SortStack #1467 — 2030-06-15

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A single wingbeat of a hovering hummingbird 12.6 ms

   Up to 80 wingbeats per second lets hummingbirds hover, fly backwards, and even fly upside down — no other bird can do all three.

2. An evening at Wagner's opera 'Götterdämmerung', intervals included 5.5 h

   It's only the finale: the full Ring cycle spans four operas over about 15 hours of music, and devotees attend all four nights in a row.

3. One full rotation of Earth on its axis 23.9 h

   A true rotation takes 23 hours 56 minutes — the extra 4 minutes of our day come from Earth also moving along its orbit and needing to catch up to the Sun.

4. Munich's Oktoberfest 17 days

   Despite the name, most of it happens in September — and visitors drink roughly six to seven million litres of beer before it ends.

5. The Ottoman Empire 622.7 years

   Founded before the printing press, it ended after the airplane — the empire spanned 623 years and three continents at its height.

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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