Awkward's Humour and Sillies

Physics Of Santa Clause - Quantum Mechanical Theory

Dear all,

I was shocked and surprised at what seems such a puerile and simplistic debate about the existence of Santa. Firstly, he is dead. He was martyred quite a while ago, in fact. But that still doesn't stop him from giving children presents, because when dead people are hired by the Pope, or "made saints" they become very busy people. Most of them get given a chunk of God's mail to plough through, but Nicholas got a more active role.

You see, being dead, Santa doesn't have to conform to everyday Newtonian physics. He is in fact a quantum mechanical entity. The reason why he can distribute presents to so many households in such a short period of time is because he spreads out over the world in a complex probabilistic wave-form, being effectively in many places at once.

Your parents all probably know this already. Were you never told that if you stay up to watch for Santa you wouldn't get any presents? This is because if Santa is observed, his wave packet collapses into the well known obese red-suited gentleman on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, and this stops him doing his job properly, and quite possibly annoys him a great deal.

Of course, the presents he gives you must also be quantum mechanical, but this doesn't matter, because when you observe them their wavepackets collapse as well, enabling you to unwrap them and collapse their wavepackets still further into one of those things you put on your request form. The great thing about this system is that you are guaranteed a surprise, because you never know precisely what the present is until you unwrap it. Which is exactly how it should be.

So there.

An Advantageous Advent to you all,
Alex.

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Last updated 21/06/2000 at 16:34