11 Oddball Technology Records You Probably Didn’t Know

This article is part of The Scale Issue.

Longest Continuously Operating Electronic Computer

Voyager 1 and its twin space probe, both launched by NASA in 1977, were the first human-made objects to reach interstellar space. But that's not the only record the spacecraft hold. Voyager 2's Computer Command System has not been turned off since it first booted up about 48 years ago, making it the longest continuously operating electronic computer.

Quietest Place on Earth

Can you hear your own heartbeat? For most of us, the answer is no-unless you're standing in Orfield Laboratories' anechoic chamber, in which case, you might be able to hear the blood rushing through your veins and the sound of your own blinking, too. The chamber in Minneapolis holds the title for quietest place on earth, with a background noise reading of -24.9 A-weighted decibels-meaning that the ambient sound is far below the threshold of human hearing.

Longest-Lasting Battery

An experimental electric bell at the University of Oxford, in England, has been ringing nearly continuously for 185 years. Powered by two dry piles-an early type of battery-connected in series, the bell has rung more than 10 billion times since it was set up in 1840. Its ringing, however, is now barely audible beneath the glass bell jar protecting the experiment.

Fastest Typing Using Brain Signals

For people with certain neurodegenerative conditions that impact muscle control, communication can be difficult. Brain-computer interfaces offer a solution by directly translating brain waves to text. But until recently, that translation has been slow. In 2022, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, set the record for the fastest communication via brain signals: 78 words per minute.

Best-Selling Consumer Electronics

Certain consumer electronics, like the iPhone, seem ubiquitous. Over 18 years and about as many generations, more than 2.3 billion Apple smartphones have been sold. But when you break it down to individual models, which devices have been the biggest success? See how some particularly popular devices compare.

Strongest Magnetic Field on Earth

At least among magnets that don't explode from their own field strength, the U.S. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory's Pulsed Field Facility holds the record for strongest magnetic field on earth. The 100-Tesla field, which is about 2 million times as strong as Earth's magnetic field, can be turned on for 15 milliseconds just once an hour.

Biggest Teatime Electricity Spike

Brits love their tea. That's why the United Kingdom's National Grid engineers have to manage surges in energy use during popular broadcast events, when many viewers put their kettles on simultaneously. The biggest spike occurred during the 1990 World Cup semifinal. Just after England lost the game-deciding penalty shootout, demand surged by 2,800 megawatts, equivalent to the electricity used by approximately 1.1 million kettles.

Strongest Robotic Arm

In March, Rise Robotics celebrated the Beltdraulic SuperJammer Arm's setting of the Guinness World Record for Strongest Robotic Arm Prototype. A collaboration between Rise and the U.S. Air Force, the arm lifted an astonishing 3,182 kilograms, about the weight of an adult female African elephant. Unlike other heavy-lifting machines, the robot uses no hydraulics, only electric power, and it improves efficiency by generating electricity when it's lowering a load.

Smallest Pacemaker

Implanting most pacemakers requires invasive surgeries. But a group of researchers at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Ill., has developed a device that can be implanted through the tip of a syringe. Measuring 3.5 millimeters in its largest dimension and suited for newborns with heart defects, the pacemaker-which is designed for patients who need only temporary pacing-safely dissolves in the body after it has done its job.

Fastest Data Transfer

Earlier this year, a team from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology and Sumitomo Electric, in Japan, blasted a record 1.02 million billion bits (petabits) across 1,808 kilometers in one second, or 1.86 exabits per second-kilometer. At that rate, in one second, you could send everything everyone in the world watched on Netflix in the first half of this year from Tokyo to Shanghai 4,000 times. A special 19-core optical fiber made it possible.

Fastest EV Charging

The Chinese automaker BYD used a new fast-charging system that peaked at 1,002 kilowatts and added 421 kilometers of range to a Han L sedan in under five minutes. That's about 84 kilometers per minute. Among the key innovations behind the feat: 1,500-volt silicon carbide transistors and lithium iron phosphate batteries with half the internal resistance of their predecessors.