PRINTEditor's Letter: Two is better than one
The number two is more important than it seems
Vox staff
Kurt Woock
April 26, 2012 | 12:00 a.m. CST
If the number two didn’t exist, you might not want to, either. It might be the second-smallest positive integer, but two renders life infinitely full. Without it, life would empty quickly.
The number of arms, legs, eyes, ears and kidneys on the planet would be roughly halved: No pairs allowed. However, with double helixes no longer an option, we’d look altogether different anyway.
Your stomach would be empty. PB&J, meat and potatoes, and the best kind of Oreos, Double Stuf Oreos: all gone. Without two-liter bottles, Dos Equis and two-percent milk, you’d be thirsty as well.
Baseball players would be confused once they rounded first, and card players would be thrilled to never again be stuck with another pair of twos. But they would also have to say farewell to pairs of Aces.
Y2K would have never been a problem, but the binary system would crash anyway because it rests on the idea of two.
Needing two, the tango would be defunct. And already feeling shorted, February would find itself faced with an existential crisis. As would twins and the Scrabble letters D and G.
Columbia would be different, and we have the stories to prove it. This week, Vox sent out writers to find some of this city’s most remarkable duos, pairs who keep us inspired, informed and well-fed.
These dynamic duos are friends and rivals. They share beliefs and goals but in many cases also have differences that end up being complementary.
Without them, life would be different. Luckily, the number two isn’t going anywhere. And hopefully these Columbia partnerships won’t either.
