Quanta Claus

In the festive mood for Dr. Roberto Trotta's festive competition - write a letter to Santa using the 1000 most common words in English, here's mine:

Dear Santa,

Thank you very much for the presents you gave me in the last ten add eight add one years, in that time I learnt lots of amazing things about my home. Things like why the sky is blue, why soft, white ice falls from the sky when you come sometimes but then I got thinking about how you give all the presents to everyone on time.

So here are my thoughts…

Firstly, I thought of the different times of day and night around the world and how you would chase the dark night but this did not work because it would mean that you have to move very, very, very, very fast which would make you burn because of all the air rubbing against you just like space-rocks that enter our air bubble .

So then I thought about how very small matter works and its strange ways. The story of the very small goes like this, everything is a wave that is all around us and can make its way through walls sometimes. And because you know when we are sleeping and when we are up and whether we have been bad or good then I am sure you know how to use this ‘power’ and give us presents. So thank you for not only the presents but for working so hard to give them to us.

Thank you,

Meriame 

The above explains that if Santa were to try and make use of the different time zones then he would have to deliver presents to 10,000 homes every second if he were to finish the job in 48 hours, if we take the global population to be seven billion and the average family size to be four people. But then he would need to travel at incredible speeds which would mean that air resistance would set Santa on fire just like a meteor entering the Earth's atmosphere! 

So then Quantum has the answer, Quanta Claus! In quantum mechanics particles have no definite position but exist as a wave that is spread out over all of space and can even 'tunnel' through barriers sometimes! So because Santa knows when we are sleeping, and know when we are awake and whether we have been bad or good then he must know how to harness this bit of physics and deliver the presents on time!

Quanta Claus!