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.
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!
My Mama says that alligators are ornery because they got all them teeth and no toothbrush
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?
Directions are one of the most confusing aspect tbh. Bounding is difficult…
big side, big number
I earned it as the larger part being on the side of the bigger number
.<:
<3 is “less than three”, and 3 is “three” so logically < is “less than”
Also < looks like an L at an angle
I try this, but I always get <3 mixed up with Ɛ>
#cursed
aww love you too bro <3
Surely in theoretical physics, the most common use of
is in a ket (eg.|ψ>).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.
Crocodile want to eat cactus ?
That cactus is the devil!
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)
It is just a notation for linear algebra and linear operators on complex vector spaces together with their dual space both in the finite-dimensional and infinite-dimensional case. Really quite simple stuff actually…
smiles and nods, smiles and nods…
I think 〉 means a very hungry (or at least large mouthed) crocodile, and > is just a normal one.
MesseR Rechts, GabeL Links.
Every single time when setting up dishes on the table.
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
I’m from Europe and I learned it as a wale (and I’m from southern Europe)
In the pre-digital age when most of this was pencil markings, it was not uncommon to see someone had drawn the teeth in.
I learned it as Pac Man.
Nah fam, if your bird looks like that it’s probably dead. I also learnt it as the crocodile in Germany
Duck, crocodile, they’re both archosaurs. Which means if it’s either, they should have a premaxillar fenestra on the lower jaw, but I’m not seeing any. Clearly, this must be a possum.
I’m thinking horribly mangled German bank executive with a lisp 🤷
A greedy crow is what they told me
Nono, we don’t do math in Florida anymore. Also we’d be more likely to use “alligator” (tho we have plenty of both)
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
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?
I’m with you, the croc is an opportunist and will eat the smaller, easier prey.
But shouldn’t it be 8 < 1
That would be a pair of scissors, on its way to cut the number 1.
No, since it’s bigger it stretches the lines apart :)
its not a scale exactly but the size of the ends shows the size of the numbers.
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 <.
Just to note, backslash or forward slash refers to the side the slash falls to.
I remember it because I’m old and was into computers before the internet. Local drive was backslash "" as a directory separator and online it was slash “/”.
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.
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 ∨ Bis likeA ∪ B, whileA ∧ Bis likeA ∩ B.generally,
A ∨ Bis “the smallest thing that’s greater than or equal to both A and B”, whileA ∧ Bis “the biggest thing that’s less than or equal to both A and B”. similarly to howA ∪ Bis “the smallest set that contains both A and B”, whileA ∩ Bis “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 ≤ BmeansA ⊆ B. doing this means thatA ∨ B = A ∪ B, whileA ∧ 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 thatFalse = 0andTrue = 1, and it also makesA ∨ BandA ∧ Bhave the same meanings as described above.Math is my worst subject by far. This was incomprehensible to me at first, but I read it a few times and I started to kind of get it, so thank you for that.
In my mind, boolean operators meant things like AND/OR in internet searches. This functionality and using quotation marks to mean “these exact words” seem to no longer work on Google anyway.
Does anyone know how to make these work the way they used to? I used to be quite the “google-fu” master, but search has gone to total shit.
for some reason to remember ∩ and ∪ when I first learned it in school I visualized a mirrored symbol on top. the ∩ looked like a X which represented an intersection, while ∪ looked like an O which represented a whole. for English ∪ already looks like a U which can be thought of as short for union. that would’ve been easier.
ooh the mirror trick is quite handy. i don’t think i’ve heard that one before. i’ll keep that one in my back pocket in case i ever need it some day. i can’t remember exactly how i learned what they meant, but i think it was probably u for union and n for ntersection.
for English the AND sign looks like an A anyway. if you remember that for AND the OR is just the opposite.
Thinking of an alligator is more fun though.
“It’s always pointing to the smaller number” is what my elementary teacher said 2<3
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 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’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”.You just blew my mind with that unicode trivia. Super cool !
