SortStack #2440 — 2033-02-12

By duration · Order from shortest to longest.

1. A single sneeze, from sharp inhale to achoo 1.5 sec

   A sneeze can launch droplets several metres, and you can't sneeze with your eyes open without effort — the blink is part of the reflex.

2. An average human yawn 6 sec

   Yawns are so contagious they jump species: dogs catch yawns from their owners, and even reading the word can trigger one. You're welcome.

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. 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.

5. The time since humans invented the wheel 5.5K years

   Potter's wheels came before wheels for transport — and the oldest wooden wheel ever found, near Ljubljana, is about 5,150 years old.

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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