SortStack #2608 — 2033-07-30
By duration · Order from shortest to longest.
- A camera speedlight flash firing at full power 1 ms
At low power settings, flash bursts get even shorter — down to around 1/30,000 of a second, fast enough to freeze a bursting balloon mid-pop.
- An amber traffic light before it turns red 4 sec
Amber phases are tuned to road speed — typically 3 seconds in town and up to 6 on fast roads, calculated from braking distance physics.
- The Wright brothers' first powered flight 12 sec
The 1903 flight covered just 36.5 metres — shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. Within 66 years, humans were on the Moon.
- The elevator ride up the Burj Khalifa's observation deck 1 min
The lifts climb at around 10 metres per second. Your ears pop on the way to the 124th floor — the building is so tall it has distinct climate zones.
- A single round of professional boxing 3 min
Round length was standardized by the 1867 Queensberry Rules, which also introduced gloves — before that, bare-knuckle rounds ended only with a knockdown.
- The era of the Crusades, from the first to the fall of Acre 194.9 years
Nine major crusades spanned 195 years — and the Fourth never reached the Holy Land at all, sacking Christian Constantinople instead.