Re: VMs: Oldest Dating

[elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Zitat von Dennis <tsalagi@xxxxxxxx>:

> elvogt@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Mind you that these tests are not necessarily conclusive. Cf. the Turin
> shroud,
> > where the carbon dating seemingly raised more questions than it answered.
> 	
> 	I thought that the carbon dating was pretty
> conclusive, unless you didn't want to be convinced --
> as many don't!  But that could be *our* problem, too. 
> 

In the Turin shroud case, the fabric had been exposed to a fire, so the primary 
results (15th century work) were attacked on the grounds that soot from the 
fire got into the fabric, and you actually measured the soot's age, rather than 
the fabric. And I don't think that could be easily discarded.

Similar attacks on any measurement of the VM are conceivable, as long as we 
don't have a detailed record of its history. Besides, as the EVMT notes, any 
such test would only give us an upper bound on the age of the VM, not more.

> ...
> 	Gabriel notes on the EVMT page that carbon-14 dating
> is very inexact for our putative time period, because
> of the shape of the decay curve. 

I guess you have to take it with a grain of salt. It's probably not as good as 
a Beinecke stamp "acquired 1435", but should still give you a result plus minus 
a few decades. IMHO.

> 
> Dennis

Elmar

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