Word: muons
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...billion-electron-volt proton synchrotron. Then he periodically inserted a small block of brass in the path of a beam of particles from the accelerator. The effect was predictable: whenever the metal was in the way, it slightly weakened but did not block the flow of muons to the detectors 160 yds. away. Arnold had in effect devised a simple Morse telegraph system. By appropriately timing the intervals during which the metal was in the beam, he could, for instance, send the letter V (dot-dot-dot-dash). With a more complex system, Arnold explains, a muon beam could...
Radiation. At present the only method man has for producing muon beams of message-carrying strength is to use expensive atom smashers. But Arnold contends that less costly machines designed specifically to make muons could be built in the near future. According to his estimate, a 100 billion-volt synchrotron, capable of producing a muon beam with a range of up to 600 miles, would cost about $10 million. That is roughly the price of a system of microwave towers covering a comparable distance. Furthermore, Arnold says, there might actually be a savings if muon beams were used to take...
...direction from which the particle came, will be noted electronically and stored on magnetic tapes. Every evening, the tapes will be sent to Cairo's Ein Shams University. There they will be fed into a computer that will calculate and memorize the point at which each recorded muon penetrated the surface of the pyramid. Because cavities within the pyramid offer less resistance to speeding muons than does solid stone, a greater number of muons will penetrate to the spark chamber along paths that take them through corridors and burial chambers. The computer will thus remember that certain well-defined...
After patiently accumulating the muon data for two months-the time necessary to get statistically valid readings-the computer will spew it all out into a cathode-ray oscilloscope. On the screen of the oscilloscope, the data will be converted into images resembling X-ray plates, one for each face of the pyramid. Chambers and corridors within the pyramid will show up as dark areas on one or more of the faces-defined by the surplus of recorded muons that penetrated these areas...
...pinpoint their location, the scientists will move the spark chamber 35 feet away to another point within the pyramid and repeat the muon-recording process. The resulting images, combined stereoscopically with the originals, will precisely locate the hidden chambers...