SortStack #497 — 2027-10-19

By weight · Order from lightest to heaviest.

1. A brilliant-cut one-carat diamond 200 mg

   The carat unit comes from carob seeds, which ancient gem traders used as counterweights on their balance scales.

2. A monarch butterfly 500 mg

   Despite weighing less than a paperclip, monarchs migrate up to 4,800 km from Canada to mountain forests in central Mexico.

3. A standard steel paperclip 1 g

   During WWII, Norwegians wore paperclips on their lapels as a quiet symbol of resistance against occupation.

4. A full deck of 52 playing cards 94 g

   Shuffle properly and you have almost certainly created an ordering of the deck no human in history has ever seen before.

5. A McDonald's Big Mac 220 g

   The Economist uses Big Mac prices to compare currency values worldwide — the famously tongue-in-cheek 'Big Mac Index'.

6. A standard Good Delivery gold bar, the kind in bank vaults 12.4 kg

   Smaller than a brick yet heavier than most pet dogs — gold is so dense this bar would fit in a shoebox with room to spare.

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