2w ago

Nom nom

149 comments

It's a thing that I've always thought that people over-complicate. It's just there, the small side with the small number the big side with the big number...
- "The entirety of the small number constitutes a relatively smaller portion of the big number. Thus, the open side of > points to the smaller number to indicate that it's a magnified view within the larger number."
  I hope this helps overcomplicate things for you. We must all return to crocodile.
  
  Crocodile? Are you guys from Florida? In Europe we learned it as duck beak, it just makes much more sense, where are the teeth? Nowhere it's not an alligator mouth it's a beak
  
  Nope, it just sounds odd.
  I'll stick with big side = big number, small side = small number.
- For a while, I've seen "<" and ">" as a slanted "=", which is to say, these numbers are not equal, and the larger side is the larger number and the smaller side is the smaller number.
  Works for me, IDK.
  
  But shouldn't it be 8 < 1 because the eight is heavier and squeezes the bars of the = together?
- Somehow, people don't teach this interpretation at schools. (Despite it being so obvious that it was clearly the original reasoning behind the symbols.) And then nobody talks about the fact that nobody knows how to read them, forever.
  Mine had something about crossing a line through the symbol and seeing if it makes a 4 or a 7. Honestly, "the crocodile wants to eat the big number" is still better than this.
  
  This is only tangentially related but I've noticed an increase in people saying backslash instead of slash when speaking an internet address aloud. I think many more people struggle with / vs \ than > vs <.
- Whoever my first teacher who taught me this did over complicate it, because when I wrapped my brain around bigger side equals bigger number and smaller side equals smaller (much later than I should have) it was a revelation and also seemed ridiculous it didn't start out that simple.
- Are you a programmer? I've never struggled with them either, but I've had a lot of exposure to them due to programming since I was like 11
  
  I am a software dev, I've been exposed to these since I was 5 and I've always thought they should be reversed, I know the logic is "bigger gap, bigger number" and never make a mistake, but deep down I know it would be more logical to "point the arrow toward the bigger number", it just makes sense to me.
- I agree. It’s totally simple and people overcomplicate.
  BTW one nice thing about German is, that you can even use the same logic for Boolean operators: The AND operator ∧ is called UND being the shorter word (when you put the name at the top). The OR operator ∨ is called ODER being the longer word.
  You can use the same logic in English if you Place AND/OR at the bottom instead 😁
  
  i also think the "etymology" of the boolean symbols is very helpful in remembering which is which. in lattice theory, their use was inspired by similar notation in set theory. so, A ∨ B is like A ∪ B, while A ∧ B is like A ∩ B.
  generally, A ∨ B is "the smallest thing that's greater than or equal to both A and B", while A ∧ B is "the biggest thing that's less than or equal to both A and B". similarly to how A ∪ B is "the smallest set that contains both A and B", while A ∩ B is "the largest set that's contained in both A and B". you can also take things a step further by saying that in the context of sets, A ≤ B means A ⊆ B. doing this means that A ∨ B = A ∪ B, while A ∧ B = A ∩ B. and from this perspective, the "sharp-edged" symbols (<, ∧, ∨) are just a generalization of their "curvy" counterparts (⊂, ∩, ∪).
  in the context of boolean algebra, you can set False < True, which at first may seem a bit arbitrary, but it agrees with the convention the that False = 0 and True = 1, and it also makes A ∨ B and A ∧ B have the same meanings as described above.
  
  for English the AND sign looks like an A anyway. if you remember that for AND the OR is just the opposite.
  
  I always remember those as "knife" and "cup", but you have to know that I use my cups the wrong way around.
  When you have two things AB on a table and you come in with a knife or cup (NB: upside down) from above, the knife will separate them "A or B" while the cup will catch them together like a pair of angry wasps "A and B".
- Thinking of an alligator is more fun though.
- "It’s always pointing to the smaller number" is what my elementary teacher said 2<3

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 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?'
  
  It is weird that Z is considered a bigger letter than A. If triangle pointing down means descending order, it would be Z-A. Ergo, it must mean ascending order and small filesizes are on top just like small letters are on top.

"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.

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.

big side, big number

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.

< 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.
  
  Alternatively you could see it as an angled g without the hook

I also have a theoretical degree in physics
- You're theoretically hired!

Once I saw a (tailless) cow wearing uniform.

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!
- Yeah, the symbol is the mnemonic. What does the crocodile even explain? Why doesn't the bigger number eat the smaller numbers?
  
  Yeah the worst part about mnemonics like this is that its easy to think to yourself "crap, does the crocodile eat the bigger number or the smaller number?"
  Never been a fan of mnemonics that can be easily flipped because my brain loves to troll me. When I noticed/heard larger side larger number, this was the only way I ever saw it again.
  
  Yeah. It would be like saying "Oh, when I see a stop sign, I think to myself they're the same colour a traffic light turns to when you're supposed to stop, so I remember to stop"
- 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.

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.
- 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 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

<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 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.
- 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.
- you say that but your method is only just as intuitive lol, wild how many methods work.
- 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.
- 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.

What the bird beak pecks is meek.

Surely in theoretical physics, the most common use of > is in a ket (eg. |ψ>).
- Crocodile want to eat cactus ?
  
  That cactus is the devil!
  
  Crocodile needs eat cactus to see window
- arguably, it's |ψ〉, which is not the same as >
  
  wow that's a big difference (I have no idea what you are talking about)
- No? Not everyone's doing work on quantum systems. Far from it. Most people do not need to use Dirac notation.
  
  I guess not. Its just that when I hear 'theoretical physics' I immediately think of particle physics (and related fields). I have this idea that in most branches of physics people just say the topic, eg. astronomy, material sciences, or whatever; and don't usually specify whether they are doing theoretical work or experimental/empirical work. But in particle physics ... my impression is that people are more likely to specify. Anyway, that's just my own bias I guess.

I earned it as the larger part being on the side of the bigger number
.<:

i feel like i’ve been using latex for so long that at this point my brain has been rewired to see ≤ as ‘\le’ (less than or equal to) and ≥ as ‘\ge’ (greater than or equal to), and then this dictates how i view < and > as well
- I worked for years in a data validation system. All day I was writing rules using the symbols and writing the decode of the rule in words - less than or equal to
  I really don't need mnemonics

I've always been a fan of using > and < but in the general use of lesser than or greater than, however, the symbols were always interchangeable to me since it always depends on where you put the defined integer, correct?
If I want to say something is less than 37. It can either be 37 > or < 37.
Because in that scenario the imaginary integer n is always on the opposite side of the symbol.
37 > n
n < 37
So why did > ever become greater and < be less than? Doesn't it also depend on how your text is written? If people reading from right to left or down to up vs left to right and up to down, means it's reversed.
The open part of the caret is where the bigger number is, the opposite side is where the lesser number is.
- 37 > n
  "37 is greater than n."
  n < 37
  "n is less than 37."
  Obviously both sentences have the same meaning, but the symbols are named that way because people usually read left to right... (in English that is)
- So why did > ever become greater and < be less than? Doesn’t it also depend on how your text is written? If people reading from right to left or down to up vs left to right and up to down, means it’s reversed.
  Yes. > is "greater than" because you're reading left-to-right. 12 > 9, read: "twelve is greater than nine". When reading in a right-to-left script, it's the opposite, but because of how the BiDi spec works, the same Unicode character is actually used for the same semantic meaning, rather than the appearance. Taking the exact same block of text but formatting it right-to-left (using directional isolate characters) yields "⁧12 > 9⁩", which is still read as a "greater than", just from right-to-left.
  Hopefully that makes sense.
  So yes, if you copy the > character and paste in any directional environment, it will retain its meaning of "greater than".
  Edit: on my phone, the RTL portion is not formatted well. If you can’t see it, try a browser.
  
  You just blew my mind with that unicode trivia. Super cool !
  
  Neat AF.

Taught in Florida. It was an alligator.
- ...and it was real. It ate all of our numbers and 1 kid.

I see nothing wrong with this.

when you hold your hands with your fingers spread out in front of you the L is on the left
- *palms away from you

I know that you can pronounce the emoticon <3 as less than three and it has for whatever reason replaced the crocodile mnemonic.
- I <3 u >
  
  You love me more than what?

I still sometimes think of pillars of one building when I think of concept of "tomorrow" because seeing those pillars was supposedly the first time in my childhood when I heard about "tomorrow".

Sooo, does the crocodile face to the left or to the right?
- The lines are the crocodiles wide-open mouth... ... but yeah, I'm not a fan of this kind of mnemonic. It requires remembering a heap of details, such as which way the crocodile is facing, and does it prefer to attack the larger number or the smaller number - and how the relates to negatives... Which I think is surely more difficult than just remembering that the large end of the wedge is the larger number, and the small edge of the wedge is the smaller number.
  That said, having multiple different ways of remembering something is often helpful, particularly when getting started. (I remember having a bunch of different ways to remember which was "left" and which was "right" when I was a child. But now I don't think about any of those things anymore.)

My Mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush

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

The version I got taught was gobbledy monster!
- Duck!

One of my favorite teachers taught computers and pointed out that the less than symbol is towards the side of the keyboard with smaller numbers.

I was being disruptive in first grade and kicked out of class then we learned this (ADHD and boredom). I tried to peak through the window and do the crocodile arms to learn it, but my teacher saw me and came out and told me to stand at the end of the hall. I didn’t really learn this until 3rd grade. Ironically, math was my favorite subject for all of k-12.

If you see it as a function of height, the left side of < has a smaller height than the right side

“How do you know if someone is doing a phd in physics?”
- Ehh
  They tend to get the sign wrong, or straight up not know it and end every sentence with "or the other way around"
  their room is a mess
  they have a soldering iron and a box full of Arduinos/Rasberry Pis/ESPs
  they have weird hobbies, (or none, because their work is sufficiently shaped like weird hobbies/obsessions)
  they regularly say "local minimum" and "higher order effects" in casual conversation
  What did I forget?

According the old joke, and with no offence to scholars, the answer is :
“They’ll fucking tell you”

Directions are one of the most confusing aspect tbh. Bounding is difficult..

Another way to remember is that < is like a squished L, for "Less than"
- This is how I always remember it

That is exactly how it is taught. Goog job.

Crocodile want to eat cactus ?

MesseR Rechts, GabeL Links.
Every single time when setting up dishes on the table.

Indicative of the fact this approach is counterintuitive to our thinking, but we're too stupid to adopt a new way to show it.
- It's not. This is schools failing worldwide to teach math in an adequate form.

That's exactly the same level as the crocodile mnemonic.

Wed nes day

Say it in English grammar "GREATER than" means greater number first. And vice versa.
- Crocodile eats bigger number is way easier to remember
  
  I feel you.
- How does this help me remember which symbol means greater than and which one means less than?
  
  The bigger side of the symbol is greater. The small side is less.
  We read left to right.
  That make sense?

some ppl shouldn't have degrees
- While in a vaccum this statement is true i dont think its appropriate here. Small things like this dont define how good someone is at the subject in question.

149 comments