Eighty-Eight Elsewhere, and a Modern Abuse

Eighty-eight has neutral modern uses, the eighty-eight constellations recognised by the International Astronomical Union, the eighty-eight keys of the piano, and one that must be reported plainly: among neo-Nazi groups eighty-eight is used as a coded salute, the eighth letter of the alphabet doubled standing for the initials of a Nazi slogan. The coding is a twentieth-century invention with no connection to any older symbolism, and it is noted here only so that the number's modern associations are given honestly. The durable and overwhelmingly positive meaning of eighty-eight remains the Chinese one of doubled prosperity.

Eighty-eight factors as 2^3 x 11 and carries 8 divisors in all. Summing its proper divisors gives 92, more than the number itself, which makes it an abundant number in the classical sense the Pythagoreans used to sort integers into deficient, perfect and abundant classes.

The genuine Pythagorean number philosophy that this modern chart borrows its name from left no writings of its own: Pythagoras and his early followers taught only by mouth, and what survives of their number theory comes instead through Nicomachus of Gerasa, whose Introduction to Arithmetic of the first century CE became the standard authority for a thousand years, and through Iamblichus, who drew on Nicomachus two centuries later; neither wrote anything resembling a name-and-birthdate numerology.