SortStack #151 — 2026-11-07

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. An amber traffic light before it turns red 4 sec

   Amber phases are tuned to road speed — typically 3 seconds in town and up to 6 on fast roads, calculated from braking distance physics.

2. The men's 100 m freestyle world record swim 46.4 sec

   Pan Zhanle's 46.40 at Paris 2024 stunned the field — he won by over a second, an eternity in a sprint event decided by fingernails.

3. A Eurostar train journey from London to Paris 2.3 h

   Only about 20 minutes of the trip is actually under the sea — the Channel Tunnel remains the longest undersea rail tunnel in the world.

4. Alcock and Brown's first nonstop transatlantic flight 16 h

   The 1919 crossing ended nose-first in an Irish bog they mistook for a meadow. Brown had climbed onto the wings mid-flight to chip off ice.

5. 'Logistics', the longest film ever made 35.7 days

   The Swedish experimental film follows a pedometer's supply chain in reverse, in real time, from a Stockholm shop back to a Chinese factory.

6. The time since Neanderthals went extinct 39.9K years

   They never fully vanished: most people outside Africa carry around 2% Neanderthal DNA, influencing skin, immunity, and even sleep patterns.

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