SortStack #2524 — 2033-05-07

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. The average adult's actual night of sleep 6.8 h

   Smartphone-tracking studies put the global average well under the recommended eight hours — and humans sleep less than virtually any other primate.

3. A flight from London to New York 8.2 h

   Flying west against the jet stream adds about an hour versus the return leg — eastbound flights have surfed the tailwind to under 5 hours.

4. The Woodstock music festival of 1969 2.8 days

   Billed as '3 days of peace & music', it overran badly — Jimi Hendrix closed at 9 am on Monday to a field mostly littered with sleeping bags.

5. The Apollo 13 mission, launch to splashdown 6 days

   After the oxygen tank exploded, the crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat and slingshotted around the Moon — NASA's 'successful failure'.

6. The Wimbledon tennis championships 14 days

   The tournament's famous rest day, the 'Middle Sunday', was only abolished in 2022 after 145 years of tradition.

← All puzzles · Play today’s SortStack