People claim he’s from the future. That his body is the closest thing to a perfect swimming machine ever conceived. In the last two days, I’ve told friends that he’s “less a mortal being than a god on Mt. Olympus” and “someone who defies my (admittedly weak) understanding of physics.” The general sense is that Michael Phelps has graduated to a league entirely his own; that he can no longer be compared to any human athlete, alive or dead. The New York Times decided to kind of run with that idea. Read how after the jump!