It is not 60 minutes like some old cassettes, nor 70. It is exactly 74 minutes. But why? Why this odd number? Well, the story begins back in the 70's, and more specifically in the year 1979, when Sony and Philips were working on the first audio CD standard. Sony wanted to make a 100mm diameter disk, and Philips wanted to have 115mm diameter. Both were enough to fit any of the classic vinyls.
And then a man came. His name was Norio Ohga, an opera singer. When this man heard for the first time a tape recorder by Sony, he sent a letter to the company criticizing the quality of the audio. He was then offered a job which he accepted, and later he became a president of company! And this is the man who decided that a CD should be able to store a complete mono recording of Ludwig von Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (‘Alle Menschen werden Brueder’), at probably the slowest pace it has ever been played, during the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1951 conducted by Wilhelm Furtwaengler. And so, the disk diameter was decided to be 120mm
So, if you are ever asked why a CD is 74 minutes long, then you can simply answer "Because it had to play the whole Beethoven's Ninth Symphony"...
And here is something also hilarious. Why we call "breadboards" the breadboards? I mean, the real name is "solderless board", because needs no sodler.
Here is why. Years ago, before the "transistor revolution", the only thing that people could use for electronics was the good old filament vacuum tube. So, the "breadboard" of this era, was the wooden board that people used to cut bread (really!!!). They used to put nails, and wound the wires on the nails. The tubes holders were also nailed on the breadboards...
Hahahahaha that's the most funny way to decide the capacity of a disk that is going to be used worldwide!!!!.I was wondering for the particular question years ago but i thought that there would be a material issue....
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