Saturday, September 24, 2011

I'm Sorry.

Being in first year at university, I am forced to be part of a class that teaches me how to write essays (something I already know how to do). Still, it does give me the opportunity to write about topics that interest me. Here's my most recent assignment:

It is an unfortunate truth that the tooth fairy does not exist. The idea of a creature that sneaks into our bedrooms while we sleep and leaves money in return for the pieces that fall out of our heads is admittedly appealing, but it is also so improbable that to believe it is laughable. Even if we were to limit the recipients of the tooth fairy’s generosity to those who lose their teeth in the nation of Canada, that would still leave approximately 2 789 920 children within the ages of 6 to 12 (the age group in which tooth loss is a normal occurrence). If we take into account the fact that each child loses 32 teeth within a 6 year period, we can determine that Canadians lose approximately 14 879 573 teeth each year, or 40 766 teeth a day. It is possible for children to lose multiple teeth in one day, or for multiple children to lose teeth in the same household, but the frequency with which this happens is not enough to decrease the number of households that the tooth fairy must visit by more than a couple hundred. Let us therefore accept that the tooth fairy must visit 40 566 Canadian households each night. If the average child gets 10 hours of sleep a day, and there is a 4.5 hour time difference between the East and West coast of Canada, this gives the tooth fairy 14.5 hours in which to work. The tooth fairy must therefore visit approximately 2798 households each hour. This would be difficult enough if they were side by side, but Canada has a surface area of 9 984 670 km², and Canadians have taken advantage of the opportunity this gives them to spread out. If the tooth fairy is lucky, a journey of about 10 000 km is in store each night. Unfortunately, no research has been done on fairies, so let us assume that their flying ability is similar to that of a common swallow. The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is about 38.6 km/h, so at maximum speed a fairy could only hope to complete 5.6% of the required journey if it forgot to pick up the teeth and didn’t leave any money. If the tooth fairy were kind enough to bring the money, it would have to start its journey carrying 285.4 kg of loonies, a feat impossible for any swallow. Alas, we must accept that as no creature is capable of simultaneously reaching the speeds required for the journey and carrying such a weight, the tooth fairy cannot be real.

4 comments:

Maddy said...

Great work! Did you do all the calculations yourself?

GRRRndd said...

I have all my life been an earnest supporter of the work of the tooth fairy. The extent of the effort which the little creature has made to keep children happy has left me wide-eyed with admiration. Now, for the first time, I have a factual basis for my enthusiastic support.

Grace R. Pringle said...

This made me laugh :D
Wouldn't it be nice if all essays were this interesting to write?

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