ON THE CUTTING EDGE: How Santa Does It All In One Night
The Stiletto’s beloved nephew is at that age where he is battling doubts about whether Santa Claus exists. When he asks such questions as “How does Santa get to every single house in the world to deliver presents to every single child?,” he is as much searching for reassurance as an answer that makes logical sense. Thanks to Larry Silverberg, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University, The Stiletto now has a good answer to that one question, at least: “He exploits the space-time continuum” to be able to travel 200 million square miles to visit hundreds of millions of homes in just one night. Silverberg tells Reuters:
“He understands that space stretches, he understands that you can stretch time, compress space and therefore he can, in a sense, actually have six Santa months to deliver the presents. In our reference frame it appears as though he does it in the wink of an eye and in fact there have been sightings of Santa, quick sightings, and that's in our reference frame, but in Santa's reference frame he really has six months.”
Lest you think this explanation is too sophisticated for a tyke who still kinda, sorta believes in Santa Claus, when he was in first grade The Stiletto asked her nephew whether he thought a circle was a curved line that had no angles, or a line made up of an infinite number of angles so that it looked curved. After The Stiletto presented the case for each, he picked the latter.
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