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johndoraemi
Joined: 09 Sep 2007
Posts: 187
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 Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 8:32 pm Post subject: Thermite |
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The weaknesses of the thermite hypothesis are the lack of evidence and the chain of custody on samples.
We need to test a large number of WTC dust samples from many credible people who have saved it, as well as dig up the Fresh Kills landfill and examine that dust.
If we can show that Jones is correct and that all the dust has microscopic steel spherules, then there is no explanation in the official version that could account for this. The steel had to be in molten form in order to form spherules; that is inescapable.
There must be ways to sue the government for access to evidence?
We also need access to the remaining steel column evidence that was cherry picked by FEMA.
I'm not holding my breath.
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Scott N
Joined: 24 Jul 2007
Posts: 1525
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| Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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I ordinarily do not debate NISTian collapse theories as they have already been debunked in the same manner as "no planes" and "space beams"; indeed I would argue that the official collapse theories are even more absurd than Judy Wood's DEW theories -- at least the latter do not defy the laws of physics. Arguing over the particulars about CD with fellow "truthers" (that term is beginning to annoy me) seems like a waste of time. This ain't 2003, nor 1686, for that matter; Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica has long been published.
I understand why people chose to remain agnostic on the subject a few years ago: few experts were willing to put their careers and reputations on the line to state the obvious. This problem has now been solved in the form of AE911truth. It's unfortunate that we live in a society where "experts" need to tell us what we should already know via observing nature with our own two eyes, but such is life (for the time being).
| Nicholas wrote: | I see it.
So what makes this metal? |
Here's a post from some guy on blogger which I happened to have on my hard-drive. There are better sources obviously. Perhaps you can refute it (?)
Regarding the yellow to white-hot molten metal seen cascading off the South Tower, from its color it had to be at least over 1000 °C, yet jet fuel burns in open air at 260-315 °C; nor do any office, building, or plane materials burn anywhere near that hot (indeed, it would present quite a hazard if such articles were constructed with such powerful incendiaries, and so designers of such objects go out of their way to make sure that they are not). Thus, if it wasn't molten iron from thermite that we are seeing come off the South Tower, then by necessity a reaction source with a heat intensity very much like thermite had to be present. Yet there is nothing in the U.S. government's account that can explain such a heat source; indeed, there's nothing innocent that could explain it, since it requires some sort of extremely powerful incendiary.
Moreover, even the official FEMA scientists Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and R. D. Sisson, Jr. bolster the evidence that thermate (i.e., thermite with sulfur added) was used to bring down the WTC towers (see "C Limited Metallurgical Examination," FEMA 403--World Trade Center Building Performance Study http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf ):
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Evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent inter granular melting, was readily visible in the near-surface microstructure. ... No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified. The rate of corrosion is also unknown.
""
Below is Dr. Jones's relevant paper:
"Why Indeed did the WTC Buildings Collapse?," Steven E. Jones, Ph.D., Journal of 911 Studies, Vol. 3 (September 2006):
http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Why%20Indeed%20Did%20the%20W...
"Experiments with Molten Aluminum," Steven E. Jones with Wesley Lifferth, Jared Dodson, Jacob Stevenson and Shannon Walch, circa June 2006:
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/ExptAlMelt.doc
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| Quote: | | First, what's in the pile may have been made by the pile fires. |
Oh come now.
The head of a team of scientists studying the potential health effects of 9/11, reported, "Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel."
http://www.jhsph.edu/Publications/Special/Welch.htm
As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O'Toole saw a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, "was dripping from the molten steel."
http://www.fallenbrothers.com/community/showthread.php?p=2948#post2948
The structural engineer responsible for the design of the WTC, described fires still burning and molten steel still running 21 days after the attacks.
http://www.seau.org/SEAUNews-2001-10.pdf
"These reports came from two men involved in the removal of the rubble: Peter Tully of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., and Mark Loizeaux of Controlled Demolition, Inc. of Phoenix, Md.
Tully told AFP that he had seen pools of “literally molten steel” in the rubble.
Loizeaux confirmed this: “Yes, hot spots of molten steel in the basements,” he said, “at the bottom of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven levels.”
The molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,” he said. He confirmed that molten steel was also found at WTC 7 [...]"
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/cutter_charges_brought_down_wt.htm...
A public health advisor who arrived at Ground Zero on September 12, said that "feeling the heat" and "seeing the molten steel" there reminded him of a volcano.
http://www.neha.org/9-11%20report/index-The.html
New York firefighters recalled in a documentary film, "heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel."
http://www.nypost.com/movies/19574.htm
According to a worker involved with the organizing of demolition, excavation and debris removal operations at ground zero, "Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from Building 6."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/9-11_commission/
An expert stated about World Trade Center building 7, "A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been PARTLY EVAPORATED in extraordinarily high temperatures" (pay-per-view).
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10812FF3F590C7A8EDDA809...
Note that evaporation means conversion from a liquid to a gas; so the steel beams in building 7 were subjected to temperatures high enough to melt and evaporate them.
http://www.answers.com/evaporation&r=67
An employee of New Jersey's Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue witnessed "Fires burning and molten steel flowing in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet."
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/sasalum/newsltr/summer2002/k911.html
A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams."
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/07/77nwash.htm
The same journalist also refers to "the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole." (pages 31-32)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002E5QKI/qid=1133995198/sr=1-5/ref=sr...
An engineer stated in the September 3, 2002 issue of The Structural Engineer, "They showed us many fascinating slides ranging from molten metal, which was still red hot weeks after the event."
LINK (pdf)
http://web.archive.org/web/20030422113455/http://www.istructe.org.uk/abo...
An Occupational Safety and Health Administration Officer at the Trade Center reported a fire truck 10 feet below the ground that was still burning two weeks after the Tower collapsed, "its metal so hot that it looked like a vat of molten steel."
http://www.thenewliberator.com/wethepeople.htm
According to a member of New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing, who was at Ground Zero from September 22 to October 6, "One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots."
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3731/is_200112/ai_n9015802
A fireman stated that there were "oven" like conditions at the trade centers six weeks after 9/11.
http://plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/red_hot_ground_zero_l...
Firemen and hazardous materials experts also stated that, six weeks after 9/11, "There are pieces of steel being pulled out [from as far as six stories underground] that are still cherry red" and "the blaze is so 'far beyond a normal fire' that it is nearly impossible to draw conclusions about it based on other fires." (pay-per-view)
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nydailynews/87451160.html?did=87451160&FMT=A...
A NY Department of Sanitation spokeswoman said "for about two and a half months after the attacks, in addition to its regular duties, NYDS played a major role in debris removal - everything from molten steel beams to human remains...."
http://wasteage.com/mag/waste_dday_ny_sanitation/
Indeed, the trade center fire was "the longest-burning structural fire in history",
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1634
even though it rained heavily on September 14, 2001
http://www.courttv.com/assault_on_america/0914_rain_ap.html
and again on September 21, 2001,
http://www.wnbc.com/news/962722/detail.html
and the fires were sprayed with high tech fire-retardands,
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1634
and "firetrucks [sprayed] a nearly constant jet of water on" ground zero."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/12/19/archive/main321907.shtml
Indeed, "You couldn't even begin to imagine how much water was pumped in there," said Tom Manley of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest fire department union. "It was like you were creating a giant lake."
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This is all just icing on the cake, however. Controlled demolition is already proven via basic Newtonian Physics. There is no other reasonable explanation for the phenomena observed. Any other debate on this subject I will probably eschew for reasons I outlined in the first paragraph. If people do not wish to pursue this line of inquiry that's their business -- indeed we need more emphasis on oft-overlooked aspects of 911 like the war games -- but let's not pretend as though the case for CD isn't already proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If you actually disagree with the latter statement then please continue running around in circles. |
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Nicholas
Joined: 18 Sep 2007
Posts: 373
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 5:43 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | "Regarding the yellow to white-hot molten metal seen cascading off the South Tower, from its color it had to be at least over 1000 °C..."
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That, however, assumes without question that it is metal, in which case the color is an indicator of temperature and therefore composition.
What if it is plastic, or a composite material - a yellow one? - or a liquid (heated from the fire) in the first place? Don't ask me to "prove" that since you can't prove otherwise.
This is not a "refutation" but another reason why I don't take everything asserted as evidence for demolitions with an already-solid faith in that conclusion, as most truth activists have done post 2004.
If you don't like reading me sitting here saying "to be or not to be" on demolitions, don't read this.
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The molten metal in the pile - I have gone through all those links in your list - except for the single comment about "rivers" immediately afterward (and this is one comment) is always seen days and weeks later, with the fire still going. The pit fire had many fuel and oxygen sources (tunnels). Over that time it can build enormous heat, which means sufficiently high temperatures can be achieved in spots to produce molten metal - which is not necessarily steel, even when some layperson describes it as such. Where are pictures of this stuff - "rivers"? Don't post that same one of the piece being lifted again from Jones, please. And yes, I know who controls (most of) the pictures.
By contrast, the immediate "hot spots" in the thermal imagery I believe within 48 hours are very interesting, but similarly chicken and egg: is it the awesome leftover heat of incendiaries or explosives, or the heat from post-collapse fires in the pit?
I think the strongest arguments are those based on rate of collapse, path of resistance, even progression of collapse wave, "squibs," and possibly the apparent pulverization (absent a now-impossible measure of the density of the dust cloud, what can you really say about the last?).
Securing multiple dust samples that landed away from the main site and showing iron globules in all of those would certainly say a lot!
Then the circumstantial: rapid disposal of the debris over objections of many of the observing scientists, such as Glenn Corbett (a full believer otherwise in progressive collapse). Also the FEMA supplement on sulfidation and evaporation of WTC 7 beams.
Above all, Seven. Of course. Without that, I doubt I would be posting anything on this subject at all, or serving as a consultant to movies on it, or making webpages like this one:
COLLAPSE THEORIES
http://www.improbablecollapse.com/screens2/history2.html
Judge it for yourself!
Maybe not even this one:
WTC HISTORY
A few highlights relevant to the film Improbable Collapse
http://www.improbablecollapse.com/screens2/history.html
Also the obvious deficiencies of the NIST studies, including the fireproofing hypothesis, the failure to bother with post-initiation mechanics, and the gaping lack of a final report on Seven two years past deadline.
All of which is not enough for me, but enough for most involved here, to call it with 100 or 99-point-something percent certainty.
The unprecedented nature of the falls is precisely what makes me hesitant to be certain, and yet what convinces most of you. As for the 50 architects, they stand against far larger numbers on the opposite side and as you say: experts aren't everything.
So I continue to resist the unconditional pledge to demolitions that many of you (not all) demand.
Focusing on it as the primary argument for 9/11 first warps the case, in my view, centering everything on the demolition and far less on the plan, the motive, the geostrategy, the 1,001 discrepancies, the cover-up, all of which say more about perps and motives.
I hesitate also because demolition theory adds more people to the conspiracy, makes it more complex, no matter how simple your scenario for how demolitions were done is.
This is at its most warped in the obsessive focus on Silverstein, to the point where some people seem to think it was all a plan of HIS, and he and a few "Zionist" buddies would actually go ahead with it without knowing in advance they'd have cover from friends at the USG, NYC, NYS, PA, FEMA and NIST.
Not to mention an arrangement of the aerial attack plot, without which none of this flies (so to speak). The "Silverstein first" faction gives us too much of the tail wagging the dog.
My other problem with it has been the way it attracts the absolute wackiest people and tendencies and disinfo artists: mininukes, space beams, the "plume" theory, magic helicopters, etc. All these people hump demolition and piggyback all of their own pet ideas and personal neuroses (usually anger) on it (just like they do with the Pentagon hole). This is unfair of me to bring up, I know. This extends to the obsession with reports of foreplay explosions (why?!), the stripping of so many testimonies (not all) out of context to establish supposed reports of explosives (as opposed to explosions).
But I'd rather be demonstrating how foreknowledge=orchestration=cover-up. I do think announcing "Seven - molten metal - case closed!" has been shown to be incredibly effective for instantly convincing a minority who then talk only about that ad infinitum - while simultaneously alienating a majority, including most of the ones we need to "win." The "movement" keeps growing - and polarizing the population at a ratio that is unfavorable.
These are my honest opinions, and I know most here disagree, and that's the way it is. We won't get to be seeing how things would have gone in an alternate reality where demolitions theory didn't take over the mental software of the truth movement starting around Sept. 2004. Iron faith in demolitions has the hegemony inside the movement, so don't let me bother you too much and don't poke me too much to convert away from my skepticism.
And so it goes. |
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Scott N
Joined: 24 Jul 2007
Posts: 1525
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | This is not a "refutation" but another reason why I don't take everything asserted as evidence for demolitions with an already-solid faith in that conclusion, as most truth activists have done post 2004. |
Fair enough. Someone more expert than myself will have to determine whether “plastic” or some other material could conceivably resemble what appears (to me, anyway) to be molten metal cascading out of the South Tower prior to implosion.
| Quote: | | which is not necessarily steel, even when some layperson describes it as such. |
Laypersons? Just perusing the list I find the following individuals explicitly referring to molten steel: The structural engineer responsible for the design of the WTC, Mark Loizeaux of Controlled Demolition, Inc., Firemen and hazardous materials experts etc.
| Quote: | | I think the strongest arguments are those based on rate of collapse, path of resistance |
Yep. The Violation of Newton’s Law of conservation of momentum is the single strongest piece of evidence indicating “inside job” in our entire arsenal.
The reasons you listed for downplaying CD in favor of other evidence are well argued but do not, in my mind, provide sufficient cause for marginalizing our smoking gun.
I do agree that CD tends to hog ALL of the limelight when it should merely be a centerpiece. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve yelled “War games! Mention the war games!” at my computer screen watching a debate on Faux News with Fetzer or some character. Perhaps we can find common ground on this last point. |
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Diane
Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 592
Location: New York City
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 3:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Danse wrote: | | I ordinarily do not debate NISTian collapse theories as they have already been debunked in the same manner as "no planes" and "space beams"; |
There are some key differences, one of which that "NISTian collapse theories" are accepted by the majority of structural engineers and other experts. Of course, the majority isn't necessarily right. But the majority acceptance of "NISTian collapse theories" does suggest, at the very least, that the problems with the "NISTian collapse theories" may be a bit more subtle than many people in the 9/11 Truth movement believe.
In any case, if one wants to prove to the general public that there is indeed a case for CD, then one needs to be willing and able to engage in debate about it.
| Danse wrote: | | indeed I would argue that the official collapse theories are even more absurd than Judy Wood's DEW theories -- at least the latter do not defy the laws of physics. Arguing over the particulars about CD with fellow "truthers" (that term is beginning to annoy me) seems like a waste of time. This ain't 2003, nor 1686, for that matter; Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica has long been published. |
It seems to me that the above is an overstatement of the case for CD. While I'm inclined to believe that the towers and especially WTC 7 were indeed demolished with explosives and.or thermite, and while I think the case for CD is pretty strong, it does not seem to me to be totally cut-and-dried. (And, yes, I've spent a lot of time studying it.)
Do the "NISTian collapse theories" defy the laws of physics? That would require one to answer some quantitative questions. For example, the towers did not fall at exactly free-fall acceleration. Close, but not quite. Did they take enough more time to fall, to be consistent with a "natural" gravity-induced collapse? That's a quantitative question, not one that can be dimissed with hand-waving. The official claim is that, once the collapse got going, the falling top part had enough kinetic energy that the resistance of the columns to being shattered was negligible by comparison. To determine whether that's physically possible, one would need to know, among other things, how much kinetic energy is needed to shatter a column.
Many of the arguments against "NISTian collapse theories" are also quantitative, having to do with quantities like fire temperatures and strength of steel. Unfortunately, the fire temperatures and resulting steel temperatures cannot be known precisely; they can only be estimated. Likewise the amount of initial damage to core columns. Hence Kevin Ryan's arguments suggest that NIST's conclusions about the "initiation of collapse" are unlikely, but do not rule them out completely.
| Danse wrote: | | I understand why people chose to remain agnostic on the subject a few years ago: few experts were willing to put their careers and reputations on the line to state the obvious. This problem has now been solved in the form of AE911truth. |
Indeed the folks at AE911truth have made some very good arguments. But I don't consider their arguments to be 100% conclusive.
| Danse wrote: | | It's unfortunate that we live in a society where "experts" need to tell us what we should already know via observing nature with our own two eyes, but such is life (for the time being). |
What we see with our own two eyes is sufficient for understanding things within our everyday experience, but not sufficient for understanding things outside our everyday experience.
Never before in the history of the world have any steel frame high-rise buildings collapsed for any reason whatsoever. Therefore, we don't really know what the collapse of such a building "should" look like if it were to collapse due just to structural damage plus fire. The examples of collapses given in Richard Gage's video presentation, and on websites such as Jim Hoffman's, all involve much smaller buildings of very different construction.
Can a gravity-induced collapse cause something to look like it's exploding? Actually, yes. To give an extreme example, the most powerful explosions known in the universe are supernova explosions, caused by the gravitational collapse of a large star which has run out of nuclear fuel. Of course, that's a ridiculously extreme example, since the Earth's gravitational force is much, much smaller than that of a collapsing star. But my ridiculously extreme example does illustrate a key point, which is that size matters.
Might a gravity-induced collapse of a very large, massive building look very different from a gravity-induced collapse of a much smaller building? Quite probably, yes. Would it look at least somewhat like the collapse of the Twin Towers? We don't know.
I do think there are good reasons to believe that WTC 1, 2, and 7, especially 7, were demolished. It is highly unlikely that a building collapsing from the bottom up, like WTC 7, could collapse in such a straight-down symmetrical manner, especially given the highly asymmetrical damage. And it seems likely that the mysterious glowing yellow liquid pouring out of the 80th floor of WTC 2 just seconds before collapse was more than just a coincidence. And the iron globules are very suspicious, although, like Nicholas, I would feel more confident in saying so if we had more samples.
Anyhow, thanks very much for putting together all those quotes about the molten metal.
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Diane
New York City Activist |
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Scott N
Joined: 24 Jul 2007
Posts: 1525
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | There are some key differences, one of which that "NISTian collapse theories" are accepted by the majority of structural engineers and other experts. |
Do you have a poll to confirm this or are you just pulling figures out of thin air?
| Quote: | | In any case, if one wants to prove to the general public that there is indeed a case for CD, then one needs to be willing and able to engage in debate about it. |
People can debate it all they wish. There was a fair amount of debate about Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica at the time of its publishing. In any case, I did not state that I was unwilling to engage in debate with members of the public, I said I considered it a waste of time to debate “truthers” on subjects which have already been addressed ad nauseum in (for instance) the Journal of 911 studies. I apply the same strategy with "no planes", "space beams" etc.
| Quote: | | Indeed the folks at AE911truth have made some very good arguments. But I don't consider their arguments to be 100% conclusive. |
Nothing in the known universe is “100 percent conclusive”, not even the existence of the universe itself.
| Quote: | | What we see with our own two eyes is sufficient for understanding things within our everyday experience, but not sufficient for understanding things outside our everyday experience. |
I’ve seen lots of trees cut down. They don’t follow the path of most resistance.
"It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid." – Einstein. It is possible, of course, not only because the concepts are (at base) fairly straight forward but because we have an intuitive understanding of physics based on observing nature. Understanding the concept of torque or disambiguation, for instance, allowed people to ride horses long before Archmides. When you launch a boat into a raging river you take it for granted that the boat will not float upstream and you do this for good reason: inductive reasoning. Empiricism. Perhaps this quote from civil engineer William Rice will help:
“The interesting fact is that each of these 110-story Twin Towers fell upon itself in about ten seconds at nearly free-fall speed. This violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum that would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass (weight) increases and the free-fall speed decreases.”
| Quote: | | Do the "NISTian collapse theories" defy the laws of physics? That would require one to answer some quantitative questions. For example, the towers did not fall at exactly free-fall acceleration. Close, but not quite. Did they take enough more time to fall, to be consistent with a "natural" gravity-induced collapse? That's a quantitative question, not one that can be dimissed with hand-waving. The official claim is that, once the collapse got going, the falling top part had enough kinetic energy that the resistance of the columns to being shattered was negligible by comparison. To determine whether that's physically possible, one would need to know, among other things, how much kinetic energy is needed to shatter a column. |
These issues have already been addressed by Gordon Ross at the Journal of 911 studies.
http://gordonssite.tripod.com/id1.html |
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Diane
Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 592
Location: New York City
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 5:00 pm Post subject: Re: Thermite |
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| johndoraemi wrote: | The weaknesses of the thermite hypothesis are the lack of evidence and the chain of custody on samples.
We need to test a large number of WTC dust samples from many credible people who have saved it, as well as dig up the Fresh Kills landfill and examine that dust. |
Not sure if you're aware of this, but there are morr WTC dust samples than just Jones's which have been tested and found to contain iron spherules. Of course it would be nice to have even more samples, tested by even more people, but it's important to note that there is indeed some corroboration.
Both this page on Kevin Barrett's site and this post in the "Skeptic Friends" forum quote Frank Greening as mentioning the following sources which are all said to speak of "iron spherules" in the WTC dust:
| Quote: | 1. H. A. Lowers et al. “Particle Atlas of World Trade Center Dust.” USGS Open-File Report 2005-1165, (2005)
2. Various authors: “U.S. EPA Response to the Peer Review of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Final Report on the World Trade Center Dust Screening Study.” Page 28, (December 2006)
3. R. J. Lee et al. “Damage Assessment 130 Liberty Street Property: WTC Dust Signature Report on Composition and Morphology.” Issued December 2003.
4. S. R. Badger et al. “World Trade Center Particulate Contamination Signature Based on Dust Composition and Morphology.” Microscopy and Microanalysis 10 (Supplement 2), 948, (2004). |
(I'm aware that the pages I found these on are not the best sources, but they are what I found just now via a quick Google.)
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Diane
New York City Activist |
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Diane
Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 592
Location: New York City
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Danse wrote: | | Do you have a poll to confirm this or are you just pulling figures out of thin air? |
Not a poll, just an observation that there still seem to be a lot more sructural engineers among the "debunkers" than on our side. Also, in my experience so far participating in street actions, engineers are among THE very hardest people to convince that the CD hypothesis is even worth considering. (I myself do have a fairly strong physics background, by the way. I have a degree in electrical engineering and took two years of physics in college.)
| Danse wrote: | | I’ve seen lots of trees cut down. They don’t follow the path of most resistance. |
Trees are very different from steel frame skyscrapers. For one thing, skyscrapers are a LOT heavier. Thus, the fact that a tree can't crush itself does not, in itself, rule out the possibility that a very large steel frame skyscraper could crush itself.
| Danse wrote: | | "It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid." – Einstein. |
I would be interested to know the context in which he said that. After all, Einstein's own theories can be fully understood only by people with advanced knowledge of math and physics, although his basic concepts are relatively simple.
| Danse wrote: | | It is possible, of course, not only because the concepts are (at base) fairly straight forward but because we have an intuitive understanding of physics based on observing nature. Understanding the concept of torque or disambiguation, for instance, allowed people to ride horses long before Archmides. When you launch a boat into a raging river you take it for granted that the boat will not float upstream and you do this for good reason: inductive reasoning. Empiricism. |
Empiricism requires experiments. Generalizations to matters outside our already-existing experimental knowledge would need to be tested with further experiments. The collapse of such huge buildings as the WTC towers is outside our already existing experimental knowledge.
In science, there are plenty of examples of failed generalizations which then led to refinements of scientific theory. An example is the Michelson-Morely experiment which disproved common-sense beliefs about the speed of light. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was formulated in response to the Michelson-Morley experiment.
Everyday common sense definitely cannot be applied to quantum mechanics, which defies everyday common sense in many ways.
On the other hand, the basic ideas (though not the mathematical details) of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity CAN be explained in terms of everyday common sense, although at first glance it looks awfully darned weird. (It explains gravity as a warping of time and space in the presence of matter.)
| Danse wrote: | Perhaps this quote from civil engineer William Rice will help:
“The interesting fact is that each of these 110-story Twin Towers fell upon itself in about ten seconds at nearly free-fall speed. This violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum that would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass (weight) increases and the free-fall speed decreases.” |
I've seen this claim many times. I did a quick computer simulation of my own, and I found that the above claim is not true. If you assume inelastic collisions and easily-breakable columns, I got collapse times of between 10.5 and 12 seconds for WTC 1, depending on how much material is ejected horizontally. So, the official collapse hypothesis cannot be disproven on the basis of momentum considerations alone.
So, one needs to address the question of whether the claim of easily-breakable columns (easily breakable by a sufficiently large falling mass hittint them, that is) is realisitic. Alas, I don't have the background to determine this myself. It will be interesting to see whether that particular question is addressed in any of the Journal of 9/11 Studies articles that I haven't looked at yet. (I've read some but not all of them so far.)
I'm aware of Gordon Ross's paper. So far I've skimmed it but I haven't yet fully dug into it. I should read critiques by "debunkers" as well. Anyhow, my point is that it is indeed necessary to address relatively esoteric issues such as this. Simple momentum and acceleration considerations, by themselves, are not sufficient.
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Diane
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Scott N
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Not a poll, just an observation that there still seem to be a lot more sructural engineers among the "debunkers" than on our side. |
I’m afraid I’d need more specific data to support your claim that “NISTian collapse theories are accepted by the majority of structural engineers and other experts”.
| Quote: | | Trees are very different from steel frame skyscrapers. |
Path of least resistance analogy still stands.
| Quote: | | After all, Einstein's own theories can be fully understood only by people with advanced knowledge of math and physics, although his basic concepts are relatively simple. |
Latter point was the intimation.
| Quote: |
I got collapse times of between 10.5 and 12 seconds for WTC 1 |
Hence Rice’s contention that the building collapsed in nearly free-fall speed in about ten seconds.
| Quote: | | Anyhow, my point is that it is indeed necessary to address relatively esoteric issues such as this. Simple momentum and acceleration considerations, by themselves, are not sufficient. |
You may be right. Or not. I’ll leave it those more knowledgeable than I to debate the finer points. You may also be interested in this paper about WTC7:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:BAYjix0r8A0J:www.journalof911studies.com/articles/W7Kuttler.pdf+conservation+momentum+wtc&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=ca&client=firefox-a |
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Diane
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Danse wrote: | | Quote: | | Not a poll, just an observation that there still seem to be a lot more sructural engineers among the "debunkers" than on our side. |
I’m afraid I’d need more specific data to support your claim that “NISTian collapse theories are accepted by the majority of structural engineers and other experts”. |
I've given you the basis of my impression that that's the case. Has your own experience indicated otherwise?
| Danse wrote: | | Quote: | | Trees are very different from steel frame skyscrapers. |
Path of least resistance analogy still stands. |
Maybe, maybe not. Depends how "negligible" the resistance is compared to the downward impacts and the downward momentum. Again this is a quantative question.
Also, for any sideways movement to occur, a lateral force is needed. If the collapse were bottom-up, as was the case with WTC 7, then the lateral force would simply be the resistance of the ground to being moved by any torque on the building. In that case, an asymmetrically damaged building would almost certainly tilt quite a bit as it collapsed, if the collapse were "natural." So, it's very easy for me to argue that WTC 7 was almost certainly a controlled demolition. On the other hand, it's not as clear to me that significant sideways movement should necessarily be expected for an allegedly "natural" top-down collapse of an extremely massive building.
| Danse wrote: | | Quote: | | I got collapse times of between 10.5 and 12 seconds for WTC 1 |
Hence Rice’s contention that the building collapsed in nearly free-fall speed in about ten seconds. |
My point is that I got these collapse times for an oversimplified model consistent with the official story. Hence the collapse time does not, in and of itself, disprove the official story.
Thanks for the info, but I'm already a lot more confident arguing that WTC 7 was a CD than I am in arguing about WTC 1 and 2, which to me seem like probable CD's too, but a lot more iffy.
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Diane
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Danse wrote: | | http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:BAYjix0r8A0J:www.journalof911studies.com/articles/W7Kuttler.pdf+conservation+momentum+wtc&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=ca&client=firefox-a |
This paper models WTC 7 as a top-down pancaking collapse and shows that this would have to have taken significantly longer than the observed 6.5 seconds. But I don't see the point of this, because the official story never claimed that WTC 7 was a top-down collapse in the first place. WTC 7 obviously collapsed bottom up.
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Diane
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| Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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I've now read this, plus a copy of another paper by Gordon Ross critiquing Bazant.
Unfortunately, I don't have independent knowledge of the mechanical properties of steel as it deforms, so I'm in not in a good position to double-check him on this relatively esoteric but crucial matter.
Ross has also written another very interesting paper, How the Towers were Demolished, presenting a very detailed hypothesis which tries to account for all the evidence.
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Real Truther
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:05 am Post subject: |
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I would at this point simply like to request that anyone who is here conducting research for or otherwise assisting in preparing the legal defense of one Lawrence Silverstein please identify themselves. I'm not accusing anyone, mind you, especially not singling out people who happen to be, like Mr. Silverstein, from New York. I think it only fair that people not misrepresent themselves if in fact they are testing the viability of certain "reasonable doubt" scenarios to see where to try to lead a hypothetical jury...  |
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casseia
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| Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:10 am Post subject: |
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| Hmmm... that's an interesting idea. |
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