Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

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Aepervius said:
Never heard of scientifc research and essay before, started in 2008 apparentely they have a low impact factor is not cited often and has a very low international collaboration. it could be because it is a new journal though.

It is a theoretical article. My experience with theory is that by slightly changing hypotheses and assumption you can get wildly different results, the trick is to hide the assumption and lead to the result you want. There is a tons of equation and those assumption are not put very clearly. And there is no experimental verification.

Also looking at their conclusion they say the "however the experts give solid reason to think the shroud is from 1st century AD". I am sorry ? Which experts ??

I'll leave for work , but another consideration is that for such a SEMINAL work showing that 14C can replace in bulk in linen and break the dating by so much , why not in a very high impact factor journal, an established one on radiocarbon dating, archeology or even physic ? I mean this can change the dating of many stuff in archeology when there was a fire , that would be pretty much damn important.
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The paper gives a few examples of isotopic exchange which are unrelated to changing carbon atoms in the monomeric D-glucose.

But then:- (edited because the super and subscripts didn't copy and paste)
We propose the
reaction
14CO2 + Monomer <=> CO2 + 14C-Monomer (3)
in which one isotope 14C is exchanged by another isotope 12C

. As the 14C is so scarce, we will suppose
that a monomer only exchanges one isotope. The
Equation (3) has never been verified before and the results presented in the paper are all based on this supposition.
Click to expand...
 
Aepervius said:
Never heard of scientifc research and essay before, started in 2008 apparentely they have a low impact factor is not cited often and has a very low international collaboration. it could be because it is a new journal though.

It is a theoretical article. My experience with theory is that by slightly changing hypotheses and assumption you can get wildly different results, the trick is to hide the assumption and lead to the result you want. There is a tons of equation and those assumption are not put very clearly. And there is no experimental verification.

Also looking at their conclusion they say the "however the experts give solid reason to think the shroud is from 1st century AD". I am sorry ? Which experts ??

I'll leave for work , but another consideration is that for such a SEMINAL work showing that 14C can replace in bulk in linen and break the dating by so much , why not in a very high impact factor journal, an established one on radiocarbon dating, archeology or even physic ? I mean this can change the dating of many stuff in archeology when there was a fire , that would be pretty much damn important.
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I can see these general remarks. Scientific Research and Essays is a marginal review. Authors usually pay for publish. This is only a theoretical study by a sindonist made for sindonist meetings and similar (Valencia 2012). But I was asking for a more technical answer.

Thank you anyway, Aepervius.
 
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^
And Estopa this coming weekend, too!
Who's in to see just what those CES events are like?

ETA:
Finally, an appropriate 'do' for my TS leggings!!!
 
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Acleron said:
The paper gives a few examples of isotopic exchange which are unrelated to changing carbon atoms in the monomeric D-glucose.

But then:- (edited because the super and subscripts didn't copy and paste)
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Yes. It's pure speculation published in a pay-to-play open access journal by a shroudie. The spelling mistakes don't exactly reassure me either.
If they want to claim this process caused errors in the radiocarbon dating it's up to the shroudies to show that could do so for a start.
Further it was published in a special "the shroud is real" issue of the journal (I wonder how much that cost the shroudies?), not a good sign to me.
 
Acleron said:
The paper gives a few examples of isotopic exchange which are unrelated to changing carbon atoms in the monomeric D-glucose.

But then:- (edited because the super and subscripts didn't copy and paste)
Click to expand...

I was expecting later carefully to read it and find a detail or a catch, but i never thought it would be so gross and obvious. I understand now why they published this "speculation" ina new journal.
 
Aepervius said:
I was expecting later carefully to read it and find a detail or a catch, but i never thought it would be so gross and obvious. I understand now why they published this "speculation" ina new journal.
Click to expand...

So the 'peer' is the bank and the 'review' is the check clearing the bank.
 
Acleron said:
The paper gives a few examples of isotopic exchange which are unrelated to changing carbon atoms in the monomeric D-glucose.

But then:- (edited because the super and subscripts didn't copy and paste)

The paper gives a few examples of isotopic exchange which are unrelated to changing carbon atoms in the monomeric D-glucose.

But then:- (edited because the super and subscripts didn't copy and paste)

[B]Quote:[/B]
We propose the
reaction
14CO2 + Monomer <=> CO2 + 14C-Monomer (3)
in which one isotope 14C is exchanged by another isotope 12C

. As the 14C is so scarce, we will suppose
that a monomer only exchanges one isotope. The
Equation (3) has never been verified before and the
results presented in the paper are all based on this
supposition.
Click to expand...



I didn't read the paper, because first of all the publication does not appear to be in a genuine mainstream research Journal, but also because it hung my laptop.

So just off the top of my head - if they are talking about silver catalysing a CO2 reaction with the cloth of the shroud, then the first problem is this would appear to be a solid state reaction (not a reaction in solution). However, solid state reactions are so rare in chemistry as to be literally a million times less likely than typical liquid or gas phase reactions, and secondly ...

... catalysts which are added to chemical reaction mixtures are, from memory, almost always required to be very finely powdered, in order to provide a maximum surface area in contact with the other reactants. However, in the case of the shroud, if they are talking about droplets of molten silver acting as a catalyst, then that would certainly not be in any such ideally powdered state.

So just on that basis alone this appears to be extremely unlikely to say the very least, i.e. first it's a solid state reaction, and second even if silver does act as catalyst, the globules of molten and solidified metal would probably be hopeless for the task.

Also of course, a reaction like that could only take place very locally just in the microscopically small area of the silver burn hole itself ... there is no mechanism that I can think of which would lead to any wider spread reaction through the solid threads of the cloth.

And, finally - unless the the C14 radiocarbon sample was cut from an area obviously burnt through by molten silver, then afaik any such reaction would be physically impossible anyway.
 
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IanS said:
I didn't read the paper, because first of all the publication does not appear to be in a genuine mainstream research Journal, but also because it hung my laptop. ...
Also of course, a reaction like that could only take place very locally just in the microscopically small area of the silver burn hole itself ... there is no mechanism that I can think of which would lead to any wider spread reaction through the solid threads of the cloth.

And, finally - unless the the C14 radiocarbon sample was cut from an area obviously burnt through by molten silver, then afaik any such reaction would be physically impossible anyway.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your considered opinion, IanS.
Sorry to hear about the laptop- that's always a nasty jar.
Hope you sort it soon.
 
IanS said:
So just off the top of my head - if they are talking about silver catalysing a CO2 reaction with the cloth of the shroud, then the first problem is this would appear to be a solid state reaction (not a reaction in solution). However, solid state reactions are so rare in chemistry as to be literally a million times less likely than typical liquid or gas phase reactions,
Click to expand...
I remember seeing a solid-state reaction for the first time. It was a microscope slide onto which a professor had melted some moth ball stuff. he'd put a glass sliver onto the slide, then when it hardened he twisted it and put it under a petrographic microscope (cross-polarization--one way below the slide, orthogonal to that direction above it--which shows different crystals via their different orientations, even if the material is all the same). I remember one crystal looking funny, so I started to watch it. Then I started to stare. Then EVERYONE started to stare--the crystal was growing as we watched! The professor said "If you don't feel a sense of awe, leave now. You'll never make it. This is a religious experience for geologists." Tells you how rare they are--a guy who makes his living (in part) studying these things is awestruck when encountering one first-hand. And after ten years I still remember that lobe growing up and to the left....

... catalysts which are added to chemical reaction mixtures are, from memory, almost always required to be very finely powdered, in order to provide a maximum surface area in contact with the other reactants. However, in the case of the shroud, if they are talking about droplets of molten silver acting as a catalyst, then that would certainly not be in any such ideally powdered state.
Click to expand...
Not to mention they'd burn the cloth. I took a class on jewelry making, and had some encounters with hot and molten metal. Even hot metal does horrible things to organic stuff (like, say, the hand of a student too stupid to test if the metal he'd just put the torch to is cool enough to touch...). I had a number of pairs of pants with burn marks in them from simply HOT metal hitting them. MOLTEN metal is another issue entirely. Unless you're wearing special gear, it'll go to the bone, often (considering what we were using) before your nerves register that you've been burned. Long story short, my experience with metal indicates that had molten silver been an issue, there'd be evidence in the form of charred bits of shroud.

Aepervius said:
apparentely they have a low impact factor is not cited often and has a very low international collaboration. it could be because it is a new journal though.
Click to expand...
I'd advise caution when using IF as a criteria. There was a lot of chatter on PaleoNet a few months back about it. The issue is, IF doesn't take into account works that are incredibly important, but also incredibly niche-specific. I have a paper on the Horned Toad Formation that was critical to some work I was doing in the region, for example. If you're not doing Southern California geology you're not likely to know what the formation IS--yet this is the type of publication that constitutes the bulk of paleontology. A lot of really good science is done in journals that are only intended to reach a specific and limited audience. I'm not saying that you're wrong (the article--even the little bits I've read thanks to people posting them here--is proof that you're right); I just always bring up that caveat when IF is mentioned.
 
Thank you Ian S, Dinwar et allia:

I had made a comment about the Alconchel-Pecino’s work months ago. Here (in Spanish): w w w .lamentiraestaahifuera.com/2012/07/23/el-ultimo-peldano-de-sanchez-hermosilla/ . But I had restricted my criticism to general aspects. I suspected it because the article didn’t explain concretely the alleged experiences that gave support it. I’m especially referring to the silver catalytic process. I think your precisions are conclusive.
 
An interesting blog you have there, David.
So D. Francisco Alconchel Pecino's paper is actually from 2004.
I wonder CES hasn't had it translated to English.

ETA:
From your blog, I especially liked
se encuentre molestamente encajado entre unos cuantos misteriólogos que hablan de astronautas extraterrestres en un programa de misteriomanía
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Don't tell me we have a critic of Cuarto Milenio here!
 
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Dinwar said:
I'd advise caution when using IF as a criteria. There was a lot of chatter on PaleoNet a few months back about it. The issue is, IF doesn't take into account works that are incredibly important, but also incredibly niche-specific. I have a paper on the Horned Toad Formation that was critical to some work I was doing in the region, for example. If you're not doing Southern California geology you're not likely to know what the formation IS--yet this is the type of publication that constitutes the bulk of paleontology. A lot of really good science is done in journals that are only intended to reach a specific and limited audience. I'm not saying that you're wrong (the article--even the little bits I've read thanks to people posting them here--is proof that you're right); I just always bring up that caveat when IF is mentioned.
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True but in conjunction to my question at the end, why such a groudn seminal work impacting a lot of domain was not published in some more like physical review, that make it suspect.
 
pakeha said:
An interesting blog you have there, David.
So D. Francisco Alconchel Pecino's paper is actually from 2004.
I wonder CES hasn't had it translated to English.

ETA:
From your blog, I especially liked

Don't tell me we have a critic of Cuarto Milenio here!
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Thank you, Paheka. La mentira está ahí fuera is a good skeptical blog but it isn’t mine. I have written some articles as a contributor. My blog is La sombra en el sudario (sombraenelsudario.wordpress.com), and is specifically dedicated to the shroud of Turin.

I can’t watch Cuarto Milenio. My Doctor says it is not good for my health.
 
I see from his profile that Jabba has passed this way not two hours ago, but didn't say hello. He must still be collating all those references.
 
^
Never mind, I'm sure Jabba's next contribution will be worth reading.


David Mo said:
...I can’t watch Cuarto Milenio. My Doctor says it is not good for my health.
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I've bookmarked your blog.
While I agree with your physician's assessment of Cuarto Milenio, I have seen one or two segments that were intriguing.
Perhaps the most interesting was an extended interview with the Vatican's number one exorcist, a fascinating old fella who confessed that in his 60+ years of exorcisms, he's seen only 5 cases where he reckoned there might have been 'something' there.
All the other cases he'd seen were clearly psychiatric cases.

ETA:
Hey, it's on youtube!
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6C1E69CCAF536AAE
 
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Carbon dating/devil's advocate

- Check out http://shroudstory.com/2012/09/21/an-open-thread-for-rich-savage-questions/.

- I'm going to pose your questions and comments (to Dan's blog) in a friendly and respectful way, and see if we get any good answers... I'll even run my versions of the q/c's past you for approval before I post them. I already have some old issues I need to raise over there, but otherwise you should point out what issues you'd like me to raise...
- Sorry about the "foolish and insulting" part you'll find in my correspondence with Yannick, my friend, but that IS how I see it -- I just think that it's dysfunctional to air such perceptions in a debate. Such exposure tends to hamper any real open-mindedness or negotiation.
--- Jabba
 
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