edu (The Human Neutrino = Linda Harden)

               IS THERE A SANTA CLAUS? (Spy Magazine, January 1990)

    1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of
    living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects
    and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only
    Santa has ever seen.

    2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since
    Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist
    children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million
    according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census)rate of 3.5
    children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at
    least one good child in each.

    3) Santa has 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 822.6 visits per second. This
    is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has
    1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney,
    fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat
    whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the
    sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8
    million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we
    know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept),
    we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2
    million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least
    once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that 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 on earth, the Ulysses
    space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional
    reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

    4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming
    that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds),
    the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably
    described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more
    than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could
    pull TEN TIMES the normal anoint, we cannot do the job with eight, or even
    nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even
    counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison
    - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

    5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air
    resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as
    spacecrafts re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer
    will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short,
    they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer
    behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake.The entire
    reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa,
    meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater
    than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)would be
    pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

    In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's
    dead now.
                           (story originally attributed to Richard Waller)

                                    REBUTTALS:

                                    REBUTTAL 1

    From: hjiwa@nor.chevron.com Canonical List Of Holiday Humor
    Rebuttal: (Jim Mantle, Waterloo Maple Software)

    Come on, ya gotta believe! I mean, if you can handle flying furry animals,
    then it's only a small step to the rest.

    For example;

       1) As admitted, it is possible that a flying reindeer can be found. I
    would agree that it would be quite an unusual find, but they might exist.

       2) You've relied on cascading assumptions. For example, you have assumed
    a uniform distribution of children across homes. Toronto/Yorkville, or
    Toronto/Cabbagetown, or other yuppie neighbourhoods, have probably less
    than the average (and don't forget the DINK and SINK homes (Double Income
    No Kids, Single Income No Kids)), while the families with 748 starving
    children that they keep showing on Vision TV while trying to pick my pocket
    would skew that 15% of homes down a few percent.

       3) You've also assumed that each home that has kids would have at least
    one good kid. What if anti-selection applies, and homes with good kids tend
    to have more than their share of good kids, and other homes have nothing
    except terrorists in diapers? Let's drop that number of homes down a few
    more percent.

       4) Santa would have to Fedex a number of packages ahead of time, since he
    would not be able to fly into Air Force Bases, or into tower-controlled areas
    near airports. He's get shot at over certain sections of the Middle East, and
    the no-fly zones in Iraq, so he'd probably use DHL there. Subtract some more
    homes.

       5) I just barely passed Physics and only read Stephen Hawking's book
    once, but I recall that there is some Einsteinian Theory that says time
    does strange things as you move faster. In fact, when you go faster than
    the speed of light time runs backward, if you do a straight line
    projection, connect the dots and just ignore any singularity you might find
    right at the speed of light. And don't say you can't go faster than the
    speed of light because I've seen it done on TV. Jean-Luc doesn't have
    reindeer but he does have matter-antimatter warp engines and a holodeck and
    that's good enough for me.
       So Santa could go faster than light, visit all the good children which
    are not uniformly distributed by either concentration in each home or by
    number of children per household, and get home before he left so he can
    digest all those stale cookies and warm milk yech.

       6) Aha, you say, Jean-Luc has matter-antimatter warp engines, Santa only
    has reindeer, where does he get the power to move that fast!
       You calculated the answer! The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3
    quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. This is an ample supply of
    energy for the maneuvering, acceleration, etc, that would be required of the
    loaded sleigh. The reindeer don't evaporate or incinerate because of this
    energy, they accelerate. What do you think they have antlers for, fighting over
    females? Think of antlers as furry solar array panels.

       7) If that's not enough, watch the news on the 24th at 11 o'clock. NORAD
    (which may be one of the few government agencies with more than 3 initials
    in it's name and therefore it must be more trustworthy than the rest)
    tracks Santa every year and I've seen the radar shots of him approaching my
    house from the direction of the North Pole. They haven't bombarded him yet,
    so they must believe too, right?

    Yet another rebuttal to the rebuttal:

                                    REBUTTAL 2

    Several key points are overlooked by this callous, amateurish "study."

       1) Flying reindeer: As is widely known (due to the excellent historical
    documentary "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the flying reindeer are not a
    previously unknown species of reindeer, but were in fact given the power of
    flight due to eating magic acorns. As is conclusively proven in "Rudolph
    the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (a no punches pulled look at life in Santa's
    village), this ability has bred true in subsequent generations of reindeer,
    obviously the magic acorns imprinted their power on a dominant gene
    sequence within the reindeer DNA strand.

       2) Number of households: This figure overlooks two key facts. First of
    all, the first major schism in the Church split the Eastern Churches,
    centered in Byzantium, from the Western, which remained centered in Rome.
    This occurred prior to the Gregorian correction to the Julian calendar. The
    Eastern churches (currently called Orthodox Churches) do not recognize the
    Gregorian correction for liturgical events, and their Christmas is as a
    result several days after the Western Churches'. Santa gets two shots at
    delivering toys.
       Secondly, the figure of 3.5 children per household is based on the gross
    demographic average, which includes households with no children at all. The
    number of children per household, when figured as an average for households
    with children, would therefore have to be adjusted upward. Also, the
    largest single Christian denomination is Roman Catholic, who, as we all
    know, breed like rabbits. If you don't believe me, ask my four brothers and
    two sisters, they'll back me up. Due to the predominance of Catholics
    within Christian households, the total number of households containing
    Christian children would have to be adjusted downward to reflect the
    overloading of Catholics beyond a standard deviation from the median.

       Also, the assertion that each home would contain at least one good child
    would be reasonable enough if there were in fact an even 3.5 children per
    household. However, since the number of children per household is
    distributed integrally, there are a significant number (on the order of
    several million) of one child Christian households. Even though only
    children are notoriously spoiled and therefore disproportionately inclined
    towards being naughty, since it's the holidays we'll be generous and give
    them a fifty-fifty chance of being nice. This removes one half of the
    single child households from Santa's delivery schedule, which has already
    been reduced by the removal of the Orthodox households from the first
    delivery run.

       3) Santa's delivery run (speed, payload, etc.): These all suffer from the
    dubious supposition that there is only one Santa Claus. The name "Santa" is
    obviously either Spanish or Italian, two ethnic groups which are both
    overwhelmingly Catholic. The last name Claus suggests a joint German/Italian
    background. His beginnings, battling the Burgermeister Meisterburger, suggest
    he grew up in Bavaria (also predominantly Catholic). The Kaiser style helmets
    of the Burgermeister's guards, coupled with the relative isolation of the
    village, suggest that his youth was at the very beginning of Prussian influence
    in Germany. Thus, Santa and Mrs. Claus have been together for well over one
    hundred years. If you think that after a hundred years of living at the North
    Pole with nights six months long that they remain childless, you either don't
    know Catholics or are unaware of the failure rate of the rhythm method. There
    have therefore been over five generations of Clauses, breeding like Catholics
    for over one hundred years. Since they are Catholic, their exponential
    population increase would obviously have a gain higher than the world
    population as a whole. There have therefore been more than enough new Santas to
    overcome the population increase of the world. So in fact, Santa has an easier
    time of it now than he did when he first started out.

    Santa dead, indeed; some people will twist any statistic to "prove" their
    cynical theory.

    Yet another rebuttal:
                                    REBUTTAL 3

    From: egreen@nyc.pipeline.com (Edward Green)

    5) That's nonsense.  I repeated the calculation, and the correct figure is
    17,500.03 times gravity.  How can we place belief when such an implausibly
    high figure is accepted!  The entire concept is obviously deeply flawed and
    arises from incorrect method!

    Besides, Santa simply realizes all of his alternate quantum states at once.
     Everybody knows that.

    People keep defending the existence of Santa Claus:

                                    REBUTTAL 4

    From:         Jerome Elisha <jpse57@gte.net>
    Surely the 'esteemed' professional making the analysis means 'forces of
    acceleration', and not "centrifugal forces" as stated.  Furthermore, to
    accept the ability of reindeer to defy the law of gravity and then bind
    them to the remaining laws of physics is an error in argument.

    The assertion ignores empirical data - Santa does exist:  one can see
    him often during the months leading up to the Big Day.  Indeed, it is a
    frequent occurrence to see him on multiple street corners, or in front
    of several businesses, at the same time.  Either A) Santa has many
    helpers, or B) Santa is capable of numerous manifestations.  In either
    case, the acceleration arguments above are not valid, since the
    multiplicity of Santas (manifestations or helpers) could easily handle
    smaller portions of the task with time left over for cookies and milk.

    Arguments A) and B) are both are supported by the different guises he
    sports in various countries (Santa Claus, Sinter Klaus, Kris Kringle, et
    al.),
    and by his acknowledged ability to "see you when you're sleeping; he
    knows when you're awake".  The decision between A) or B) is left as a
    proof for the student.

    And yet another rebuttal:

                                    REBUTTAL 5
    From: Lorenzo Sadun <sadun@fireant.ma.utexas.edu>

    I wrote this rebuttal to the physics of santa analysis back in 1993:

    If you're going to criticise Santa Claus on physical grounds, you may at
    least do it right.

    The payload calculations are nonsense.  Adding, say, 1000 stops back at the
    North Pole for reloading adds only a few percent to the entire distance
    covered, while reducing the payload by a factor of 1000.  This is clearly
    the way to go.

    The nonuniform distribution of children has a tremendous effect on the
    routing.  With sensible routing, the average distance from a good child to
    the next good child is only a couple hundred feet in suburban conditions
    (this is clearly higher in the country, but is much less in, say, New York
    City).  With only .05 miles between average good children, Santa need only
    travel at Mach 200, just a little faster than Ulysses.  This reduces the
    force of air resistance by a factor of 200, and the power absorbed by the
    reindeer by 3000.

    (Of course, if Santa stops to give coal to bad children it could slow
    things down a bit.  But it appears that increasing population has made
    Santa give up that trick.  When was the last time you heard of anybody
    getting a lump of coal?)

    We all saw the pictures of a smart bomb falling through an Iraqi smokestack
    during the Gulf War.  Clearly Santa uses the same technology for toys and
    chimneys.  By dropping, say, 100 toys at a time from high altitude, Santa
    can reduce his speed by another factor of 10.  While still supersonic, this
    is now slightly less than orbital velocity, sparing Santa and his team the
    trauma of extreme centrifugal force.

    Santa's trip IS a remarkable feat of aeronautics, but please don't say it's
    impossible.

    Does anybody wish to make proof or disproof these assertions? -JV

                                    REBUTTAL 6

    From: Merv <mcripps2@home.com>
    As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help
    from that renowned scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) -- I am
    pleased to present the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.

    The analysis you sent me about the death of Santa Claus, based on classical
    physics, is seriously flawed owing to its neglect of quantum phenomena that
    become significant in his particular case.  As it happens, the terminal
    velocity of a reindeer in dry December air over the Northern Hemisphere
    (for example) is known with tremendous precision.  The mass of Santa and
    his sleigh (since the number of children and their gifts is also known
    precisely, ahead of time, and the reindeer must weigh in minutes before the
    flight) is also known with tremendous precision.  His direction of flight
    is, as you say, essentially east to west.

    All of that, when taken together, means that the momentum vector of
    Mr. Claus and his cargo is known with incredible precision.  An elementary
    application of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle yields the result that
    Santa's location, at any given moment on Christmas Eve, is highly
    imprecise.  In other words, he is "smeared out" over the surface of the
    earth, analogous to the manner in which an electron is "smeared out" within
    a certain distance from the nucleus in an atom.  Thus he can, quite
    literally, be everywhere at any given moment.

    In addition, the relativistic velocities which his reindeer can attain for
    brief moments make it possible for him, in certain cases, to arrive at some
    locations shortly before he left the North Pole.  Santa, in other words,
    assumes for brief periods the characteristics of tachyons.  I will admit
    that tachyons remain hypothetical, but then so do black holes, and who
    really doubts their existence any more?

    Yours sincerely,

    E.B. Davis, Ph.D.

                                    REBUTTAL 7
    From: eugene@dynagen.co.za (Eugene Griessel)

    Physics refutes this.  From "New Scientist" December 1989:

    In Search of Schrodinger's Reindeer.

    With the festive season upon us, many scientific minds will yet again
    be attempting to solve that perennial chestnut, the Travelling Santa
    Problem (or TSP). This problem was first brought to our attention by
    the child  prodigy, Vernon P. Templeman, in his seminal paper "Please
    may I have a bike for Christmas, Daddy" (J. Appl. Window Shopping,
    December 1988, vol 7, p 1-122).

    In simple terms, the problem boils down to one of speed. How can
    Father Christmas visit the homes of all the children in the world in a
    single night, albeit 24 hours long? Templeman demonstrated that the
    classical (sequential) explanation forces us to invoke
    faster-than-light travel, which is somewhat at odds with current
    thinking.

    Thus, he argued, we should infer that the Father Christmas effect does
    not really exist. This contentious hypothesis was the subject of much
    debate at a recent  symposium held at the Santa Fe Institute for
    Present Research.

    Our initial thoughts were that Templeman had over-estimated the size
    of the problem, forgetting that Santa only visits good children. This
    would reduce the number of visits by a factor of order 10^9.

    However, a simple back-of-the-lab-coat calculation shows that this
    renders the problem no more tractable. This threw suspicion on the use
    of classical physics.  At this stage, the teachings of our old mentor,
    Erwin Schroedinger, came back to us ("Famous people what we claim to
    have known, honest", by Matthew Davies and Martin Slaughter, Annals of
    Physics, 1983, vol 12, pp 379-381). From a detailed study of reported
    phenomena, it became apparent that Santa shared many of the
    characteristics of elementary particles, suggesting a quantum
    mechanical  interpretation of his behaviour. We have since developed
    this theory, and are confident that a quantum mechanical model of
    Santa Claus allows many of his observed  properties to be explained,
    and several  interesting predictions to be made.

    Clearly, viewing Santa as a waveform removes the apparent paradox of
    his "presence" being measured in several locations within a short
    interval of  time. As the waveform collapses down  in a specific
    location (attracted, we suggest, by the Goodness Quantum  number of
    the recumbent child) it becomes  perfectly valid to state that a
    "visitation"  has occurred.

    However, our calculations suggest that the process of measurement (for
    example, turning on the bedroom light) will almost certainly lead to a
    localised, space-time instability which, in turn, will cause the
    waveform to relax and render detection almost impossible.

    Once again, this ties in with the  experimental evidence that Father
    Christmas is rarely caught delivering. Indeed, on those few occasions
    when a sighting has been claimed in the literature ("Mummy, mummy,
    there's a strange man in my bedroom" by S. T. U. Peedo, Journal of
    Sleepless Nights, 1979, vol 5, p 35), closer scrutiny has often
    revealed it to be an imposter wearing a red cloak and beard.

    Moreover, the quantum mechanical model predicts that energies involved
    in a waveform collapse will result in the  emission of a jet of
    sub-atomic particles. Studies of bedroom carpets in the vicinity of
    alleged sightings, using an X-mass spectrometer, have often revealed
    evidence of mince pion activity; though these have usually been
    Hoovered up.

    One of the most appealing aspects of our theory is the manner in which
    it allows the most likely sites for visitation to be  estimated. These
    may be identified from the first derivative of the expectation value
    as:

      d (Spot)       |
    -----------------|
      d (Fireplace)  | night

    It turns out that the distribution of  household chimneys is exactly
    that required to act as a diffraction grating for objects of Santa's
    predicted wavelengths, focusing the zeroth order onto the bedroom
    floor below ("Chimchimmeny, chimchinny, chimchin cheroo", by Bert,
    Mar. Popp. 1969).

    Yet another predication which agrees with commonly reported
    observations  concerns the Christmas Stocking effect. Within
    the general theory, the stocking would be expected to act as an
    infinite potential well, momentarily capturing the Santa waveform.
    The resonance within the stocking is predicted to transfer energy from
    any batteries within the well (causing them to run out by Boxing Day)
    before collapsing back down to a new ground state characterised by
    a tangerine in the toe.

    Apart from the successes reported above, the theory makes a number of
    predictions about rather low probability events; that is, events
    expected to occur in fewer than one hundred homes in the world each
    year (for example, a full night's sleep for parents of under-8s; no
    clothes given as presents; fairy lights still working from last year).
    In order to collect the huge volume of data needed to assess these
    rare events, we have decided to appeal to the scientific community for
    help.

    Well as the few observations available fit the theory, a detailed
    experiment to provide quantltatlve.support is now necessary. This
    will require a vast amount of data to be collected with observations
    from as many global locations as possible.

    New Scientist's readers are, therefore, asked to maintain a Yule log
    of the events in their domestic laboratories and to send their
    results to the authors via the magazine.

    Participants are requested to make a note of the following:

    (1) Their children's Goodness Quantum number;
    (2) The approximate dimensions of their bedroom;
    (3) Whether Santa visits and, if so, at what time;
    (4) Their address and galactic bspace coordinates (or postcode);
    (5) Any evidence of Charm or Strangeness;
    (6) Whether Santa is seen to be spinning (needed to check the "No L"
    theory)
    (7) The number of presents left;
    (8) The colour of his reindeer's nose (often quoted as red when seen
    moving away at speed, but unknown in its rest frame).

    On a note of caution, participants are urged not to try to localise
    Santa as the delta p. delta x equals or is greater than h
    relationship suggests that the energies involved could demolish a
    timber frame building.

    At a time when Europe is leading the world in fundamental physics
    research we hope that this knotty problem can be resolved with this
    experiment. The Americans are not far behind, with Senate
    approval for the $12 trillion Turkey/ Anti-Turkey Synchronous
    Santatron. Let us make sure we cook their goose before
    they foil our efforts.

    --------
    Matthew Davies and Martin Slaughter are physicists
    working in the computer industry.

                                     REBUTTAL 8
    From: "Brian Hansen" <iblis@rrk.kollegienet.dk>
    It is very clear to me, that Santa is not dead. He is unemployed.

    In the Evangelium of Markus, it states that it is harder for a rich man to
    get into heaven, than it is for at camel to pass through the eye of a
    needle. Today, we are by far more rich, than they were when the bible was
    written.

                                    REBUTTAL 9
    Responses from first-year biology students to the Santa essay.

    Basically, a normal reindeer, even if it could run/fly at the speed needed,
    would be vaporized in .473 thousandths of a second. For Santa's job, each
    of his nine reindeer has to carry 39,270 tons, fly for 31 hours at 650
    miles per second, and absorb 2955.33 quintillion joules of energy per trip
    each! These are some serious reindeer. I would say that natural selection
    has provided them with a skin not unlike the composite material used for
    the space shuttle. Their cell metabolism has speeded up so much they
    release enough heat to create a nifty Star Trek force field around them,
    and there's probably enough left over to protect fatso in the sled,
    too. And they still have enough energy for reindeer games after the night
    is over with (you know what kind of physical attractions can form during
    long road trips).

    Santa's reindeer can travel faster than ordinary reindeer because Santa
    gives them a special enzyme additive to their reindeer chow on Christmas
    eve. Now when the reindeer metabolize glucose, instead of getting 36 ATP
    per glucose, they get 36 quintillion molecules of ATP. This makes them able
    to to pull Santa's sleigh at a speed of 650 miles per second. Since their
    internal metabolism is so high, the heat created from air resistance
    doesn't affect them. 14.3 quintillion joules of energy is nothing compared
    to the amount of internal energy in the form of ATP. There is one special
    reindeer that Santa gives more of this enzyme to because this reindeer has
    to lead all of the others. In fact, there is so much ATP produced in this
    reindeer that it concentrates in his nose, causing his nose to glow like a
    light bulb.

    Natural selection would have allowed Santa's reindeer to grow a thick, hard
    outer layer, and they would have to be perfectly spherical to endure the
    pressure of their flight. It is easy for them to deal with the immense
    weight of the sleigh because they propel themselves upward and onward with
    very strong methane emissions from their digestive tract.

    One of the most mystical and interesting aspects of Santa Claus are his
    reindeer. One hypothesis to explain the evolution of these special reindeer
    could be this: since all living things adapt to their surroundings,
    obviously these reindeer have made adaptations to living at the North
    Pole. There are many ice cliffs in the North Pole, and many of the deer
    kept falling off. However, some of the reindeer were better at avoiding the
    sub-freezing waters below the cliffs, and these are the reindeer that
    survived. Over thousands of years, these reindeer evolved the ability to
    glide and then even fly!

    I think that Santa gives his reindeer some injections that make their
    enzymes work 6,783,215 times faster. Santa may also give them steroids to
    make them stronger. This increase in metabolic activity and increased
    strength allows them to fly at such great velocities. Don't tell any little
    kids about Santa's involvement in drugs! They need to keep their illusions.

    It's silly to assume that the slow process of natural selection could have
    produced reindeer with such powers. I suppose that Stephen Jay Gould's
    theory of punctuated equilibrium might be one means of producing such a
    distinct change from other deer species. However, the obvious answer is
    that Santa is a marvel at genetic engineering and has the ability to
    manipulate reindeer genes to produce whatever traits he wants.

    From: DZEsq@aol.com

                                    REBUTTAL 10

    As an amateur physicist of some renown, many people have asked me for my
    take on the various physics problems raised by the so-called "Santa
    Conundrum." I tend to agree with all of the rebuttals, and feel confident
    in stating that Santa does indeed exist.

    My main reason for stating this, however stems from my own, now frequently
    cited Theory of Everything, Ribbon and Bow Theory. See J. Appl. Window
    Shopping, December 1995, vol 14, p 47 - 25). Many people have suggested
    that I have, with that one peer-reviewed article obsoleted both string and
    membrane theory. (See also, "The Eleven Dimensional Aspects of Choosing a
    Gift for your Wife," J. Appl. Window Shopping, December 1999, vol 18, p 8 -
    4, and "Electron Tunnelling Through Display Cases," same issue, pages 72 -
    60.)

    The author of the original article completely overlooks wormholes. Everyone
    knows that one pole of the earth's magnetic field is near the North
    Pole. And everyone knows that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. Although
    the correspondence between lines of magnetic force and wormholes has not
    been widely examined in the literature, one conclusion of the theory of
    ribbons and bows is that the two are frequently found co-existing. I have
    written a paper on this and sent it to Stephen Hawking for comment, but so
    far, he has not responded.

    Assuming my theory is correct, then Santa, in each of his quantum states
    can enter any number of the infinite number of wormholes near his house
    simultaneously, and can make the trip at a leasurely pace, since in effect,
    he is only making ONE delivery multiplied X number of times as the number
    of good children dictate. Obviously once the problem is reduced to a single
    trip, the solution is trivial, and it is intuitively obvious that Santa can
    fly his Reindeer at normal FAA speed and height recommendations.

    Clearly, this is basic physics, and I do not understand why the original
    author has any difficulty at all solving this problem.

    W. David Zitzkat
    Attorney At Law
    Wannabe Physicist

physics
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    From: Humor Man <humor@ted.org> , Gerald Clough <DONTSPAMclough@texas.net>
    Special Category: Afterlife
    The following is one of Dr. Schalmbaugh's Final Test questions for
    May 1997.  (Dr. Schalmbaugh,  University of Oklahoma School of Chemical
    Engineering, is  known for asking questions such as this on his
    final exams.)

    May 1997, Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II Final Exam Question:

    "IS HELL EXOTHERMIC OR ENDOTHERMIC?  Support your answer with truth."

    Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
    or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

    First, we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some
    mass.  If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass.  So,
    at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls
    leaving?  I think that  we can safely assume that once a soul gets
    to hell, it will not leave.

    Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, lets look
    at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of
    these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion,
    you will go to hell.  Since there are more than one of these religions
    and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project
    that all people and all souls go to hell.  With birth and death rates
    as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase
    exponentially.

    Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell.  Boyle's Law
    states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay
    the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay
    constant.

    Case 1: If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which
    souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will
    increase until all hell breaks loose.

    Case 2: If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of
    souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell
    freezes over.

    So which is it?  If we accept the postulate given to me by Theresa
    Banyan during my freshman year, "it will be a cold night in hell
    before I sleep with you"  and take into account the fact that I still
    have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then case 2
    cannot be true.

    Thus, hell is exothermic.

    The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

    The original version of this joke appeared in Applied Optics, vol. 11, A14
    (1972) - reference in p. 106 of "A Random Walk in Science", compiled R L
    Weber, published IoP 1973.

physics
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    Special Category: Afterlife
    There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the
    existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any
    marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat
    engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool.  This is
    obviously impossible. -- Richard Davisson

physics
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    From: ekstrom@pacificrim.net (Philip A. Ekstrom)

    Special Category: Afterlife
    Whatever the temperature of hell, I can prove that it is isothermal.

    We must begin by assuming that there is at least one physicist in hell.  Most
    of us can think of a particular example.

    Now assume that some portion of hell is out of equilibrium, a bit hotter or
    colder than the rest.  If so, then that physicist would build a heat engine
    and extract some energy, and use that energy to run a refrigerator.  He would
    cool some other part of hell down until it was comfortable.

    But it is contrary to the definition of hell that any part of it should be
    comfortable.  QED.

physics
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    From: Wilbert Dijkhof <w.j.dijkhof@student.utwente.nl>
    T2 =    2 degrees Celcius = 275.15 degree Kelvin
    T1 =    1 degree  Celcius = 274.15 degree Kelvin
         ______________________________________________-

    T2-T1 = 1 degree  Celcius =       1 degree Kelvin

    =>   1 degree Celius = 1 degree Kelvin

physics
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    From: "Ed Kolis" <koliset@email.uc.edu>

    Since an object's kinetic energy E = ½mv²,
    and also, from relativity, E = mc², then ½mv² = mc².

    Canceling the m's, ½v² = c².

    Solving for v, v = ±sqrt(2) * c.

    Thus, everything with nonzero mass travels at a speed equal to the square
    root of 2 times the speed of light.

    (This is an excellent example of why you must keep your types of energy
    straight during a calculation!)

next page | Index | Comments and Contributions

#### Subsections

- 2. physics - general
- 2.1 physics poetry
- 2.2 physics quotes
- 2.3 physics puns
- 2.4 pseudo physics (cat physics, cartoon physics)
- 2.5 new physical theories
- 2.6 learning physics
- 2.7 not learning physics (featuring Heavy Boots)
- 2.8 physical proofs
- 2.9 physical one-liners
- 2.10 quantum mechanics (starring Schroedingers cat!)
- 2.11 relativity
- 2.12 measure the height of a building with help of a barometer
- 2.13 physicists
- 2.14 astronomy
- 2.15 electrons
- 2.16 electro-magnetism and light
- 2.17 Newtons's laws and classical dynamics
- 2.18 thermodynamics
- 2.19 in the lab
- 2.20 strange but real findings
- 2.21 the buttered bread on cat problem

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