ieExplains: How fast does Santa travel and how many toys does he make?
Santa Claus Sleigh Different Zones Rides His Time Through
Five-year-old Eimear would like to know how the elves can work so quickly? Santa has a lot of elves helping him, the latest estimate suggests that he has 110,000 elves as part of his team. Of course, not all the elves are making toys, many are in the research and development department, coming up with new improved technologies to help Santa with all parts of the job. Some elves are part of the very important administrative team, checking lists and keeping Santa up to date. That still leaves a lot of elves for toy making, a conservative estimate suggests that about 90,000 elves are involved, in some way, in making the toys.
Santa and his team make about 500 million toys every year. So, doing some simple calculations, if the 90,000 elves have to make 500 million toys, that’s about 5,500 toys per elf. That means they each make less than 20 toys a day (taking into account the really long holidays they get in Spring). That is not too difficult for the elves, especially with the advanced technology they have at their disposal.
Aoife is eight and she would like to know how the sleigh can fly with all the presents in it? The sleigh is made of a titanium alloy making it is very light, but very strong. Scientists have calculated that Santa’s latest sleigh model can carry up to 500,000 kilograms. Many children ask for gifts that are very small and light (like tiny computer games) so the average weight of each gift works out at around half a kilogram. That would still mean that the sleigh could carry a maximum of one million gifts at a time. That is only a fraction of the total amount of gifts needed to be delivered. So how does Santa do it? He transports all those gifts in two ways.
Firstly, his sleigh is equipped with 3D printers, so he can literally make some of the toys as he travels. Secondly, Santa doesn’t take all the toys at once and travel in just one trip, he returns to the North Pole to restock a number of times between deliveries. In fact, he returns about ten times in total. The elves have developed a very impressive delivery system, so the sleigh can be restocked with toys in under a minute, before Santa heads off again.
Nine-year-old Niall is particularly interested in what speed Santa has to travel at to get all those presents delivered in time. As Santa delivers gift all over the world he passes through different time zones, meaning that he has a total of 32 hours, rather than 24 hours, to deliver all those presents. Scientists have calculated that he would have to travel at speeds of 4,705,882km/h in order to cover that distance. Even with all Santa’s technology, those speeds would vaporise both him and the sleigh. Researchers now believe that Santa and his team of elves have worked out a way to stretch time, creating something called relativity clouds, allowing him much more time to get the job done.
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