SortStack #2279 — 2032-09-04

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. A performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony 74 min

   Legend says the CD was designed to hold 74 minutes specifically so the Ninth would fit on a single disc — a Sony executive's favourite piece.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. The 1900 Paris Olympic Games 167 days

   Spread thinly through the World's Fair, the Games were so disorganized that some winners died never knowing they had been Olympians.

6. The construction of the Empire State Building 1.1 years

   Crews added roughly four and a half storeys per week, finishing ahead of schedule and under budget during the Great Depression.

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