SortStack #844 — 2028-09-30

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A lightning flash from start to finish 198 ms

   What looks like one bolt is usually several return strokes in a row, heating the air to around 30,000°C — five times hotter than the Sun's surface.

2. A standard university lecture 50 min

   Attention research suggests student focus starts lapsing after 10-15 minutes — which is roughly when most lecturers are just warming up.

3. James Cameron's film 'Titanic' 3.2 h

   The movie runs longer than the actual sinking it depicts — the real ship went down faster than you can watch it go down.

4. Randy Gardner's world record for staying awake 11 days

   The 17-year-old's 1964 science-fair stunt of 11 sleepless days still stands — Guinness stopped certifying attempts as too dangerous.

5. The construction of the Sydney Opera House 14 years

   Planned as a four-year, $7 million project, it took fourteen years and $102 million — and its architect left Australia before it opened, never returning.

6. The time humans have lived in Australia 65K years

   Aboriginal Australians' roughly 65,000 years make theirs the oldest continuous culture on Earth — some oral histories describe coastlines drowned by rising seas 10,000 years ago.

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