The Shroud Of Turin.

[Don Blazys]

I love a good mystery. Here is one of the best.

Pictures of Jesus - The Second Face Picture - The Shroud of Turin

Don.

[Essay]

Don, what is the good mystery here? Could you elaborate a bit?

I thought it had something to do with a "second face" as the link's display "text" suggested, but this just goes to the main site of shroudforum dot com.

They do have a neat sounding headline about the carbon dating (from Los Alamos) being reconsidered or corrected or wrong or something, but i didn't read the article.

To what were you referring as one of the best mysteries?
Thanks,
~SA

[UncleAl]

The Shroud of Turin is a trivial, obvious forgery that can be reproduced at will in a kitchen.

It is a fraud because the linen shroud is a zero-curvature Euclidean plane and a human face - especially a well-nosed Middle Eastern one - is a positive curvature elliptic surface. A Euclidean plane has all its triangles' three internal angles sum to 180 degrees. An elliptic surface's triangle's internal angles *always* sum to more than 180 degrees, and as high as 720 degrees. Given a straight line and a point not on that line: ONE line through the point parallel to the given line can be drawn in a Euclidean plane. ZERO lines through the point parallel to the given line can be drawn in an elliptic surface.

It is a mathematical impossiblity to project a positive curvature surface onto a zero curvature surface without global distortion. If you think you have a clever way out, call a cartographer projecting the Earth's elliptic surface onto flat paper's Eucldiean plane.

To criticize is to volunteer. We now fabricate the Shroud of Uncle Al. Start with a heavy white cotton sheet or (cheap) tablecoth. Make a flat bas relief plaster slab scultpure of a human full face. Let the plaster cure at least overnight. Put it in the oven and warm to about 425 Fahrenheit. Have a solid place to put the hot slab. Take a cookie sheet and lightly stretch the cotton fabric over its outside bottom. Take the hot plaster out of the oven, put it on its stout surface support face up. Lightly and thoroughly press the stretched factic onto the hot plaster bas relief to get modest charring. BINGO! The Shroud of Uncle Al. Makes a great high school science project.

1) No distortion - Euclidean plane projected on a Euclidean plane.
2) Photographic negative - bright facial highlights sticking up char the cloth dark: forehead, nose, chin, cheekbones. Dark facial depressions leave the cloth white: eye sockets, side cheeks. If you want high drama, daub the plaster face with a bit of hematite powder before baking for bloodstains on the shroud.
3) Wool also works but it smells awful. Polyester melts.

The Shroud of Turin? Uncle Al says, STURGEON WAS AN OPTIMIST And while we are here... Uncle Al would like to blow the whistle on physics, too, putting it UNDER SATAN'S LEFT FOOT Click the link, vote Uncle Al a nice "10" at the destination to make the experiment happen. "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." Richard Feynman. Somebody should look.

[Don Blazys]

To: Essay,

If you do a "Google search" of the Shroud Of Turin, then you will find all kinds of websites dedicated exclusively to that holy relic.

Some of them lean towards the Shrouds authenticity, while others lean towards it being a forgery.

Here are some of the things that I find intriguing about it.

The "Man on the Shroud" has two different Roman coins from that specific era placed on His eyes. If the Shroud was forged around 1300 A.D., then it simply wouldn't be "cost effective" for some "medieval manufacturer and seller of forged religeous artifacts" to aquire not one but two Roman coins that were by then, well over a thousand years old, and therefore extremely rare. Are we to believe that the person who "forged" the Shroud was also a world class coin collector?

The blood on the shroud has also been tested, and has been found to be consistent with blood types that are quite common in the Middle East. If the Shroud was "forged" in Europe, then are we to believe that the person who "forged" it also had access to a near by "blood bank", where he or she could buy a pint of "Middle Eastern" blood? Again, that simply would not be "cost effective" for a person whose business it is to make and sell forgeries.

Why would so many world class scientists (including the late great Ray Rogers) spend thousands of dollars and invest countless hours of their precious time performing every type of concievable analysis and experiment on something that is "obviously" a forgery?

Dr. Rogers credentials are impeccable, and he was one of the most acclaimed and pre-emminent leaders in his field. Yet, before he died, he confessed that the "carbon dating" that was done on the Shroud was indeed badly botched by incompetent "researchers", and that the Shroud may indeed be the genuine article... that is, the actual burial cloth of Our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Police forensics experts have noted and stated that the way in which the blood is distributed on the body is absolutely consistent with that of a crucifiction of that era. All known "bas reliefs" from the middle ages depict nails in the hands rather than through the wrists. Amazingly, the thumbs are also pointed towards the wrists which is perfectly consistent with what occurs when enormous pressure is placed on the wrists. No "bas relief artist" of the middle ages could have possibly concieved of that little detail unless he or she was also an expert in modern forensic science!

So to me, the real mystery is... who was this incredible artist / coin collector / blood bank patron / forensics expert / con person who made this unbelievably convincing forgery, that 800 years later, still has the scientific community both baffled and befuddled.

Whoever that person was, their one "masterpiece" makes all other "works of art" appear as doodlings of children.

Don.

[Don Blazys]

To: Uncle Al,

The Shroud of Turin is a trivial, obvious forgery that can be reproduced at will in a kitchen.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "obvious" or "trivial".

If it is a "work of art", then as an art lover, I think it is nothing short of extraordinary.

It is a mathematical impossiblity to project a positive curvature surface onto a zero curvature surface without global distortion. If you think you have a clever way out, call a cartographer projecting the Earth's elliptic surface onto flat paper's Eucldiean plane.

Why assume that the image would be "projected" onto the cloth in that manner?

Perhaps a "burst of radiation or energy" from outside of the Shroud was responsible.

We simply don't know anything about it. That's why it's a mystery.

To criticize is to volunteer. We now fabricate the Shroud of Uncle Al. Start with a heavy white cotton sheet or (cheap) tablecoth. Make a flat bas relief plaster slab scultpure of a human full face. Let the plaster cure at least overnight. Put it in the oven and warm to about 425 Fahrenheit. Have a solid place to put the hot slab. Take a cookie sheet and lightly stretch the cotton fabric over its outside bottom. Take the hot plaster out of the oven, put it on its stout surface support face up. Lightly and thoroughly press the stretched factic onto the hot plaster bas relief to get modest charring. BINGO! The Shroud of Uncle Al. Makes a great high school science project.

Thanks for the instructions on how to fabricate the "shroud of Uncle Al".

Since I happen to work at a high school, I might actually suggest it as a science project.

That way, maybe we can get various groups and teams of world class scientists to spend all kinds of time and money performing "carbon dating", along with all kinds of other tests and experiments... on our fake shroud !

Don.

[freeztar]

Perhaps this should not be in the chem forum?

[Mercedes Benzene]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Perhaps this should not be in the chem forum?

That was my inclination.

Moderation Note: Moved to Strange Claims forum.

[Essay]

About the global distortion... Why assume the cloth was flat when the image transferred? Wouldn't it be draped--touching at the nose, chin, brow, etc.; but whatever....

Index to Shroud Spectrum International

I used to read this journal on my breaks from work at the library. Occasionally intriguing, this small journal has a list of contents on the above link--some with hotlinks.

Originally Posted by Spectrum #35/36, 1990

Arguments both for and against these hypotheses have been discussed elsewhere, 1, but this fundamental issue should continue drawing widespread attention in the 1990s whenever plausible image-formation mechanisms are considered. In the technical area, I hope to see more control experiments to help us better understand the reaction sequences that occur in chemically-catalyzed and thermally degrading cellulose. Experimental studies of scorching may employ apparatus of the type described by Jackson and co-workers, who studied thermal reactions at relatively high temperatures and reported some preliminary results. However, future measurements must expand this data base to include measurements from cloth samples that have been subjected to various chemical pretreatments and ambient environmental conditions. Identifications of the chemical species are also vital. Correlations of these chemical data with data from image-area samples may then either support of rule out the scorch hypothesis as a possible image-formation mechanism.

In the last ten years or so, most of what we have learned about the Shroud has had to do with the chemical nature of the body image. However, in the next few years, I believe investigators will become more active in studies of the physical distribution of the image discoloration. Microscopic observations of the image in 1978 revealed its remarkably superficial nature. Observers noted that fibers in the image area are colored only on the crowns of the threads and that the image discoloration extends only two or three fiber diameters into the body of the threads. ....

Except for a singular effort by Adler in 2002, this publication ceased in 1993. Anyone know if other work has been done since?

p.s. "The blood on the shroud has also been tested, and has been found to be consistent with blood types that are quite common in the Middle East."

Is there a link to this information? It sounds as if genetic testing was done!??

[Don Blazys]

To: Freeztar and Mercedes Benzine,

Originally Posted by freeztar
Perhaps this should not be in the chem forum?

That was my inclination.

Moderation Note: Moved to Strange Claims forum.

It is indeed a strange artifact, but I'm not making any "claims" about it.

I honestly don't know if it's genuine or just an astonishingly detailed forgery.

I'm playing "Devil's advocate" only for the sake of this discussion.

Also, I put this topic in the chem forum only because the various tests and experiments (chemical analysis, carbon dating, etc.) that were performed on the Shroud are actually quite interesting in and of themselves.

In other words, I was curious as to what Hypographers who happen to specialize in chemistry thought of the tests that were done on the Shroud.

Originally Posted by Spectrum #35/36, 1990
Arguments both for and against these hypotheses have been discussed elsewhere, 1, but this fundamental issue should continue drawing widespread attention in the 1990s whenever plausible image-formation mechanisms are considered. In the technical area, I hope to see more control experiments to help us better understand the reaction sequences that occur in chemically-catalyzed and thermally degrading cellulose. Experimental studies of scorching may employ apparatus of the type described by Jackson and co-workers, who studied thermal reactions at relatively high temperatures and reported some preliminary results. However, future measurements must expand this data base to include measurements from cloth samples that have been subjected to various chemical pretreatments and ambient environmental conditions. Identifications of the chemical species are also vital. Correlations of these chemical data with data from image-area samples may then either support of rule out the scorch hypothesis as a possible image-formation mechanism.

In the last ten years or so, most of what we have learned about the Shroud has had to do with the chemical nature of the body image. However, in the next few years, I believe investigators will become more active in studies of the physical distribution of the image discoloration. Microscopic observations of the image in 1978 revealed its remarkably superficial nature. Observers noted that fibers in the image area are colored only on the crowns of the threads and that the image discoloration extends only two or three fiber diameters into the body of the threads. ....

The above is the kind of feedback that I was hoping for. (Thanks Essay).

Please note that it is mostly about chemistry.

Don.

[Don Blazys]

To Essay,

p.s. "The blood on the shroud has also been tested, and has been found to be consistent with blood types that are quite common in the Middle East."

Is there a link to this information? It sounds as if genetic testing was done!??

I can't remember where I originally read about the blood on the Shroud,

but heres one link that mentions it. Type AB is very common in the Mideast.

Shroud of Turin - Holy Face of Jesus

Don.