ScanPyramids
https://youtu.be/ZB-MOGw0RMo
'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
51–60 of 246 posts
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#52Slightly off-topic but perhaps someone has an answer: After finishing "Dark Forest" / "Death’s End" I somehow ended up with the questions if our way of doing archaeology is actually a good idea. Currently we i) remove a lot of things from the ground / graves / ruins, ii) analyze them, iii) put them in a museum and iv) write books about them. This means that all the knowledge about those artifacts and our history is s…
Human minds and physical artifacts are still the least fragile and volatile storage medium known. Software requires infrastructure, hardware, regular maintenance and domain knowledge, a brittle chain. Consider that we still have cuneiform tablets from ancient Babylon, and we can decipher them due to physical and cultural artifacts persisting over generations. But... we have already lost the masters of the Apollo moon…
Related (Although it is a project to preserve a record of the world's languages and not archaeological knowledge) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Project
"The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to develop a contemporary version of the historic Rosetta Stone to last from 2000 to 12,000 AD; it is run by the Long Now Foundation. Its goal is a meaningful survey and near permanent archive of 1,500 languages."
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#53Does HN have any domain experts that can comment on how reliable this research is?
I got super excited about the Queen Nefertiti / King Tut secret chamber theory a year or two back (which used similar methods, it seemed), and was really disappointed when it turned out to be all wrong...
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#54Curious that Luis Alvarez (yes, that Luis Albarez) and his team did not find it in their 1970 exploration using a similar approach[1]. 1. http://lappweb.in2p3.fr/~chefdevi/Work_LAPP/Arche/alvarez_70... Edit: Thanks to jbmouret for pointing out Alvarez studied a different pyramid in the same complex!
Yes, this work is clearly based on the cosmic ray muon detector approach that Nobel prize winner Luis Alvarez developed in the 1970’s, and looks to be a significant effort that would need considerable international support to accomplish, so somebody obviously thinks there is reason to believe Luie’s team missed something. In addition to the results, I’m very interested to understand what led them to think there might…
It's worth watching this video overview of the work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB-MOGw0RMo
Key takeaways that might answer why the original team missed the clues... note the Simulation results from the Japanese team. Throughout the video it's clear they're chasing the scent of information through data analaysis and visualisation.
I think the Hololens stuff at the end is a little fluffy but it speaks to the tools scientists and engineers have available today versus the 70's
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never to be found again
Stuff in the middle of a lot of not-stuff is fairly findable. Particularly if it has a strong signature on radar or microwave imaging.
Depends on your definition of 'findable', I suppose.
Flight 370 wasn't found after "the most expensive search operation in aviation history[1]" performed by a multinational effort over almost three years. There are distinctions to quibble about, sure, and there are things that could be done to make things not designed to shuttle meatbags around easier to find.
But the area comprising the middle of the not-stuff you reference is big.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#S...
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#56So have people been inside the known chambers? Can you tour them?
Egypt's main pyramid sites in Giza are accessible to the general public every day, all year long. Although you can go inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu when you visit, one of the smaller two pyramids usually is closed for restoration work. To further complicate your tourist plans, at the time of publication, only 300 tickets are sold per pyramid, per day. You must arrive early to secure your visit inside
I've also read that given the economic instability in Cairo, it's just a royal PITA to visit. Tourists get aggressively hassled to buy stuff, camel rides, tours, etc.
I've been to New Grange and Stonehenge. While it's pretty neat to go there, it's just a structure. The real value and interest for me is reading up on what the researchers have found out. Let the plinths for Stonehendge were quarried 150 miles away in what is now Wales.
Just think about that, mind blowing.
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#57Does HN have any domain experts that can comment on how reliable this research is? I got super excited about the Queen Nefertiti / King Tut secret chamber theory a year or two back (which used similar methods, it seemed), and was really disappointed when it turned out to be all wrong...
From the article:
The ScanPyramids team is being very careful not to describe the cavity as a "chamber".
He says the muon science is sound but he is not yet convinced the discovery has significance.
"It could be a kind of space that the builders left to protect the very narrow roof of the grand gallery from the weight of the pyramid," he told the BBC's Science In Action programme.
"Right now it's just a big difference; it's an anomaly. But we need more of a focus on it especially in a day and age when we can no longer go blasting our way through the pyramid with gunpowder as [British] Egyptologist Howard Vyse did in the early 1800s."
One of the team leaders, Hany Helal from Cairo University, believes the void is too big to have a pressure-relieving purpose, but concedes the experts will debate this.
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#58This diagram shows a shaft going into this void from two sides. I was wondering why they don't send a robot down into those.
Seems the answer is that they have, but there's something blocking the shaft and they're not willing to destroy it any further for some reason:
http://guardians.net/hawass/articles/news_on_the_robot_Dec_2...
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#59Does HN have any domain experts that can comment on how reliable this research is? I got super excited about the Queen Nefertiti / King Tut secret chamber theory a year or two back (which used similar methods, it seemed), and was really disappointed when it turned out to be all wrong...
It's say it's pretty solid. Multiple teams from around the world contributed to this
I've posted this video elsewhere in the this thread but putting here for completeness. It's a better overview compared to the bbc article.
Re: 'Big Void' Identified in Khufu's Great Pyramid at Giza
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking in the case the civilization lost access to a lot of basic data. Then finding the magic satellite without magic radar, maybe without even knowing about the magic satellite amongst all the other satellites up there.
A billion years is a long time. That said, a few redundant copies elsewhere wouldn't hurt.
Oh, no I love the idea of a time capsule in space. In fact, given how cheap some mylar (for detection) and silicon (for inscribing information) is, I think "we" (humanity) should put a bunch of it up there. Like they Voyager probes, but MUCH more data, and maybe in orbit around the sun. But it's not something to rely upon as backups - but very nice as a message into curious explorers of the future.