An experiment in elastic time

How long is a while?

Put these everyday expressions of time where you think they belong. Drag a phrase onto the ruler, or click it and then click the ruler.

0 placed

Unplaced

Drag, or select then click the ruler

Your time ruler

When is “soon”?

Choose a phrase above to begin.

1 sec 10 sec 1 min 10 min 1 hour 6 hours 24 hours

What everyone said

Elastic time, collectively

middle 90% middle 50% median mean

1 sec 10 sec 1 min 10 min 1 hour 6 hours 24 hours

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Imagine someone says

How long do you think they mean?