What is the Weight of All of Michael Phelps's Medals?

My post begins with a query asked by my dear friend Melody. Melody is currently on an internship in Kenya (because she does stuff like that. Ugh, pretentious), but we still find time to chat about useless and random things, almost like we still live together.  One morning (night for her, morning for me) last week we were having one of our usually witty discussions via Facebook, when a challenge arose..

I was focused on other things (such as work and being somewhat responsible) and as such forgot about our chat until the next night. It was late and we were having one of our normal conversations.  This chat included such topics as: Russia, playing Oregon Trail when we were in elementary school, sloths, Voldemort, and the differences between initialisms and acronyms.  As I bid goodnight, Melody reminded me of the challenge I had chosen to accept.

By the next night, Phelps had won his 22nd medal and finished his Olympic racing career. It was go time. As a SlytherPuff (see previous post), I am good at finding things. Useless information is my forte. I thrive on knowing information that a normal, sane person would not. Call it a gift, call it a curse, call it my way of ensuring that I'm useful to people. I started researching and found some interesting facts, none of which actually helped me all that much.

So continued my plight. Google kept failing me. I didn't want to know what each medal was worth, I wanted the weight. If there was a difference between the weight of the gold, silver, and bronze it would be even better! I couldn't believe that not one person had ever embarked on the quest I was attempting. Eventually I was able to come up with some numbers, some calculations and some answers.

Look at that. I'm probably more proud of this than anything in my recent history (and I just graduated college). I am so proud of it that I wrote an entire blog post on my own accomplishment. Go Murphy. 

I hope that I have helped at least one random Googler who was pondering the same question that two lifelong friends were asking one night. To my blog readers, if you ever get the chance to weigh all the medals that Michael Phelps has won, please let me know if the weight is close to 11.358222 pounds. If it isn't, please don't bother to let me know. I like to live in my delusions of grandeur.