I really don’t get why you would need a mnemonic for a symbol that itself already is a mnemonic? How could it ever be confusing that big side is bigger than small side?
She just wants to say she is writing a PhD thesis in theoretical physics.
Because the arrow always points to the bigger number, silly. /S
Because everyone’s brain is different and things that make intuitive sense for one person don’t necessarily make the same sense to someone else.
Yes, and that’s why they made the symbol portray what it means. I mean it’s even more clear than the equal sign, yet I haven’t heard of mnemonic’s for that?
Because there aren’t (in common use) multiple variations. If we used ≠ and ≈ to represent when the sum was arrived at via addition or subtraction, and only used = when you used both in the same equation, people would fuck that shit up all the time.
Also, you use the equal sign a lot more frequently in life. More exposure makes us remember better
Right? How hard is it to remember that it’s an arrow that points at the biggest number? /s
big > small
as in the symbol is big and open on one side and small and closed on the other. It could not possibly be more literal than that.That was not how it was taught to my developing elementary brain.
Sure, but if you regularly use it, wouldn’t you think more about the symbol?
And wouldn’t it make more sense to an adult brain to see one side wider and one side smaller and continue the line in order to understand which size is bigger?
YES!
Read left to right, they make perfect sense:
Less than is <
Greater than is >
They all make visual sense:
=
≠
±
<
My teacher said “Pac-Man wants to eat the number that gives him the highest score” and that sooo stuck with me
in other words:
Why not just remember that the bigger side of the symbol points to the bigger number?
Sounds like a less fun version of the same rule.
rule
Calling that a rule is weird. Like do you have a rule which side of the knife is used to cut? Which part of the toothbrush goes in your mouth? You don’t? Right, cause it’s entirely obvious.
It’s more of a consensus, than a rule. It’s only obvious because of the way we phrase it and the consensus to use that symbol. But we could’ve just as well settled on something like “x follows y” or whatever and you’d have an arrow pointing at the bigger number. Or any other number of ways to compare without using that symbol exactly. It’s more a language than anything, really. What’s important is that everyone understands the same thing regardless of what symbol we use. That’s why everyone uses it like that, not because it’s obvious.
( ಠ‿< )
Rule rule.
But the pointy end should be pointing. This phrasing could get confusing.
How childish!
It’s obviously Pac-Man.
I feel this deeply as a 30 year old that has to repeat in my head “Never Eat Soggy Waffles” every time I use a cardinal direction
When I taught math to young students I used alligators…Muh haa/0/
****I’m leaving the random characters that have been added to my evil laugh. They were added by Zip the orange 3 month old terror kitten
Zip pic where?
At her innocent best.
Aw, she’s super sweet! Your printer did a great job😉
Zip bomb!
I’ve always found it interesting that many people have a hard time remembering this. I feel like it’s one of those self-describing symbols.
I just use both with a footnote that reads “one of these symbols always lies, one tells the truth. Determining which is which left as an exercise for the reader”
SOHCAHTOA
Sock it to 'er? I hardly know 'er!
Silly Old Harry caught a herring trawling off Anglesey.
I am also an idiot who needs mnemonics to remember incredibly basic stuff. In a similar vein to OOP, I did a PhD in chemistry with substantial involvement with chiral structures and still don’t really know left from right… but I never understood this one. Smaller number on the small side, bigger number on the big side always seemed really intuitive.
Also in a theoretical physics context I think of those symbols as Dirac notation more often than inequalities, but then I’m not a physicist.
Bra-Kets are have much shallower angles and inequalities are still used widely in physics
Fair. There’s a reason I barely scraped through introductory quantum.
I saw the angles and assumed this was a joke about Dirac notation, which I’m still convinced is a massive joke to get mathematical physicists seriously talking about bras and ket in the staff room.
I always think that less than 3 makes a heart <3
And “three larger than” makes a funny-looking face or a sexy bikini. 3>
I know someone who did their entire thesis purposely without using effect/affect, because they didn’t know the difference. Instead used “impact” and other similar words.
Affect is an action and effect just exists is how I always remembered it.
I can only imagine the impact that had on the end result’s impact. Probably didn’t have the impact they wanted on the readers who were unimpacted by the message.
