History of Infinity Day: August 8

Bill Petro
2 min readAug 8, 2020

HISTORY OF INFINITY DAY: AUGUST 8

Infinity Day is also known as Universal & International Infinity Day. It is a commemoration held on the 8th day of the 8th month of each year to celebrate and promote Philosophy and Philosophizing for the ordinary person.

Why 8 is significant:

  • 8 planets in the Solar System — since Pluto got demoted.
  • 8 is the atomic number of Oxygen.
  • 8 is the maximum number of electrons that can occupy a valence shell in atomic physics.
  • 8 people were saved in the Flood at the time of Noah.
  • 8th day: Jesus was circumcised, as the brit mila is held for Jewish boys.
  • 8 is the number of legs a spider or octopus has.
  • 8 is 2 cubed.
  • 8 follows 7 but stops before 9 making it the only non-zero perfect power that is one less than another perfect power.
  • 8 is the basis of the octal system, each digit representing 3 bits. A byte is 8 bits.
  • 8 displayed horizontally is the symbol of infinity

History:

Infinity Day was first conceived and created by Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, a philosopher, poet, journalist, and…

--

--

Bill Petro

Writer, historian, technologist. Former Silicon Valley tech exec. Author of fascinating articles on history, tech, pop culture, & travel. https://billpetro.com