Inequalities

Inequalities

Speaking of inequalities, let's review those as well. There are four different inequality signs. They are:

$>$ "greater than"

$\ge$"greater than or equal to"

$<$ "less than"

$\le$ "less than or equal to"

If you have a hard time remembering which one means what, consider one of two things to remember:

1. The less than and less than or equal to look a little like an "L" (as in for "Less").
2. If you think of an inequality as looking like a mouth, then the mouth is always trying to eat the bigger thing, so for example $11>-3$ has the inequality facing the right way because the "mouth" is facing the 11, which is clearly a bigger number than $-3$.

NOTE: Keep in mind that on a number line, numbers are always increasing going from left to right all the way across the number line. Thus, $-5$ is less than $-2$, for example.