“ . . . Direct comparison between image and non-image parts of the Shroud
show exactly the same amounts and types of radiation damage in the two
types of areas. This suggests that the image was not produced by any
mechanism that involved heat, light, or ionizing radiation.” — Raymond Rogers
A Guest Posting by Yannick Clément*
Hello everybody!
I read the recent quote from Maria da Glóra Moreira on this blog, who said this concerning the Bari conference : “In our humble opinion there were actually few advances in Shroud investigation and one thing is for sure- EVEN IN LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS NAMELY WITH LASER TECHNOLOGY, CORONA DISCHARGE ETC. THE IMAGES OBTAINED ARE FAR FROM THE ORIGINAL.”
Comment: How can someone honest who have read carefully the conclusions of a chemist expert like Ray Rogers about the Shroud image can expect something else than this from these hypotheses that rely on a burst of intense energy, especially when it comes to compare their coloration results microscopically at fiber level?
In his writings about the Shroud, Rogers made it clear that all these processes will ALWAYS produce evident damages on the fibers’ surface, which are not looking at all like the surface of image fibers he analyzed (note: such a difference could probably be hard to detect for the eyes of someone who is not an expert in analytic chemistry like Rogers was). In sum, Rogers was clear about the fact that the image fibers from the Shroud do not presents the oxidative kind of damages these energetic processes ALWAYS caused. No matter if it’s located only in the primary cell wall of the fiber or not, these processes will ALWAYS cause damages that got a “signature look” that doesn’t look at all like the appearance of the colored fibers Rogers saw on the Shroud (and especially their surfaces), which got a signature look that strongly points in direction of a mild dehydration process happening at low temperature.
Here’s an important quote from Rogers paper “Scientific method applied to the Shroud of Turin – A Review” about that: “At high optical magnifications, up to 1000X, no coatings could be resolved on the surfaces of the image fibers; however, the surfaces appeared to be “corroded.” That observation suggests that a very thin coating of carbohydrate had been significantly dehydrated on the outer surfaces of the fibers.”
Here, it’s important to understand why Rogers put the word “corroded” between quotation marks… It’s because this term was used by Adler in a paper he wrote about the body image, which was not the best term that could have been used (remember that Adler, unlike Rogers, was not an expert in these types of surface damages). If we believe Rogers, the right term should have been “surface cracking”. Here’s another quote from Rogers’ book in which he explain this: “Surface cracking (“corrosion” as Adler called it) of the color can be seen, and flakes can be seen in the “ghosts” on the sampling tapes.” And here’s another quote taken from Rogers paper “Scientific method applied to the Shroud of Turin – A Review”, which explain why this kind of surface cracking point in direction of a dehydration process involving only a thin layer of carbohydrate impurities instead of an oxidation process of the fibers’ surfaces: “Dehydration causes shrinkage; therefore, any coating of carbohydrate impurities would “craze” during dehydration.”
And here’s another important quote coming from the 2010 paper “The Shroud of Turin from the viewpoint of the physical science” that was written by Emmanuel Carreira and which describe the kind of “damages” Rogers saw on the surface of the image fibers: “…the crystal structure of the flax image fibers was no more defective than non-image fibers.” And here’s a complementary comment by Rogers that come from another paper he wrote that is entitled “The Shroud of Turin: Radiation Effects, Aging and Image Formation”: “All parts of the Shroud are the same age, and all parts have been stored in the same location through the centuries. Therefore, all parts should have been exposed to the same kinds and amounts of (natural) radiation. Any additional radiation effects found in image areas would indicate excess radiation in that location. Direct comparison between image and non-image parts of the Shroud show exactly the same amounts and types of radiation damage in the two types of areas. This suggests that the image was not produced by any mechanism that involved heat, light, or ionizing radiation.”
So, what people needs to understand (and it’s very important when it comes to analyze any image formation hypothesis that is proposed to explain the Shroud image) is that, from the perspective of a real chemist expert like Rogers, the kind of damages all these high energy processes will ALWAYS causes on a fiber’ surface will NEVER look like the kind of surface cracking he saw on the image fibers he lifted himself from the Shroud’s surface in 1978. IN ROGERS’ MIND, THAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENT AGAINST ALL THE IMAGE FORMATION HYPOTHESES INVOLVING A HIGH AMOUNT OF ENERGY AND/OR HEAT, LIKE CORONA DISCHARGE, BURST OF UV LIGHT, BURST OF PROTONS OR NEUTRONS AND EVEN A SCORCH. As he clearly said, the only radiation damages he could notice on image fibers was damages that were easily noticeable and which had been caused with time by natural radiations. And as he pointed out, these particular damages are exactly the same as what he saw on the surfaces of non-image fibers, which is a very important observation that many people tend to deny or forget in the pro-Shroud world, especially those in favor of an image formation process in direct link with the Resurrection of Christ…
In sum, for Rogers, all these energetic mechanisms should be discarded because the kind of damages they ALWAYS produced on the surface of a fiber is not the same as what he observed on image fibers taken from the Shroud, BUT ALSO because all these mechanisms are not able to produced a yellowing that would be restricted only to a thin layer of carbohydrate impurities, while leaving the underlying fiber completely free of any coloration and damages, as he was convinced in the case of the image fibers of the Shroud.
So, when we take into account ALL the pertinent data coming from the Shroud (including the very important fact that, as Rogers said, the crystal structure of the flax image fibers is no more defective than non-image fibers, the fact that the diimide reduction of color and the ghosts are leaving a colorless, clean and undamaged fiber behind, the banding effect that show a close correlation between darker threads and an image a bit darker and lighter threads and an image a bit lighter, the fact that starch and pectin deposits have been found on Shroud samples by Rogers and Adler, along with the fact that almost all the image color resides on the topmost fibers at the highest part of the weave, which correspond exactly to the results obtained by Rogers during his evaporation-concentration tests), I really think we should consider the scenario of a still undetermined low-temperature dehydration event that would have caused the yellowing of only a thin layer of carbohydrate impurities on a portion of the topmost fibers of the cloth (and which was most probably related to the biological state of the Shroud man’s corpse during the short time he stayed inside the cloth) as the most probable scenario to explain the Shroud image.
To conclude about Maria’s comment, I would say that unless someone can do coloration tests with linen samples made with the ancient method of manufacturing linen cloths (i.e. causing a concentration of carbohydrate impurities on the cloth’s top-surface) that would be submitted to various kinds of biological substances (i.e. various post-mortem gases, lactic acid , urea, etc.) maybe in association with heat and/or water vapor (which could have been released by the fresh corpse of the Shroud man) and also, why not, to various kinds of ancient known burial products (again, maybe in association with and/or water vapor), I’m afraid there will never be any coloration result that will ever come close to what we see on the Shroud, chemically and even physically speaking. And seriously, I think this has already been done concerning a possible release of post-mortem gases by the Shroud man’s corpse (at least in a preliminary way)!
Effectively, in his book about the Shroud, Rogers reports a coloration experiment he made with a linen sample made the old fashion way that he submitted to ammonia vapors for 10 minutes at room temperature and which he baked afterward to simulate ageing. Here’s what he wrote about the results he obtained: "Experimental manipulations of concentrations and one-dimensional migration of solutions, as in a large cloth, could produce the same front-to-back color separation and color density as observed on the Shroud. The fibers on the top-most surface are the most colored when observed under a microscope, and the color is a golden yellow similar to that on the Shroud (figure XI-5). The coating of Maillard products is too thin to be resolved with a light microscope, and it is all on the outside of the fibers. There is no coloration in the medullas: The color formed without scorching the cellulose (note from Yannick : when Rogers use the word "cellulose" in his writings, we must understand « the whole linen fiber » and in this particular case, Rogers is meaning that the color he obtained did not affected the structure of the fiber in any noticeable way). There is very little color on fibers from the middle of the back surface (figure XI-6). The color-producing saccharides had concentrated on the evaporating surface. Water-stained image areas on the Shroud showed that image color does not dissolve or migrate in water. Maillard products are not water soluble, and they do not move when wetted. As a peripheral, non-scientific comment, several Shroud researchers have wondered why there is no mention of an image on the "cloths" reportedly found in Jesus’ tomb. Assuming historical validity in the accounts, such a situation could be explained by the delay in the development of the Maillard reactions’ colors at moderate temperatures. No miracle would be required."
Personally, I believe this is the closest coloration result on linen that any researcher ever was able to produce at thread and fiber level. Of course, we’re not talking here of any kind of close reproduction of a body image on linen like the one on the Shroud (in fact, that was not at all Rogers’ goal when he made this experiment), but “only” of a close reproduction of the main characteristics of the image color at thread and fiber level, particularly when it comes to the extreme superficiality of the color and it’s concentration on the topmost fibers of the cloth at the highest part of the weave (which was pretty much what Rogers expected to obtain from his theoretical reasoning concerning what could happen when post-mortem gases come in contact with carbohydrate impurities). But in the end, what’s very telling is how quiet the reactions have been in the pro-Shroud world concerning this particular coloration result obtained by Rogers! And when I see all the publicity that was made around Di Lazzaro’s results with UV lasers (which were definitely DIFFERENT than what Rogers saw on his Shroud samples, no doubt about that) in comparison to this very interesting result obtained by Rogers (which is quite similar to what he observed on his Shroud samples and which would deserve to be done again by another researcher in order to confirm Rogers’ observations), that makes me wonder what’s going on in this pro-Shroud world…
Yannick Clément, independent Shroud researcher, Louiseville, Québec, Canada
P.S.: Concerning the stochastic hypothesis for image formation proposed by Giovanni Fazio and Giuseppe Mandaglio in Italy, I have to say that I’m now highly skeptical about this particular hypothesis IN THE FORM THEY PROPOSED IT. Effectively, the fact that they propose a coloration located inside the structure of the fiber itself is highly problematic in face of Rogers’ conclusions about the nature of the Shroud image and especially when it comes to the close correlation that really seem to exist between darker threads and an image a bit darker and lighter threads and an image a bit lighter and the fact that the color is almost completely restricted to the topmost fibers at the highest part of the weave, while the other “exposed” parts of the weave (i.e. the sections of the threads that start going down before they went under another thread) show almost no colored fibers at all, even though they were also “exposed” to the same “energy” that must have come from the corpse (or from its surface) in order to start the image formation process on the cloth’s surface, which eventually produced the body image. That’s why I now believe that the principal reason why, on the Shroud, there is a discontinuous distribution of colored fibers that exist in every parts of the body image (which is a well recognize fact since the STURP investigation and which includes sometimes bundles of colored fibers next to bundles of non-colored fibers, especially in the darkest zones of the image) is not the fact that there was a weak amount of energy involved in the image formation that would have caused a stochastic result of coloration at fiber level (even though I’m totally convinced that the image formation involved only a weak release of “energy” from the corpse’s surface or from the inside of the corpse), but instead the fact that there really was a thin and UNEVEN layer of carbohydrate impurities that was coating at least a good portion of the topmost fibers of the cloth, which would have been the only thing that a mild process of image formation (still undetermined) was able to yellow, at least partially, in order to produce the body image we see on the cloth. And if I say “at least partially”, it’s because I don’t completely reject the idea of Fazio and Mandaglio that such a mild process of image formation (involving most probably a weak amount of “energy”) could well have been able to yellow only a portion of the exposed fibers that were coated with carbohydrates impurities. In other words, like Rogers, I believe that the image chromophore is most probably located solely in a thin and UNEVEN layer of carbohydrate impurities residing on the top-surface of the cloth at the highest part of the weave and I think that this is possibly the only reason why there is a discontinuous distribution of colored fibers in the image area, while I don’t completely reject the interesting idea that the amount of energy involved in the image formation process was so weak that it could well have been able to only colored a portion of the carbohydrate impurities it encounter after his release from the Shroud man’s corpse (or, more probably, from the corpse’s surface, which include the surface of the hair, beard and mustache). If this last scenario is true, that would mean that the discontinuous distribution of colored fibers in the image area would mainly come from the fact that the image color only resides in a thin and UNEVEN layer of carbohydrate impurities on the top-surface of the cloth, and also (but in a smaller proportion) to the fact that the amount of energy involved during the image formation process was so weak that it was not able to produce a visible color on the external surface of all the carbohydrate coated fibers it encounter. Now, concerning the extreme superficiality of the image and the fact that it is almost completely restricted to the topmost fibers at the highest part of the weave, I seriously don’t think these very odd properties can come from anything else than the very particular nature of the image chromophore, which most probably is located in a thin and uneven layer of carbohydrate impurities that was concentrated on the top-surface of the Shroud at the end of the manufacture of the cloth.
* Yannick in an email writes:
If you use the photo of me that I gave you recently, I think it would be a good thing to explain to people that this is me in a homemade studio during the recording of 3 songs of mine for a recent single of my old punk-rock band that I have decided to reunite after more than 10 years! And if you want, you can tell people that they just need to go to my website (www.yanmusik.com) in order to listen to those songs for free!
It is relevant to note that Barrie Schwortz once noted that the reaction itself was only half of the puzzle:
“Ray Rogers told me personally that he believed, “Something else was at work with the Maillard reaction,” but he didn’t know what that was and didn’t live long enough to explore it.”
Since that comment was posted here (http://shroudstory.com/2013/05/21/the-pig-experiment-was-not-barries-experiment/) and Yannick is well aware of that, it may be negligent to only partially portray Rogers’ position on the matter.
“…it may be negligent to only partially portray Rogers’ position on the matter.”
Or there again, it may be negligent to quote Mr. Raymond N.Rogers (often though inaccurately prefaced with Dr. or Prof) as if the last word on the subject.
He was employed by a US Govt. agency to work on the safety assessment of chemical explosives on prolonged storage. He pioneered differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as a means of monitoring changes in crystalline order that might provide clues to stability/instability characteristics related to decreasing Arrhenius energy of activation and thus kinetic susceptibility to spontaneous, non-detonator-triggered explosive decomposition. Along the way he acquired expertise in pyrolysis mass spectrometry, a handy tool for investigating unfamiliar chemical species that research chemists etc frequently encounter when pursuing open-ended studies, but was prone to premature publication, notably on detecting hydroxyproline in TS blood that he immediately adduced as evidence for a non-thermally-imprinted TS image, a conclusion that does not stand up to close scrutiny by those of us more experienced with mass spectrometry where biochemicals and physiological fluids are concerned.
Beyond that. Mr.Raymond N.Rogers was a fairly anonymous middle-level scientist, doing the job for which he was paid, competently and conscientiously. But then the same could be said for thousands of other research scientists the world over, with or without specific training in research (Mr. Rogers being without, which occasionally showed in his prima donna style of writing that invited no response to some quite tendentious ideas and propositions).
The main complaint this retired biomedical scientist with 12 years additional research in the area of plant polysaccharide (dietary fibre) research is concerned is that Raymond Rogers, having been invited to lead STURP’s chemical investigation of the TS, did not bother to acquaint himself with the detailed chemical structure of flax and linen fibres at the microscopical level. He repeatedly referred to them as if they were simply pure cellulose, referring just occasionally to chemically- reactive and thus easily pyrolysable hemicelluloses and pectins as if “impurities” and never making a single reference to the superficial hemicellulose-rich primary cell wall (PCW), and choosing to lumber shroudology instead with an entirely hypothetical entity – the starch/saponin allegedly image-receptive impurity coating.
It’s time for a realistic assessment of the sadly-deceased.Ray Rogers’ strengths and weaknesses as an experimentalist and STURP team leader. With no disrespect to the dead (science being indifferent to its practitioners’ birth and death dates) it’s time that some took Ray Rogers off that pedestal and ceased referring to him as a scientific “great”. The latter description is simply not borne out by the facts, especially his googleable published work. I repeat: Ray Rogers had been a relatively anonymous middle level scientist, only acquiring a high profile AFTER acquiring visibility in his role as STURP team leader.
You tried to mask it, but it stands as an ad-hominem attack. Sorry for you.
Where the Maillard reaction breaks down for me, is I don’t see how gas would uniformly emit from a decaying body at the same intensity whether from the torso, orifices or from extremities. The uniform intensity of the image, top to bottom and front to back, is one of its most profound attributes. As Eric mentioned, Rogers knew that the Maillard reaction alone could not be responsible for the highly resolved image we see on the Shroud. IMHO, there is something else at work. What that may be is anyone’s guess.
BTW, excellent article Yannick. I just think Maillard reaction alone cannot explain all the attributes of the image.
I don’t think the Milliard reaction answers anything! It is just too improbable taking into account what Russ mentioned in his comment…uniformity! A decaying body will not in most probability emit uniformly, especially the back image! Where was there room if the body was laid on a hard surface for gas to emit uniformly or how?? Its near impossible to digest. I mentioned the FACT that Rogers knew the Milliard reaction alone could not answer the mystery of the image a long time ago to Yannick, he tends to ignore this fact. I’ll go as far as saying; I’ll bet Rogers knew in his heart he was heading down the wrong path, but being human, pride took precedence….may he RIP.
Well, yes and no…
The problem with both radiation and vapour interactions at a distance is the observation that only the most protruberant parts of the curve of each thread as it weaves in and out are discoloured. Both radiation and vapour should discolour every exposed part of each thread.
The ‘stochastic’ school acknowledge this, and explain that at threshold levels, however small the attenuation of the radiation over the tiny distances involved, there must be a distance which acts as a boundary between the distance within which discolouration can occur, and a distance too far for any reaction.
The ‘evaporation gradient’ school also acknowledge the problem, and say that a coating of dissolved chemicals evaporated away in such away that the chemicals were only left on the crown of the curves of the threads, so that although vapour from the body must have spread everywhere, only the crowns of the threads became discoloured by it.
A mixture of these two ideas is quite tenable.
The ‘contact’ hypothesis does not require either the delicately balanced radiation threshold or the all-or-nothing chemical concentration only on the crown of the threads. It suffers from the observation that there appears to have been some action at a distance. If a bas relief was postulated as the model for the image, this difficulty is lessened.
And Ron, quite so; it is difficult to postulate a consistent emanation from all over a dead body, whether of radiation or of vapourous emission, and even more difficult to postulate such emission being only in a straight, vertical line upwards and downwards. But we must not fall into the trap of saying: “because it cannot be explained naturally, therefore it must be a fake.” We have heard, and rejected, arguments like that before, only usually, of course, they are the other way round: “because it cannot be explained artificially, therefore it must be authentic.” Neither of them is logically meaningful.
As the TS is unlikely to be available for further scientific testing in the foreseeable future, then if in fact a scientific explanation is at all tenable, the only way forward would seem to be further experimentation. Rogers’ own experiments with ammonia have coloured linen, apparently producing indicative results only. Colin has his scorching experiments, Fanti et al have their excimer lasers, Hugh has his pinkies, I assume presently in cold storage. Few of the experiments to date seem to persuade anyone except only those whose babies they are. The only way forward would seem to require major investment, remarkable and scarce skills, and dedication. And even so an answer may still not be forthcoming. I don’t think I’ll ever see it.
The TS was created by the miracle of the resurrection, that’s why DaveB.
That is a valid opinion which may eventually be shown to be an inevitable conclusion, but as yet remains untested, because of insufficient serious attempts to duplicate the properties of the coloration. Investment, skills, true dedication and perseverance remain as yet fully untried.
A reply from Yannick who is unable to post comments;
Message from Yannick: “I note that many people, once again, I’ve not understood the heart of the message I wanted to deliver, which is that the important observations and analyses done by Rogers on his Shroud samples were good enough for him, a chemist expert in determining chemical damages on different types of material, to completely discard all the image formation hypotheses involving any form of energetic radiation and that’s include not only the corona discharge proposed by Fanti or DeLiso, the burst of UV light proposed by Di Lazzaro or Jackson, the burst of protons and neutrons proposed by Rinaudo, but also the scorch hypothesis proposed by various skeptics over the years. That’s the main point. The second is this: Unlike what some people have understood, I’m not saying that the Maillard reaction hypothesis (in the form described by Rogers) is THE answer to the image formation, but what I’m fully convinced after years of readings about the Shroud and particularly, after reading with attention and no bias all the writings of Rogers, is this: 1- The image formation must have come from a mild chemical reaction happening at low temperature (and possibly at room temperature). 2- This image formation process must have involved a quantity of “energy” quite small and most probably related to the biological state of the Shroud man’s corpse (and probably also related to its traumatic state). 3- The image chromophore must be located inside a thin and UNEVEN (very important element) layer of carbohydrate impurities instead of being located Inside the structure of the fiber itself (note that this type of carbohydrate coating is, as Rogers said clearly, a type of chromophore much easier to color chemically than the fiber itself, whether we talk about the primary cell wall or the rest of the fiber). And finally, concerning the “P.S.” that you can find at the end of my guess post, I wanted to show people a clear proof that, unlike some other Shroud researchers (I don’t want to name no one), I’m able to change my mind on a particular topic associated with the Shroud if my reflection eventually leads me to a different conclusion than what I first thought. This concerns the fact that I gradually came to reject the image formation hypothesis described by Fazio and Mandaglio IN THE FORM THEY WROTE IT, while it leads me to propose a new hypothesis that has never been proposed before, which is that the discontinuous distribution of colored fibers in the image area can well have come from a combination of an image chromophore located only inside a thin and UNEVEN layer of carbohydrate impurities AND (in probably a lesser way) a stochastic process of image formation that involved a so small amount of “energy” that it wasn’t able to color every carbohydrate coated fibers it encountered. If I’m right, that means that out of 3 fibers that were hit by the weak energy (that could have been post-mortem gases or something else probably related to the biological and traumatic state of the body), one could have been coated with a good amount of carbohydrate impurities and would have become yellowed through a still undermined chemical process, another one could have also been coated with a good amount of the same impurities but would have remained uncolored because the energy was so weak that it provoked a stochastic result of coloration and a third one could also have remained uncolored, not because of the weakness of the energy involved, but because this particular fiber would not have been coated with enough impurities to produce a visible yellowing on-top of the fiber. THAT’S THE 3 MAIN MESSAGES I WANTED TO DELIVER WITH THIS GUESS POSTING OF MINE. Unlike what some people seem to believe, I never intended to “sell” Rogers’ image formation hypothesis (in the form he wrote it) to anyone…”
“Many people, once again, have not understood the heart of the message I wanted to deliver.” No. They understand it perfectly, but they disagree with it. That’s not the same thing at all.
Actually, I find all the action-at-a-distance explanations fraught with problems, so tend to agree with much of Yannick’s opening statements, although I would not clump scorching with UV, proton or other radiation, as scorching can be a contact (conduction) process as well as, and rather better than, a radiation one. I also agree that the image making process involved quite a ‘mild’ chemical change, probably at low temperature.
However I do not agree that the image-forming mechanism “must” have come from biological material at all, let alone be related to its traumatic state, and I do not agree that the image chromophore “must be located inside a thin and UNEVEN (very important element) layer of carbohydrate impurities instead of being located inside the structure of the fiber itself.” Rogers’s findings in this respect are still controversial, and by no means established. His suggestion of a saponin/dextrose “impurity layer,” and his experiments with evaporation gradients are far from satisfactory, let alone conclusive, and Yannick’s suggestion that postulating an uneven layer of coating makes the hypothesis stronger is unconvincing to me.
Just two thoughts in haste:
1) Most, if not all of the linen fabrics, either medieval or ancient, were certainly washed with different kinds of soaps in water. This is certainly true for the Shroud that is a fine linen cloth.
Therefore one can expect to find some residual impurities at the surface of the cloth.
2) According to Rogers, the fact that some colored bundles of fibers are found adjacent to bundles of uncolored fibers can be explained by the properties of the uneven “thin layer” of impurities left by the evaporation/concentration process following the washing.
The “surface tension” is the key parameter.
Rogers: ” My point in mentioning surface-tension effects is to show that different amounts of suspended and/or dissolved impurities would deposit during evaporation of the washing liquid, depending on the surface characteristics of the batch of fibers. The soluble and colloidal components of crude starch would be in solution/suspension, and those impurities would be deposited on all parts of the cloth as the liquid evaporated. Differences in deposition would be seen depending on the surface properties and the rate of evaporation.(…)”.
From: http://shroudofturin.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/rogers-maillard-reaction-for-dan-blog-2.pdf
Is there another hypothesis explaining this simple observation/fact ?
I do not know if the chromophore is the “thin impurity layer” or the PCW.
But I know that Rogers was a true scientist who was in contact with several experts.
An important observation for me is that Rogers claimed to have removed the image coloration from a fibre by using dimide. This left the underlying fibre exposed, intact and unaffected. For me that is a strong argument in favour of his hypothesis that the image lies only on the coating of the fibre, not the fibre itself. I think it can only be refuted by demonstrating that Rogers was mistaken about the results of this experiment. But like so many other experiments involving the Shroud, it was only ever done once, no-one else is reported as ever having repeated the experiment, and we remain as ever in the dark about the placement of the image, A fundamental principle of experimental science, is that results should be repeatable, before acceptance of their truth value. This is so seldom done in experiments involving the Shroud. It always seem to lead to unnecessary controversies, and debates which go nowhere, and we remain as ignorant as ever, despite the various assertions made by persons professing their favourite theories or denials of same.
Isn’t rather Alan Adler who did the diimide experiment? Rogers report the finding but does not say he redid the test. See item 12 at https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/rogers5faqs.pdf. Without redoing this test several times, we are left with one experiment which is weak evidence. Yet it is indeed an important observation.
Testus unus testus nullus
Typo: testis unus testis nullus
I needed to check my Latin dictionary. Max is not being bawdy, Translates as “One witness is no witness”. Surprisingly, the common medical term is derived from it. Haven’t heard from you in a pretty long month or several. Welcome back! daveb
Thank you daveb. As a Latin legal maxim, testis unus testis nullus just means one single witness is no witness or in other words the experiment that was done only once (by Rogers), did not have probative weight.
The Latin ‘testis’ also relates to ‘testamentum; = testament. I speculate that it’s adoption as applied to the male organ almost certainly refers to a primitive custom of making an oath. There is an example in Genesis where a dying patriarch asks that his eldest son place his hand on his ‘thigh’ (an euphemism), and to make such an oath.
Dave: “An important observation for me is that Rogers claimed to have removed the image coloration from a fibre by using dimide. This left the underlying fibre exposed, intact and unaffected. For me that is a strong argument in favour of his hypothesis that the image lies only on the coating of the fibre, not the fibre itself. I think it can only be refuted by demonstrating that Rogers was mistaken about the results of this experiment.”
Adler (not Rogers) did the diimide experiment.( Mario is right). Adler also found the “ghosts” and then Rogers too.
Even if ” like so many other experiments involving the Shroud, it was only ever done once”, I do think that it is a fact.
Rogers have shown later that the medulla of the image fibers is not colored. He also have shown that the “cellulose crystals” of the image fibers were not changed by the image forming process.
There is absolutely no doubt that the color is only at the very surface of the image fibers.
What does the diimide experiment mean?
Colin writes (see :http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.fr/2014/08/lets-move-things-along-one-easy-step-at.html):
“More importantly, diimide works at the molecular sub-microscopic level. Nothing can be deduced from colour or texture changes about structure at the macroscopic level (coatings etc).
The very term ‘colour removal’ is itself misleading if implying that anything is physically removed. Colour ‘removal’ is a chemical change that does not physically remove anything (diimide actually adds hydrogen atoms, e.g. across C=C double bonds, that interferes with the chromophore’s light-absorbing properties).”
I fully agree ( yes !!!) and I could not explain better.
In other words, the diimide experiment says nothing about the chromophore carrier (PCW or impurity layer) except that it is at the very surface of the image fibers and that it very likely consists of C=C double bonds.
Up to now, we have no mean to know what is the surface chromophore carrier.
Thanks Thibault (& Mario & Colin). That is very clear indeed. Perhaps I had presumed that whatever had caused the colour had been “sponged out” by the dimide, and had been removed from the surface, rather like removing a stain. But as I understand your explanation, that does not seem to have been the case. Would I be correct in deducing that if hydrogen was added, that is in effect a reducing reaction, the opposite to oxidation? My Chemistry I is now a little rusty.
As the experiment, like so many others involving the Shroud, seems to have only ever been done once, that still leaves a doubt, even though it is suggestive, Max’s epigram “testis unus testis nullus” remains true, and like so many other experiments it need to be repeated to create any kind of scientific conviction.
“Would I be correct in deducing that if hydrogen was added, that is in effect a reducing reaction, the opposite to oxidation?”
That’s true.
“As the experiment, like so many others involving the Shroud, seems to have only ever been done once, that still leaves a doubt, even though it is suggestive, Max’s epigram “testis unus testis nullus” remains true, and like so many other experiments it need to be repeated to create any kind of scientific conviction.”
Ok. But, as I wrote, there are other experiments (Rogers), showing that the cellulose itself was not changed by the image forming process.
There is no doubt: this is a proved fact.
What kind of process?
More tomorrow.