SortStack #592 — 2028-01-22

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. Cooking a perfect soft-boiled egg 4.5 min

   At high altitude it takes noticeably longer — water boils below 100°C up a mountain, which is why mountaineers complain about their eggs.

2. The world's longest scheduled flight, Singapore to New York 19 h

   The route covers about 15,300 km. The aircraft is configured with no economy class at all — partly so passengers survive the experience.

3. The Woodstock music festival of 1969 2.8 days

   Billed as '3 days of peace & music', it overran badly — Jimi Hendrix closed at 9 am on Monday to a field mostly littered with sleeping bags.

4. New Horizons' journey from Earth to Pluto 9.5 years

   It left Earth as the fastest spacecraft ever launched — and Pluto was demoted from planet status just seven months into the trip.

5. Voyager 1's journey from launch to interstellar space 35 years

   It carries a golden record with greetings in 55 languages and Chuck Berry — and it still phones home daily on a 1970s 8-track-era computer.

6. Ancient Egyptian civilization, from unification to Cleopatra 3.1K years

   It ran so long that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

← All puzzles · Play today’s SortStack