Six Minutes Off

Let me return, reindeer-like, to my problem, pretty well divorced from the movie at this point, of the stranded Arthur Christmas and Grand-Santa, stuck to wherever they happen to be on the surface of the Earth, going around the Earth’s axis of rotation every 86,164 seconds, while their reindeer and sleigh carry on orbiting the planet’s center once every hours. That’s just a touch more than every 5,091 seconds. This means, sadly, that the reindeer will never be right above Arthur again, or else the whole system of rational and irrational numbers is a shambles. Still, they might come close.

After all, one day after being stranded, Arthur and Grand-Santa will be right back to the position where they started, and the reindeer will be just finishing up their seventeenth loop around the Earth. To be more nearly exact, after 86,164 seconds the reindeer will have finished just about 16.924 laps around the planet. If Arthur and Grand-Santa just hold out for another six and a half minutes (very nearly), the reindeer will be back to their line of latitude, and they’ll just be … well, how far away from that spot depends on just where they are. Since this is my problem, I’m going to drop them just a touch north of 30 degrees north latitude, because that means they’ll be travelling a neat 400 meters per second due to the Earth’s rotation and I certainly need some nice numbers here. Any nice number. I’m putting up with a day of 86,164 seconds, for crying out loud.

Arthur Christmas and the Least Common Multiple

I left Arthur Christmas and Grand-Santa in a hypothetical puzzle, inspired by the movie, with them stranded on a tiny island while their team of flying reindeer and sleigh carried on in a straight line without them. I am assuming for the sake of an interesting problem that this means the reindeer are carrying on the Great Circle route, favored by airplanes and satellites, and that the reindeer are in an orbit more like the satellite’s than the reindeers — that is, they keep to a circle in a plane which isn’t rotating while the Earth does, since otherwise, Arthur and Grand-Santa have to wait only for the reindeer to finish one lap around the planet and somehow get up to flying altitude to be picked up. If the reindeer aren’t rotating the with the Earth, then, when the reindeer finish one circuit our heroes are going to be … well, maybe east, maybe west, of the reindeer; the problem is, they’re going to be away.

Returning to Arthur Christmas

As promised, since I’ve got the chance, I want to return to the question of the reindeer behavior as shown in the Aardman movie Arthur Christmas, and what would ultimately happen to them if the reindeer carry on as Grand-Santa claims they will. (Again, this does require spoiling a plot point of the film and so I tuck the rest behind a cut.)

Could “Arthur Christmas” Happen In Real Life?

If you haven’t seen the Aardman Animation movie Arthur Christmas, first, shame on you as it’s quite fun. But also you may wish to think carefully before reading this entry, and a few I project to follow, as it takes one plot point from the film which I think has some interesting mathematical implications, reaching ultimately to the fate of the universe, if I can get a good running start. But I can’t address the question without spoiling a suspense hook, so please do consider that. And watch the film; it’s a grand one about the Santa family.

The premise — without spoiling more than the commercials did — starts with Arthur, son of the current Santa, and Grand-Santa, father of the current fellow, and a linguistic construct which perfectly fills a niche I hadn’t realized was previously vacant, going off on their own to deliver a gift accidentally not delivered to one kid. To do this they take the old sleigh, as pulled by the reindeer, and they’re off over the waters when something happens and there I cut for spoilers.