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Does Santa Clause exist? No known species of reindeer can fly. However, there are 300 000 living organisms that do and even if most of these are insects and bacteria it doesn't rule out the possibility that flying reindeer - which only Santa Clause has access to - do, in fact, exist. There are approximately 2 billion children (persons under the age of 18) on this earth. However, Santa Clause doesn't seem to visit Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or Jews, thus reducing the workload to roughly 15% - in round figures 378 million. With an average of 3.5 children per household - and assuming that at least one child in each household has behaved himself the whole year - Santa is required to visit 91.9 million homes. Santa Clause has only 38 hours in which to do this - thanks mainly to the different time zones and the rotation of the Earth. I am of course assuming that he travels from east to west as that would appear to be the most logical. It follows that Santa Clause must make 822.6 visits every second. This would mean that at every Christian household with well behaved children Santa Clause would have 1/1 000 of a second to park, disembark, squeeze down the chimney, fill stockings, place parcels under the tree, eat the mince-pies and drink the sherry that have been left for him, get himself back up the chimney and onto his sleigh ready for the next visit while at the same time trying to remain reasonably sober.. If we assume that all these households are equally distributed over the surface of the earth (which we know they are not, but it makes the arithmetic easier), and that the journey is 1.2 km per household, then Santa's journey would be 120.8 million kilometres. Therefore, Santa's sleigh would have to move at a speed of 1 045 km/second (3 000 times the speed of sound!), if no child were to be disappointed on Christmas morning. I'm making no allowances here for toilet visits or meal times for either Santa or his reindeers. Just to compare, one of the quickest vehicles built by man - the Ulysses space probe - moves at a speed of 43.8 km/second while a reindeer - of the conventional type - moves at a speed of 24 km/hour. The cargo on the sleigh adds another interesting dimension to the equation. If we assume that every child gets no more than a box of Lego, weighing approximately 1.5 kg, then the sleigh must be carrying 321 000 ton - and that's not including Santa Clause who is most often portrayed as being somewhat overweight. On the ground, conventional reindeers can't draw a load of more than 220 kg so even if we agree that Santa's 'flying' reindeer can draw more than 10 times the normal weight it wouldn't be enough with only eight reindeer. We would need a staggering 214 000 reindeer which would increase the weight of the sleigh to 354 430 ton. Again, just for the sake of comparison, that's four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth. Just imagine that on your roof! These 354 430 tons, travelling at 1 045 km/second, would create an enormous air resistance which would heat up the reindeer - in the same manner as a space capsule returning to the earth's atmosphere. The two leading reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of pure energy per second - EACH! In other words, they would be burned up immediately and, not enough with that, the reindeer following would be subjected not only to immense heat but also a deafening explosion. The whole troupe of reindeer would disintegrate in less that 4.26/1 000 of a second and Santa Clause would be subjected to a g-force 17 000 500.06 times the normal. A Santa Clause weighing 182 kg would be pressed against the back wall of the sleigh with a force of 3 149.961 kg. The only conclusion that can be rightly drawn is that should there at any time have been a Santa Clause delivering presents on Christmas Eve then he is no longer living! But, please keep this a secret and try to enjoy yourselves anyhow! Have a really good Christmas and New Year. PS I must learn how to post a Picture next year. It would be so much easier!