The science we need from the Swedes

From USA Today (on the Central Asian beat!):

Swedish engineers have concluded that Santa Claus lives in Kyrgyzstan and must spend no more than 34 microseconds (µs) delivering Christmas presents to each of the world’s 2.5 billion homes with children.

“We estimated that there are 48 people per square kilometer on Earth, and 20 meters between each home. So if Santa leaves from Kyrgyzstan and travels against the Earth’s rotation he has 48 hours to deliver all the presents,” Anders Larsson of Sweco tells AFP.

That’s assuming Rudolph and the other reindeer hurtle through the air at 3,604 miles per second, or 13 million mph.

The researchers concluded that Kyrgysztan was the most efficient spot from which to start the jolly fellow’s global delivery service. Despite this finding, Larsson was eager to avoid angering his Nordic neighbors who claim Father Christmas as one their own. He tells Helsingin Sanomat: “Regardless of what the calculations may indicate, I believe the real Santa Claus come from a place called Korvatunturi in the Finnish Lapland.”

USA TODAY has been unable to confirm the researchers’ calculations. We’ll update this posting if Claus or one of his elves sends us a response before the end of the day.

This from one of the commenters; fantastic imagery:

600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance – this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the same time that Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

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