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.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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?
Just I love you more
❤️
Thanks dude, that cheered me up a bit
My Mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush
Wed nes day
And then here's me having to have my wife help my daughter with her middle school math assignments because they entirely mystify me.
If you see it as a function of height, the left side of < has a smaller height than the right side
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