SortStack #1026 — 2029-03-31

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. One swing of a grandfather clock's pendulum 1 sec

   A pendulum about one metre long swings in almost exactly one second — a coincidence so neat it was once proposed as the definition of the metre.

2. Half-time in a football (soccer) match 15 min

   The break exists partly thanks to early English schools with different rules — teams switched codes at the interval when playing each other.

3. The Battle of Leipzig, Napoleon's 'Battle of the Nations' 4 days

   With around 600,000 soldiers from over a dozen nations, the 1813 clash was Europe's largest battle until the First World War.

4. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan 29.5 days

   Because it follows the lunar calendar, Ramadan drifts about 11 days earlier each year — cycling through every season over 33 years.

5. The Western Roman Empire, from Augustus to its fall 501.9 years

   After the West fell in AD 476, the Eastern half carried on for nearly a thousand more years as the Byzantine Empire.

6. A photon's journey from the Sun's core to its surface 170K years

   Energy ricochets through the dense interior for on the order of 100,000 years — then crosses the void to Earth in barely eight minutes.

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