2600 B.C. Lean Manufacturing (Tech Trends Feature)  1 Jul, 2007
By: Kenneth Wong  French architect Houdin turns the pyramid
theory inside out.  On January 2, 1999, a retired French
engineer in Paris was watching a television program about the
construction of the Great Pyramids. He wasn't satisfied with the
hypotheses presented by the show. They just didn't pass muster,
he thought.  Suddenly he felt he'd stumbled on the answer to one
of the greatest archeological riddles. In a burst of excitement,
he made a transatlantic phone call to his son, an architect
living in New York.  "If I were to build a pyramid, I'd build it
from the inside," he told his son. He asked his son if this
theory could be examined, tested and, perhaps, proved with 3D
computer models.  "I couldn't say no," said Jean-Pierre Houdin,
the son, reflecting on the phone call eight years later,
"because he's my dad."  But the more he explored the inside-out
theory, the more seductive it became. The project eventually
attracted the attention of Da