As a person ages, certain inevitable truths become a reality. Things such as never-ending cycles of taxes to the fact that wrinkle creams really do not work. However, one “truth” from childhood still raises a question when the holiday season rolls around, “Who is Santa Claus?”

The story of Santa Claus starts back in 270 AD when St Nicholas’ life started. As an early Christian bishop of the ancient Greek city of Myra (now Turkey), St Nick obtained the title of a very generous man. When St. Nick saw someone in need, he would buy what they needed and give it to them through their chimney in the middle of the night. Fast forward a few years St. Nick transformed into Santa Claus and his gifts started the tradition of giving and receiving presents at Christmas time.

As time progressed, the belief of Santa weakened and more doubts formed against the probability of Santa’s trip around the world, let alone his existence. However, the science factors of Santa’s trip make it more than possible to take place.

On average, Santa visits 132 million homes worldwide in 31 hours (due to time zones). This means Santa goes to 1,178 homes a second and roughly one house every thousandth of a second. In order to accomplish this task, Santa would need to travel 7,800 times the sound of speed, making rips in time and space. In theory, if Santa could do this he would have multiple days to deliver presents due to the rip made in the space and time continuum. Science does not lie and neither does Santa. With Christmas coming around the corner leave some cookies out for Santa. After all, he does have a very long trip.