If it's true that the majority of other states lost jobs (as the parent comment claims), then Texas would have also created more jobs per capita than most other states (since a positive number, no matter how small, is greater than any negative number).

That seems an odd definition of "greater"; why do you say it's an absolute measure?

I'm no mathematician, but at least Mathematica disagrees with you (Greater[-1,1/2] returns False).

Consider a polar vector, which possesses a magnitude and one or more angles. For such a vector, the magnitude is always positive, on the basis that it is defined this way when shaped from Cartesian elements:

m = sqrt(x^2 + y^2 + z^2 ...)

In this convention, for any given value of m, the signs of the individual components are lost in the conversion, which means when discussing magnitude, only the absolute value of m matters.

But, because Mathematica has a "Greater[]" function, and because that function simultaneously uses the word I chose and pays attention to scalar signs, I must be wrong about this.

> That seems an odd definition of "greater" ...

I respect the people behind Mathematica, so I have to agree -- it's not what I thought. I should have qualified what I said more carefully.