this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Wait… was I the only one that got taught: small number on the small side, big number on the big side?
No cute little metaphor, just deal with the bleakness of the world, kids!
This is like when I found out everybody else got a cute little song to memorize the quadratic equation.
Whaaat?? Gimme the song!
To the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasel"
X equals the opposite of B Plus or minus square root B squared minus 4 A C All over 2 A!
🤯💃🕺
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOXYMRcWbF8
This is the tune.
In Germany, we have this. At least I think that quadratic formula means the ABC Formel? If not, I'm sure dorfuchs has a video for it too.
My favorite is the one for the bionische Formeln.
That's much better than anything we have in the U.S.
Wow. Your school hated you if you didn't learn about the alligator or crocodile.
Not even a mention of the duck!
The version I was taught starts with the equals sign. There is nothing simpler to depict the concept of equality than two parallel lines of the same length. Now pinch one side to spoil the equalness, the pinched side points to the smaller number in the unequal pair.
That's so much more work than just remembering the gator wants to eat more.
I'm so sorry for you that you didn't have a childhood
I imagine that is how the symbol came to be used. I doubt they imagined crocodiles.
When this symbol was formalized crocodiles were a much more persistent and immediate threat. They thought about them constantly.
I was just taught this is the symbol for bigger than and this is the symbol for less than. And we remembered them the same way we remember the letters and the numbers and all the other symbols like addition and subtraction. No need to think about it, just "<" and "less than" are equivalent in my mind.