A reader writes:
I was floored. Colin Berry actually wrote, “Colin, c’est moi, is doing his best to provide the evidence, and at the same time fill in on the background detail of the Scorch Hypothesis. Btw: I believe it now deserves to be called a theory, but I’m trying to avoid being too confrontational right now).”
I guess you can do that if you ignore or alter facts. However, the Drs. Jackson, Rogers, Di Lazzaro and Heimburger, all independently at different times, have adequately shown that such a
theory,hypothesis, wild-ass-guess is wrong by pointing out that heat cannot form a physically superficial discoloration of linen fibers.
Note 1: The picture shown is a phase contrast microscopic view of an image fiber provided by Ray Rogers. It demonstrates the superficiality of the image on the fibers that should not be confused with what Colin Berry says is superficiality.
Note 2: Colin has some photographs that he claims support his “theory.” He does not want me to show them to you on this blog. (It boggles the mind. It would be like YouTube telling bloggers not to imbed a video but only to link to it.) Consequently, I have provided, under fair-use provisions, his caption text. You can click on each of the captions to see the pictures.
- Step 1: tease a single thread from the edge of a linen sheet
- Step 2: lay the thread on top of a sheet of linen with a floor cloth or similar as underlay, then find yourself a small metal object to serve as template – I used a pencil sharpener.
- Step 3: Heat the template, then serially “brand” the single thread and the underlying linen, as shown above.
- Step 4: place treated thread under hand lens. Illuminate well. Locate scorched regions. Then rotate thread through 180 degrees. Is there scorching on the opposite side? If yes, then a scorch is not superficial at the level of the thread. If no, as I have consistently found, then YES, a scorch IS or CAN BE superficial at the level of the individual thread.
Note to Colin: If you are going to propose a “theory” for how the image was created, it is important that the “theory” be capable of reproducing all of the image characteristics, not just those you choose and not just according to your own altered criteria. Paulette summarized a few of these criteria nicely. The first three define superficiality nicely. The others are significant as well and I very much doubt that your “theory” matches any of them:
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.
BTW: Here is a link to the quoted text on Colin’s site.
One has to wonder why he persists.