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.

Big side big number, little side little number

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.

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.

you say that but your method is only just as intuitive lol, wild how many methods work.

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.

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.

It is my firm belief that teachers who force you to regurgitate the textbook answer verbatim should be promotly sacked. They are only teaching you to obey authority figures without questioning, and we don't need any more toadies in this world.

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.

What you describe is a mnemonic.

Yeah, the symbol is the mnemonic. What does the crocodile even explain? Why doesn't the bigger number eat the smaller numbers?

Look at Dr. Postdoc here

I <3 u >

"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.

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.

yeah its literally a graph. the bigger side is the bigger number. the smaller, surprise, smaller number.

I try this, but I always get <3 mixed up with Ɛ>

aww love you too bro <3

Crocodile want to eat cactus ?

arguably, it's |ψ〉, which is not the same as >