How does Santa Claus manage to take one full circle of the world in just one night? Well, a researcher feels that it can only be possible, if Santa has mastered theories of astrophysics.
Professor John Brown, tenth Astronomer Royal for Scotland, believes only quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, which distorts space time boundary, can explain Father Christmas delivering gifts to all the good girls and boys in just one night.Also, Brown, who leads a research group in theory and modelling of solar and stellar plasmas, mentioned that worm holes could provide a useful short-cut as he goes on his rounds.
"Time travel is discussed in scientific circles and it seems that there are effects in relativity, quantum physics and black hole gravitation theory which may make it possible," Scotsman quoted him as saying He added: "The theory of relativity and quantum mechanics both have curious implications and definitely distort space and time.
"Relativity says that length is relative, so in terms of asking how Santa covers Earth in a night, the answer may be that if he could travel near the speed of light he could achieve this, though he would need a huge source of energy - almost all the energy everyone uses on the planet in a year.
"Another quantum mechanical idea - quantum teleportation - might involve deconstructing Santa"s team and beaming their parts faster than light, to be reconstructed in the next chimney, and so on.
"Finally, if Santa carried a black hole, that might help. If you could squash his team small enough, super light speed travel to elsewhere through a black hole worm hole and reassemble them there, he could teleport our Christmas presents around very fast.
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Referring to Santa's reindeer Rudolph, he concluded: "While I"m still a bit sceptical, I keep an open mind and wouldn"t say 100 per cent "No" to such time travel being Rudolph"s secret."
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TRI