Which
is greater, -10 or 5?
Although the number
10 is greater than 5, -10, or negative
10, is actually less than 5, or positive
5. The reason for this is that -10 is negative. All numbers to
the left of 0 are negative and are actually smaller than 0.
Smaller than
0?
To understand that
something can be smaller than 0 think of temperature. When it
is -10 degrees outside it is actually colder than it would be
if it were 0 degrees. That number, -10 degrees, is smaller than
0 degrees.
So the farther to the
left of zero we go the smaller the numbers get. In fact, even
when we are on the positive side of the number line, numbers get
smaller as we go to the left. 5 is less than 6, and 4 is less
than 5, and so on.
Once again, which
is greater, -10 or 5?
Taking a look at the number
line, we see that -10 is to the left of 5 (and 0), so 5 is greater
than -10.
