What’s the origin of the infinity symbol (apparently also known as lemniscate)? Wikipedia has a paragraph on it, but I’m positive I heard - repeatedly - a different explanation that has something to do with the digit 8 (unfortunately, I can’t remember this story).
You mean the math teacher saying you draw infinity like it’s a sideways eight?
That’s the only relationship to eight there is.
As soon as you heard as mundane an explanation as a “8” you should have known it was a case of folk etymology. Virtually all the symbols we use in math have their origins in Latin, since that was the international language of educated adults back in the day.
This site says that John Wallis was the first to use it in 1655, along with a theory of a possible origin.
Thats what the Masons and the Illuminati would have you believe.