By . Victoria Woollaston . PUBLISHED: . 10:06 EST, 11 December 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 10:23 EST, 11 December 2013 . With young children inevitably set to ask a barrage of questions about Santa this Christmas, a team of scientists have created a fun guide that attempts to at least answer a selection of them. It was created by the founders of The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair who teamed up with economists from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). They worked out that, based on official population figures, there are 1.6 billion children worldwide set to be visited by Santa this year. Using official global population figures, the Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair and the Centre for Economics and Business Research have attempted to calculate the science of Santa, pictured left. They worked out that 1.6 billion children will need presents globally this year . Based on population figures, Santa will deliver gifts to 1.6 billion children. This requires visiting 5,556 homes a second and eating 150 billion calories in milk and mince pies. With an average of 2.5 children per household, Santa will need to make 640 million stops on Christmas Eve. Each child needs 80cm of wrapping, which would stretch 1.5 million miles. The total number of presents would set Santa back £279.27 billion. Prior . to the big night, Santa needs to store all these presents in a . warehouse. Assuming each present average out at 0.008 m3, the . warehouse would need to cover the same space as 240,000 double-decker . buses. But thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the Earth, Santa does have 32 hours to work with. The researchers estimated that Santa will therefore have to visit 5,556 homes every second on Christmas Eve to make sure every child gets a gift. With an average of 2.5 children per household, Santa will need to make 640 million stops on Christmas Eve. If he eats milk and mince pies at each of these addresses, he will consume a total of 150 billion calories in just one night - 60,000 times his daily recommended intake. Assuming each of the 640 homes he visits gives him a 200ml glass of semi-skimmed milk and one mince pie, Santa will have drunk almost 130 million litres of milk by the time he’s finished his deliveries - enough to fill over 50 Olympic swimming pools. He will also have eaten nearly 40,000 metric tonnes worth of mince pies. To work off this extra weight, Santa would need to walk 1.3 billion miles, which is 54,000 times around the circumference of the earth. According to the Big Bang Fair, Santa's elves will use 80cm of wrapping paper for each child, which would stretch 1.5 million miles and the total number of presents would set Santa back £279.27 billion. He would also need to store these presents in a warehouse that covers the same space as 240,000 double-decker busses . The Big Bang experts assume each elf can wrap a present in exactly 10 seconds and at that speed wrapping two presents for every child would require 3,000 elves to work eight hours every day for an entire year to get the job done. Furthermore, if Santa gave two presents to each child the elves would need to use an average of 80cm of wrapping paper for each gift – which works out at a staggering 1.6 million miles of paper. If two metres of wrapping paper costs Santa 99p, this will cost a total of £1.27 billion. Based on these calculations, . Christmas gifts will cost Santa £279.27 billion this year - £30 billion . more than the GDP of his home country of Finland. That would be enough to go around the world 60 times and is more than six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The researchers estimated that Santa will have to visit 5,556 homes every second this Christmas Eve to make sure every child gets a gift. If he eats milk and mince pies at each of these addresses, he will consume a total of 150 billion calories in just one night - 60,000 times his daily recommended intake . Prior . to the big night, Santa would need to store all these presents in a . warehouse, and assuming each present averages out at 0.008 m3, the . warehouse would need to cover the same space as 240,000 double-decker . busses. Although this . release has been designed as a tongue-in-cheek promotion for the fair, . Paul Jackson, the Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, said: ‘With . Christmas on its way, we thought that calculating the ‘science of Santa’ would be a great way to get young people, parents and even Santa . himself thinking about how important science, maths, engineering and . technology are. Daniel . Solomon, a CEBR economist, added: ‘As our calculations confirm, the . organisation and commitment which Santa and his elves display every year . is incredible. ‘Christmas must be really hard work for Santa and the whole team at the North Pole; I’m sure they enjoy Boxing Day.’ In addition to the Big Bang's figures, Seagate has calculated the disk space required to back up Santa’s list. Based on the world population data for under-14s, taken from the U.S. Global Census, Seagate worked out Santa would receive an estimated 1,843,868,987 letters this year. If each Christmas letter takes up an estimated 500KB when uploaded as a scanned copy, it would take up 859GB of data each year. Letters from India's children would take up the most room with 338MB.  China comes in second taking up 225MB and Nigeria sits in third place taking up 72MB. The UK comes in at number 32 on the list, taking up 10MB of data.
Fun infographic attempts to explain the science behind Santa and his elves .
Based on population figures, Santa will deliver gifts to 1.6 billion children .
This requires visiting 5,556 homes a second and eating 150 billion calories .
Each child needs 80cm of wrapping, which would stretch 1.5 million miles .
the total number of presents would set Santa back £279.27 billion .
By . Victoria Woollaston . PUBLISHED: . 10:06 EST, 11 December 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 10:23 EST, 11 December 2013 . With young children inevitably set to ask a barrage of questions about Santa this Christmas, a team of scientists have created a fun guide that attempts to at least answer a selection of them. It was created by the founders of The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair who teamed up with economists from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). They worked out that, based on official population figures, there are 1.6 billion children worldwide set to be visited by Santa this year. Using official global population figures, the Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair and the Centre for Economics and Business Research have attempted to calculate the science of Santa, pictured left. They worked out that 1.6 billion children will need presents globally this year . Based on population figures, Santa will deliver gifts to 1.6 billion children. This requires visiting 5,556 homes a second and eating 150 billion calories in milk and mince pies. With an average of 2.5 children per household, Santa will need to make 640 million stops on Christmas Eve. Each child needs 80cm of wrapping, which would stretch 1.5 million miles. The total number of presents would set Santa back £279.27 billion. Prior . to the big night, Santa needs to store all these presents in a . warehouse. Assuming each present average out at 0.008 m3, the . warehouse would need to cover the same space as 240,000 double-decker . buses. But thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the Earth, Santa does have 32 hours to work with. The researchers estimated that Santa will therefore have to visit 5,556 homes every second on Christmas Eve to make sure every child gets a gift. With an average of 2.5 children per household, Santa will need to make 640 million stops on Christmas Eve. If he eats milk and mince pies at each of these addresses, he will consume a total of 150 billion calories in just one night - 60,000 times his daily recommended intake. Assuming each of the 640 homes he visits gives him a 200ml glass of semi-skimmed milk and one mince pie, Santa will have drunk almost 130 million litres of milk by the time he’s finished his deliveries - enough to fill over 50 Olympic swimming pools. He will also have eaten nearly 40,000 metric tonnes worth of mince pies. To work off this extra weight, Santa would need to walk 1.3 billion miles, which is 54,000 times around the circumference of the earth. According to the Big Bang Fair, Santa's elves will use 80cm of wrapping paper for each child, which would stretch 1.5 million miles and the total number of presents would set Santa back £279.27 billion. He would also need to store these presents in a warehouse that covers the same space as 240,000 double-decker busses . The Big Bang experts assume each elf can wrap a present in exactly 10 seconds and at that speed wrapping two presents for every child would require 3,000 elves to work eight hours every day for an entire year to get the job done. Furthermore, if Santa gave two presents to each child the elves would need to use an average of 80cm of wrapping paper for each gift – which works out at a staggering 1.6 million miles of paper. If two metres of wrapping paper costs Santa 99p, this will cost a total of £1.27 billion. Based on these calculations, . Christmas gifts will cost Santa £279.27 billion this year - £30 billion . more than the GDP of his home country of Finland. That would be enough to go around the world 60 times and is more than six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The researchers estimated that Santa will have to visit 5,556 homes every second this Christmas Eve to make sure every child gets a gift. If he eats milk and mince pies at each of these addresses, he will consume a total of 150 billion calories in just one night - 60,000 times his daily recommended intake . Prior . to the big night, Santa would need to store all these presents in a . warehouse, and assuming each present averages out at 0.008 m3, the . warehouse would need to cover the same space as 240,000 double-decker . busses. Although this . release has been designed as a tongue-in-cheek promotion for the fair, . Paul Jackson, the Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, said: ‘With . Christmas on its way, we thought that calculating the ‘science of Santa’ would be a great way to get young people, parents and even Santa . himself thinking about how important science, maths, engineering and . technology are. Daniel . Solomon, a CEBR economist, added: ‘As our calculations confirm, the . organisation and commitment which Santa and his elves display every year . is incredible. ‘Christmas must be really hard work for Santa and the whole team at the North Pole; I’m sure they enjoy Boxing Day.’ In addition to the Big Bang's figures, Seagate has calculated the disk space required to back up Santa’s list. Based on the world population data for under-14s, taken from the U.S. Global Census, Seagate worked out Santa would receive an estimated 1,843,868,987 letters this year. If each Christmas letter takes up an estimated 500KB when uploaded as a scanned copy, it would take up 859GB of data each year. Letters from India's children would take up the most room with 338MB.  China comes in second taking up 225MB and Nigeria sits in third place taking up 72MB. The UK comes in at number 32 on the list, taking up 10MB of data.
globally this year . Based on population figures, Santa will deliver gifts to 1.6 billion children. This requires visiting 5,556 homes a second and eating 150 billion calories in milk and mince stops on Christmas Eve. Each child needs 80cm of wrapping, which would stretch 1.5 million miles. the total number of presents would set Santa back