Duality

You know calculus? I’d ask for you to teach me but... math hurts me. 

 I don’t know radian. Can we compromise and make a new temperature scale? Farencelsivin?

You think the imperial system is bad? Have you seen common core math? That’ll make you beg to use Fahrenheit, inches, feet, miles, etc.

I am the only American I know who uses the metric system at all. But even so I can use it for distances only. Because everyone uses Fahrenheit temperatures here and it requires a weird math formula to get into “Everywhere else in the world degrees”, I just can’t.

 I also don’t know the metric measurements all that well. Like grams, milligrams, etc. though to be fair that’s because I don’t cook things from scratch. My diet consists of stuff I can heat up in the microwave or oven.

*gasp* can you teach me metric? I want to be smrt too!!!

Though I am also curious why we use imperial in the first place. Maybe it’s because we want to be hip and cool. That’s how the kids say it right?

Someone who cares about my health? Hmm... whoever it is needs to stay safe too because I care about their health equally as much!

But if you’re whistling innocently... who could have stolen it??

Oh hey! Nice car by the way. Looks a lot like mine did. How many miles per gallon do you get? 😈

Deal. Not to brag or anything but I hurt my neck a while ago by looking up.

Gone are the days when I could do 15-20 pull ups, 25 push ups, 50-75 sit ups... those were good times.

You going stir crazy in this lockdown too?

Calculus isn't too bad until you get to integration. Differentiation is pretty easy but the reverse process is a big ol' nope.

I saw Felsius once, which was advertised as the average of the two scales.

I dunno about common core man I've been forced to do long division with polynomials instead of numbers

Metric/SI is easy to learn! It's based on only seven units: the kilogram, the second, the meter, the kelvin, the ampere, the mole, and the candela. You don't usually need to know much about the three weird ones, since ampere is the unit of electrical current, candela is the unit of light intensity, and mole is the unit of the number of atoms/molecules in a given chemical sample.

As for the non-weird ones, the kilogram is about 2 pounds, the second is a global standard (the Romans had a completely different system of time, so this is very fortunate), the meter is about 3 feet, and the kelvin is horrible maths because Fahrenheit is a corruption of all that is right and good. These units are only augmented by multiplying them by powers of 1000 (kilo = 1000, mega = 1 000 000, giga = 1 000 000 000, tera = 1 000 000 000 000, etc., and milli = 0.001). There are plenty of such abbreviations for powers of 1000, but these are the ones I'm familiar with and thus probably the only ones you need to know for normal measurements. Kelvin usually doesn't have the larger prefixes glued on for obvious reasons, but the rest are fair game.

How I heard the story was that everyone used to use imperial a few centuries ago, so America joined in. However, the imperial you used was actually different from everyone else's imperial so you could mess with the system. Your ton is a few percent less than an old British Imperial tonne (hence why it's sometimes called a 'short ton') so you could get away with advertising a 'tonne' of merchandise but only delivering a ton. You thus won out by a few percent in every bulk deal until Britain caught on and stopped playing ball. Your entire unit system was based on a hustle and now you're keeping it as a souvenir of your glory days talking people out of their cash.

I'm not going stir-crazy yet but I'm set to run out of work sometime this week or the next, so it might kick in after that. I have plenty to keep me occupied though which is good. How are you coping with it all?

Yikes, if there’s a math process that even you nope out of, I don’t have a shot!

 Long division is inherently evil and proof there is wickedness among us. But I read that a father got so angry with his kid’s common core math, when it came time to pay the school, he wrote a check out for the proper amount but he did it in a common core breakdown. They returned the check.

Thank you for the lesson Mr. Duality! I have been meaning to better acquaint myself with metrics.  I always thought if Fahrenheit like that drunk friend that nobody really cares for but everyone pities, so they invite him to parties anyway. But he will only go to parties where his mutual acquaintances, Miles, Feet, and Inches go.

So does this mean I am no longer part of the imperial problem?? With practice can I  use the right system?

That’s a great bit of history. We probably outsmarted them for longer than they’re proud of. Random, but did you ever hear the story of Andrew Jackson’s assassination attempt? 

America is not about talking people out of their cash Duality. Trust me. It’s all in my new book which can be yours for just the low low price of 5 easy payments of $99.95. And if you order now, I will personally autograph the first ton you purchase! While supplies last.

Run out of work? Are you getting laid off my friend? I truly hope not. But your personal safety and health is far more important to me. I care about you buddy.

If you need something to occupy your time feel free to call on me. My parents say I am really good at wasting people’s lives time! So far I am okay. I spent most of the quarantine time in my room, which is quite tiny. Animal Crossing has been keeping me sane and I am set to go back to work Wednesday if my health is still good or Friday if I need a few more days. I am aiming for Wednesday though.

Unfortunately, it’s looking like my area is predicted to be one of the next hot spots for the virus. Cases are shooting up here...