Open end is big space (bigger number). Closed end is smaller space (smaller number).
I honestly don’t understand how people struggle with this, but maybe it’s some kind of light dyslexia. I don’t judge people with dyslexia, obviously. It’s easy for me, as someone who doesn’t have dyslexia, to claim it is easy to see.
I don’t know about everyone else but before I figured out the visual clues of the symbols on my own, the only explanation I ever got was “> is greater than, < is less than” but I was a kid and there was nothing stopping me from interpreting “10 < 100” as “100 is less than 10” which confused the hell out of me.
I suppose it gets easier if you read it from left to right, which kids tend not to do at first for some reason. At least not my kids.
Big side big number, little side little number
It can also be read as a statement, which can be true or false. You can fully well write “3 > 5”, but the statement is false. 👍
I got a zero on a math test in second grade because I said “the bigger number is on the bigger side” instead of “the crocodile wants to eat the bigger number”, fuck you 2nd grade math teacher who made me hate math by being the thought police.
It is my firm belief that teachers who force you to regurgitate the textbook answer verbatim should be promptly sacked. They are only teaching you to obey authority figures without questioning, and we don’t need any more toadies in this world.
Didn’t know so many people had trouble with this. To me they’re as different as b and d. Never had to think about it
I don’t think I’ve ever been taught a mnemonic with animals
The small number is on the small side of the symbol, the large number is on the large side, it seems pretty intuitive to me, to be honest.
I learned it that way, along with the = sign showing the sides are equal. But by the time I was teaching, we used Pac-Man, drawing the rest of him around the hungry mouth. I still added “another way to look at it is,” and described the spaces:
Big>little same=same little<Big
Because it doesn’t matter how your mind makes the connection, as long as it works for you.
Edit to add:Pac-people are easier to draw than crocodiles
The Nemo file manager still managed to fuck it up. ‘Triangle pointing down means small filesizes on top, yeah?’
The teacher who first taught me told me “Pac Man wants to get the most points” and that stuck with me
Thanks I finally understood this thread, kept thinking people were viewing the crocodile/duck/whatever from above
I never understood why so many people seemingly struggle with these signs to the point they need a mnemonic. The big side points to the big number and the small side to the small one. What even is there to remember?
Look at Dr. Postdoc here
That’s Mr. Dr. Professor Postdoc to you!
As a kid I saw it as an arrow pointing, it points to the small number. That’s how I remembered it. I can now understand it ‘facing’ the big number but it was never pointing any direction other than the point, which is to the smaller one. Now I understand it eats the bigger one but it took awhile to see it as anything but an arrow point, if they drew them with teeth I’d have understood the eating better as a kid but I don’t think any teacher did that. I never had trouble understanding overall so wasn’t an issue.
What you describe is a mnemonic.
Technically. That’s not the point, though. The symbol itself has a built in mnemonic; it’s designed so you can’t forget what it means. If you wanna be pedantic, which, fair enough, we’re talking about math notation after all, add “different” before “mnemonic” in the original comment and the point still stands.
I had no idea that people struggled with this so much and have come up with such crazy (to me) ways of figuring it out.
Most of the world, if asked to write down numbers 1-100 on a line, would do so left to right. The < and > symbols are arrows pointing left and right. To the left the numbers decrease (less than) and to the right the numbers increase (greater than).
All this stuff about crocodiles and ducks seems like such a bizarre way to remember it!
Edit: thanks for the comments, it’s fascinating to get an insight on how differently people’s brains work. Something that seems like such an obvious concept is just as baffling to others as the crocodile is for me.
To attempt to explain it better though: Say the number you’re comparing to is 50. If x is less than that, say 30, then it would appear to the left of 50 in the list and the arrow would point that way <–. If it’s greater than 50 then it would be to the right -->
A mnemonic device is a mnemonic device.
I think about how the symbols have two sides, one is a point (small side) and the other is wide (big side)
Your explanation is no less crazy lol.
Here’s a wild thought: inequalities are not always written with the lower number on the left… or there wouldn’t be a need for two symbols.
Yes, but that’s because that’s the way your mind interpreted it, it could have just as easily thought that the arrow (little side) should point in the forward direction from left to right, so ‘point to the bigger number’.
Basically two completely unrelated things both make sense to you in the same direction, and that happened to be the direction that the the people picking the symbols also picked. If they had simply picked the opposite direction, all the people who currently struggle might find out perfectly natural and be confused as to why ‘you’ have such a problem understanding it.
I think about it the same way I think about + and -. I don’t think at all. I just know.
Maybe it’s because I’m a programmer and I encounter comparators more than addition and subtraction.
“Points at the smaller thing”
Every time I watch a student stall out on inequalities I ask “it’s the crocodile isn’t it?”. Without fail, they’ve got confused by it and as soon as they hear “points at the smaller thing” they have no issues.
yeah its literally a graph. the bigger side is the bigger number. the smaller, surprise, smaller number.
big side, big number
< is part of a K. The K stands for Kleiner which means smaller in German/Dutch
< is a collapsed L which could be a shortened to “Less than”.
…Not that I’ve ever used this, I always picture a crocodile.
I’m a mechanical engineer, and I often have to do a double thumbs up with my hands like b_d. It’s the only way I can remember what comes first in the alphabet. In danish you spell boat båd, and if you mess up the order the b and d will be on the outside of the boat and drown, like dåb. Still works 20 years later
Do you have dyslexia or something like that by chance? I don’t think I’ve met anyone who gets confused between b and d. (No offense, I’m just intrigued)
I don’t have dyslexia. But I did only learn how to read and write in 5th grade.
I still have to mentally sing the alphabet song to double check I got the order right.
Am librarian and can confirm: we all do this. It mostly comes up when shelving or retrieving books.
I am 54, and still every fucking time.
Never heard this till this meme, apparently I was under a rock… Or in Florida
Not a meme, just how I was taught to remember greater than / less then operator direction
Yeah I meant the saying from the meme op posted, my bad. We just were taught the bigger side faces the bigger side, smaller smaller. Alligators, Crocodiles, and Pacman I guess we never included in math otherwise we’d startt totalling how many neighborhood dogs got eaten in the retention ponds next door. Like the number 1 unspoken rule of going fishing on the St. Johns River is don’t bring your dog, haha
Also I have seen Lake Jesup sometimes have so many gators eyes at night that you’d think you could cartoon run 13 miles across it and not have to touch water.
<3 is “less than three”, and 3 is “three” so logically < is “less than”
I try this, but I always get <3 mixed up with Ɛ>
#cursed
aww love you too bro <3
Also < looks like an L at an angle
I also have a theoretical degree in physics
You’re theoretically hired!
Once I saw a (tailless) cow wearing uniform.
