SortStack #3280 — 2035-06-02
By duration · Order from shortest to longest.
- 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.
- A proper hand wash, by WHO guidelines 19.8 sec
The recommended scrub lasts about as long as singing 'Happy Birthday' twice — most people manage barely a third of it.
- A typical national anthem performance at a sports event 1.5 min
Uruguay's full anthem runs about five minutes, while Japan's 'Kimigayo' has just four lines — the shortest lyrics of any anthem on Earth.
- A standard university lecture 50 min
Attention research suggests student focus starts lapsing after 10-15 minutes — which is roughly when most lecturers are just warming up.
- A football (soccer) match, regulation time 90 min
The ball is typically in play for barely 55 of those minutes — which is why competitions now add increasingly enormous stoppage time.
- The age of the oldest known figurative cave painting (Sulawesi) 51.1K years
The Indonesian rock art depicts wild pigs and human-like figures — painted tens of thousands of years before Lascaux's famous bulls.