Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Small Measurements

When we start to talk about the fibers we need to begin dealing with very small measurements. And unless we deal with them regularly, very small measurements are hard to come to terms with. For example, there is a micron or micrometer. Text books and dictionaries tell us that a micrometer is one millionth of a meter. It is an absurdly useless definition if you are trying to visualize the size of a micron. For this reason, people look for things to compare it to. The smallest bacterium is about one micron wide. A red blood cell is about seven or eight microns wide. When was the last time that you looked at one of these things? Not with your naked eye, you didn’t.

The thickness of human hair has become the standard. We know what it looks like. We can see it with the naked eye. The only problem is that the human hair varies in thickness from about 20 to 200 microns. It varies over different parts of the body. There are small hairs all over your body that you can’t even see because they are too thin. The hair that you can see varies in thickness on different parts of your body. Age, race, gender, general health and what sort of shampoo you use can also mean differences in thickness. Nonetheless, it is about the best standard we have for visualizing the micron scale. Pluck a hair from the top of your head. If you are bald, you can use an eye lash. Somewhere near the middle of the length of that piece of hair, the hair is about 100 microns thick, give or take about 20 microns.