#windmill hill

On this day:

WINDMILL HILL TRIPLE JULIA SET CROP CIRCLE

On July 29, 1996, at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire, U.K., a spectacular mathematical fractal design appeared on the landscape. Spanning several hundred feet across, the design was composed of 194 diminishing circles, which alternately ran clockwise and counter-clockwise. The design also had a standing central tuft. As well, many of the features of circle-making in the last three decades had been applied. Some of the stems were braided into nests, wreaths, and catherine wheels. The tufts ranged from a single stalk to groups of standing stalks six inches in diameter to groupings of some eight inches in diameter in which the stalks bent outward at some six inches above the ground, creating what resembled a miniature grass hut.

Geometrically connecting the mathematical centers of the first three small circles (those surrounding the middle circle) produced a perfect equilateral triangle. Amazingly, the centers of the next three circles in line also produced the perfect triangle. And the centers of the next three and the next three, all the way down the line to the end, did the same. If even one circle had been slightly misaligned, the whole mathematical harmonics would have been disrupted. The crop circle consisted of three logarithmic spirals.

An engineering firm said that it would take over a week just to survey and place stakes to construct such a form. In the four hours of darkness during which it had appeared, one circle would have had to be calculated and finished, complete with tuft, every fifty-six seconds.

My boyfriends out the car window