History
The name "Borromean rings" comes from their use in the coat of arms of the aristocratic Borromeo family in Northern Italy. The link itself is much older and has appeared in Gandhara (Afghan) Buddhist art from around the 2nd century, and in the form of the valknut on Norse image stones dating back to the 7th century.
The Borromean rings have been used in different contexts to indicate strength in unity, e.g., in religion or art. In particular, some have used the design to symbolize the Trinity. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan famously found inspiration in the Borromean rings as a model for his topology of human subjectivity, with each ring representing a fundamental Lacanian component of reality (the "real", the "imaginary", and the "symbolic").
The Borromean rings were formerly used as the logo of the German Krupp industrial concern and are used as part of the logo for the successor ThyssenKrupp. The rings were used as the logo of Ballantine beer and are still used by the Ballantine brand beer, now produced by successor Falstaff.
In 2006, the International Mathematical Union decided at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain to use a new logo based on the Borromean rings.
A stone pillar at Marundeeswarar Temple in Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, has such a figure dating to before 6th century.
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“Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God’s property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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