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While cynics smirk and dismiss Santa as some kind of gimmick,
The truth is that all one needs to believe is some theoretical physics.
While lesser minds write him off as antithetical,
Won’t tolerate even the notion of a hypothetical,
Laugh off calculations of what he’d need to get from pole to pole,
Dropping off presents or lumps of coal,
Exerting near impossible self-control
from eating billions of cookies and sausage rolls,
Remember that those people also can’t explain the science behind black holes.
How can Santa be both here and there?
How fast must his reindeer fly through the air?
“Irrelevant,” the quantum physicists say,
Classical laws of physics aren’t always obeyed.
Atoms, molecules, photons of light,
Their barriers are porous, not watertight,
So on the night,
The building blocks of Santa’s body hold uncertain positions,
Able to exist in various conditions,
Here, there, both and neither,
I know it’s hard to comprehend, you can take a breather,
Just know it’s perfectly possible for Santa’s body to liquefy
So he can comply
With the shape of your chimney
And it’s not whimsy
To suggest quantum tunnelling is at play
For him to leak under your doorway
To drop off his gifts,
Spoiler alert, he also uses quantum computing to sort through his lists
And just like you can be naughty or nice
Simultaneously kind but riddled with vice
Santa too can make use of quantum contradictions
Show up in all jurisdictions with no restrictions,
Science says it doesn’t have to be fiction.
Quantum interference allows for the interplay of motions,
Like waves that peak, trough and cancel each other out in our oceans,
And really, is it such a strange notion,
To be in more than one state at one time,
The sublime with the grime,
It’s the human condition,
Elemental to our very composition.
Who among us hasn’t experienced being both grateful and not,
For all that we’ve got,
We can cry when we’re happy and laugh when we’re sad,
Hold it together despite internally going quite mad (I’m looking at you, homeschooling!)
Anyway, my point is this…
Before you dismiss
Santa’s worldwide kinesis as simply a myth
Forthwith,
You can pin it on quantum physics,
And silence the critics,
Because magic is just science which hasn’t yet reached its limits.
A regular speaker on the tech conference circuit and a Senior Director at FTI Consulting, SJ Barak is an authority on the electronics space, social media in a b2b context, digital content creation and distribution. She has a passion for gadgets, electronics, and science fiction.