WELCOME TO An Entertainment Site for Scottish Country Dancers - Enjoy the curated selection of theme-related dances for celebrations and holidays, or find a dance associated with a special calendar day, or EVEN your own birthday!
The Pi Bike is a fully functional bicycle designed by Martijn Koomen and Tadas Maksimovas, handmade from carbon fibre material in the shape of the mathematical symbol, Pi (π).
August Days
Aug 17
Other Scottish Country Dances for this Day
Today's Musings, History & Folklore
Fermat scribbled in the margin small,
“I’ve a proof, but space is just too small.”
He teased us all, then walked away,
Leaving mathematicians in dismay.
For centuries, they tried to see,
What his “simple” proof could be.
But oh, the struggles, sleepless nights!
Equations scrawled in endless fights.
Then Wiles appeared, with heart and grit,
He cracked the code, bit by bit.
But not so “small” nor quick to tell—
It filled more pages than we’d sell.
So here’s the moral, plain and clear:
Write proofs out long—no gaps, my dear!
Or risk the ages steeped in doubt,
While we work hard to figure it out!
This dance's alternate title "Fermat's Last Theorem" pays tribute to mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1607-1665) who authored one of the most famous mathematical conjectures, which remained unsolved for over 350 years, until it was proven by Andrew Wiles, with Richard Taylor, in 1994. The dance notes for this 40 bar strathspey state:
August in Erlangen
August 17th marks the birthday of Pierre de Fermat (17 August 1601 (or 1607) – 12 January 1665), a French lawyer and mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus.
In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of the differential calculus, then unknown, and for his research into number theory. He also made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics.
He is best known for his conjecture, usually referred to as "Fermat's Last Theorem," which he famously described in a note (in 1637) at the margin of a copy of Diophantus' Arithmetica. This was first discovered by his son and included the statement that the margin was too small to include the proof.
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation a^n + b^n = c^n for any integer value of n greater than two.
The first successful proof was released in 1994 by British mathematician Andrew Wiles, using techniques unavailable to Fermat, and formally published in 1995, after 358 years of effort by mathematicians. The unsolved problem stimulated the development of algebraic number theory in the 19th century and the proof of the modularity theorem in the 20th century. It is among the most notable theorems in the history of mathematics and prior to its proof it was in the Guinness Book of World Records for "most difficult mathematical problems".
See this video below for a good overview of the history of this theorem.
This dance was devised for the Erlangen (Germany) Scottish Country Dance group in August of 1994 in honor of the announcement by Andrew Wiles, in June of 1993, of a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
The bicycle motif that occurs in the dance (via wheels and spokes) commemorates the fact that Erlangen is a very bicycle-friendly town. The dance is known as "Das Fermatische Fahrrad" (Fermat's Bicycle) or "August in Erlangen."
For a video of the dance being performed in Fanwood, New Jersey, 2012, see below.
And for more on Fermat, click the artistic rendering of "Fermat's Last Theorem" by artist John Kuhn. It consists of glass pieces arranged as cubes inside this cube which triggered the Fermat's Last Theorem connection on a revolving mirror base. Photo by Al_HikesAZ.
Click the dance cribs or description below to link to a printable version of the dance!
