In Dutch the word for smaller is kleiner.
So I always think, can it make the letter K
2 < 3 2 smaller than 3 < K
no K
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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I think the formatting is weird, it should have looked like this (hopefully that makes more sense)
So smaller than looks like a K,.greater than does not look like a K.
I have to read random passwords to people, nobody knows which is the greater (>) and less (<) than symbol.
Because they are all just knowing it points to the bigger number. >100 and 100< are interchangeable.
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When I encounter this, I have to imagine a context as I would read it. eg. X > Y as X is greater than Y. Because <> are just angle brackets to me.
What made the symbols finally click for me is drawing a small number line with the arrows on either end and erasing the line.
When I was first learning these symbols in kindergarten, I understood how to use them, but I couldn't read them right. If I saw 2 < 3 and had to say what it was out loud, I'd say "3 is greater than 2." I learned the proper way quickly though with some help from my teach though. No idea why that memory stuck with me.
I learnt it the exact same way! 😄
The greedy bird eats the biggest number
lots of food > not much food
I learned it as Pacman. You could draw the rest of the circle and put a little eye in there.
I still hear my kindergarten teacher's voice every time I look at an analog clock..."little hand points the hour"
This never made sense. The larger animal would eat the smaller one.
The crocodile wants to eat the larger child
Most Indonesian school teach to use use it like l> "besar" and l< "kecil". Besar = big, kecil = small
I find the metaphors stupid when most of us can just look at the symbol: the vertex side has less distance between segments than the open side.
When I write proofs, I hate using both < & >, because the redundant complexity of juggling both orders slows me down. Just sticking to a single order like < ≤ and arranging values in that single order eased reasoning quite a bit.