In his treatise, Calvin (1509—1564) disparaged the proliferating alleged shrouds of Christ, mentioning a few by location, including one at Nice, another at Aix-la-Chapelle, and still another at Besan­çon (Calvin 1543, 237). Yet he does not (for reasons that will become clear) list that most famous of shrouds, the Shroud of Turin. Nevertheless, he does seem to refer to it when he mentions Jesus’ shroud having borne “the full-length likeness of a human body on it” (Calvin 1543, 239). Except for later copies, the Shroud of Turin is apparently unique in bearing the image of a supposed crucifixion victim.1

However, that “shroud” did not have Turin added to its name until the cloth was taken to that city—in a shrewd political move by its then-owner, Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savory—in 1578, long after Calvin’s death. It therefore seemed likely that that cloth was one of the others mentioned by Calvin.

We now know the shroud Calvin referred to as being at Besançon was merely one of the copies of the relic now at Turin (Wilson 1979, 300). The cloth at Aix-la-Chapelle was apparently the same one that was later kept at St. Cornelius Abbey in Compiègne, where it was venerated for nine centuries until (as with the shroud at Besançon) it was destroyed during the French Revolution (Conway 1915; Nickell 1998, 53). Yet another, the Cadouin shroud,2 survived the French Revolution only to be proved in 1935 to be an eleventh-century Moslem cloth (Nickell 1998, 53). A couple of other shrouds referenced by Calvin are quite obscure, which doubtless would not be the case had either borne an image of Jesus’ body.

Finally, there was the shroud at Nice. My research revealed that, in fact, the cloth now known as the Shroud of Turin was kept in Nice from 1537 until 1549 (Wilson 1979, 219, 263). This was the very time that Calvin was writing his treatise, published in 1543. Therefore, when he wrote of a shroud at Nice, he was clearly referring to the image-bearing one that is today the subject of such controversy.

If there is any doubt of this, it is dispelled by Calvin himself in his French text (see Higman 1970, 65) where (omitted by his English translator [Krasinski 1870, 237]) he states that the shroud at Nice was “transporté là de Chambery.” Indeed, the famous shroud was transported to Nice (via Turin, Milan, and Vercelli) from its home at Cham­béry (then-capitol of the duchy of Savoy) for
protection during the war (Wilson 1979, 262—263; Nickell 1998, 26).

That shroud (now the Shroud of Turin) had first appeared in about 1355 at a small church in Lirey, France. According to a bishop’s report written in 1389 to the Avignon pope, Clement VII, an artist ad­mitted he had “cunningly painted” the image of the crucified Christ on the cloth. Stylistic and iconographic elements corroborate a medieval artistic origin. So do modern carbon-14 tests, which yielded a date range of circa 1260—1390 ad, consistent with the time of the reported forger’s confession. Famed microanalyst Walter C. McCrone had previously determined that the image had been rendered by an artist using red ocher and vermilion tempera paint (Nickell 1998; 2007).

Calvin was not privy to the historical and scientific evidence we now have. Nonethe­less, his arguments against the authenticity of the infamous shroud then at Nice are sound. He asks,

How is it possible that those sacred historians, who carefully related all the miracles that took place at Christ’s death, should have omitted to mention one so remarkable as the likeness of the body of our Lord remaining on its wrapping sheet? This fact undoubtedly deserved to be recorded. St. John, in his Gospel, relates even how St. Peter, having entered the sepulchre, saw the linen clothes lying on one side, and the napkin that was about his head on the other; but he does not say that there was a miraculous impression of our Lord’s figure upon these clothes, and it is not to be imagined that he would have omitted to mention such a work of God if there had been any thing of this kind. (1543, 238)

As to that image, Calvin notes that the appearance on a single cloth of such a “full-length likeness of a human body” gives its own evidence of falsehood. He observes:

Now, St. John’s Gospel, chapter nineteen, says that Christ was buried according to the manner of the Jews; and what was their custom? This may be known by their present custom on such occasions, as well as from their books, which describe the ancient ceremony of interment, which was to wrap the body in a sheet, to the shoulders, and to cover the head with a separate cloth. This is precisely how the evangelist described it, saying, that St. Peter saw on one side the clothes with which the body had been wrapped, and on the other the napkin from about his head.

In brief, concludes Calvin, “either St. John is a liar,” or anyone who promotes such a shroud is “convicted of falsehood and deceit” (Calvin 1543, 239).

Imaged shroud or not, Calvin has this to say about the various Holy Shrouds:

Now, I ask whether those persons were not bereft of their senses who could take long pilgrimages, at much expense and fatigue, in order to see sheets, of the reality of which there were no reasons to believe, but many to doubt; for whoever admitted the reality of one of these sudaries [shrouds3] shown in so many places, must have considered the rest as wicked impostures set up to deceive the public by the pretence that they were each the real sheet in which Christ’s body had been wrapped. But it is not only that the exhibitors of this one and the same relic give each other mutually the lie, they are (what is far more important) positively contradicted by the Gospel. (1543, 237)

His reference to shrouds at “so many places” is not an overstatement, since there were once some forty-three of them in Europe alone, according to Thomas Humber in The Sacred Shroud (1978, 78).

Calvin’s criticisms of the Shroud of Turin are still relevant today, as are his views on other Christian relics. For example, he observes that the alleged blood of Jesus “is exhibited in more than a hundred places.”

He continues:

Now, I appeal to the judgment of every one whether it is not an evident lie to maintain that the blood of Jesus Christ was found, after a lapse of seven or eight hundred years, to be distributed over the whole world, especially as the ancient church makes no mention of it? (Calvin 1543, 226—227)

 In 2006, I visited the Basi­lica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium, and held in my hands a reliquary of the venerated substance. Stored in what has been determined to be a medieval Byzantine perfume bottle, it is suspiciously red—unlike genuine old blood, which blackens with age (Nickell 2007, 169).

Calvin also ridiculed the countless fragments and splinters that are alleged to be from Jesus’ cross. He suggested that “if we were to collect all these pieces of the true cross exhibited in various parts, they would form a whole ship’s cargo” (Calvin 1543, 233). He goes on to criticize the rival Holy Grails, Holy Lances, and other pious frauds (many of which were later destroyed during religious wars and, especially, the French Revolution [Krasinski 1870, 281 f.n.]).

He is particularly incensed about the vials of the Virgin Mary’s milk, observing that “there is not perhaps a town, a convent, or nunnery, where it is not shown in large or small quantities. Indeed, had the Virgin been a wet-nurse her whole life, or a dairy, she could not have produced more than is shown as hers in various parts.” He concludes, “How they obtained all this milk they do not say, and it is superfluous here to remark that there is no foundation in the Gospels for these foolish and blasphemous extravagances” (1543, 249).

Calvin sums up by asking: “Where may we find one real relic of which we may feel certain that it is such as is represented?” (1543, 280). That is, of course, a rhetorical question.        l

Notes

1. Evidence shows that a possible exception—a cloth at Constantinople predating the Turin Shroud—was a face cloth rather than a shroud (see Nickell 1998, 53—54).
2. This shroud was omitted from Calvin’s list by the English translator (Krasinski 1854, 237).
3. “Sudary”—from the Latin sudarium—was used by Calvin’s English translator. But that term refers to a facecloth (the “napkin” in John 20:7), not a “suaire” (Calvin’s French) or “shroud.”

References

• Calvin, John. 1543. Treatise on Relics, trans. by Count Valerian Krasinski, 1854; 2nd ed. Edinburgh: John Stone, Hunter, and Company, 1870; reprinted with an introduction by Joe Nickell, Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2009.
• Conway, Sir W. Martin. 1915. The Treasures of Saint Denis. Available online at http://vreoll.fa.pitt.
  edu/medart/texts/Saint-Denis/Conway2.html; accessed December 12, 2007.
• Higman, Francis M., ed. 1970. Jean Calvin: Three French Treatises. London: Athlone Press.
• Humber, Thomas. 1978. The Sacred Shroud. New York: Pocket Books.
• Krasinski, Count Valerian. 1870. Translation (with introduction and notes) of Calvin’s A Treatise on Relics (1543), 2nd ed. (first ed. publ. 1854). Edin­burgh: John Stone, Hunter and Company.
• Nickell, Joe. 1998. Inquest on the Shroud of Turin. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• —. 2007. Relics of the Christ. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky.
• —. 2009. Introduction in Treatise on Relics by John Calvin. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
• Wilson, Ian. 1979. The Shroud of Turin, rev. ed. Garden City, New York: Image Books.
• Joe Nickell, PhD, is CSI’s senior research fellow and author of numerous books, including Relics of the Christ. His Web site is available at http://www.joenickell.com.

Verne’s novels contain much technical detail. Is this real science or is it technobabble—that mishmash of scientific-sounding terms that obscures the otherwise unspecified means by which a story’s protagonists achieve their goals? Does forgotten Victorian technology that could power today’s electric cars lie behind Verne’s stories, or was he merely bamboozling his readers?

The Search for the Source

I read several of Verne’s stories when I was about twelve. Back then it bothered me that his characters seemingly derived unlimited electrical power from a relatively small battery. I recently reread “Five Weeks in a Balloon” to refresh my memory. This book is not great literature but was Verne’s first best seller, and it was the story that drew my junior skeptic’s attention.

A few months ago I was browsing through Barnes and Noble’s bargain books and noticed some omnibus editions of classic authors. Sure enough, there was a heavy volume containing seven Verne stories. It didn’t reproduce the original illustrations, but it cost much less than online sellers were asking for used copies of “Five Weeks in a Balloon” alone.

Taking to the Air

“Five Weeks in a Balloon,” published in 1863, is a straight-forward adventure story set in Africa. By the 1860s, Africa had been explored by Europeans for a century or more. Expedition after expedition had returned with most of their members dead from disease, starvation, or the predations of hostile natives. Verne’s proposal was that if a balloon’s altitude could be controlled without constantly dumping ballast or venting gas, it could cross Africa driven only by the prevailing winds. Rivers, rough terrain, and unfriendly aborigines could be avoided by flying over them. The three adventurers of “Five Weeks in a Balloon” set off from Zanzibar and, after many harrowing escapes, arrive in Senegal.

At the time Verne was writing, hydrogen-filled balloons had just found their first practical application as battlefield observation platforms in the American Civil War. Elongated, powered, steerable balloons were still forty years in the future. He proposed a technological solution similar to that used in today’s long-distance balloon flights. His balloon had two gas bags, one inside the other and both containing hydrogen. The height of the balloon was controlled by circulating the gas through a heated tube. As the heat expanded, the hydrogen in the balloon rose; cutting off the heat let the balloon descend. Simple!

In modern balloons, one gas bag contains helium to provide most of the lift, and the other contains air heated by a propane burner. How long a modern balloon can stay in the air depends on how many propane tanks it can carry at lift-off.

Infinite Hot Air

Verne circumvents the issue of fuel consumption with some pseudoscientific hand-waving of which our present-day free-energy promoters would be proud. Like them, he makes things sound plausible until you look at the numbers. The hydrogen in Verne’s balloon is heated by burning a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. (Remember Dennis Lee and Brown’s gas? Verne used it first.) These gases are produced by “decomposing” water with electricity from a “powerful Buntzen [sic] battery.”

This battery reappears in later books as the Bunsen battery, the real but low-power battery invented by Robert Wilhelm Bunsen in 1841. Like the feeble dry cells of my youth, the Bunsen battery had electrodes of graphite and zinc; Bunsen used chromic acid as the electrolyte rather than ammonium chloride. Verne’s battery is apparently capable of providing thousands of kilowatt hours from a weight of a few hundred pounds.

Battery technology has improved considerably since Verne’s time, but this is still a performance that car manufacturers would kill for. Practical capacities are orders of magnitude lower than Verne assumes.

Electrolysis Does the Trick

There is a hint in the story that limitless supplies of separated hydrogen and oxygen can be had just by applying voltage to water. This nonsensical idea has been embraced by free-energy and improved-gas-mileage promoters alike. Fiction has metamorphosed into fraud in only 145 years. In real life the rate of gas production is proportional to the current that flows, and thus it is proportional to the electrical power consumed.

The heat generated by burning the gases evolved from an electrolytic cell is significantly less than the heat that could be generated from the original electrical input. Verne’s explorers should have connected an electric heater directly to the battery. The extra complication of electrolysis is just there to befuddle the reader.

The Ubiquitous Bunsen Battery

The Bunsen battery crops up again in “A Journey to the Center of the Earth.” One obvious problem with underground adventuring is how to provide illumination. Verne’s solution is an antique version of today’s compact fluorescent lamp. His heroes carry “Ruhmkorff’s apparatus,” which, a footnote explains, is a Bunsen pile (battery), an induction coil, and an evacuated spiral tube. These devices are apparently capable of supplying light for many weeks, a task that would defeat any modern battery, even one that, like Verne’s, is carried in a backpack.

Modern backpackers must envy Verne’s three heroes. After several weeks underground they congratulate themselves on still having four weeks’ food remaining. Considering that they are also carrying ropes, guns, ammunition, fifty pounds of guncotton(!), shovels, blankets, and Ruhmkorff’s apparatus, one wonders how they managed even to stand up.

The electric battery reaches its apotheosis in “20,000 Leagues under the Sea.” Captain Nemo’s Nautilus is powered by sodium, presumably used as a battery electrode. This sodium is replenished at an underground base where coal is mined and used to extract the sodium from seawater. Curiously, the immense screw of the Nautilus is turned by the electrical equivalent of a reciprocating steam engine with electromagnets taking the place of the cylinders. One shudders to think how inefficient this would be.

Space Travel

Verne’s technobabble reaches its peak in “From the Earth to the Moon.” In this book and its sequel “Around the Moon,” Verne goes into great circumstantial detail, quoting so many weights and dimensions that one wonders why no Ark hunters have switched their focus to Florida, where Verne’s equally mythical 900-foot moon gun is presumed to still lie buried in Stone Hill. With 68,000 tons of cast iron as a prize, perhaps the only thing deterring them is the difficulty of locating a 1,600-foot hill in Florida.

Many commentators have pointed out that being fired from a giant cannon would reduce any passengers to a pulp. Once in space, Verne’s travelers feel a diminishing pull toward Earth. This leads to weightlessness only at the “neutral point” between the Earth and the moon. In the century prior to the Apollo missions, Verne’s misapprehension became common wisdom. The idea that the projectile and its occupants are falling freely and hence are equally weightless has never quite taken hold.

On the plus side, Verne’s heroes quite properly use rockets to adjust the course of their projectile. We can’t blame Verne for the once common belief that space travel is impossible because “rockets need air to push against.”

Verne’s Chemistry

Supplying the vessel with air would be possible in theory. Potassium chlorate is heated to release oxygen. This is standard Victorian chemistry, although Verne omits the addition of manganese dioxide as a catalyst to speed up the rate of oxygen evolution. Exhaled carbon dioxide is absorbed by potassium hydroxide.

The potassium chlorate is heated by burning what seems to be methane (Verne’s chemical terminology can be confusing) whose source is unspecified and, seemingly, unlimited. This gas also supplies light when sunlight is not sufficient. Burning gas, of course, uses up some fraction of the evolved oxygen. Oddly enough, that ideal source of heat and light, the amazing Bunsen battery, doesn’t appear in either “From the Earth to the Moon” or its sequel.

The air-regenerating chemicals carried in the vessel are quoted as being sufficient for three people for two months. With no recycling, each person in a spacecraft consumes about a kilogram of oxygen per day. A back-of-envelope calculation indicates that Verne’s oxygen generator would need an initial supply of nearly half a ton of potassium chlorate. A comparable quantity of potassium hydroxide would be needed to absorb carbon dioxide.

However, neither potassium chlorate nor potassium hydroxide are substances I would want to carry with me in a confined space. When ignited, potassium chlorate reacts explosively with flammable materials, and the corrosive effect of spilt potassium hydroxide on the aluminum hull would be spectacular.

Accident or Purpose?

From our modern perspective, Verne’s stories contain many scientific blunders. Some reflect the common beliefs of the time, and some reveal Verne’s unfamiliarity with astrophysics. Often the science is sound enough, but he greatly exaggerates the available resources. On the other hand, much that passes for science is simply a great author not letting the facts get in the way of telling an engrossing story.

In 1997 I visited two of the great mystical “energy centers” of the world: the pyramids at Ghiza and the Peruvian ruins of Macchu Picchu in the South American Andes. The Peruvian ruins sit atop a steep verdant mountain, surrounded by lower hills emerging regally from cottony white clouds. The huge stone complex, which is a remnant of the Inca civilization, was rediscovered only recently (in 1911), having escaped the Spanish Conquest because of its remote location and rugged terrain.

The ruins are one of South America’s largest tourist destinations. Minibuses crawl the zigzagging path up the mountain like a caravan of boxy ants, delivering their multicultural visitors to the top after about an hour’s journey. In my midst while viewing the ruins were two or three groups of New Age people (often distinguishable by the crystals around their necks or in their hands). They intently followed their tour guide as he described the ruins in glowing and esoteric terms, steeped in ancient wisdom and Earth-energy mysticism. The guide spoke of sacred space and of ancient shamans communing with gods and spirits. These modern-day pilgrims took photos and performed rituals and ceremonies, waving their arms slowly, claiming they were harnessing ancient energies. They seemed suitably awed by their experience. However, I had done some basic research on Macchu Picchu, and, as far as I could tell, the New Age angle was almost entirely an earnest fiction.

I’d read about how the Incan Empire was the most sophisticated civilization in the Andes highlands, consisting of at least 12 million people. I’d seen documentaries about the amazing road system the Incas built, stretching about two-thirds the length of South America. I’d also read about the numerous discoveries and ornate artifacts recovered from the culture. Among the most exciting was the discovery in 1995 of an Incan “ice maiden” found at a nearby mountain, Picchu Picchu. The body, found by archaeologist and mountaineering legend Johan Reinhard, was remarkably well preserved and revealed a trove of information about the Inca, such as their burial rites, diet, lifestyle, religion, and social stratification.

But somehow my travel guides, archaeology and history books, and National Geographic clippings had missed the terribly important New Age aspects of the ruins and Incan culture, such as cosmic cycles and archaeo-astronomy. There was no mention of sacred spaces or mystical Earth energies in the science-based resources I consulted. Even so, tourists flew in from Los Angeles or New York or Denver to attend the New Age tours. These pilgrims had their crystals and books and brochures, but few if any spoke more than a word or two of the local language or had the faintest appreciation for the real cultures and peoples they supposedly came to see. Judging from the questions they asked, they knew very little about the ruins that surrounded them or the culturally rich empire they represented. They didn’t seem interested in the true history of Macchu Picchu or the Inca; they were there not to learn anything new but to impose their own mystical worldviews on a foreign culture. I understand that the New Agers were sincere searchers for enlightenment, but I was sad and disappointed that they had in a real way missed the true significance of these amazing ruins and this fantastic culture. They got the touristy, New Age-lite version of the history of Macchu Picchu that bears little resemblance to reality. This sort of co-opting of indigenous peoples and their culture is crass and insulting.

I heard tourists talk about the Quechua people (a regional Indian group) and discuss among themselves the Quechua spiritual worldview. I was amazed at the patronizing tone the tourists adopted; it was a sort of false reverence for the Noble Savage, that the Indians were somehow spiritually enlightened relics for reference and reverence instead of real, flesh-and-blood humans. From a fifteen-minute lecture and a fuzzy photocopied handout, these tourists seemed to think they had a substantive understanding of Quechua culture and mysticism. A month earlier, I had spent several weeks living with a Quechua family in their home in the Amazon jungle without electricity or running water. I began as an ecotourist studying medicinal plants for a week and ended up staying longer. I learned from the family, harvested food with them, and even taught them some English in
return for their hospitality. I learned a lot
from my experience, but I would never presume to think that I had any real understanding of the Quechua, their culture, or their spiritual beliefs.

There may indeed be mystical energies permeating Macchu Picchu, but there is no reason to think that any such energy has any inherent connection to the ruins, its denizens, or its history. In fact, as National Geographic contributor Anthony Brandt wrote, “It was more likely a winter palace for an Inca emperor, populated not by priests and shamans but by nubile maidens there to serve his pampered highness.” (Frankly, I find this scenario much more titillating than the shamans.) Despite fanciful conjecture to the contrary, there simply is no evidence of any special religious or mystical energies associated with Macchu Picchu. I can understand why people would wish to believe there were (and why tourism groups would exploit and encourage that belief), but the New Age angle is anthropologically incorrect and culturally disrespectful. Macchu Picchu is an absolutely amazing, wondrous, and profound place where your spirit soars and the majesty is inescapable. Fabricating or exaggerating the significance of the ruins simply cheapens the experience.

Since I have dedicated much of my time to public education here in Miami by visiting schools, running a successful public lecture program, and speaking at planetariums and to amateur groups on topics like black holes and cutting-edge physics, I felt I was as capable as anyone to carefully consider and present the scientific analysis to a non-
technical audience. The possibility of reaching a wider audience for science was also very attractive.

 In further conversations with the producer, I confessed that I had difficulty watching the show due to the logical errors. At the producer’s suggestion, I critiqued an episode for him and documented the copious logical flaws I found in the arguments during the one-hour program. The critique is available on my blog (http://www.myspace.com/astrojim
webb) as an entry titled “Critique of UFO Hunters.” The producer agreed with me on most of the problems I noted and assured me that I would not be misquoted or misrepresented if I participated in the interview. I felt reassured, and he told me about the event I was to analyze. Because the show is on the History Channel rather than the SciFi channel, I had some expectation that it would contain more science than fiction.

I went to a local bookstore and found the book The Fog by Rob MacGregor and Bruce Gernon, which I would be discussing on the show. In the book, a pilot (Gernon) professes to have flown through a wormhole in the Bermuda Triangle formed by an “electromagnetic fog.” During the ensuing weeks, the producer sent me several other references supporting the time traveler, and I pointed out in each of these sources the obviously unrealistic errors in physics.

I sent the producer a detailed six-page refutation of the idea of a wormhole in the Caribbean that the pilot supposedly flew through to get to Miami. I used the information in the book to calculate and map out the plane’s true trajectory to prove his trip did not require any supernatural or astrophysical conditions, only a strong tailwind! I went on to explain the physical problems associated with wormholes in the context of general relativity, the differences between mathematical results and physics, and the fact that there is currently no physical evidence that copious amounts of negative energy in the universe “hold open” a wormhole to allow passage. I also calculated the mass needed to open a black hole with the required event horizon dimensions (which was much more than the mass of the Earth itself).

When the time came for the interview, we settled on some demonstrations that I was going to do to show the physics side of wormholes. The filming was done at a small seaside resort on Andros Island in the Bahamas, and it was actually quite enjoyable. I was treated very well and the three UFO hunters seemed very interested in what a physicist had to say about these events. They all read my document before the filming and agreed my solutions were sound. The interview lasted for nearly two hours, during which I explained the difference between mathematics and physics, the concepts of general relativity, wormholes in space-time, and how one would need negative energy to construct a time-travel machine. Other more common topics, such as space flight and technology, were also discussed. We also talked about my analysis of the pilot’s journey and how it was easily explained well within normal atmospheric physics.

When the show aired, I was thoroughly horrified by what I saw. My interview followed some seriously disturbing claims from people about wormholes at AUTEC Navy base, included remote viewing of aliens at AUTEC, and of course a long, detailed interview with the time-traveling pilot himself. A two-minute segment showing my explanation of the mathematical possibility of wormholes was the only part of my interview shown. It was followed by one of the UFO hunters commenting that a respected physicist said that wormhole travel is possible, giving the impression that I agreed with the pilot about his journey through time. All of the discussion of mathematics versus real-life physics and the detailed analysis of the particular case—showing that it was completely explainable by common physics—was omitted. My real analysis of the situation is on my blog under the entry “The Real UFO Hunter Interview.”

I am not sure what is most distressing about this experience—the personal and professional disappointment or the missed opportunity to inject some reality into the viewers’ minds. The fact that TV producers will routinely lie to scholars to get them on their shows in order to misrepresent them is quite disturbing to me. Also alarming is the loss of a golden opportunity for the television audience to see real science triumph over pseudoscience.

The moral of the story is that even if the producer graduated from your university and professes to be a sincere person trying to improve his show, the bottom line is that apparently the only important thing in television is ratings; the truth is not a factor. UFO Hunters should be put on the skeptical watch list as one of the worst offenders of the scientific enterprise.