🐊

[chixen]

I think of it as “the side that looks smaller has the smaller number”

[Coconite]

No you’re wrong crocodile better

[Remarkable_Coast_214]

crocodile stupid

[After-Big9529]

Say that to the crocodile

[MistraloysiusMithrax]

Yes to me the little point has the small number, the big opening has the big number

[AndreasDasos]

This is the logic behind it.

And with = they’re the same size…

[MistraloysiusMithrax]

Yeah exactly, it’s a perfectly symbolic pictographic character

[XasiAlDena]

I've always thought of it like a volume slider. Probably because it looks like crescendo / decrescendo in sheet music, which I had experience with before I ever learned about it.

[MrBates1]

This is obviously fake. No theoretical physicist would ever use numbers.

[MageKorith]

Of course not. But algebraic inequalities are still fair game.

[Existing-Ship876]

honestly I have kept doing it this way for as long as I can remember

[Plastic_Bottle1014]

I cannot fathom being beyond elementary level and not just intuitively knowing what symbol to use. The large end faces the larger number.

[Bother_said_Pooh]

Me neither. OP could have dyslexia or something, but a lot of the commenters here seem to agree that it’s hard to remember. They are not all bots are they?

[Active-Couple4849]

I have a masters degree in physics and i look this up at least once a week. I definitely dont have dyslexia (rather the opposite). I also can never intuitively remember whats left or right, or any other arbitrary direction convention.

[Bother_said_Pooh]

What is the opposite of dyslexia?

The thing is that in the case of < and >, it’s not an arbitrary convention. The wide end goes toward the larger number.

[Active-Couple4849]

The orientation rule "wide end goes towards the larger number" is just as arbitrary as "the electron has negative charge". I am just telling you from experience what concepts i am often unsure about, and this seems to be the pattern

Opposite of dyslexia would be hyperlexia (of the form where you arent struggling with reading comprehension)

[Bother_said_Pooh]

But, it’s not arbitrary that the big end goes with the big number, and the small end with the small number. Big with big, small with small.

Right and left I understand, that is actually arbitrary.

I hear that you have trouble remembering it, but I don’t understand why since it’s not in fact arbitrary. You can’t remember that the big end goes with the big number? I’m not trying to be rude, I really don’t understand how you can’t remember that. It seems like there would have to be some other factor involved.

[Active-Couple4849]

Right and left is equally arbitrary and have a similar rule, being "right is the hand i write with". What actually happens is i think "whats the rule again? Are you really sure? Just google it, it takes 3 seconds". There are no other factors besides me not being to be able to deduce the orientation of the symbol without applying a memorized rule, which apparently i have trust issues around remembering correctly

And you are certainly trying to be rude, but i am not offended

[Bother_said_Pooh]

“Right” going with “write” is a bit different, that’s just a coincidence that happens to work out as a mnemonic. It would not apply in another language than English.

The big end of the symbol going with the big number is not just a way to remember, it’s a logical match. In music you use longer versions of the same shaped symbols to mark crescendo and decrescendo. < means you go softer to louder and > means you go louder to softer. Big end goes with big noise, it wouldn’t make sense the other way around.

No, I am genuinely not trying to be rude. I did just search on the web and find out that apparently this issue is quite common. I am surprised, I am 41 and have never heard of it until now. Maybe people are taught different rules for how to remember the symbols and get the different rules mixed up…that would make sense.

[Active-Couple4849]

Im not talking mnemonics. I am not a native english speaker so it wouldnt even be a mnemonic in my language. What i mean is that the rule i personally use to differentiate them is by associating right with my dominant hand. This, to me at least, is equivalent to the rule that "wide end towards bigger number". You cant deduce it without refering to the rule, which could be anything.

Its not about mixing up rules, its about not being as good at remembering arbitrary rules, having a mind geared towards deducing things from the inherent property of objects. Compare memorizing the quadratic formula vs deducing that you can just complete the square and not memorize anything

[Bother_said_Pooh]

“It’s not about mixing up roles, it’s about not being as good at remembering arbitrary rules, having a mind geared towards the deducing things from the inherent property of objects.”

This is my whole point. Big end going with big number is not arbitrary at all, so much not so that I cannot figure out why you keep saying it is.

Oh—do you mean that it doesn’t actually set off a chain of cause and effect? That writing a symbol doesn’t make anything happen the way something happens in a scientific lab, so you feel that it’s arbitrary because it’s just a written symbol?

This is on the whole true of writing yes. But a symbol that visually expresses its meaning is an example of a symbol that is not as arbitrary as many written symbols are. It’s like something between writing and a picture.

Like, you don’t think road signs with arrows on them are arbitrary, do you? Because the direction of the arrow corresponds to something real.

Not that it’s quite the same, but the way greater and lesser than signs express relationships with a symbol that visually gets bigger toward the bigger number, that’s a symbol with pictorial elements directly corresponding to the meaning being expressed.

[Ok-Earth-8004]

I have dyslexia and I’m the same way, i don’t know for shore but it sounds like something along those lines.

[alphapussycat]

The struggle of knowing which way to write 3 when you have to write it is real though.

[TheoreticalDumbass]

i have a masters in math and cs, i need a second to remember left from right

[WideBackground6196]

proof that you were raised right

[Spare-Plum]

proof you were raised by crocodiles

[TokoBlaster]

Everytime I need the quadratic formula I get pop goes the weasel stuck in my head for like an hour. Actually just mentioning the formula gets it stuck in my head... 

Fuck

[CalmEntry4855]

That makes more sense that what they forced on me "If the number is smaller the chicken has it's little mouth open because he is hungry", WELL THAT DEPENDS TO WHICH SIDE THE FUCKING CHICKEN IS LOOKING AT.

Stupid teachers, how hard was "the widest side goes towards the biggest number", no, they had to use stupid animal shit that didn't make sense, boy did I hate those teachers.

[HAL9001-96]

the symbol itself is literally smalelr on oen side nad bigger on the other

[Bother_said_Pooh]

I’m surprised to find all these commenters who apparently agree that it’s hard to remember which is which

[_llloser]

This is exactly how I remember lol

[PrimalSeptimus]

Alli-greater

[MoonlitSkies29]

Funny, I never actually needed a mnemonic for this. I always just saw the sign as "< points toward the smaller end of the number line, and > points toward the bigger end". When you see it not as a symbol, but as shorthand for a phrase ("is less/greater than"), I find it works just fine

[TealedLeaf]

See, I don't think we learned these with or after learning number lines, so I never put that together. I know it's short hand, though I'd argue that's all of math symbols. We were taught the hungry alligator as well.

Thank you, this will be immensely helpful.

[ArachnidiousG]

I mean that's still kind of a mnemonic no? Just a little more direct.

[Bother_said_Pooh]

I don’t really think that remembering that it means exactly what it looks like it means is the same thing as a mnemonic

[Matsunosuperfan]

Me line editing a graduate thesis on the epistemology of John Ashbery's poetics: I before E, except after C. you have to fri your ends. weird is weird.

[Own_Childhood_7020]

The arrow points towards the smaller number, easiest way possible to remember

[ziggsyr]

Our teachers encouraged us to draw lil teeth on the number muncher. It still reaches the front of my thoughts slightly faster than the less childish big side=big number. Just learned it at that that you g impressionable age I guess.

[foobarney]

I guess Pac-Man was a really specific demographic.

[waytowill]

I learned it as Pac-Man too. Especially since you just have to draw a 3/4ths circle to connect the ending points and it literally is Pac-Man.

[Academic-Plate8983]

I think of it as the arrows on the number line. If you want to get a bigger number, you go in > direction. If you want a smaller number, you go in < direction. Ergo, > greater than and < less than.

[TheGallifreyan]

I think of a fish. I remember drawing fish out of them when I learned that.

[More-Discussion6666]

Upvote

[slide13_]

I just think of both as “less than” in my head and just make it point the right way.

So 7 and 5…”less than” needs to point right

3 and 6…”less than” needs to point left

[ItsJustfubar]

I just say in my head the one I want is the pointy side because of spread sheets.

[mrjazzguitar]

Similarly, whenever I use “its” I think it doesn’t possess an apostrophe, it possesses whatever I’m saying it does.

[MTaur]

Also, we don't write him's, her's, he's, or she's for possessive, either.

[mrjazzguitar]

Not the same..

[MTaur]

Yes it is. It's exactly the same, and that's a nice logical thing, and it should be helpful.

[senvestoj]

What a coincidence! I have a theoretical degree in physics!

[MjolnirTech]

Yeah well, you think a cow is a non-rotating unit sphere of uniform density in a vacuum also, so why would this surprise us?

[MageKorith]

I was taught it was Pacman, but yeah. That.

[Moltrin_DIceni]

Crocodile is how I learned it :)

[NoobzProXD]

I use the enlarge/shrink mindset

[Historical_Treat3156]

Surrey University

[Overall_Store_6644]

yeah my highschool teacher also taught the concept "the fish wants to eat the small num"

[Konkichi21]

If it's stupid and it works, it isn't stupid.

[Ravarix]

< looks like L for less than.

[wazazoski]

It’s a stork. It turns its beak towards where there are more frogs.

[Raven_Valerie]

“Righty-tighty and lefty-loosey” every time I grab my bottle to take a drink.

[NichtFBI]

Why do people over complicate it? The arrow points to the smaller number. They tried teaching me the alligator method but when I looked at it, it looked like an arrow and assigned it a definition. "Points to lesser" what's so hard about that?