{"id":648,"date":"2020-12-16T14:12:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T14:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/?p=648"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:37:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:37:29","slug":"physics-astronomy-students-crack-mystery-of-rudolphs-red-nose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/2020\/12\/16\/physics-astronomy-students-crack-mystery-of-rudolphs-red-nose\/","title":{"rendered":"Physics &amp; Astronomy students crack mystery of Rudolph\u2019s red nose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Of all Santa Claus\u2019 reindeer, Rudolph is best known for his bright red nose. But just how fast would he need to travel for his nose to shine its famous scarlet colour?  Our Physics and Astronomy students have published their findings in our Journal of Special Topics.<\/em><\/strong><br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of their physics degrees, five Leicester students calculated that Rudolph would have to travel at 0.153c \u2013 just over 15% the speed of light, or about 165 million kilometres per hour \u2013 for his usually brown nose to appear red to an observer due to red shift.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Red shift is a key astronomical concept, where the wavelength of light is stretched due to the speed and direction of its source relative to an observer and the colour of reflected light may be \u2018shifted\u2019 towards the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research paper goes on to say that, at this speed, Santa would have an extra 22 minutes to deliver presents to the children on his \u2018Nice List\u2019 due to the concept of time dilation.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the same student researchers noted that Santa\u2019s original green coat would actually be shifted to appear orange at this speed, whereas a swift 0.271c \u2013 or 292 million kilometres per hour \u2013 would be required for his coat to appear red.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www108.lamp.le.ac.uk\/ojs1\/index.php\/pst\/article\/view\/3405\/3055\">paper by D Potts, E Morton, S Shingles, M Capoccia and R Hodnett<\/a>\u00a0was published in the University\u2019s\u00a0<em>Journal of Physics Special Topics<\/em>, an in-house journal which enables students to learn about the process of peer review by writing and reviewing papers by applying theoretical concepts to light-hearted ideas.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other topics covered include\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www108.lamp.le.ac.uk\/ojs1\/index.php\/pst\/article\/view\/3401\/3042\">a study of the amount of energy produced by Christmas spirit required to lift Santa\u2019s sleigh<\/a>, while another group examined the v<a href=\"https:\/\/www108.lamp.le.ac.uk\/ojs1\/index.php\/pst\/article\/view\/3343\/2941\">olume of supplemental oxygen that Jack would need to climb and descend the beanstalk<\/a>\u00a0in pantomime favourite Jack and the Beanstalk.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From all in the Physics Community Team, we wish you a very happy Christmas 2020!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of all Santa Claus\u2019 reindeer, Rudolph is best known for his bright red nose. But just how fast would he need to travel for his nose to shine its famous scarlet colour? Our Physics and Astronomy students have published their findings in our Journal of Special Topics. As part of their physics degrees, five Leicester [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-undergrad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/256"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/physicsastronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}