Hello and welcome to Sunday.
I'm Christy and this is From the Vault.
And before we get started, a quick apology.
Today's episode might have come to you a little bit late, from the Squiz Kids Vault, after a brief delay caused by a missing key.
We did try asking Santa how he gets into lock rooms, but clearly he's busy at the moment.
So now locksmith sorted, vault open...
And inside is one of our favourite festive shortcuts, the science of Santa.
Enjoy.
This is a Squiz Kids podcast.
Your fresh take on what's happening in the world around you.
He delivers billions of presents in one night.
He knows he's been naughty and nice and he somehow fits down chimneys that don't even exist.
This is your Squiz Kids shortcut to the science of Santa.
The podcast where we dive into the who, what, where, when, why and how of the big news stories.
I'm Christy Kidgerina.
And I'm Bryce Corbett.
Bryce, have you eaten all of those cookies?
Uh, no.
There's one left.
Do you want it?
I spent hours baking those.
They were for Santa.
Oh, but Christy, does Santa really need a plate of cookies at every single house?
I mean, the guy must already have a serious sugar overload by the time he hits the second suburb.
Hmm, good point.
Maybe it's time we looked at the science behind Santa's superpowers, including his cookie eating capacity.
Now that is a shortcut I can get behind.
Today we're unwrapping what challenges Santa faces every Christmas Eve, how science might explain the magic behind Santa's tricks and why a little Christmas magic can inspire big ideas.
So grab your jingle bells and a mug of hot chocolate and let's get started.
Listen carefully, there's a squiz at the end.
What?
Okay, Bryce, let's start with the facts.
There are about 8 billion people on Earth, but not everyone celebrates Christmas with Santa.
Yeah, that's right, Christy.
Believe it or not, some cultures and some countries don't celebrate Christmas at all.
But at the last count, about 600 million kids around the world celebrate a Christmas that includes Santa.
And if each household on average has two and a half kids...
Hang on, wait, wait, what?
How can you have half a kid?
And is it the top or the bottom half?
And where are all these half children anyway?
Don't worry, Bryce, there are no half children.
It's a math thing.
It means on average.
OK, all right.
Yep, you were saying?
Well, that means Santa visits about 240 million homes in just one night.
Whoa.
And it's not just the houses.
If every child gets a medium-sized Lego set, which hopefully they get more than that, but Santa's sleigh would need to carry more than 600000 tons of toys.
Whoa.
Yeah, get this.
That's the weight of 120,000 African elephants.
Wow.
And, of course, we can't forget the snacks.
No.
If Santa eats three cookies... and drinks a cup of milk at every house he visits.
That's 720 million cookies and enough milk to fill 24 Olympic swimming pools.
Oh, I'd need a nap after just one house.
Me too.
But Santa also has to deal with chimneys or sometimes no chimneys, and he's got to stay out of sight while delivering all those presents.
Oh my goodness, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.
So how Christy, does Santa manage to fly through the sky, deliver all those presents and eat all those cookies without so much as a hiccup?
There's got to be some serious stuff going on behind the sleigh bells.
How?
So how does Santa pull off the impossible, delivering billions of presents in one night?
The truth is it's a huge secret and involves a whole lot of Christmas magic.
But I'm going to give you some of the possibilities according to science.
Let's break it down.
Okay, let's do that.
Because to deliver gifts to all the kids in the world, Santa would need to visit around 240 million homes on Christmas Eve, like we just said.
Now, that's over 2,150 homes every single second.
Whoa.
To make it work, Santa's sleigh must be travelling at around about 10 million kilometres per hour.
Now, compare that to the fastest jet on Earth.
It's kind of like a snail next to a rocket.
First up, Santa has got a little advantage.
How long, Bryce, do you think Santa has got to do all this work?
Well, let's see.
I sleep for about eight hours, so I guess maybe he's got seven hours, because you know I'm always too excited to go to bed on Christmas Eve and wake up super early.
Well, not a bad guess, but Santa actually has a whopping 31 hours to deliver all those presents.
Wait, what?
31 hours?
Did I miss a memo about Christmas Eve being the longest ever day?
No, not exactly.
Here's how it works.
Because the Earth rotates and has 24 different time zones.
Santa starts in the Pacific Islands, where it's first midnight on Christmas Eve.
And then he follows the darkness westward around the world.
I see.
So he chases the night like a jolly red-suited superhero.
Exactly.
He squeezes every last second out of the 24-hour cycle.
Plus, remember, not every house celebrates Christmas, so he's got a little bit of breathing room.
OK, but even so, that's still 240 million homes in 31 hours, which is about...
Let's see.
Over 7.7 million stops per hour.
Good maths.
Exactly.
That's why scientists think Santa probably isn't zooming around at supersonic speeds.
Imagine the friction caused by moving that fast.
It's going to create so much heat.
His sleigh would just burn up just like a meteor entering the Earth's atmosphere.
Oh, oh, I know.
Maybe that's why Rudolph's nose glows red, to help absorb that heat.
Poor Rudolph.
Must feel like he's leading a flying oven.
He must, possibly.
But seriously travelling at those speeds would be impossible without some kind of heat-resistant tech.
So if Santa's not relying on speed alone, how does he pull it off?
Oh, great question, Bryce.
Let's talk wormholes, warp drives and a little bit of Christmas magic.
Wormholes and what the what now?
One theory is the idea of wormholes.
So a wormhole is a science concept.
It's like a shortcut through space-time connecting two distant points.
Just imagine Santa entering a wormhole in the North Pole and then popping out in Sydney.
Then zipping to London through another one.
If Santa had access to a network of wormholes, he could crisscross across the globe in no time at all.
Now, scientists haven't exactly found a wormhole yet, but really smart astrophysicists dedicate their whole life to finding proof of them out in space.
And if anyone knows where to look, I'm guessing it's Santa.
Yeah.
Actually, now that you mention it, that does sound plausible.
And then there's the idea of warp drive, something straight out of science fiction.
Awesome.
So a warp drive would bend space-time itself, letting santa's sleigh travel faster than the speed of light without actually moving faster than the speed of light.
Instead of zooming from house to house, santa would compress the space in front of him and expand the space behind him, basically hopping across the world in the blink of an eye.
Ah, just like in star wars, when they go into hyperdrive and hop from one galaxy to another in a matter of seconds.
And what about teleportation?
If Santa's sleigh was equipped with teleportation technology, he could beam himself and the presents directly into living rooms all over the world.
It's the same idea as how information is transferred in quantum computers, instantly moving from one place to another.
Imagine Santa arriving with a shimmer of light and a puff of glitter.
Of course, Santa's sleigh would need to be more advanced than anything that we can imagine, probably powered by a mix of dark energy and exotic matter.
And yes, these are both things that real scientists spend their lives studying.
Theoretically, that kind of energy could keep the sleigh moving at mind-bending speeds without worrying about running out of fuel.
Oh, and speaking of fuel, that's where the cookies come in.
Some scientists think Santa might not actually be eating those cookies, but instead using them to power his sleigh.
Wait, what?
Cookies as fuel?
How does that work?
Well, cookies are packed with sugar and fat.
Basically, high energy fuel.
Santa's sleigh could be equipped with some sort of advanced energy converter that turns all these sweet treats into a supercharged biofuel.
So while we're munching on candy canes, Santa's sleigh is zooming around, powered by choc chip, cookies and milk.
That is brilliant.
I will never look at a plate of cookies the same way again.
And Santa's not just delivering presents, he's also carrying billions of them.
His sack must be magical, or at least use advanced quantum storage.
Picture this a bag that folds space itself, holding millions or even billions of toys in a separate pocket dimension, while staying lightweight enough to carry.
Boom!
That's the sound of my brain exploding.
And now, of course, I understand why I only get one big present each year.
That is a lot of toys to move around.
But that doesn't explain how he gets into my house and why he's barely ever seen.
Oh, Bryce, that's where shrinking technology and invisibility come into play.
Okay.
So scientists have theorised that Santa might be using nanotechnology to shrink himself down to maybe the size of a Christmas ornament.
That way he can slip through vents keyholes, chimneys if you've got one or even cracks under the door.
Shrinking himself?
You mean like Ant-Man?
But what about how does he stay hidden?
Well, that could be thanks to an invisibility cloak, kind of like Harry Potter's only Santa's version might be based on real science.
Wait, invisibility cloaks aren't real?
You're telling me that Santa and Harry Potter are practically twins?
Not quite, but governments and scientists are actually working on cloaking technology.
They use materials called metamaterials, which actually bend light around an object, making it appear invisible.
Wow.
It's not perfect yet, but if anyone's cracked it, my money's on Santa.
I'd say so too.
So Santa's rocking some seriously advanced tech.
A sleigh with biofuel converters, a warp drive, shrinking nanotech and an invisibility cloak.
Santa is certainly on the cutting edge of technology.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say he's a super scientist.
He really is, Bryce.
But here's the thing.
No matter how much science we try to apply, as I said at the start, we don't really know how Santa does it.
All of this is just a theory.
And who's to say that a little bit of Christmas magic isn't also involved?
And honestly, I think I like it that way, Christy.
So why do you think that the magic of Christmas is so important?
Why?
So here's the thing.
No matter how much science we use to explain it, we can't truly unravel the mystery of Santa.
And maybe that's the best part.
Sometimes the wonder of not knowing is what makes something truly magical.
Beautifully said.
And the magic of Christmas isn't just about how Santa does it.
It's about believing in something extraordinary.
It's about the spark of imagination that lights up when you wonder, what if?
Like how people used to dream about flying and now we have planes.
Or a long time ago, people used to stare up at the moon and wonder what was up there.
And now we have rockets that can fly there.
Oh, we do.
Science fiction often becomes science fact.
Things like mobile phones, robots and even space travel started with wild ideas in stories.
And who knows, maybe Santa's sleigh will inspire the next breakthrough in technology.
I love the sound of that.
It's like the magic of Christmas helps us dream bigger.
And if you're looking for proof that Santa's doing all these amazing things, here's a fun fact.
One of America's top defence agencies NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command, actually tracks Santa's journey every Christmas Eve.
Wait, the same people who track satellites and space junk are keeping an eye on Santa?
That's right.
Using satellites and radar, they pick up Santa's sleigh as it leaves the North Pole.
Oh.
They even say Rudolph's glowing red nose makes it easy to follow.
Wow.
And you guys listening can track Santa too as he travels across the world on their website.
I've popped a link to it in the episode notes.
Wow.
Well, I'm convinced.
But...
Just in case.
Remember, if you don't believe, you might just find yourself on the naughty list rather than the nice list.
Good point, Bryce.
Better safe than sorry.
Time for the quiz.
This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you've been listening.
Question number one.
We've mentioned lots of numbers in this podcast, but can you remember how many kids around the world celebrate Christmas with Santa?
That was a tough one, wasn't it?
The number is in fact 600 million.
Question number two.
Oh, and here's some more numbers.
How many hours does Santa have to get all those presents delivered?
Well done if you remembered that he's got 31 hours.
Question number three.
What did we say Santa could be using to fuel his sleigh?
And I'll give you a hint.
It's usually left out for him to eat when he comes to your house.
There's a theory that it could be milk and cookies.
Oh, yum.
Well, that's all we have time for today.
Thanks for joining us as we explored the who what where when, why and how of the science of Santa.
Now get out there and have a most excellent Christmas.
Over and out.
