The Great Pyramid of Giza still has many secrets to reveal. In August 2018, researchers made a surprising discovery by studying the behavior of electromagnetic waves.
Discoveries follow one another around the Great Pyramid of Giza. After the recent development of two houses built at its foot 4,500 years ago, it is this time in the heart of the monument itself that a surprising discovery has just been made. Researchers claim that its internal chambers and base are capable of concentrating electromagnetic energy. A revelation with esoteric accents that nevertheless brings quite concrete and pragmatic scientific hopes.
“The applications of modern physics methods and approaches to the study of pyramid properties are important and successful. It could allow us to make discoveries or obtain new information that would generate new interest in the pyramids,” the scientists explained during their publication in the Journal of Applied Physics.
To analyze the behavior of the waves in the pyramid, the researchers first assessed how radio waves induced resonance phenomena within the structure of the monument. “We had to make some assumptions,” says Andrey Evlyukhin of the State University of Information Technology, Mechanics and Optics in St. Petersburg ITMO, Russia.
“For example, we assumed that there were no unknown cavities inside and that the building material with the properties of ordinary limestone was uniformly distributed inside and outside the pyramid,” says the scientist.
Waves tracked using a model
Thanks to these considerations, the researchers were able to obtain a model of the electromagnetic response of the Egyptian monument, and to estimate how the waves are diffused or absorbed within the pyramid. As a result, electromagnetic fields are concentrated at several points of ancient construction, located at its base but also in the rooms at its heart.
Surprising as it is, this discovery does not mean that the pyramid builders already mastered all the subtleties of electromagnetism… It would rather be a happy coincidence that could lead to breakthroughs.
Very concrete applications
“Although this study seems unconventional, modern physical approaches have already been used to study the Great Pyramid of Giza, and have led to the discovery of a completely new structure,” says Antonija Grubisic-Cabo, a physicist at Monash University in Australia, who did not participate in the work. “Since this study is completely theoretical, it is difficult to say what we can hope it will lead us to,” says the specialist.
Beyond its archaeological interest, it is also in a completely different field that the discovery could benefit: that of nanoparticles. “By choosing a material with appropriate electromagnetic properties, we could obtain pyramidal nanoparticles with the promise of practical applications for[more] efficient nano-sensors and solar cells,” hopes Polina Kapitainova, a physicist at ITMO University.
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