Santa Claus explained (to within h / 2 pi)


Every year around Christmas, "analyses" go out over the net purporting to show
that Santa Claus cannot possibly exist, because of the extremely high speeds
(and accelerations) required for him to make his rounds, absence of chimneys or
other means of ingress, etc. These analyses merely confirm the prevalence of
the classical mechanical mindset. Consider the following:
Santa is never directly observed, but indirect evidence of him abounds.
If direct observation is attempted (say, by staying up all night with the
lights on), not only is Santa not observed, but the indirect evidence of his
presence does not appear either--only if no attempt is made to observe Santa do
the stockings get filled.
Evidence of Santa appears in multiple locations simultaneously throughout the
world. (The multiplicity of time zones does not substantially alter this
argument, and will therefore be ignored.)
Evidence of Santa appears even in rooms that are separated from the rest of the
universe by barriers (small or non-existent chimneys) that Santa cannot
classically pass through.
It is obvious, then, that Santa can best be described by a quantum-mechanical
wavefunction SC, which is nonzero at midnight on Christmas eve throughout the
world. Like other quantum-mechanical wavefunctions, it is not confined to one
spatial location, and can "tunnel" through classical barriers (house walls and
roof), producing a potentially nonzero expectation value in (classically
allowed) living rooms and apartments. Children expect Santa to arrive;
therefore, in living spaces with the child operator (closely related to the
annihilation operator), the expectation value <SC*|C|SC> is small but finite,
and a small but finite fraction of Santa's presents are deopsited. However, if
an attempt is made to observe Santa, the observation finds the Santa
wavefunction in either a "not-Santa" (OC|SC> = |SC->) or "Santa" (OC|SC> =
|SC+>) eigenstate. Because of the very small expectation value of the Santa
function (approximately the reciprocal of the number of houses Santa visits,
adjusted by local "naughty" and "nice" operators), the eigenstate is extremely
likely to be "not-Santa" (|SC->)--no presents appear. One cannot really blame
these intrepid experimentalists, however: if one of them did suceed in finding
Santa in the "Santa" (|SC+>) state, he or she would not only have
unprecendented direct evidence of Santa Claus, but would find Santa's entire
load of presents deposited in his or her living room.