Lets Talk About Things Science Cannot Explain

[Justin Swanton]

I got rather absorbed in looking at Turin Shroud blogs last night, and one in particular seemed quite interesting - namely that it was created by heating a metal statue of Jesus and then scorching it in a linen in a sand or snow box. i.e. they pressed the cold statue into a box of sand covered by a linen, then heated it up and pressed it down in the indentation. Repeat procedure on other side and at some point add real blood to make Christ's 'wounds'.

I've come across this theory. The big problem with it is the superficial nature of the discolouration on shroud cloth. The image is created by a degradation of the cellulose of the first few nanometres of the upper fibrils of the linen fibres. If a cloth was heated up as described, the heat would penetrate into the cloth, creating a charred effect much deeper than what we observe.

Charring of some kind is the best explanation for the degradation of the cellulose. But it would require a heat source equivalent to a laser firing a light beam of several billion watts power for only a billionth of a second or so. This would be enough to discolour the cloth without the heat penetrating deeper into the fibres.

To put the power requirements for such a laser into perspective, the city of San Francisco uses 6,5 gigawatts/hour of electricity, roughly equivalent to what the shroud laser would need. Another comparison is the power of the Hiroshima bomb: 17 gigawats, about three to four times the energy output needed to produce the shroud image.

 

[mosaix]

Thanks but not really interested, VB.

I put shroud belief in the same category as the moon landing 'hoax' - some people will never be convinced and I've got better things to do with my time than convince them otherwise. Most of the time anyway.

Although, on second thoughts, the science behind its creation may be interesting - No. Must resist, must resist.

 

[Justin Swanton]

You mean....people still think the moon is real?

I put shroud belief in the same category as the moon landing 'hoax' - some people will never be convinced and I've got better things to do with my time than convince them otherwise. Most of the time anyway.

What moon landing?

 

[Cathbad]

I put shroud belief in the same category as the moon landing 'hoax' - some people will never be convinced and I've got better things to do with my time than convince them otherwise.

You know, I'd always put "moon landing hoax" theorists in a lump with most conspiracy theories - Crazy.

And then NASA rocked my belief - I think about 5 or 6 years ago. They were talking about going back to the moon. The NASA Scientist doing the talking made a very odd statement - he said, "First, we'll have to develop the technology."

WTH?

 

[Justin Swanton]

And then NASA rocked my belief - I think about 5 or 6 years ago. They were talking about going back to the moon. The NASA Scientist doing the talking made a very odd statement - he said, "First, we'll have to develop the technology."

I remember seeing that. I think he means supplying sufficient protection against Cosmic radiation and solar flares for people who spend a long time on the lunar surface. The astronauts who went to the moon actually took a pretty big risk: a single major solar flare coming their way could have killed them. Crews in low Earth orbit are protected by the Earth's magnetic field so don't have this problem. Sure as heck you don't want to spend any appreciable time in the Van Allen belts.

 

[JunkMonkey]

True. If you put that image under a VP8 you'll get some recognisable relief. But notice that it's a flat object with a little bas-relief on it, i.e there's not much difference between the uppermost and lowermost parts. The image on the shroud has real depth. How would one take a statue, say, and get an image like the one above?

My original point was that an artist - especially a mediaeval artist - who draws or paints an image cannot create something that looks like a 2D representation of a human figure but still has the 3D characteristic that can be picked up by a VP8. You cannot do it with a camera either - lighting doesn't work that way.

Sorry but to me the image you posted (the 'VP8 image of the shroud') shows very little real depth. It looks just like my coin would. A relief. And I suspect - but have no proof - it is an image which is a compromise. The hight/depth to light/dark values being adjusted to reach maximum readability before gross distortions come in. Nothing wrong with that. If you want to get the maximum readability out of an object you have to make decisions and filter the data.

And don't go dissing medieval artists. They were many amazingly beautiful things made by skilled intelligent craftsmen and artists during the middle ages. The Hollywood/Monty Python image that presents medieval Europe populated by mud-bedraggled louts is far from accurate. They were as smart, and skilled, and infinitely curious, and driven by the same weird desires as we are. They were people.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I've come across this theory. The big problem with it is the superficial nature of the discolouration on shroud cloth. The image is created by a degradation of the cellulose of the first few nanometres of the upper fibrils of the linen fibres. If a cloth was heated up as described, the heat would penetrate into the cloth, creating a charred effect much deeper than what we observe.

Charring of some kind is the best explanation for the degradation of the cellulose. But it would require a heat source equivalent to a laser firing a light beam of several billion watts power for only a billionth of a second or so. This would be enough to discolour the cloth without the heat penetrating deeper into the fibres.

To put the power requirements for such a laser into perspective, the city of San Francisco uses 6,5 gigawatts/hour of electricity, roughly equivalent to what the shroud laser would need.

Firstly you're being a bit disingenuous , 'a few nanometres' of discolouration you mention is by all the literature that I've come across actually 200 nanometres (approximately the size of the primary wall of a linen fibres I believe - although I must point out it can't be known that it is always 200 nanometres across the whole shroud - it may be shallower in some places, deeper in others). That number is actually a factor of a hundred more than you've stated. Believe me - as a physicist - that's a significant difference .

I think also I have a slight problem with your analogy. Using the numbers you've given it seems to me that your saying that only a few Joules of energy (i.e. several billion watts times a billionth of a second) are required to be transferred in the process. Now if these are your assumptions - yes, the laser analogy seems reasonable. But wait, why does the charring process have to take a billionth of a second? If the charring process took a second, say, then the power of the heat source becomes a mere 2-3 Watts! Clearly something a heated statue could emit. And no need to take the power output of San Francisco.

Here's an easy experiment - take an clothes iron and turn it on full, tap it on a piece of linen . Does it instantly char - even if you hold it there for a second? No (or probably not!). Repeat but press the iron down for longer moments of time. At some point a prolonged pressing will start to scorch the linen. Remember there are all sort of things happening - chiefly I would imagine volatile elements, such as water in the material, beginning the process of evaporating when the iron is pressed (and taking away heat energy that might have gone into damaging the fibres). Note also that a layer of steam could act as a barrier for further penetration of heat deeper into the material. (But I am no scorch scientist so that is purely a guess )

So it seems to me - given that you can easily control all elements of the press, the temperature of the statue, the time and strength of the press, it is possible to get a light scorching that does get to the 'required depth'. Further experiments do seem to back up that it is quite possible to just scorch a single cell layer leaving linen untouched by the heat below this layer. That it can be done in a relatively simple homemade experiment suggests to me it might be done, albeit with more skill - with a bigger statue.

So if this really was the way that the shroud was created, either there was a great deal of experimentation to get the 'right' temperature, or perhaps artisans could, as one of the proponents argued, arranged a series of sand boxes beforehand and just press the statue 'along the line' - every press would mean that the statue would be getting cooler all the time. The scorching would therefore get fainter along the line - with the added bonus that they would get a series of relics at the same time! Perhaps the first presses were so obviously scorched linen so they were not used, and when the scorch became too faint the image of Christ would of course not be seen...

Anyway I am not fanatically arguing for this - other than it seems a neat and doable method that explains a great deal about the shroud.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I put shroud belief in the same category as the moon landing 'hoax' - some people will never be convinced and I've got better things to do with my time than convince them otherwise. Most of the time anyway.

By far the best 'fruit loop' book I ever bought on the subject of the moon was the marvellously titled Who built the Moon? (If you don't believe me, it's on Amazon)

Their answer is...interesting

 

[Justin Swanton]

By far the best 'fruit loop' book I ever bought on the subject of the moon was the marvellously titled Who built the Moon? (If you don't believe me, it's on Amazon)

Their answer is...interesting

Humans from the future so life could evolve, humans develop and create time machines to go back in the past and make the moon so life could evolve....

Now why didn't Clarke think of that?

 

[Brian G Turner]

For more on the Turin Shroud, the Wikipedia page has a good deal of info, not least the various scientific theories - none of which yet have a general consensus:

Shroud of Turin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[BAYLOR]

Humans from the future so life could evolve, humans develop and create time machines to go back in the past and make the moon so life could evolve....

Now why didn't Clarke think of that?

Because writers no matter how talented, can't think of everything .

 

[Justin Swanton]

Firstly you're being a bit disingenuous , 'a few nanometres' of discolouration you mention is by all the literature that I've come across actually 200 nanometres (approximately the size of the primary wall of a linen fibres I believe - although I must point out it can't be known that it is always 200 nanometres across the whole shroud - it may be shallower in some places, deeper in others). That number is actually a factor of a hundred more than you've stated. Believe me - as a physicist - that's a significant difference .

I think also I have a slight problem with your analogy. Using the numbers you've given it seems to me that your saying that only a few Joules of energy (i.e. several billion watts times a billionth of a second) are required to be transferred in the process. Now if these are your assumptions - yes, the laser analogy seems reasonable. But wait, why does the charring process have to take a billionth of a second? If the charring process took a second, say, then the power of the heat source becomes a mere 2-3 Watts! Clearly something a heated statue could emit. And no need to take the power output of San Francisco.

Here's an easy experiment - take an clothes iron and turn it on full, tap it on a piece of linen . Does it instantly char - even if you hold it there for a second? No (or probably not!). Repeat but press the iron down for longer moments of time. At some point a prolonged pressing will start to scorch the linen. Remember there are all sort of things happening - chiefly I would imagine volatile elements, such as water in the material, beginning the process of evaporating when the iron is pressed (and taking away heat energy that might have gone into damaging the fibres). Note also that a layer of steam could act as a barrier for further penetration of heat deeper into the material. (But I am no scorch scientist so that is purely a guess )

So it seems to me - given that you can easily control all elements of the press, the temperature of the statue, the time and strength of the press, it is possible to get a light scorching that does get to the 'required depth'. Further experiments do seem to back up that it is quite possible to just scorch a single cell layer leaving linen untouched by the heat below this layer. That it can be done in a relatively simple homemade experiment suggests to me it might be done, albeit with more skill - with a bigger statue.

So if this really was the way that the shroud was created, either there was a great deal of experimentation to get the 'right' temperature, or perhaps artisans could, as one of the proponents argued, arranged a series of sand boxes beforehand and just press the statue 'along the line' - every press would mean that the statue would be getting cooler all the time. The scorching would therefore get fainter along the line - with the added bonus that they would get a series of relics at the same time! Perhaps the first presses were so obviously scorched linen so they were not used, and when the scorch became too faint the image of Christ would of course not be seen...

Anyway I am not fanatically arguing for this - other than it seems a neat and doable method that explains a great deal about the shroud.

OK, I broke my own rule and repeated the findings of an authority I trusted (that Swiss outfit doing laser tests) without first reading up on the background data that led to his conclusion. Give me a little time - I get back on the hot statue theory (just obliged to earn a living which eats into time and energy).

The Wiki entry on the topic is interesting:

Another hypothesis suggests that the Shroud may have been formed using a bas-relief sculpture. Researcher Jacques di Costanzo, noting that the Shroud image seems to have a three-dimensional quality, suggested that perhaps the image was formed using an actual three-dimensional object, such as a sculpture. While wrapping a cloth around a life-sized statue would result in a distorted image, placing a cloth over a bas-relief would result in an image like the one seen on the shroud. To demonstrate the plausibility of his hypothesis, Costanzo constructed a bas-relief of a Jesus-like face and draped wet linen over the bas-relief. After the linen dried, he dabbed it with a mixture of ferric oxide and gelatine. The result was an image similar to that of the Shroud. The imprinted image turned out to be wash-resistant, impervious to temperatures of 250 °C (482 °F) and was undamaged by exposure to a range of harsh chemicals, including bisulphite which, without the gelatine, would normally have degraded ferric oxide to the compound ferrous oxide.[176] Similar results have been obtained by Nickell.
​

[problem - no trace of ferric oxide or any chemical cause for the image has been found on the image area of the shroud]

Instead of painting, it has been suggested that the bas-relief could also be heated and used to scorch an image onto the cloth. However researcher Thibault Heimburger performed some experiments with the scorching of linen, and found that a scorch mark is only produced by direct contact with the hot object – thus producing an all-or-nothing discoloration with no graduation of color as is found in the shroud.[177]

According to Fanti and Moroni, after comparing the histograms of 256 different grey levels, it was found that the image obtained with a bas-relief has grey values included between 60 and 256 levels, but it is much contrasted with wide areas of white saturation (levels included between 245 and 256) and lacks of intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200). The face image on the Shroud instead has grey tonalities that vary in the same values field (between 60 and 256), but the white saturation is much less marked and the histogram is practically flat in correspondence of the intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200).[175]​

 

[Venusian Broon]

Give me a little time - I get back on the hot statue theory (just obliged to earn a living which eats into time and energy).

Don't worry about it - I need to spend a lot of my time on draft 5 as well as a number of other projects

You got me interested for a few hours, but I'm not in any position to really work out from the internet and the clamour of many voices, saying many things, the mystery of the Turin Shroud!!!

What is your favoured hypothesis for it?

 

[JunkMonkey]

Instead of painting, it has been suggested that the bas-relief could also be heated and used to scorch an image onto the cloth.
​

Which is exactly what it looks like.

However researcher Thibault Heimburger performed some experiments with the scorching of linen, and found that a scorch mark is only produced by direct contact with the hot object – thus producing an all-or-nothing discoloration with no graduation of color as is found in the shroud.[177]

According to Fanti and Moroni, after comparing the histograms of 256 different grey levels, it was found that the image obtained with a bas-relief has grey values included between 60 and 256 levels, but it is much contrasted with wide areas of white saturation (levels included between 245 and 256) and lacks of intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200). The face image on the Shroud instead has grey tonalities that vary in the same values field (between 60 and 256), but the white saturation is much less marked and the histogram is practically flat in correspondence of the intermediate grey levels (levels included between 160 and 200).[175]

A. (I presume) Thibault Heimburger is a 'researcher'* , not a creative artist with years of experience at forging religious iconography (though the two are not incompatible.)
B. His attempt at making a figurative representation is very new. Leave it 300 years and see how it looks. Artefacts age. Anyone who has ever worked in the antiques business will tell you that age is a great modifier.



*Whatever that means. An, albeit, brief Google search for "Thibault Heimburger" brings up a lot of links to Turin Shroud related sites - and not a lot else. And adding the filter "-turin" brings up a lot of Turin Shroud related sites - and links to a (General Practitioner) doctor who may or may not be the same person...

 

[Justin Swanton]

Don't worry about it - I need to spend a lot of my time on draft 5 as well as a number of other projects

You got me interested for a few hours, but I'm not in any position to really work out from the internet and the clamour of many voices, saying many things, the mystery of the Turin Shroud!!!

What is your favoured hypothesis for it?

Taking everything into account: the anatomical perfection, impossible for a statue from the middle ages, the details of the wounds - scourge marks that correspond to a Roman flagrum, the pollen grains that show the shroud spent considerable time in Anatolia and Palestine, the details that correspond to an authentic crucifixion (how would a mediaeval forger have known about that?), and so on, I'm personally convinced of its authenticity, i.e. it is the cloth that wrapped Christ's body in the tomb.

But how exactly was the image was formed? The nearest approach seems to be a burst of radiation from the body, but it's not as simple as that. Light travelling radially from a human body (like a light bulb) or unidirectionally (like a laser) would not form an image, just a darker blur or at best a silhouette. Furthermore, there is not actually an even gradation from dark to light in the image (I'm trusting an authority on this - can check up), just a lot of tiny dots of darkened fibril which are more numerous in darker areas and more spread out in lighter ones. A bit like halftone screens used in printing to give the illusion of different shades of grey. Presuming light or some kind of radiation formed the image, it was behaving in a very peculiar way. Why it behaved in that way? No idea.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Taking everything into account: the anatomical perfection, impossible for a statue from the middle ages,

Have you ever looked at any sculptures from the medieval era? Not all of them were stylised lumps. People have been making anatomically perfect sculptures since before Christ. Any decent forger would have known not to base his fake on a rubbish image. Again the implication that people of the medieval period were untutored simpletons. They may have been ignorant but they were not stupid.

...the details that correspond to an authentic crucifixion (how would a mediaeval forger have known about that?),

How do you know about that? You read it somewhere. So did he.

and so on, I'm personally convinced of its authenticity, i.e. it is the cloth that wrapped Christ's body in the tomb.

No I don't think you are convinced at all - I think you have faith it is. And there's no point in gainsaying faith. It's a total waste of time. So I concede. The Shroud of Turin is one of those thing science cannot explain. Science can explain all sorts of things but if no-one listens to the explanation or possible alternative explanations, then there's no point is there? Faith wins every time.

 

[Cathbad]

Science can explain all sorts of things but if no-one listens to the explanation or possible alternative explanations, then there's no point is there? Faith wins every time.

That's the problem - not with religion, but with its practitioners.

The Christin religion can survive truth, even when that truth is discovered by science. Which is why I've always been baffled by many Christian's resistance to science.

 

[Brian G Turner]

And...a friendly reminder that we don't discuss religion on chrons. Time for this discussion to move on, I think.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Fine by me. I know when I'm flogging a dead horse.

 

[Cathbad]

And...a friendly reminder that we don't discuss religion on chrons. Time for this discussion to move on, I think.

oops. sowwy.