Reply To: Techeiles 🔵❎🐌☑️🐟

Chacham:

The fact that kala ilan comes off with bleach does not prove anything(other then that kala ilan is not techeiles which we already knew). The tests spoken of in the gemara and brought down by the Rambam do not involve bleach. Kala ilan passed the gemara’s test. Which either means that the test is being done wrong or that plant indigo is in fact techeiles. Clearly the latter cannot be true. Therefore, we must assume that we don’t know how to correctly utilize the gemara’s test which means that we cannot prove from the test that murex trunculus is the chilazon. Now the reason why kala ilan and murex trunculus both pass the test is that they are chemically identical. Presumably then, there is no chemical test that can differentiate between them. Therefore the mere fact that the gemara mentions a chemical test that can differentiate between them would seem to indicate that murex trunculus is not the chilazon.