Often a matlab script is inspired by a conversation with a friend,
a slashdot post, or an email, with the goal of exploring the physics
and mathematics of a topic in greater detail.
Despite their simplicity, typically based on elementary algebra and physics,
their results can often be nonintuitive and surprising.
I believe that humans lack the ability to easily
conceptualize outcomes determined by exponential functions.
Many topcis, such as population growth, economic growth,
energy consumption, income distribution, or taxation, when studied
with a simple tool like matlab or scilab can help guide the
intuition, cultivating an exponentially aware mind.
The year 2003 marks the fifth year in a row, where the rotational
rate of the Earth has not decreased measurably over the course of a year.
In past years the yearly addition of a leap second has been necessary
to account for the decreasing rotational rate of the Earth caused
by tidal effects.
The energy associated with this year's 1-second shorter-than-expected year
is equivalent to an extra 1.6x10
22 Joules of energy or
40 times the annual world energy consumption of mankind (DoE 1999).
How much energy would it take for Santa Claus to travel
from home to home over the face of the Earth delivering toys?
To complete the task in a single night it would take
3.382x1020 J
or
3.186x109 times
the annual world energy consumption.
This analysis is an update of the
Classic Physics of Santa Claus
to metric units,
eliminating a factor-of-ten error,
removing erroneous religious correlations,
providing an improved power-law distance estimation,
and removing nonphysical air-resistance information.
