SortStack #2478 — 2033-03-22

By weight · Order from lightest to heaviest.

1. A single grain of long-grain rice 25 mg

   Rice feeds more than half the world's population, and farmers cultivate over 100,000 distinct varieties of it.

2. 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.

3. A compact disc 15 g

   A CD's spiral data track is less than a micrometer wide and would stretch about five kilometers if unwound.

4. A large cast-iron skillet 2.5 kg

   Well-seasoned cast iron is essentially a natural nonstick polymer baked onto metal; some American pans have been in daily use since the 1800s.

5. An adult male white rhinoceros 2.3 t

   The 'white' is likely a mistranslation of the Dutch 'wijd', meaning wide — describing its broad, lawn-mowing mouth.

6. An adult male sperm whale 45 t

   Its clicks reach about 230 decibels — the loudest animal sound on Earth — and a third of its body is one giant sonar-focusing nose.

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