Is There A Santa Claus?

d_force asks: "Is there a Santa Claus? - an oldie but favorite during the holidays. =)" It was done back in 1991 and attempts to address the question scientifically. It's a humorous look at jolly old St. Nick, but I'm wondering if you readers out there can come up with something better. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, a joyous Kwanzaa and Eid Mubarak: Seasons greetings to you all and Peace and Good Will to You and Yours. (michael: And have a happy Atheist-Children-Get-Presents Day, too.)

Re:Descrimination

Penguins only recently gained the ability to run two per sleigh. A bit later, 4-way sleighs were added, but still can't do 8-way sleighs.

Does Santa Exist?

This is a difficult question, which should really be broken down into a number of sub-questions:

1. What defines "Santa"?
2. What deliniates "exist"?
3. Who Is CowboyNeil?

Let's take these one at a time.

1) What defines "Santa"?

If "Santa" is that which gives presents at Christmas, then every parent and child is "Santa".

If "Santa" must be an individual, then St Nick, Robin Hood, etc, must all be candidates.

2) What deliniates "exists"?

If Santa is a concept of goodwill, and that concept exists, then Santa must exist.

Who is Santa

Santa as a mem: The idea of good will past down from generation to generation vea a holiday
Santa as a religious icon: Saint Nick...
Santa as a pagan god [cswnet.com]: "But very few people realize that history clearly shows that Woden was renamed St. Nick or Santa Claus,"
Santa as a spelling error: Could it be Satan?
Santa as a perl module: Santa.pm [Gives gifts to good little varables].
Santa as a Slashdot troll: "First Gift"
Santa as a Linux user: RedHat...
Santa as an evil information gathering dark conspericy: "He's making a list and checking it twice.. gona find out whos naughty and nice" [and sell the information? Think those presents are free?]

For all us Atheists and Agnostics...

If you want to have something to celebrate today, remember it's Isaac Newtons Birthday [clara.net]! So celebrate by hanging a red apple on your tree...

Isaac Newton's birthday comes but once a year,

And when it does it brings good cheer,
For if it hadn't come at all,
What would make the apple fall?

--

What Many People DONT Know ..

.. is that there actually WAS a real 'Santa Claus' at one point. No flying reindeer, and he worked on a MUCH smaller scale -- that is, he made toys for the children in his town. And, while it may sound kinda cheesy, I think that the spirit of Santa lives on in everybody. Just look at how (most) of you act around the holidays -- what am I going to get Person X? What about Person Y? Generosity exists in most, if not all sentient life. Cheers.

------------
CitizenC

1 good child per household?

this is where the major flaw is in their calculations. Children are terribly cruel. I highly doubt that 1 good child per household is a proper base point. Perhaps we could go by the bible's 144,000 people who will be "called home" during the rapture. Considering only 10% of those people are children, this leaves us with only 14,400 stops. Add some asbestos sheilding to the reigndeer and I think he could do it. Not to mention most of those 14,400 kids are going to be in the same orphanges.


They are a threat to free speech and must be silenced! - Andrea Chen

Quantum Physics

Santa switched to quantum mechanics a few years ago, and as long as no one observes him directly, he is everywhere at once.

The list of "bad girls" is what keeps him so jolly.

Sure there is...

We've all seen numerous pictures [bero.org]... And since he's wearing a Red Hat(tm) in each of them, we even know what OS he's running. ;)

santa as a quantum event

forget the physical explanations.. Santa is a macroscopic quantum event.

Santa is the observational manifestation of the Christmas spirit, and all the stockings by the chimney and presents under the tree are really just Schrodinger boxes that contain the superimposed waveforms of both a gift and a lump of coal. . that waveform collapses as soon as you look in the box, and since everyone knows in their heart whether they've been naughty or nice, the fact that you're expecting a particular outcome determines what the contents will be.

this model is strengthened by the fact that Santa takes advantage of the time constraints of a relative universe:

Santa can appear in any number of living rooms at precisely the stroke of midnight, because in a relative universe, you can't prove that the stroke of midnight happens in any two houses at exactly the same time. . each house represents an isolated frame of reference whose time scale can only be measured relative to any other frame of reference, so being able to see Santa in your own living room means that you are fundamentally unable to prove that he was anywhere else at exactly the same time.

any connection between two frames of reference that contain Santa is subject to (at minimum) speed-of-light constraints (or more likely, putting-on-slippers- and-a-coat-and-running-next-door- yelling-hey-guess-what-i-saw- whoa-how-did-YOU- get-here constraints), so if either you or the information can get from one frame of reference to another, Santa can get there, too.

the model is further strengthened by the fact that Santa exhibits uncertainty effects:

you might be looking at Santa, or you might just be looking at some guy in a red suit. . the real Santa is simply the locus of minimal uncertainty (or maximal belief) that you honestly are looking at Santa. . the effect can be demonstrated with a simple thought-experiment:

assume that you're walking down a street that has one Santa on each corner. . the position of the real Santa travels along with your point of observation.

when you're right next to the first Santa, you can be highly confident (assuming you're an optimist) that this one really is Santa. . the one at the other corner is too far away to observe, so the locus of maximal belief occurs at the Santa closest to you.

as you walk down the street toward the next Santa, you lose certainty that the one you just left is still the real Santa, and gain certainty that the one you're approaching is the real Santa. . at the point precisely half way between the two Santas, the locus of maximal belief is equally distributed between both. . thus, as far as you can prove from that position, either one *could* be Santa, and that's all you can say.

as you continue to walk toward the second Santa, you become more confident that this really is the one, until you arrive at the same position as this new Santa, only to discover that this is the real one, too.

the model works just as well for a skeptic, except that the real Santa is always the one on the *other* corner.

Re:Sure there is...

But of course. I thought it was a well-known fact that Santa's a Linux zealot. Why else would he enter houses through the chimney simply in order to avoid using the Windows?

Imagine the horror..

Of the dyslexic child on Christmas, waiting for Satan to come down the chimney...

Old Fave

Don't forgett:

better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus < north pole > town

cat /etc/passwd > list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice > giftlist
santa claus < north pole > town

who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | grep bad || good
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}