A new article in a scientific journal hypothesizes that the image on the Shroud of Turin could only have been produced by a burst of radiation far beyond that of present scientific capacity to produce - a conclusion similar to the 10-year arrived at by the Italian agency for nuclear studies published late last year... See [/DIM} http://benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527207&p=273
on 12/24/11 for a layman's version of the ENEA report.
'The image on the Shroud
is the result of radiation
that current technology
is unable to produce'
by Andrea Tornielli
Translated from the Italian service of
PADUA, March 11 - The Shroud of Turin, the sheet believed by many Christians to have wrapped the dead body of Jesus Christ, with an impression of the body and face of a man who was crucified in the way described by the Gospels, remains a mystery.
A new study just published in an American scientific journal concludes that the most probable and reliable hypothesis for what caused the image on the Shroud is radiation, particularly what is called 'the corona effect'.
The author is Giulio Fanti, professor of mechanical and temperature measures at the department of industrial engineering of the University of Padua, and his article is published in the current issue of the US-based
Journal of Imaging Science and Technology (JIST).
"Since 1898, when the photographer Secondo Pia obtained the first photographic reproductions of the Shroud, many researchers have advanced various hypotheses on how the image could have been produced", Fanti told
La Stampa. "Many interesting hypotheses have been examined but none have been able to completely explain the mysterious image. None of the attempts to reproduce the desired effect, none of the copies so produced, has succeeded in offering the specific characteristics of the Shroud".
The article examines all the most important hypotheses by comparing them to 24 characteristics which are thought to be the most specific and significant ones discussed in more than a 100 recent scientific articles published internationally about the Shroud.
After first reviewing and evaluating the hypotheses advanced by researchers in the 20th century - who attributed the image to calcium or ammoniacal deposits, to the effect of a lightning-like radiation, or a tracing made by zinc deposits, Fanti says, "I then examined the most sophisticated recent hypotheses such as those relating to gas diffusion or the effect produced by a corpse on a sheet impregnated with aromatic spices and various substances"
[i.e., according to Jewish funerary practices in the time of Christ].
"I also considered the possibility of the simultaneous action of more mechanisms, such as the ideas of those who, in the second half of the 20th century, questioned the authenticity of the Shroud and had therefore proposed techniques of reproduction such as those that were used by medieval artists.
[The skeptics claim the sheet dates only to the Middle Ages, not to the time of Christ, and appeared to have been supported by controversial carbon dating carried out on fragments of the Shroud in the 1970s.]
Among the 'artistic' hypotheses mentioned in the article, Fanti considers that of Pesce and Garlaschelli. "I have proved that the experimental results obtained by their techniques, even in this century, are quite distinct from the most specific characteristics of the Shroud image. Many scholars have, in fact, produced 'artistic' copies that appear excellent macroscopically [to the naked eye] but are very deficient in terms of reproducing many microscopic qualities of the Shroud image, and which therefore invalidate their efforts".
But he concludes otherwise for the possibility that radiation caused the image, citing hypotheses by some scholars, and in particular, referring to the study by ENEA, the Italian agency for energy and new technologies, which used techniques of ultraviolet laser in seeking to reproduce an image as close as possible to the characteristics of the Shroud image.
"The radiation hypothesis allows a much closer approximation to the characteristics of the Shroud image," says Fanti, "but still presents a major problem: It has only been possible to produce images on the order of a square centimeter of fabric, because to produce a larger image - the size of a human figure - would require an enormous quantity of radiation which current technology is incapable of doing".
Expreiments carried out by Fanti in Padua, in collaboration with his colleague Prof. Giancarlo Pesavente, "required electric tension of 500,000 volts to obtain a comparable image a few centimeters long".
Fanti's studies are summarized in two tables for the article that demonstrate how a radiation burst represents the most reliable hypothesis so far. "Only an explanation that is based on the corona effect produced by an electrical discharge satisfies all the specific characteristics of the image on the Shroud".
But he adds: "However, to obtain an image as large as that on the Shroud would require tens of millions of volts."
Or, he concludes,
"Speaking non-scientifically, it is a phenomenon that could only be explained by an event like the Resurrection".
The last statement occasioned a prompt and rather erroneous reaction from the president of the Centro Internazionale di Sindologia in Turin (Sindonology is the term for studies on the Shroud - Sindone in Italian], in what seems to be an obvious misunderstanding of what Fanti said about the Reusrrection.
'Fanti's conclusions
are not scientific at all:
The Resurrection cannot
be proved in a laboratory'
by Maria Teresa Martinengo
Translated from the Italian service of
March 12, 2012
TURIN - At the Centro Internazionale di Sindonologia di Torino, which by law, "assures every scientific, technical and organizational support in the sindonologic field to the Pontifical Custodian of the Shroud" (namely, the Archdiocese of Turin), president Bruno Barberis distanced himself from the theories of Prof. Giulio Fanti published in JIST.
In par5ticular, he questions the statement linking the image to 'a phenomenon such as the Resurrection'.
Barberis, a professor of mathematics at the University of Turin said: "We are scientists and we must always keep in mind the lesson from Galileo: If we cannot verify or reproduce something, our study has no scientific value. And we cannot prove the Resurrection by reproducing it in a laboratory".
[I have not read the article by Fanti, because it is only available by paying a $30 online subscription fee, but judging by what Fanti told Tornielli, he was not at all claiming 'to reproduce the Resurrection in the laboratory' - only that the most probable scientific hypothesis for the image is not reproducible by current technology - and that "Speaking non-scientifically, it is a phenomenon that could only be explained by an event like the Resurrection".]
"Of course," Barberis continued, "neither can we recreate in the lab the nuclear reactions taking place in the sun, but we can study them with sophisticated instruments currently available to technology. The Resurrection is something else".
"The Resurrection is a supernatural event, therefore it cannot be studied by science that seeks to explain natural phenomena. It will be possible to study only when someone can resurrect a dead man and they study and verify the phenomenon".
He also raised other questions: "The corona effect cited by Fanti is possible, but natural conditions that could reproduce the effect on the scale that is needed do not exist. With current instruments, the corona effect can only be reproduced on a tiny piece of fabric."
[Isn't that exactly what the ENEA researchers and Fanti say?]
Barberis reiterates: "Anything scientific should be reproducible in a laboratory, otherwise it is not scientific. This center can only accept scientific proof".
[It seems to me the reporter was not exactly qualified to do the interview with Barberis, or she would have challenged his completEly erroneous premise abut Fanti's statement! Clearly, Fanti's statement about the Resurrection - I don't believe it would be found in his published article - is Fanti's own profession of faith, if you will. He was not advancing it at all as a scientific hypothesis, and he said so!
Besides, the reporter ought to have asked Barberis what he thought of the scientific data published in JIST, which as a scientist, he could evaluate. For Barberis to argue against a false premise is most unscientific in itself. La Stampa's editor should ask the reporter to go back and interview Barberis and keep him on track!]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 13/03/2012 12:07]