An astronomy professor looks at a crop circle and discovers a fifth mathematical theorem, quote from wikipedia about Gerald Hawkins- "The more Hawkins looked at various crop circles, the more he observed that strict mathematical ratios were often evident (cf. Science News 1 February 1992:76). Eventually, Hawkins found that he could use the principles of Euclidean geometry to prove four of the Greek's theorems derived from the relationships among the areas depicted in crop circles. Hawkins then discovered a fifth, more general theorem, from which he could derive the other four, which he subsequently published in Mathematics Teacher 91(5):441 May 1998 (interestingly, Hawkins tried to get his earlier data published in Nature but the editors declined it). Hawkins' fifth crop-circle theorem involved a triangle and various concentric circles touching the triangle's sides and corners: Different triangles generate different sets of circles and an equilateral triangle produced one of the observed crop circle patterns while three isoceles triangles generated other crop circle geometries. Hawkins challenged readers of Science News and Mathematics Teacher to publish the fifth theorem and he kept it to himself until 1995, when the 'crop circle makers' demonstrated knowledge of this theorem on 6 July in a field near Lithfield, Hamsphire. This glyph consisted of a 250-ft diameter circle with 8 concentric circles currounded by half circles, which not only provided the answer to Hawkins' 5th theorem but it presented a new geometry for concentric circles."
