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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.