PRESIDENCY

SCHOOL
KASTURINAGAR

ACADEMIC YEAR: 2022-2023

PHYSICS – INVESTIGATORY PROJECT

REGISTER NUMBER:

NAME : HARITHA A S

CLASS : XII B

SUBJECT : PHYSICS

CODE :
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 Presidency School, Kasturinagar
CA Site 7P1A 2nd A Main, 3rd A Cross Rd, East of
NGEF Layout, Kasturi Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka
560043

CERTIFICATE
This project entitled” INFRARED LIGHT IN ARCHAELOGY " , is
the investigatory project in Physics(042), successfully
completed by Master/Miss Haritha A S, student of class-XII,
Presidency School Kasturinagar Bangalore, with AISSCE Roll
No. _____________________ under the supervision of
Ms.Rekha (PGT Physics) for the partial fulfilment of
requirements for the course completion in pursuance of

Teacher-incharge Principal

Practical Examiner School Stamp

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 .

INDEX
Certificate
Acknowledgement
Certificate
Introduction
Aim
Understanding mechanism using case
study
-Damaged(dead sea scrolls)
-Erased(Archimedes palimpsest)
Infrared waves in forensic
science(mechanism)
Conclusion and understanding
Bibliography
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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Apart from the efforts of me, the success of any project
depends largely on the encouragement and guidelines of
many others. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to
the people who have been instrumental in the successful
completion of this project.
I express deep sense of gratitude to almighty God for giving
me strength for the successful completion of the project. I
express my heartfelt gratitude to my parents for constant
encouragement while carrying out this project. I gratefully
acknowledge the contribution of the individuals who
contributed in bringing this project up to this level, who
continue to look after me despite my flaws, I express my deep
sense of gratitude to the luminary The
Principal, Dr Soya Nambiar who has been continuously
motivating and extending her helping hand to us. My sincere
thanks to Ms. Rekha, Teacher In- charge, A guide and mentor
who critically reviewed my project and helped in solving each
and every
problem, occurred during implementation of the project .The
guidance and support received from all the members who
contributed to this project. I am grateful for the constant
support and help.

INTRODUCTION

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Infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR)
with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is
therefore invisible to the human eye. As a form of
electromagnetic radiation, IR propagates energy and
momentum, with properties corresponding to both those
of a wave and of a particle. Infrared radiation is
popularly known as "heat radiation",[ but light and
electromagnetic waves of any frequency will heat
surfaces that absorb them. Infrared light from the Sun
accounts for 49%[27] of the heating of Earth, with the
rest being caused by visible light that is absorbed then
re-radiated at longer wavelengths. There are numerous
applications of infrared waves:
NIGHT VISION
Infrared is used in night vision equipment when there is
insufficient visible light to see. Night vision devices
operate through a process involving the conversion of
ambient light photons into electrons that are then
amplified by a chemical and electrical process and then
converted back into visible light.

TRACKING

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Infrared tracking, also known as infrared homing,
refers to a passive missile guidance system, which
uses the emission from a target of electromagnetic
radiation in the infrared part of the spectrum to
track it. Missiles that use infrared seeking are often
referred to as "heat-seekers”.
Infrared radiations are also used in fields like
METEROLOGY,CLIMATOLOGY and
ASTRONOMY.

AIM

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Our main focus with this project is to explore the
use of infrared radiation to read and recover
ancient scriptures and texts and the mechanism
behind it.

UNDERSTANDING THE MECHANISM VIA A

CASE STUDY

DAMAGED MANUSCRIPTS(The dead sea scrolls)

Before using infrared waves. After using

infrared waves

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, in

caves at Qumran near the Dead Sea. Figure 1 is a

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section of the so-called “Temple Scroll,” which
was in very good condition when it was first
found, but it was later damaged by expo-
sure to humidity. It was hidden under floor boards
to pre-vent its discovery by the authorities.
In the top image parchment is darkened from
exposure to water, making the text characters hard
to read. We found that a simple image
processing algorithm applied to a scan of the
photograph revealed additional characters that can
be seen in the lower image in that figure
The processing method used was to highly stretch
the contrast of the difference between the red and
green separations of the colour image. The
difference image had a lower dynamic range than
either of the two individual images and was
centred roughly around zero. A Gaussian function
was fit to the histogram by measuring the mean
and standard deviation of the image. The
difference data was then linearly stretched
to black and white from ±3 standard deviations
around the mean, clipping any values outside of
that region. A blue-yellow colour map was used
display the final result. A analysis of the characters
and the shape of the dead sea scroll showed this

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processing had revealed characters on a piece of
the parchment from a neighbouring region of the
scroll that is stuck to the back surface. This simple
image processing technique made these characters
visible through the front side of the parchment
where they could be read for
the first time . Although taking the difference of
the red and green separa-tions worked well for this
example, the mechanism behind the method is still
not clear to the authors. The best explana-tion that
we can determine is that the red separation may
have recorded some infrared information, which as
described in the next section, would make
characters more visible in a damaged region of the
parchment. fragment taken under incandescent
light through a near infra-red filter with a pass-
band of width Δλ ∼ 200nm, centred around λ ∼
800nm. The darkened parchment reflects light at
this wavelength and appears much lighter than the
carbon-based letters. The resulting contrast makes
the letters easy to read. The greyscale image was
then linearly stretched by 3 standard deviations
around the mean.

ERASED MANUSCRIPTS(Archimedes palimpsest)

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The Archimedes Palimpsest [4] includes parts of
seven works of Archimedes that were copied a
thousand years ago. Approximately two hundred
years later
a monastery disbound the book, erased the pages
and wrote a Euchologion prayer book over it. To
extract the most information possible, the entire
Archimedes Palimpsest has been imaged in 12
wavelength bands from the ultraviolet, through the
visible and into the near infrared, i.e. in bands of
width Δλ ∼ 25nm from 365nm

pg.
through 910nm. By putting both images into
different colour separations, a visual comparison is
being made between the two images. In order to
make a reasonable comparison that emphasizes the
text and not the parchment, the average grey levels
need to be adjusted so that they have similar
values. This is done with a spatially varying linear
stretch, similar to the one described earlier, but
applied over a small window that slides over the
image.

USE IN FORENSIC SCIENCE

With infrared light, forensic investigators can tell
you whether a document is a forgery or whether
paper currency is counterfeit. They can take a
paint chip and tell you the make, model, and age of
a car.it is also used to solve high profile cases to
recover tampered evidence.

MECHANISM & RESEARCH ON IR IN

FORENSIC SCIENCE
IR forensics is derived from the fact that all
molecules, because of the nonstop motion of their
atoms, vibrate at a characteristic frequency which
falls within the infrared spectrum. When an

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individual molecule is struck by an infrared photon
that matches its vibrational frequency it will
resonate, and this resonance, detected through a
variety of spectroscopic techniques, can be used to
precisely identify the molecule, much like a
fingerprint can be used to identify an individual
person.

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CONCLUSION AND UNDERSTANDING

Technology and science has come a far way and

through these advanced technologies we can better
recover understand our erased history. This project
deals with the relation of the fields of history,
physics and molecule studies. Advanced
technologies using infrared waves like Pseudo
colour imagining and spectroscopic techniques
help us in various fields of research . These
technologies have taken us so far that now we can
even read a book without opening it !

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
www.wikepedia.com
www.researchgate.com
www.intechopen.com
www.science.org
BOOK: The temple scroll: reconstructing an ancient
document.

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