Fringe Physics – Beyond the Pale (Session 6 of 6)

Stored in the cathedral of Turin is a strip of linen cloth. On one side of the material is the faint image of a crucified male. Contextually, it appears to be a rendering of Christ after being taken down from the cross. Carbon dating of a sample taken from the cloth places it as medieval in origin. Its documented provenance also fades away in that era. Yet, it’s remarkably difficult to explain how an image of that nature was formed. There is also good scientific reasons to be doubtful of the carbon date.

In this talk we’ll examine the image characteristics, identifying the key features that must be accounted for in any explanation of how it was formed. We will also take a look at the raw data from the carbon tests and discuss some of the curious anomalies that were revealed when the information was finally released.

Jonathan Allday is a retired teacher with 30+ years’ experience teaching physics working in a range of boarding and day schools in the UK. He was a head of department, head of faculty and an academic Deputy Head. His last post had the gloriously pompous title ‘Director of Digital Strategy,’ although this did not make the IT work any better for him.

After attending the Liverpool Blue Coat School, he took his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, then in 1989 a PhD in experimental particle physics at Liverpool University. During that time, he found one of David Peat’s books in the University Bookstore. Discovering that David was also a Liverpudlian fostered Jonathan’s ambition to write about physics.

Shortly after his PhD, Jonathan started work on his first book Quarks Leptons and the Big Bang, now published by Taylor & Francis and available in its third edition. It has been in print for over 25 years.

Since then, he has also written Apollo in Perspective, Quantum Reality (now in its second edition), Space-time, and Introduction to Entropy: The Way of the World, written with an old school friend, Professor Simon Hands. In addition, Jonathan is co-authoring a successful textbook (Advanced Physics) and a volume in the Oxford Encyclopaedia for Young Scientists. Most recently, Jonathan contributed to the updated edition of the Looking-Glass Universe by F. David Peat and John Briggs.

In various other projects, Jonathan has produced articles and teaching materials on the philosophy of science and the interface between science and religion. He has contributed to Physics Review magazine and has been an editor of Physics Education.

During COVID, Jonathan started researching what the Pari Center was up to and made his first trip to Italy for the ‘Enchanted Universe’ conference in 2022. Since then, he has adopted Pari as a spiritual home. His physical home is with his wife Carolyn in Worcestershire. They have three grown boys, one of whom actually did a degree in physics at Bristol University, (not a bad strike rate…) and is now a software engineer. The others read psychology and philosophy and fell to the dark side and became accountants. All of them can do sport, which Jonathan can’t but his wife could (very well).

In January 2026, Jonathan became Director of the Pari Center.