ok ... I'm a brit so a pound is a measurement of weight, not mass. if the lb of cotton was originally weighed on the moon and the lb of gold was weighed on the earth, the cotton would have much greater mass than the gold. heavy has more to do with mass than weight, so the lb of cotton would be heavier than the lb of gold given the above conditions. probably 
Hmmm, nop, you cant compare the two unless you measure under the same conditions. Otherwise, you are just comparing conditions. In either case, I was just messing around when I asked since I could claim wrong no matter what you answered.
If you said they are the same, I could use atomic weights. If you said that one was heavier than the other I could use the fact that they are both 1lb
