It is one of Colin Berry’s better posting, perhaps his best. For all of us, even the historians and theologians and philosophers among us, there is much that we can learn about the linen fibers here; “[at]t the risk of boring the pants off everyone,” he realizes. Even so, read Time maybe to re-think the received wisdom about the entire Shroud image being “highly superficial”?
You won’t be sorry. Okay read a bit here, below, before clicking over:
But let’s not forget one thing. The secondary cell wall is not 100% cellulose. As I pointed out in the last posting but one, the SCW is reckoned to contain non-cellulosic polysaccharides (NCPs) as well (some 15% of total polysaccharides) which are hemicelluloses, with a sizeable galactan content. Hemicellulose may sound similar to cellulose but is entirely different, having much less crystallinity, and lacking therefore the extraordinary physical strength and chemical resistance of pure cellulose. Being non-crystalline, and accompanied by pentose sugars, the hemicelluloses of the SCW (secondary cell wall) , AS WELL AS THE PCW , may well be susceptible to scorching by conducted heat, weakening the fibrils, making them more prone to fracture across their width – not just separate longitudinally. Maybe that scorching would not be highly visible, and perhaps easy to overlook, if it were to be interspersed with white cellulose fibrils. Rough-and-ready microscopy may not tell the whole story, especially on account of refraction artefacts etc. Oh, and let’s not forget the nodes either (aka dislocations) of which there are reckoned to be hundreds per fibre cell. They too have been described as weak points in the flax and linen fibre.
Take away message? At the risk of boring the pants off everyone with the same old refrain, I for one shan’t be abandoning the scorch hypothesis any time soon. . . .
Yes, yes; read past this. We already know, if not from the title of his blog, that he comes at this with worldview bias. We do too, of course. We’re just not so blatantly biased – some of us that is.
. . . It’s got too much going for it. Where there still exist unexplained discrepancies between model scorches and the TS image, e.g. colour distribution, fluorescence etc, they may well be due either to differences in the scorching methodology (there being numerous ways of ‘ringing the changes’) or of age-related effects and/or ‘traumas’ experienced by the Shroud in its history (1532 fire etc).
Here is a money quote:
Enough of excuses: Thibault got it right on this occasion. But that’s no reason for the entire Shroudosphere to run away with the idea that Thibault is right about everything all the time. For example. I don’t think he was right about his rejection of the scorching hypothesis on the grounds that a heated bas-relief template must always produce a scorched-on image with “excessive contrast”, not when his unsubtle choice of template virtually guaranteed that result! . . .
But then there is this, which is part of the same paragraph:
. . . If folk are wondering what on earth I am talking about, it’s because another site that shall remain nameless chose to ignore completely my 3 part-riposte to Thibault’s assault on the scorch hypothesis, while continuing to this day to give his pdf prominence at the top right hand corner of its Home Page.
I always run a risk with Colin. The other “site that shall remain nameless” (and without a link) that he refers to is mine. If I post someone else’s paper, it is because it was sent to me. (Colin, send me a good paper. I might post it.) And if I quote from Colin’s site I am accused of pirating his material – actually just the right amount so that people won’t follow the link I provide to his site (yes, go read his comments) – and if I ignore him or post too little I instead have sinned similarly. Why am I reminded of the three bears: the porridge is too hot or the porridge is too cold. I am, I think he thinks, the main reason he doesn’t get more visitors and comments on his site.
Colin, I rather imagine, would that I simply said, he has a lovely post like a lovely pot of tea in a cozy, with clotted cream and crumpets, so go read it. In this case, he does so go read it.
When is a scorch a scorch?
I am beginning to think that the whole issue of a “scorch” is a tempest in a Oxonian tea pot. If the intent is to prove that that the Shroud could have been faked by a “scorch”, so what?
Some hypothesize that the image was caused by a burst of energy or light. An Italian scientist claims to have come closer than anyone else through the use of a laser process. Essentially, a light scorch.
Let me introduce you to a former neighbor of mine in Riverdale, the late Martin Tytell. Martin was a questioned document examiner and a forensic expert on typewriters. He was retained by the defense team of Alger Hiss to demonstrate that the stolen cables from the State Department that were retyped by his wife on an Woodstock typewriter could have been faked because it was possible to duplicate the attributes of the Underwood. The claim was the FBI framed Hiss by so doing. By God he did it, although it took two years and the Courts appear disinterested in the results of his labor. Because something can be forged, it doesn’t mean that the thing has been forged. In the case of the Shroud, there is yet no evidence of how the Shroud in toto could have been forged.
Perhaps Collin Berry should adjust his goals. If his intent is to prove the Shroud is a fake because he can forge a copy, he has failed miserably. IF his intent to to come-up with a process explaining how the image was made, he should keep on, keeping on. There are many in the Shroud world who are ready to accept a “natural” explanation of the image. But then we arrive at a question: what is natural?
No one as yet come with in a country mile of duplicating the Shroud image by a natural process. We can get copies made to day that imitate he Shroud but they are copies of the Shroud. The creation process of the image remains a mystery. No one has produced an original image from scratch that duplicates the Shroud.
I think there is a corollary of sorts to Occam’s Razor. Exceptional events require exceptional explanations. The Shroud image is an exceptional event. All the frustrated labor that has gone into attempts to create an “original” duplicate have been in vain. By original duplicate I mean a double image of the body of a crucified man with his wounds in exquisite detail created with a maximum of 48 hours that is not a copy of the Shroud itself. Hasn’t been done yet.
If you have to ask me why 48 hours, the answer is simple. The forensic pathologists who have reviewed in detail the Shroud have concluded that it shows evidence of rigor mortis and no evidence of putrefaction. Rigor mortis freezes the muscles soon after death but releases normally in 48 hours. Similarly, putrefaction begins to exude all kinds of nasty stuff after 48 hours.
Strange coincidence: all four Gospels have Mary Magdalene discovering the empty tomb on Sunday morning at day break – roughly 6:00 AM, approximately 39 hours after Christ expired on the cross.
I believe that mystery of the image will be finally be resolved, if ever, by reference to a process on the quantum level – the laser, for example, being essential a quantum mechanical application.
Is that way out? How about this quotation from a well known, screwball publication (now known as Bloomberg Business Week.)
“Developing quantum theory was ‘the crowning intellectual achievement of the last century,’ says California Institute of Technology physicist John Preskill. It’s the underlying principle for many of today’s devices, from lasers to magnetic resonance imaging machines. And these may prove to be just the low-hanging fruit. Many scientists foresee revolutionary technologies based on the truly strange properties of the quantum world.”
Business Week, March 15, 2004
Cited in: Rosenblum, Bruce; Kutter, Fred (2011-07-01). Quantum Enigma : Physics Encounters Consciousness (Kindle Locations 1862-1866). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
TYPO: I refer to the Hiss typewriter as an “Underwood” once. It was a Woodstock.”
Good comment, John.
As a newish but unashamedly prolific commenter on both sites myself, I have been treating the scorch hypothesis more as way in to a closer understanding of the nature of linen degradation than as an obvious solution to the image formation problem. I have experimented at length with UV fluorescence, and am currently working on superficiality. I have dabbled in different possible coatings, and different possible reactants with them such as ammonia and urea. The 3D quality of the image is a more long term goal, as my software is currently not up to it.
Needless to say I have not made a shroud – I haven’t even made a face – but I have begun to understand the processes required to do so, and understood that very few people, including the sainted Ray Rogers, have managed to discolour linen at all, with anything, without also having to heat it up to temperatures that can be interpreted as scorching.
I’m afraid I will not be exploring the quantum possibilities of the shroud. I have a school laboratory, a UV light and a microscope, but not a Large Hadron Collider. Not even a Small Hadron Collider, in fact. Sadly I suspect current speculation about quantum processes forming the image can scarcely be termed even a hypothesis. As the underlying principle for the whole of physics, it is, of course, behind lasers and MIR machines, but also candles, biscuits and butterflies, all of which were developed without any reference to their underlying principles.
Back to the text. We should not get hung up on the 48 hours thing. If the shroud image was not created by a decomposing body, then there is no need for it to have taken any particular length of time. And just because all four Gospels agree on something is not of itself proof that it actually happened.
Back to my microscope…
Colin has now a microscope.
Why does he not write a paper about his observations at fabric, thread and fiber level?