My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (3) #38
This is the fourth installment of "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell (3)," part #38 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia. See Part 1 for more information about this 5-part series.
[Index #1] [Previous: My Hacker Theory (2) #37] [Next: My Hacker Theory (4) #39].
■ Other Shroudie explanations don't work[see 24May14, 08Dec14 & 23Jul15].
[Above (enlarge: Drawing of the approximately 1.2 cm x 8 cm sample area, from A1 (Arizona 1), O (Oxford), Z (Zurich) to A (Arizona), with a photo of the Shroud sample superimposed over the drawing on the bottom right hand side[13Jun14; 11Feb15; 18Nov15]. Clearly there can be no significant difference in contamination between samples in such a tiny area, if the radiocarbon dates were real and not generated by a hacker's program[11Feb15; 28Jan25]!
We have seen in Part 1 and Part 2 that there is both historical and artistic evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shroud is at least 716 years older than its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date. So the 1260-1390 (=325 ± 65) radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct. But shroudies are under no obligation to explain how the first century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date, as the agnostic art historian and Shroudie Thomas de Wesselow (1971-) pointed out:
"Contamination, reweaving or fraud: three potential sources of error, any one of which could have caused the incorrect carbon dating of the Shroud. But can we legitimately reject the carbon-dating result without determining exactly what went wrong? Of course we can. Archaeologists routinely dismiss 'rogue' radiocarbon dates out of hand. The success of a carbon-dating result should never be declared unilaterally; it is always measured against other evidence. The 1988 test may therefore be declared null and void, even though, without further direct study of the Shroud, it is unlikely we will ever be able to say definitively what went wrong"[14Feb14; 22Feb14]Having said that, as I have shown in my previous Hacking Theory series': 18Feb14; 24May14; 23Jul15 & 23Jan17, it is my theory that the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud was the result of a computer hacking. I therefore need to show that other Shroudie explanations why the first century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 radiocarbon date are wrong[08Jun14; 11 Jun16].
Apart from "Sample Switch," (see future) all shroudie attempts to explain why the first-century Shroud has a 1325 ± 65 years radiocarbon date:
• Accept the 1260-1390 date and attempt to reconcile the 1st century Shroud with it[19Apr17].
• Claim that new carbon-14 shifted the first century Shroud's radiocarbon date 13 centuries into the future to the `bull's eye' date 1325 ± 65 years[09May17].
• Don't explain why the Shroud's radiocarbon date is 1325 ± 65.
• Ignore that it would be a miracle if new carbon shifted the Shroud's 1st century radiocarbon date ~13 centuries into future to the `bull's eye' date, 1325 ± 65[30May14; 26Oct14; 08Dec14; 24May14; 23Jul15; 18Aug15; 19Apr17; 09May17].
• Are mutually exclusive: they all can't be right but they all can be wrong!
■ Neutron flux [20Jan25a]. This was the first attempt to explain why the 1st century Shroud could have a 1260-1390 radiocarbon date, by Harvard physicist Thomas J. Phillips and it was actually in the same 16 February 1989 Nature issue as the 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud article[08Dec14; 23Jul15]. In a letter to Nature Phillips wrote:
"If the shroud of Turin is in fact the burial cloth of Christ, contrary to its recent carbon-dated age of about 670 years (Nature 335, 663; 1988 and 337, 611; 1989), then according to the Bible it was present at a unique physical event: the resurrection of a dead body. Unfortunately, this event is not accessible to direct scientific scrutiny, but the image on the shroud, which still cannot be duplicated, appears to be a scorch, indicating that the body radiated light and/or heat. It may also have radiated neutrons, which would have irradiated the shroud and changed some of the nuclei to different isotopes by neutron capture. In particular, some 14C could have been generated from 13C. If we assume that the shroud is 1,950 years old and that the neutrons were emitted thermally, then an integrated flux of 2 x 1016 neutrons cm-2 would have converted enough 13C to 14C to give an apparent carbon-dated age of 670 years"[PT89].As far as I am aware, Phillips was not a Shroudie, although he knew the Shroudman's image "cannot be duplicated, [and] appears to be a scorch," and presumably is a Christian. But as pointed out by Oxford laboratory's Robert Hedges (1944-), "Phillips ... has not included the neutron capture by nitrogen in the cloth"[HR89, 08Dec14]. This shows that Phillips knew little about radiocarbon dating. While the conversion of carbon-13 with its 7 neutrons to carbon-14 with its 8 neutrons would appear to be simpler, carbon-13 is rare, comprising only about 1.1% of all carbon on Earth, so there would not be enough carbon-13 in the Shroud's linen to convert to carbon-14 and affect the Shroud's radiocarbon date. Nitrogen-14 (ordinary nitrogen), also with 7 neutrons, is far more abundant, comprising about 78% of Earth's atmosphere. Almost all carbon-14 is created in the upper atmosphere by neutrons colliding with atoms of nitrogen-14. So neutron flux theorists claim that it was the nitrogen-14 in the Shroud's air spaces (since there is no nitrogen in cellulose [20Jan25b] - see below) that
[Right (enlarge): Cellulose molecular structure [CDL]. As can be seen, cellulose (C6H10O5), consists only of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in repeating molecular chains.]
was converted to carbon-14 and accounts for the first-century Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date.
Problems of the neutron flux theory include: • "No plausible physical mechanism has been proposed to explain how the resurrection was accompanied by a significant neutron flux"[HR89]; • "it is an amazing coincidence that the neutron dose should be so exactly appropriate to give the most likely date on historical grounds [1355]"[HR89; 09Jan14; 08Dec14]; "To produce a date within 100 years of the first recorded history of the shroud [1355] implies that the dose has been `fine-tuned' to better than one part in a hundred million"[HR89, 08Dec14]. • "samples taken much nearer to the image ... would have given a carbon date even more recent than the historic age"[GH96, 300, 08Dec14]; • No Biblical support. While there is Biblical support for the Light Radiation Theory (see 25Oct24), there is none for the Neutron Flux Theory[20Jan25c]. • No nitrogen in cellulose. ... there is no nitrogen in cellulose which comprises the Shroud's linen ... The Neutron Flux Theory (NFT) therefore claims that that the nitrogen in the Shroud's air spaces was converted to carbon-14 by a neutron flux generated by Jesus' resurrection ... But .... the carbon-14 in the Shroud's air spaces would not become part the Shroud's cellulose fibres ... [and] would not change the Shroud's radiocarbon date[20Jan25d]. • Would add neutrons to cellulose atoms. The same neutron flux which the NFT claims would add a neutron to an atom of nitrogen-14 in the Shroud's air spaces and convert it to an atom of carbon-14 ..., would also add a neutron to atoms in the Shroud's cellulose fibre molecules... The likely effect on the chemical bond ... would be the disintegration of that cellulose molecule ... In which case the Shroud fabric would likely have disintegrated in the first century[20Jan25e]! ...
To be continued in the fifth installment of this series.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
Bibliography
GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
HR89. Hedges, R.E.M., 1989, "Hedges replies," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 594.
PT89. Phillips, T.J., 1989, "Shroud irradiated with neutrons?," Nature, Vol. 337, 16 February, 594.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
Posted 28 February 2025. Updated 4 March 2025.
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