Tag: magic

The Number of Gifts Santa Claus and the Elves Must Build and Deliver Each Christmas Eve

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Assuming Santa Claus delivers at least 1 gift to each child worldwide, this would equate to 2,100,000,000 (2.1 billion) gifts. With an average of 2.5 children per household worldwide, Claus would have to visit 840,000,000 (840 million) homes to accomplish this task. To finish this job in 24 hours (12 for each side of the world), Claus would need to visit 35,000,000 (35 million) homes per hour which would be 580,000 per minute, or nearly 10,000 every second! Because there are so many homes and so very many children, the elves of the North Pole face an equally grueling pace. Assuming each child receives 1 toy, and the build time is spread across 364 days, these elves would need to craft approximately 5,750,000 (5.75 million) toys per day. This would mean 240,000 toys per hour, 4,000 per minute, or nearly 70 every second without a work break for any of them. If the North Pole were to employ 100 elves, each would need to make 0.7 toys per second; and with a large company of 1000 elves, this value drops to 1 toy every 14 seconds which is more manageable; however with a massive company of 10,000 elves, each would only need to craft 1 toy every 2.5 minutes which would be much more probable for a workforce to achieve; if however the North Pole were capable of managing a city sized work force of 100,000 elves, each elf would need only to craft a single toy every 24 minutes which is a pace that a human powered North Pole, theoretically could handle. With that being said, mythologically speaking elves are immortal, or at the very least ageless, and they do possess arcane magic and clandestine knowledge which must be kept in mind when calculating what is theoretically possible

The Correlation Between Cats and the Bubonic Plague of Europe

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During the Middle Ages and up until the Salem Witch Trials, cats were killed alongside their owners who were believed to be practicing the dark arts of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft. Typically cats were burned alive in ceremonial bonfires. Ironically, had this not occurred, the Bubonic Plague probably wouldn’t have been as prolific as it was as the fleas found upon the rats who carried the disease, would have been killed alongside their host by the very cats which were killed in droves by human beings. Cats are partially resistant to the Bubonic Plague but with few to keep the rat population in check, the plague was able to wash over Europe and kill 25,000,000 (25 million) people which was 25% of the European population

The Indigenous People of Tanna Island, Vanuatu and Their Religious Cult Honoring and Deifying the U.S. Military

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On Tanna Island, Vanuatu, every year on February 15th, residents of the Pacific Ocean island chain engage in a military parade with the term “USA” painted in red or tattooed upon the chest of men who carry large bamboo spears with red tipped, pointed ends, a tradition which began more than 60 years ago, inspired by events which took place during World War II, when the U.S. military descended upon the island with modern machinery and supplies (e.g. canned food and cotton clothing etc.). The native inhabitants were in awe of these technologies which lead them to believe that the Americans were in possession of magic. Science fiction author Arthur Charles Clarke’s Third Law states that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. When World War II ended, the U.S. closed its bases in Vanuatu and left seemingly overnight, taking their technologies and goods with them. In honor of U.S. soldiers in the hope that it would entice them to return, the indigenous people created a cult which honored those who had appeared from beyond the horizon. These inhabitants started to create replica U.S. military items (e.g. wooden bandolier designed to mimic artillery shell bandoliers, straw aircraft, U.S. military insignia shoulder patches denoting rank which are painted onto skin etc.). Virtually all religions begin with a miraculous event (e.g. comet in the sky fortelling of calamity) followed by the creation of monuments which exemplify the event observed (e.g. large statue of the Buddha as a deity). Religions developed by cultures which worship other beings which have descended upon them are often referred to as a “cargo cult”

The First Mass Produced Items of the Ancient World

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The first mass produced pieces of artwork were the ancient Egyptians shabtis which were essentially miniature mummies that the ancient Egyptians believed had magical powers and were therefore buried with the dead. Shabtis were comprised of Egyptian faience which is a type of glass ceramic material made from sand. Egyptian faience is referred to as such in order to distinguish it from faience, which is a tin glazed pottery associated with Faenza, Italy. The idea of Egyptian faience was to replicate semiprecious stones like turquoise lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, which at the time was more expensive than gold. The recipe for Egyptian faience is 90% crushed silica, crushed fine natron salt to act as a flux, crushed limestone, and then the coloring with blue being the most popular, a color achieved through the use of pure copper oxide. Water was introduced to turn this composition from a granular mix into a dough like substance. Natron salt which is a type of baking soda, is the key ingredient to this recipe as it rises to the surface when baked and lowers the overall temperature at which sand melts and becomes glass. The statues are left to stand for 24 or more hours as this helps the salt grow on the surface through a chemical reaction process as oxygen within the ambient environment mixes with the ingredients inside the Egyptian faience