You’ve seen it a million times. It sits there on your keyboard, right next to the period, looking like a little hungry mouth or a sideways "V." The greater than sign ($>$) is one of those foundational bits of math and coding that we’re supposed to learn in second grade and never think about again. But here’s the thing. People still Google which way it points every single day.
It’s not just you.
I’ve seen senior developers, guys who build complex architecture for a living, pause for a split second before typing a conditional statement. They’re checking. They’re double-checking. It’s a weirdly common mental block. Maybe it's because the symbol is so minimalist that our brains sometimes refuse to assign it a direction without a little nudge.
The Hungry Alligator and Other Mental Hacks
Remember the alligator? Most of us were taught that the symbol is an alligator’s mouth, and that alligator is greedy. It always wants to eat the bigger number. If you have a $10$ and a $5$, the mouth opens toward the $10$. Simple. Elegant. $10 > 5$.
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But honestly, as an adult, thinking about reptiles every time you write a line of Python feels a little silly.
There’s a more "grown-up" way to visualize it. Think of the symbol as a funnel. The big, wide open side is for the big stuff. The tiny, pointy tip is for the small stuff. It’s a flow of magnitude. If the wide side comes first, the value on the left is larger.
I personally prefer the "number line" logic. On a standard horizontal number line, numbers increase as you move to the right. The greater than sign points toward the right. It’s literally an arrow pointing toward the bigger values. Once that clicked for me, I stopped needing the alligator.
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Why the Greater Than Sign Rules Your Digital Life
This isn't just about elementary school math. This symbol is a load-bearing pillar of the modern world. In programming, specifically in languages like C++, Java, or JavaScript, the $>$ symbol is a comparison operator. It’s the gatekeeper.
Think about your bank account. When you try to withdraw $200, the bank’s software runs a quick check: is balance > 200?. If that returns false, you aren’t getting your money. It’s a binary decision maker.
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In HTML, the symbol takes on a different life entirely. It’s a delimiter. You can't even build a basic website without using it to close tags like `