Believe in the Tooth Fairy
Well, we all know that when we lose a tooth, we put it under our pillow and the Tooth Fairy comes and replaces it with money, right? Right. So if she really does come, how can she find the time to do it? Consider these reasons.
- Although the Tooth Fairy visits children all around the world, lets just look at the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 280 million people in the U.S. Of those people, about 80 million are children (17 and under). On average, there are 3.5 children per household in the U.S. That adds up to about 22.8 million homes.
- Let's say that night spans from 9 PM until 4 AM. With the help of our time zones, the Tooth Fairy has 12 hours to do her job. This is only if she goes from east to west. For reasons of calculations, let's assume that about 1/20 of the children in the U.S. lose a tooth each day. That's around 4 million teeth to get to in one night. Again, if there are about 3.5 children per household, there are still over 1 million homes to visit. This means there are approximately 1,587 visits per second, based on the time she has. If this is correct, then this incredible Tooth Fairy has about 1/1,000th of a second to fly to your house, find your room, replace your tooth with some money, and move on to the next house.
- Let's say that each child gets a dollar bill. A one-dollar bill weighs approximately 1 gram. So the Tooth Fairy is now carrying with her about 4 million grams for each child (plus her magic wand). Converted, that's over 8,800 pounds of one-dollar bills. Let's not even think about the children who receive nickels and quarters.
- If each household is evenly spaced around the U.S. (which is only for calculation purposes), then there is about 3 miles per household. That means this fairy has a 3 million-mile trip to do in 12 hours. A typical commercial jet would take over 5,000 hours to do that.
- As long as none of the math has been completely wrong, the super fairy is moving at 1,587 miles per second. For comparison, that is about 6,000 times the speed of sound (maybe a fraction of superman's top speed). Assuming the Tooth Fairy is the size of an average human, and moving at 1587 miles per second carrying nearly 9,000 pounds of dollar bills, she will create a large amount of air resistance causing her to experience the same heat a space shuttle experiences when reentering the Earth's atmosphere. Rounds to about 14 quintillion joules of energy per second.
- If any human person were to move at that speed, he/she would instantaneously burst into flame creating a deafening sonic boom followed, most likely, by the person's death. However, things may be different for the Super Tooth Fairy.
- Although it is very unlikely, it is still possible that there exists a flying fairy that collects teeth from children. It doesn't mean that her little fairy wings can't carry her to 6,000 times the speed of sound to breach the sound barrier. It doesn't mean she doesn't have the time to give money to over a million children in one night. It's still possible.
- Humans have never had any proof that there is or ever have been any kind of species of fairies. However, according to science, which is arguably "never wrong", there are still over 250,000 species of organisms left unclassified, which are mostly insects and bacteria, but still not ruling out super-fairies. I think I speak for all when saying "good luck" to the Tooth Fairy. And with this, I hope I have reincarnated your spirit in the Tooth Fairy.