From Times of Israel :
Architects and scientists from Egypt, France, Canada and Japan will use modern infra-red technology and advanced detectors to map two pyramids at Giza and the two Dahshur pyramids, south of Cairo.
"This special group will study these pyramids to see whether there are still any hidden chambers or other secrets" inside them, Minister of Antiquities Mamduh al-Damati announced at a news conference.
"These engineers and architects will conduct the survey using non-destructive technology that will not harm the pyramids," he said.
Experts said the study, known as "Scan Pyramids," will also be a fresh attempt to understand how the monuments were built in the first place.
The article goes on to to tell us that the "infra-red and muon" scanning will look at four pyramids from the outside, and very likely will also be used from the inside of King Tutankhamun's tomb to look for a secret chamber where they are hoping to find the mummy of the legendary beauty Queen Nefertiti.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @07:57PM
I guess they have a new minister of antiquities. I know people were complaining about Zahi Hawass obstructing investigations of what's underneath the sphinx and whatnot. I don't know how accurate that is, but it'll be interesting to see what happens now.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-of-zahi-hawass-72874123/?no-ist [smithsonianmag.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @07:58PM
"The article oges on to to tell us that the "infra-red and muon" scanning will look at four pyramids form the outside..." even a simple spellchecker would have caught one of these.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @08:01PM
Nefertiti? You mean to say she's... she's... DEAD?!?
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday November 02 2015, @08:58PM
Her legendary beauty has also become MUCH more subjective.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday November 02 2015, @08:41PM
You can read some of the technical history here and numerous linked pages.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/secretchambers2.htm [touregypt.net]
Basically in the 60s/70s they figured out the water content is too high and the monuments are too large for ground penetrating radar to be of much use and they already sonar'd the hell out of pyramids (and other sites) and they found curious anomalies worth investigating.
Micrograviometry is also cool technology and is roughly 80s era with the usual "well thats odd" results and then nothing is done.
Some interesting technological developments are with it being (current year) instead of 1970 you can do directional drilling and very small drone / borescope style cameras so its not like they'd backhoe the entire pyramid to get access to the known, and possibly currently unknown, anomalies. Its possible to speculate given an infinite amount of money how small of a hole they'd need to shove a borescope into an anomaly. Very small fraction of an inch, I'd guess.
My gut level suspicion is given that they GPRed it and did nothing, sonar'd it and did nothing, did a graviometric study and did nothing, they'll probably IR it top to bottom for months, find some anomalies, and continue to do absolutely nothing.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday November 02 2015, @08:41PM
Since muons are related to cosmic radiation, I am relieved that if we create some radioactive zombie inside it will remain trapped and we will be safe.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 02 2015, @08:52PM
You are not going to see anything inside with infrared scanning.
Its a water sensing game you can rent a FLIR sensitive enough to detect basement wall moisture quite easily. So rather optimistically voids and gaps and cracks in the pyramid would give you some kind of model of air and moisture flow, and optimistically that would indicate something peculiar.
So you can't actually see thru a basement brick wall, but you can tell where there are water puddles due to poor drainage on the other side.
Given an infinite amount of money and time who knows what they'll detect.
The ultimate infinite spare time and money thing would probably be covering the pyramid with a grid of mass spectrometers and then doing isotope and helium releases to see what diffuses where and how fast. Or I suppose on a planetary project level of investment, a giant ass MRI scanner the size of a pyramid, yes I know how difficult that would be which is why I called it a planetary level project and not an undergrad lab assignment. I wonder what else you could do with a surplus MRI scanner big enough to wrap around a pyramid.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday November 02 2015, @10:50PM
Like you say, the FLIR doesn't detect water, it detects heat and therefore cold spots indicate water problems on the other side. The mass of the pyramids is so much greater than your basement wall though. Even if there are drafty gaps between the blocks, the air or moisture temp will equilibrate enough that the reading is useless.
There may be some profit in taking a FLIR scan every day for a month so you could discern patterns. After that month you would have something you could analyze while not attending the muon scanning teams press conference.
I like how you hypothesize. We could just take it apart and start building replicas ?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @10:41PM
Muon scanning is where you measure the muons that are penetrating the pyramids. They come down from the sky via cosmic ray showers. If you have a lot of mass in the way, a certain amount of them will interact and get absorbed, etc. If there is a large chamber, you'll measure more muons than if it was solid rock.
Luis Alvarez [nobelprize.org] was the first to try this out, the technique now called muon tomography [fnal.gov]. His very readable paper [mit.edu] has the details.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday November 03 2015, @01:48AM
You are not going to see anything inside with infrared scanning.
Apparently the engineers and scientists think they can.
There are scientists from egypt france canada and japan in on the project.
They don't plan to scan deeply into the pyramids, just scan several meters beneath the surface without touching the structures, because an interior void that close to the surface would cause the surface to be cooler or warmer than the solid stone.
The provided link isn't the most informative one out there as a little googling will show.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 03 2015, @05:20PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @09:12PM
Cool. We might finally find out what's behind Gantenbrink's door [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Monday November 02 2015, @09:54PM
Some French dude figured out it was built from the inside out.
(Score: 1) by pinchy on Monday November 02 2015, @11:45PM
Yea I saw that and thought they did micro gravity measurements and apparently found that ramp that spiraled around the perimeter.
That was a long time ago and ought to have better instruments to verify it better.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Monday November 02 2015, @11:04PM
Title: Egypt to Scan Pyramids (...)
(...) the study, known as "Scan Pyramids,"
This is a serious study, which will lead to actual discoveries: They didn't waste time trying to find it a cute name.
(Score: 1) by kazzie on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:06AM
Are sure it's a proper study? It sounds like a Pyramid Scam to me...