or maybe because you want to read it again
Newly posted by Barrie Schwortz on the STERA Inc. Facebook page:
In Case You Missed It… This was the first paper added to the website in our very first update on April 6, 1996. As I wrote at the time: "Written by Isabel Piczek, noted monumental artist, theoretical physicist and Shroud researcher, this paper asks one of the most important, yet controversial questions about the Shroud one can ask, and answers it as only an artist can. This is a condensed version of the paper Isabel presented at the Rome International Symposium in 1993 and is presented here with color illustrations for the first time publicly. Immediately following the paper is a link to the McCrone Institute Shroud Page, where you can read the opposing point of view by noted microscopist Walter McCrone."
Can anyone anywhere explain why Isobel Piczec is referred to as a physicist?
So far I know she actually is a particle physicist, as well as artist.
That’s right, and she’s one of the oldtimers.
There are many references to Dame Piczek as a particle physicist, a theoretical physicist and a Hungarian trained physicist. Then there is this nice but far too short biography from the Miner Messenger, a publication of the alumni, friends, and parents of Bishop Manogue Catholic High School in Reno, Nevada. I wish I knew more.
Chapel Stained Glass Artists Have International Reputation
Bishop Manogue has been graced with the works of remarkable and
internationally famous artists, the sisters Isabel and Edith Piczek. Both sisters were born in Hungary. They were friends of Sister Ida, Foundress of the Sacred Heart Sisters who provided years of ministry in the Diocese of Reno. Isabel, our principal contact, won a national competition for painting at a very early age, and at thirteen she decorated her first church with stained
glass. Young Isabel, a Catholic, got herself into religious conflict with the communist government of Hungary and had to flee her country, accompanied by Edith, her sister and colleague.
Almost immediately after her arrival in Rome, she won the International Grand Award for Painting and another competition to paint a 400 square foot fresco mural at the Vatican’s famous
Pontifical Biblical Institute. She spent three years in Rome. During this time she completed another 42 murals at the Precious Blood Monastery of Rome and elsewhere.
She also pursued her other interest, particle physics.
Leaving Rome, Isabel came with her sister to the United Stated and with her she established her art studio, the Construction Art Center in Los Angeles. To date she has completed huge murals, mosaics, ceramic tile murals and stained glass windows for 493 churches and public buildings in seven countries on three continents.
In addition to her outstanding work in the Bishop Manogue chapel, some of Isabel’s major works can be found at the St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral and Our Lady of Snows parishes in Reno;
the Guardian Angel Cathedral in Las Vegas; the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.; Holy Cross Mausoleum in Culver City, California; Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, California; and numerous other buildings in California, Rome, Canada, Illinois, New Mexico and elsewhere.
Ms. Piczek is also an internationally known expert on the Shroud of Turin. She has appeared many times on national television.
Something here:
No, no, you misunderstand me. There are any number of references to Ms Piczek being a physicist, and even a particle physicist. But she isn’t, is she? She is and has been an artist all her hard working life. None of her papers on shroud.com are physics based, and a question and answer article entitled “Isobel Piczek, Artist and Physicist” makes no mention at all of any science. A paper entitled The Event Horizon of the Shroud of Turin on shroud3d.com shows no understanding of particle physics or quantum theory, or even of the meaning of event horizon. Weird.
“A paper entitled The Event Horizon of the Shroud of Turin on shroud3d.com shows no understanding of particle physics or quantum theory, or even of the meaning of event horizon. Weird.”
Hugh, and do you know what the event horizon actually is? I have looked breifly, and see no mistakes in Piczek’s article, perhaps I must delve into the article to check whether it is corrct from the point of physics.
I do indeed. An event horizon is the radius from a point at which gravity is so intense that nothing at all can escape from it, and hence cannot effect anything outside it, and therefore cannot be detected. Although Piczek copies this definition fairly faithfully, she ignores the bit about gravity, which is by all known physics the only cause of an event horizon. It is clear she does not really understand it at all.
By all means study Piczek’s article carefully. You will find that rather than using any kind of known physics to explain the image on the shroud, she speculates that a wholly unknown process is responsible. That’s not physics, that’s guesswork.
Finally, you will note that her idea is rooted in the idea that the shroud must have been completely horizontally flat throughout the image making process, and the the image lacks anatomical distortion when viewed in than light. This is wholly contrary to your understanding of the 3D nature of the image as explained to me with the help of a video only a few days ago.
I don’t know what Isabel’s credentials are as a physicist, but her credentials as a world class artist speak for itself. She is a genuine prodigy to have been commissioned to paint a 400 square foot mural in the Vatican at age 14. Her testimony as an artist is critically important because, if the Shroud is not authentic, it MUST be the work of an artist. And who better to analyze it but another artist who is familiar with medieval art techniques and materials.
They do indeed, and she is. But a physicist?
Isabel Piczek’s wonderful gifts apart, it is only her article on the image-formation process that can be questioned. There is no doubt that her intentions were very good and it easy to understand what she was trying to say, given the complexity of the Shroud image, but unfortunately the part about physics fails when it comes to scrutiny.
Hugh, the concept of event horizon is much more general. You mention only a specific example of an event horizon in the Schwarzschild metric, that is classical, spherically symmetrical black hole. Have you ever studied general relativity?
I may disagree with some Piczeks claims in the article, but contrary to you, I don’t dispute her qualifications as a physicist (however I truly don’t know when and where she studied physics), based on layman’s misunderstanding of the term ‘event horizon’.
There is a philosophical sense in which the term “event horizon” could make sense without gravity being an essential part of it, but there is no scientific or mathematical model of one which could apply to a limited horizontal plane through a body suspended in midair. This is not physics, not even speculative physics. It requires nothing more than a vague idea that “nothing can go through an event horizon.” I studied general relativity as part of my degree and am certainly not a specialist, but I am sufficiently familiar with the concepts to be able to reject Piczek’s ideas unreservedly. I am also sufficiently familiar with the concepts to understand anything you may be able to say to explain how such an event horizon is possible. (After all, you managed to explain Jackson’s 2% C14 contamination perfectly!)
Hugh,
I may not have a PhD in physics but I dispute your definition of “event horizon” in that the event horizon is how we discover black holes. The event horizon is the place beyond which observation can not be made but at the horizon there is very much to observe. Observation of the horizon is one way we know the black hole exists,
For example, let’s take either dawn or sunset. Before the sun rises we know its coming because the horizon lights up. At dusk, the sun disappears but the horizon remains visible and we know the sun was there.
It’s not a perfect analogy by far, but its observation of the effects of a black hole that tells us it’s there. That observation disappears at a point. It’s where it’s the point where the visual effects can no longer be observed that we reach an event horizon. It is not that there is no light in the black hole, it is that light can not escape the gravity of the black hole.
As I wrote on my blog concerning the death of my son Michael that death is the ultimate event horizon. See my original comment: http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
where I used “event horizon” as a metaphor for death and a second comment where I expand the thought because of the work of Stuart Hammeroff. http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2012_08_01_archive.html
I have an disagreement with some who do not believe that the Resurrection is discoverable.
If a physical body processed to something else then it should not be surprising that there are artifacts of the body or the process that were left behind,
The image on the Shroud may be an artifact of the Resurrection. It is not the glorified body of St. Paul but rather it is the body as the last moment it could be seen. Because we can not see beyond that artifact, it is in at least in metaphorical or symbolical sense an “event horizon.”
Then again, as we used to sing in the heady days of Vatican II, “love makes symbols real.”
I agree wholeheartedly with your re-write of my definition. The “event horizon” is indeed the place [B]beyond[/B] which no information is possible, rather than the place [B]at[/B] which this occurs. It has nothing whatever to do with the shroud, however.
I thank Hugh for his comment to my comment. Because this touches on where my manuscript is heading, I may take a “time-out” to pull my thoughts together and if I am satisfied blog it on Quantum Christ where I am sure Dan P will scavenge it.
Can God be restrained by the laws of physics?