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The science of Santa
Simon, a member of High Wycombe u3a, enjoys presenting talks to several of his interest groups. In a recent talk he used science to explain some of the more magical Christmas traditions. Here he shares his festive findings.
In my job I made many presentations to managers and technical quality assurance people, so I have been sharing presentations in several of the groups I'm in. A u3a audience is much more friendly!
The science of Santa
In December, Michael, who leads our science group, asked for presentations on the theme of 'The Science of Santa' so another member, Ian, and myself took up the challenge. In Ian's presentation, he revealed that he is actually one of Santa's elves, and let us in on some of Santa's industrial secrets.
We explained how Santa has more than just a few night hours to deliver all the presents, because midnight on Christmas Eve goes around the world in 24 hours. With the actual length of the night, Santa has up to 37 hours, making the job much easier. We also discussed how Santa can get around the world so fast. Perhaps it's warp drive, or quantum teleportation that allows him to be in many places at once (this would explain how he is in every shop, garden centre, and even in the West Wycombe caves).
If anyone might be doubtful that Santa could achieve so much, the American air defence command NORAD track his sleigh with their radars every year, and have over a thousand staff on hand to answer calls from children!
We both agreed that Rudolf's nose is red because reindeer have an excellent heat exchange system in their noses to cope with cold - but this makes it liable to infections, which causes it to glow. The infection risk was actually described in a serious-looking science paper in the journal Parastitology Today in 1986. Written by the suspiciously named 'Odd Halvorsen', the paper starts with the question: "Every Christmas we sing about Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer, but do we give much thought to why his nose is red?"
I also explained that the hard-working scientists at the South Pole don't get any darkness at Christmas, so they have their Christmas celebration in the middle of the dark winter on 21 June. For many years 'Santa' would fly over with his 'sleigh' in the form of an air force cargo aircraft which dropped off supplies, food and presents.
The Christmas star
I also gave a more factual talk about the Christmas star from the Bible. Scholars agree that Jesus was born before 4 BC due to the year of King Herod's death. The Bible describes the star as being visible for several months, so it couldn't have been a bright meteorite but could have been a comet. However, comets were usually thought to predict bad events and deaths, and Chinese and Korean observers at the time didn't record any particularly bright ones. It could have been a supernova, as these can be bright enough to be seen in daylight for several months. But perhaps the most likely explanation is a conjunction of planets, which occurred several times from 6-5 BC. To an onlooker, these could have been interpreted as a message of a new king born in Jerusalem.
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