SortStack #956 — 2029-01-20

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A Venus flytrap snapping shut on a fly 102 ms

   The plant can count: it only snaps after two trigger-hair touches within about 20 seconds, which keeps it from wasting energy on raindrops.

2. A single round of professional boxing 3 min

   Round length was standardized by the 1867 Queensberry Rules, which also introduced gloves — before that, bare-knuckle rounds ended only with a knockdown.

3. Sunlight travelling from the Sun's surface to Earth 8.3 min

   If the Sun vanished right now, we'd keep seeing it — and orbiting it — for another 8 minutes and 20 seconds before noticing anything.

4. The Siege of Leningrad in World War II 2.4 years

   Through the blockade, scientists at the city's seed bank starved to death rather than eat their collection of edible seeds and potatoes.

5. The construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza 20 years

   Herodotus and modern estimates agree on roughly two decades — meaning workers placed a multi-tonne block about every five minutes of daylight.

6. The time since a human last stood on the Moon 53.4 years

   Gene Cernan traced his daughter's initials in the dust in December 1972 — no boots have touched the surface since.

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