How many houses must Santa visit per second if there are two billion children and 3.5 children per household?

To determine how many houses Santa must visit per second, we first need to calculate the total number of households using the information given. There are two billion children, and with an average of 3.5 children per household, we can find the total number of households by dividing the total number of children by the number of children per household:

[

\text{Number of households} = \frac{2,000,000,000 \text{ children}}{3.5 \text{ children/household}} \approx 571,428,571 \text{ households}

]

Next, we need to consider the amount of time Santa has to deliver presents. If we assume Santa has 24 hours to deliver gifts, we can convert this into seconds:

[

24 \text{ hours} = 24 \times 60 \times 60 = 86,400 \text{ seconds}

]

Now, we can calculate the number of houses Santa must visit per second by dividing the total number of households by the total time in seconds:

[

\text{Houses per second} = \frac{571,428,571 \text{ households}}{86,400 \text{ seconds}} \approx