52 Things That Are Slow

John Spacey, August 26, 2022

Slow things are processes, beings and phenomena that use large amounts of time to produce change. These are mostly things that are relatively slow as compared to the movement of humans. Slow things also include things that are perceived as slow such as a long boring meeting. English has many well known metaphors and similes for slowness such as "slow as a herd of turtles." The following are illustrative examples of slow things.

Being Stuck in Mud	Boring Classes
Bureaucracy	Candle Burning Out
Clouds	Crawling
Decay	Decomposition
Dirt (the colloquial saying "slower than dirt")	Dripping Tap
Erosion	Evaporation
Glaciers	Growing Hair
Growth of Plants / Animals	Herd of Turtles (the colloquial saying "slower than a herd of turtles")
Inchworms	Koalas
Lines / Queues	Living Statues
Long Speeches	Mail
Manatees	Microorganisms
Mimes	Molasses (a thick sugary substance that pours slowly)
Nothingness	Phases of the Moon
Red Tape	Running Underwater
Sloths	Slow Drivers
Slow Lorises	Slow Motion Photography
Slow Service (e.g. restaurant)	Slow Walkers
Slugs	Snails
Starfish	Supermassive Black Holes
Tectonic Plates	The Hour Hand of a Clock
Things Floating in a Pond	Tortoises
Traffic Jams	Turtles
Waiting (as in "time is slow for those who wait")	Walking Uphill
Walking in Quicksand	Watching Grass Grow
Watching Paint Drying	Worms

Two supermassive black holes in galaxy 0402+379 are inching towards each other at 1 micro-arcsecond per year. They are 23 light-years apart meaning they will likely never collide.