"First and above all he was a logician. At least thirty-five years of the half-century or so of his existence had been devoted exclusively to proving that two and two always equal four, except in unusual cases, where they equal three or five, as the case may be." -- Jacques Futrelle, "The Problem of Cell 13"
Most mathematicians are familiar with -- or have at least seen references in the literature to -- the equation…
Is There a Santa Claus?
As a result of an overwhelming lack of requests, and with research help fromthat renown scientific journal SPY magazine (January, 1990) - I am pleased topresent the annual scientific inquiry into Santa Claus.1) No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species ofliving organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insectsand germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule…
There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes…
