Posted on 04/12/2004 4:17:04 AM PDT by shroudie
A new study will be published on Tuesday by one of the peer reviewed scientific journals of the Institute of Physics, "The Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics." This may be one of the most revealing discoveries in the last few years in addition to the debunking of the carbon 14 testing and the discovery of the images chemical nature.
Giulio Fanti, professor of Mechanical and Thermic Measurements at Padua University and main author of the study, told Discovery News in an interview:
"On both sides, the face image is superficial, involving only the outermost linen fibers. When a cross-section of the fabric is made, one extremely superficial image appears above and one below, but there is nothing in the middle. It is extremely difficult to make a fake with these features."
I'd be measuring the distances from each feature to the edges, etc. I do think it is clever though.
The images are at once like rare and exceptional art, yet so unlike art. They are like subtle photographs and yet so unlike photographs. A truly natural explanation requires that a chemical reaction starts and ends. And this is key; the reaction must end sufficiently late for there to be discernible images. And, it must end early enough that the images are not oversaturated. Analysis of the images shows no saturation plateaus. Timing is everything. In photographic terms this is correct exposure. Is this mere luck?
It is not just correct exposure that is at play here. Good focus, suitable contrast and smooth and realistic gradations between light and dark areas also are important. (Resolution is better than 0.4 cm at a distance of 1.1 cm indicating the image production mechanism must be highly anisotropic).
Is it serendipitous that the highlights and shadows of these images appear as though created by reflected light? This visual quality is essential for our minds to be able to see the images as realistic pictures with perceived three-dimensionality? But then we discover that they really are encoded with three-dimensional information. And images made with reflected light are not.
And there is the problem of medical accuracy. The nails are through the wrists. The blood, the forensic experts tell us, can only have occurred if the body was in direct contact with the cloth. You cannot paint on medically correct blood clots even with real blood. The wounds, the actual contusion are medically accurate in ways that are only understood by modern pathology at a microscopic level.
And the image is in a chemical layer that is so thin that you cannot see it with the naked eyes. Images on the Shroud emerge from discrete little bits of color in all the right places on the cloth. The bits of color are on the fibers in a fine carbohydrate layer that coats the topmost fibers. When we look at the Shroud, what we perceive as different shades of yellow is the result of visual blending. To some extent the saturation or intensity of the color has some effect. In some places it is slightly darker than in other places. But mostly it the result of the size and quantity of the bits of chemically altered carbohydrate layers on the crown of fibers. (Look at this picture from across the room. Only one color is used to create three different shades.)
Pixel, a word that means picture element, is often used to describe these tiny bits of color. The word halftone, borrowed from the way pictures are printed in books and newspapers, is also used. Pixel, in current usage, implies microscopic or near-microscopic dots that are "on" or "off" and neatly organized. As the accompanying microscopic pictures shows, the implementation of the coloring is more like lines used for shading in an engraving. The lines are on the surface only, on fibers that are a fraction of the width of a single hair in a fine artist's paint brush. Paint, in any thick medium, would have resulted in a complete covering over the fibers. Thin paint or dye of any kind would have soaked through, by capillary action, to fibers below. But when image fibers are moved aside with probing needles, the fibers below are clear and uncolored. And when adhesive tape is applied to the image fibers, small bits of the carbohydrate coating (either bearing image or not) are pulled away exposing clear cellular fibers. In fact, flakes of color can be seen where it separated from the fiber and stuck to tape used to collect particulate samples from the Shroud. You can see the thin coat of color through a microscope and it is hard to imagine how an artist could have accomplished this.
There is no way, short of laser precision drawing, that this image could be so perfect. That is the problem in the so perfect analogy. But I know where you are coming from. It took me a long time to become convinced. And I don’t necessarily want to convince you. I just want you to appreciate the evidence at hand. I appreciate the problem this all too perfect image presents us with. I think most shroud scholars do as well.
Shroudie
Well gosh, how can anyone withstand such a well-reasoned rebuttal loaded with supporting evidence? I'm utterly devastated. Oh, wait, no I'm not.
If you think you can actually demosntrate that I "haven't the fainted idea what I'm talking about", feel free to make an actual attempt at it, but simple gradeschool taunts like your post hardly qualify.
The linked article says nothing about "100% alignment". Are you presuming too much due to your desire that this article is more conclusive than it may actually be?
Remember, we are talking about a discovery appearing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal which requires absolute confirmation of the methodology (though not necessarily the conclusions) that completely adheres to strict scientific methodology.
No, it doesn't. Peer-review helps to weed out the more obviously shaky articles before they make publication, but you're vastly overstating the process when you claim that it "requires absolute confirmation of the methodology".
You mean Joe Nickell's PhD in Art?? or is it in English? It certainly is NOT in any hard or even soft science.
It has always been noted that the degree of detail on the shroud is greatest on the face and head. In fact, that observation was one of the arguments for the head image being produced AFTER the body image in some of the off the wall photograph theories. The fact that the face IS replicated on the reverse would tend to indicate to me that the modality of image formation WAS stronger in the head area. Now THAT is interesting.
Joe Nickell repeats his mantra from 1998... ignoring any scholarship and research done since. He can just sweep scientific findings under the carpet by declaring them "psuedoscience" performed by "believers."
Some Freepers do the same thing, hanging their arguments on long disproved "science" such as Dr. McCrone's ludicrous claim that the Shroud image is merely "tempera paint" ignoring much more sophisticated tests that categorically prove his assertion wrong,
Others are convinced their English language Bible's words (and their understanding of their meanings) are proof of the original writers actual words despite clear presentations of the original meanings, derivations, and comparative usages showing just exactly the opposite.
Nickell participates in all of that and more.
Curious. Let's assume the sudarium and shroud were both there in the tomb as described in the scriptures. If the sudarium was not left on the face, why was it left in the tomb at all? If it was on the face, wouldn't the image be weaker rather than stronger there?
Moses must have been mighty partial to it too...
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