Note: I have removed a small version of a photograph copied from Colin Berry’s blog at his request. Here is a link to it if you want to see it.
Colin Berry, in a posting “Heating linen cannot give a superficial coloration” says Dr. Paolo Di Lazzaro. Oh yes it can – and here’s the evidence… writes":
OH YES IT CAN!
Here, hot from the presses (literally!) is the result of the first experiment, performed yesterday, using my new clip-on oven thermometer.
It was carried out under the scrupulously-controlled experimental conditions only possible in the “British Shroud of Turin Advanced Physical and Chemical Research Institute” (which others know more simply as “Colin’s Kitchen”).
What am I missing? Why does he say an image he creates with a heated object is superficial? He writes:
Why then did the linen under the hot metal not char like the strip that was kept in the oven? Why is the image so superficial?
How does he know it is superficial? Because there is no char? Does the “British Shroud of Turin Advanced Physical and Chemical Research Institute” have a microscope? Is he just guessing?
What is Colin Berry talking about when he uses the word superficial?
Seems as if he means “I do science like Walter McCrone. If it looks superficial, then it is superficial. No microscopic examination necessary. Yet we know the Shroud image is only on one side of the linen cell wall on the topmost fibers.
What in the world is Colin thinking? Where are his measurements? Does he even know what superficiality means?
There are several aspect of the superficiality of the image that cannot be ignored. The first three are absolute superficiality characteristics of the image. The last three are likely consequences of that superficiality.
1. The image does not penetrate below the topmost two or three fibrils of the yarn
2. The discoloration of the fibrils themselves, presumably from dehydration and oxidation, is between 200 and 600 nanometers thick (billionths of a meter).
3. The medulla of the fiber is clear in both image and non-image fibrils
4. The image can be removed from a fibril with adhesive tape.
5. The image doesn’t fluoresce in UV light.
6. The halftone effect evident in the image is from striated color patterns.
Paulette; please let’s not quibble about the details, Colin Berry has MANAGED to scourch linen here…. ;-)
R
And a monumental scorching at that, Ron. :o)