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Sub-atomic Particles Used To Map Pyramid

Posted by timothy on from the grids-of-matrices-of-lattices dept.

firegate writes "Yahoo News is reporting on a pyramid-mapping project focusing on an ancient Aztec site in Teotihuacan, Mexico. Scientists are attempting to map an ancient pyramid by detecting muons - sub-atomic particles which are left as remnants of ancient cosmic rays. A similar method was used to scan Egypt's Khephren Pyramid in the 1960's."

4 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Bad News by trentfoley · · Score: 5, Funny

    This can only mean that they broke the Stargate and are looking for a replacement.

    <cantresist>In the meantime, I welcome our new Goa'uld overlords.</cantresist>

  2. 1960s!? by bhima · · Score: 5, Interesting
    So, Now I am wondering why they didn't just go around to all the various temples and man-made wonders and give them the old "muon once over". Once they built the device they could have subsequently rented it to all of those busy archeologists and museum curators and had a look at everything.

    Come to think of it, it might have been useful in my old house...

    --
    Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
  3. Useful resources on this technique by thesp · · Score: 5, Informative

    This was on my Physics undergraduate course; a rather nice technique. Releated resources from my lecture notes give:

    An abstract, a presentation on applying similar techniques to volcanoes, a citation [L. Alvarez et al, Science 167, 832 (1970)] (accessible only to subscribers of Science, I'm afraid), a Physics Today article, a useful paper.

    is the conference where the experiment was originally proposed.

  4. Muons by yet+another+coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Muons are created high above the earth when cosmic rays interact with matter up there. They shoot out from those reactions at velocities near light speed. Because they are traveling at such high velocities, their lifetimes are extended as predicted by special relativity. Instead of nearly all decaying within a tiny fraction of a second, many of the muons exist long enough to travel down and reach us. They are a few seconds old--I think it is a few seconds; it might be less--when they reach us. They pass through objects on the surface of the earth at about the rate 1 / second / cm^2.

    Muons can react with matter, but such interaction is very unlikely. If the matter is denser, such as stone, they are more likely to interact. By placing detectors inside the pyramid and counting muons coming from overhead for a long time, the scientists can estimate how much matter. They have another estimate of the matter is there by comparing to the number they would expect if they had passed through air. If that experimental estimate of the matter present is somewhat less than the expected amount based on the thickness and density of the pyramid above the detector and the density of the stone, there much be less stone than expected, possibly due to a secret chamber.