Infinity symbol Infinity symbol The infinity symbol (sometimes called the lemniscate) is a mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity. The shape of a sideways figure eight has a long pedigree; for instance, it appears in the cross of Saint Boniface, wrapped around the bars of a Latin cross. However, John Wallis is credited with introducing the infinity symbol with its mathematical meaning in 1655, in his "De sectionibus conicis". Wallis did not explain his choice of this symbol, but it has been conjectured to be a variant form of a Roman numeral for 1,000 (originally CIƆ, also CƆ), which was sometimes
Hilbert symbol reciprocity law follows from the Artin reciprocity law and the definition of the Hilbert symbol in terms of the Artin symbol. If "K" is a number field containing the "n"th roots of unity, "p" is a prime ideal not dividing "n", π is a prime element of the local field of "p", and "a" is coprime to "p", then the power residue symbol () is related to the Hilbert symbol by The power residue symbol is extended to fractional ideals by multiplicativity, and defined for elements of the number field by putting ()=() where ("b") is the principal ideal generated