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"Truther scientists" get article published in EuroPhysics News magazine

WilliamSeger

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ON THE PHYSICS OF HIGH-RISE BUILDING COLLAPSES

---Steven Jones, Robert Korol, Anthony Szamboti and Ted Walter

http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016-47-4.pdf


NOTE FROM THE EDITORS This feature is somewhat different from our usual purely scientific articles, in that it contains some speculation. However, given the timing and the importance of the issue, we consider that this feature is sufficiently technical and interesting to merit publication for our readers. Obviously, the content of this article is the responsibility of the authors.
 
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What I find interesting is they fail to account for the reason for failure they spelled out in the beginning of the paper.

Steel-framed high-rises have endured large fires without
suffering total collapse for four main reasons:
  • 1) Fires typically are not hot enough and do not last long
    enough in any single area to generate enough energy to
    heat the large structural members to the point where
    they fail (the temperature at which structural steel loses
    enough strength to fail is dependent on the factor of safety
    used in the design. In the case of WTC 7, for example, the
    factor of safety was generally 3 or higher. Here, 67% of the
    strength would need to be lost for failure to ensue, which
    would require the steel to be heated to about 660°C);
  • 2) Most high-rises have fire suppression systems (water
    sprinklers), which further prevent a fire from releasing
    sufficient energy to heat the steel to a critical failure state;
  • 3) Structural members are protected by fireproofing materials,
    which are designed to prevent them from reaching
    failure temperatures within specified time periods; and
  • 4) Steel-framed high-rises are designed to be highly redundant
    structural systems. Thus, if a localized failure
    occurs, it does not result in a disproportionate collapse
    of the entire structure

In the case of the towers and WTC7, 3 out of 4 were violated

Number 4 is highly subjective. I'd like to see the design requirements that include consideration of local collapse not advancing to global.
 
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What I find interesting is they fail to account for the reason for failure they spelled out in the beginning of the paper.

In the case of the towers and WTC7, 3 out of 4 were violated

Number 4 is highly subjective. I'd like to see the design requirements that include consideration of local collapse not advancing to global.

The structural steel frame of WTC 7, lacked redundancy and ductility. When north tower collapsed, it severely damaged WTC 7 and completely severed 7 of the exterior columns. But Truthers seem to forgot about these little facts.
 
Hopefully informed readers will see the false claims for what they are. Ted Walter has no education in engineering or physics as far as I know and was an activist with perhaps some legal background. Why is he one of the authors?
 
Hopefully informed readers will see the false claims for what they are. Ted Walter has no education in engineering or physics as far as I know and was an activist with perhaps some legal background. Why is he one of the authors?

Many times people get credit for a paper due to support, and work done associated with the paper, etc. Share the wealth, or the woo in this case.

When I got credit, I was an engineer/pilot, it can't hurt to have a technical paper about flight associated concepts with a pilot/engineer... even if my part was support and lab work.

In this case the fantasy of CD will not help anyone with credit for the BS woo.
 
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In terms of my usual metric, TTFLMO, this one makes it to the third paragraph:

Most high-rises have fire suppression systems (water sprinklers), which further prevent a fire from releasing sufficient energy to heat the steel to a critical failure state;

Omits the crucial fact that the collapse of WTC-2 (South Tower) took out the local water mains as well. As a practical matter, I am pretty sure that WTC-1's sprinkler system went with the core of the building in the initial impact of AA-11.

It just gets worse from there; four of the "citations" are from JONES and a fifth is from the ridiculous Bentham paper. I note as well that one of the authors of the paper (Korol) is from McMaster University in Canada, which is a hotbed of crackpots--see Graeme McQueen and Mark Vorobej.
 
I'm reminded of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it." It's easy to predict that getting this nonsense-laden article published in a magazine that many scientists will read will result in brutal feedback that will only help to solidify AE911truth's reputation as a collection of crackpots.
 
The people of Delft University must read this is wonderment of the stupidity it displays.

How can a coffee machine catching fire manage to destroy half an entire structure by progressive collapse?;)
 
...
I note as well that one of the authors of the paper (Korol) is from McMaster University in Canada, which is a hotbed of crackpots--see Graeme McQueen and Mark Vorobej.

McMaster's University has a pretty good reputation overall, ranking 4th to 6th in Canada in several lists, and top 100 worldwide in some.
Can't blame the karge university (140,000 alumni, 25,000 students) for a handful of crackpots.
 
What I find interesting is they fail to account for the reason for failure they spelled out in the beginning of the paper.
4) Steel-framed high-rises are designed to be highly redundant
structural systems. Thus, if a localized failure
occurs, it does not result in a disproportionate collapse
of the entire structure


In the case of the towers and WTC7, 3 out of 4 were violated

Number 4 is highly subjective. I'd like to see the design requirements that include consideration of local collapse not advancing to global.

Does not Verinage render this statement false?
 
Does not Verinage render this statement false?
No, as with any controlled demolition.

It's more of a point designed to make people think the failure was concentrated to one specific area. Typical "truther" trick, pay no attention to the subject as a whole, focus only on small details and their suggestion is the only solution. This was not the case.
 
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McMaster's University has a pretty good reputation overall, ranking 4th to 6th in Canada in several lists, and top 100 worldwide in some.
Can't blame the karge university (140,000 alumni, 25,000 students) for a handful of crackpots.

Although I don't blame the university, all three of the crackpots mentioned are current (Vorobej) or former faculty which makes it a bit more concerning than if they were students or alumni.
 
Although I don't blame the university, all three of the crackpots mentioned are current (Vorobej) or former faculty which makes it a bit more concerning than if they were students or alumni.

Their current academic staff is about 1,400 persons.
3 out of that is 0.2%. This is probably no wild departure from the incidence of wooism in the general population, or academia at large.
Do you say only one of the three is current? Than that's 0.07% - roughly the same percentage AE911 has attracted among professional engineers in the US.
 
Their current academic staff is about 1,400 persons.
3 out of that is 0.2%. This is probably no wild departure from the incidence of wooism in the general population, or academia at large.
Do you say only one of the three is current? Than that's 0.07% - roughly the same percentage AE911 has attracted among professional engineers in the US.

Yes, you are right, all universities are hotbeds of 9-11 crankery. Which is why I feel certainly that you can name two others that have had three current or former members of the faculty published in JONES.
:rolleyes:
 
Yes, you are right, all universities are hotbeds of 9-11 crankery. Which is why I feel certainly that you can name two others that have had three current or former members of the faculty published in JONES.
:rolleyes:

Strawman.
You are smarter than this ;)
 
I'm new here, and I haven't been able to ascertain what the member's views are regarding the demolition squibs.

Does anyone who denies the controlled demolition explanation have any relevant information on how these demolition squibs could have been recorded during the collapses?

NIST has been very coy about trying to answer this question. At one point they were referring people to a debunking site where the squibs were claimed to be some kind of reverse explosion or some such nonsense.

Anyone want to give this a shot, or at least point me in the right direction if this has been asked and answered somewhere else on the forum.
 
I'm new here, and I haven't been able to ascertain what the member's views are regarding the demolition squibs.

Does anyone who denies the controlled demolition explanation have any relevant information on how these demolition squibs could have been recorded during the collapses?

NIST has been very coy about trying to answer this question. At one point they were referring people to a debunking site where the squibs were claimed to be some kind of reverse explosion or some such nonsense.

Anyone want to give this a shot, or at least point me in the right direction if this has been asked and answered somewhere else on the forum.

What demolition squibs? Why do you assume the ejections of dust and smoke were the result of explosive charges?
 
What demolition squibs? Why do you assume the ejections of dust and smoke were the result of explosive charges?

If you don't understand the question then maybe I should dumb it down a lot further.

Do you understand the physical phenomenon that we refer to as pressure?

Where should I begin?

The question is a simple one.

Is there any alternative explanation to account for the demolition squibs, and if so, where can I find it?
 
Does anyone who denies the controlled demolition explanation have any relevant information on how these demolition squibs could have been recorded during the collapses?

There is no "controlled demolition explanation". There are just some uninformed people saying "controlled demolition," suggesting lots of mutually contradictory qualifications, and pretending that constitutes an explanation. One thing they like to do is mis-use the term "squibs", a word meaning small fireworks or special effect charges, to denote the substantial and extremely loud shaped charges used to demolish buildings, which sounds are clearly absent from the audio recordings of the collapses on 9/11. However, some of them manage to convince themselves otherwise despite the absence of evidence, and in at least one instance have edited the required sounds into an existing video. Apparently doctoring evidence like this is a vital part of the search for truth.

NIST has been very coy about trying to answer this question. At one point they were referring people to a debunking site where the squibs were claimed to be some kind of reverse explosion or some such nonsense.

They have never answered the question because there is no question to answer. Perhaps you'd like to post a link to this debunking site with appropriately added spaces here and there so it doesn't get filtered out. NIST did, of course, calculate the size of charge required to sever a single core column of WTC7, and found that the sound produced would have been loud enough to cause temporary hearing loss within half a mile, and one could assume by extrapolation that a similar size of charge would be needed for the Twin Towers. If there had actually been a coherent question, the absence of any instances of such hearing loss on 9/11 would have been a perfectly satisfactory answer.

And of course, it's this critical deficiency in the evidence that caused one group of truthers, led by Steven Jones, to invent the idea that thermite can be used to sever compressive structural members and that this was done to demolish the Twin Towers. The best of their efforts has resulted in a set of data which, if skillfully misinterpreted, suggests that there may have been enough thermite in the entirety of the Twin Towers to raise the temperature of the steelwork by about two degrees (though in fact what they found was almost certainly paint).

Your question is, of course, a classic example of the complex question fallacy, in its purest form, because it tries to sneak a point past the responder by embedding it in the question. The point is rejected because it is simply untrue.

Much of this, by the way, was done to death here nearly ten years ago. When you've been here a while you'll be able to use the search function and find out more.

Dave
 
The question is a simple one.

Is there any alternative explanation to account for the demolition squibs, and if so, where can I find it?

Do you understand the concept of the "loaded question"?

If you meant to say 'The phenomenon referred to by some 9/11 conspiracists as "demolition squibs"' then you'd be asking an unbiased question. Or you could say 'The so-called squibs'.

The building had a lot of dust and smoke in it, including on floors below the collapse zone. The onset of collapse increased internal air pressure and pushed some of that muck out of available holes, sometimes perhaps even creating holes in weakened areas.
 
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…One thing they like to do is mis-use the term "squibs", a word meaning small fireworks or special effect charges, to denote the substantial and extremely loud shaped charges used to demolish buildings, which sounds are clearly absent from the audio recordings of the collapses on 9/11.

An on-side kick in American football is called a squib kick. In this (very familiar) usage, demolition squib refers to the small puffs of debris that are ejected by charges designed to take out specific structural members, as opposed to something meant to take down the entire building, such as a large car bomb like the one that was set off in the parking garage years ago by the blind sheik.

If you’ve been at this for ten years, you should know this. Why feign ignorance?

…They have never answered the question because there is no question to answer…

…If there had actually been a coherent question, the absence of any instances of such hearing loss on 9/11 would have been a perfectly satisfactory answer…

…Your question is, of course, a classic example of the complex question fallacy, in its purest form, because it tries to sneak a point past the responder by embedding it in the question. The point is rejected because it is simply untrue…


Let me try once more to ask the question properly. How does one explain the demolition squibs as being caused by anything other than demolition charges? If there is another physical explanation, then I’d like to hear it, and it’ll be nice if that explanation has some numbers in it.


Much of this, by the way, was done to death here nearly ten years ago. When you've been here a while you'll be able to use the search function and find out more.


The search function simply returns a lot of unresponsive posts, like yours.

Basically, it sounds as if you're arguing that all you have to do is believe that what you’re seeing is not what you’re seeing and that after you make that hurdle then it doesn’t matter what you’re seeing. It’s all about what you believe. No explanation necessary.

That isn't really what you're argument is, is it?


Perhaps you'd like to post a link to this debunking site with appropriately added spaces here and there so it doesn't get filtered out .


This cracks me up every time I read it. The reverse explosion theory :

debunking911.com/overp.htm

“But if we examine the anomaly closely, we see these [would be] explosives work in reverse to an explosive blast. They tend to spurt out and then increase with time. An explosive works in reverse to this. Its strongest point is the moment the charge is set off.”

.

The gif at the top of the page clearly shows one of many of these demolition squibs. Is this the kind of thing that you’re comfortable with, or do you simply pretend not to see what your lyin’ eyes are trying to show you?
 
Do you understand the concept of the "loaded question"?

Yes.

If you meant to say 'The phenomenon referred to by some 9/11 conspiracists as "demolition squibs"' then you'd be asking an unbiased question. Or you could say 'The so-called squibs'.

How about if call them the demolition explosions that some people deny are explosions at all, even when they see them with their own two eyes?

The building had a lot of dust and smoke in it, including on floors below the collapse zone. The onset of collapse increased internal air pressure and pushed some of that muck out of available holes, sometimes perhaps even creating holes in weakened areas.

This is moving in the direction towards an answer to my question. How do you know this stuff? Where did you learn it?

Can you cite any reference?
 
This cracks me up every time I read it. The reverse explosion theory :

If it cracks you up, then you clearly don't understand what they mean. It's pretty simple. They are saying that the pressure is increasing over time instead of decreasing. You can see with your own eyes that the dust is being blown out the window starts slow and is speeding up over time. An explosion would cause a very rapid burst which quickly decreases. That's why they say "reverse", because the air pressure is increasing over time instead of decreasing.

Those "squibs" are just smoke and dust being blown out the windows because the building is being crushed from above by falling debris. Where do you think the air on each floor goes when the ceiling starts to fall?
 
Yes.



How about if call them the demolition explosions that some people deny are explosions at all, even when they see them with their own two eyes?



This is moving in the direction towards an answer to my question. How do you know this stuff? Where did you learn it?

Can you cite any reference?

You need a cite for the fact that crushing the ceiling down towards the floor will increase the air pressure?

I learned PV=nRT in high school.
 
Yes.



How about if call them the demolition explosions that some people deny are explosions at all, even when they see them with their own two eyes?



This is moving in the direction towards an answer to my question. How do you know this stuff? Where did you learn it?

Can you cite any reference?

What decibel level of sound is produced in a controlled demolition? The absence of such sound rules out explosive dependant controlled demolition. Therefore, demolition squib did not exist according to all available evidence for the events of 9/11.
 
In this (very familiar) usage, demolition squib refers to the small puffs of debris that are ejected by charges designed to take out specific structural members, as opposed to something meant to take down the entire building, such as a large car bomb like the one that was set off in the parking garage years ago by the blind sheik.

If you’ve been at this for ten years, you should know this. Why feign ignorance?

This is not a "very familiar usage" in general, it's a term made up by 9/11 truthers years ago and only common usage among that group. As far as I know, people who actually understand demolition don't use it, maybe because they have no need to distinguish between shaped charges to take out specific structural members (which they use exclusively) and large single charges to demolish an entire building (which they don't use at all).

Let me try once more to ask the question properly. How does one explain the demolition squibs as being caused by anything other than demolition charges?

No, you've still asked it improperly; you've embedded the claim "demolition" in the question. Maybe you should try again, and keep trying until you learn how to ask an honest question.

This cracks me up every time I read it. The reverse explosion theory :

debunking911.com/overp.htm

Now show me where NIST referred to this, as you claimed they did.

“But if we examine the anomaly closely, we see these [would be] explosives work in reverse to an explosive blast. They tend to spurt out and then increase with time. An explosive works in reverse to this. Its strongest point is the moment the charge is set off.”

Yes, that's exactly what's seen; an ejected plume of material whose intensity increases visibly over a measured period of time. This can only be explained by "the physical phenomenon we refer to as pressure," to quote someone recently trying to sound intelligent, created by the collapse of the building pressurizing its contents. The air in the top of the building is entrained with the collapsing debris and pressurizes the lower, as yet still standing, part of the building, and broken windows allow it to escape. This is why, of course, these ejecta plumes were not seen before the start of the collapse, i.e. not as the cause of the collapse, but after the start of the collapse, i.e. as a consequence of the collapse. It's also why they weren't accompanied by the deafening sound of demolition explosives; there were no demolition explosives.

Dave
 
The 15 year old version of "when did you stop beating your wife?".
They think if the wait long enough, people will forget the version they need to believe...
 
You need a cite for the fact that crushing the ceiling down towards the floor will increase the air pressure?

I learned PV=nRT in high school.

The sound of one hand clapping.

What separates this pressure that you believe is being created by the ceiling from the normal pressure surrounding the building?
 
Yes, that's exactly what's seen; an ejected plume of material whose intensity increases visibly over a measured period of time. This can only be explained by "the physical phenomenon we refer to as pressure," to quote someone recently trying to sound intelligent, created by the collapse of the building pressurizing its contents.

No, that's not at all accurate. Only a differential in pressure will cause a fluid to flow. Basic. Very basic. Pressure, on its own, won't cause flow.

The air in the top of the building is entrained with the collapsing debris and pressurizes the lower, as yet still standing, part of the building, and broken windows allow it to escape. This is why, of course, these ejecta plumes were not seen before the start of the collapse, i.e. not as the cause of the collapse, but after the start of the collapse, i.e. as a consequence of the collapse. It's also why they weren't accompanied by the deafening sound of demolition explosives; there were no demolition explosives.

Escape from whom or what?
 
The 15 year old version of "when did you stop beating your wife?".
They think if the wait long enough, people will forget the version they need to believe...

I've never been married.

See, that's not a very difficult concept at all, is it?
 
If you don't understand the question then maybe I should dumb it down a lot further.

Do you understand the physical phenomenon that we refer to as pressure?

Where should I begin?

The question is a simple one.

Is there any alternative explanation to account for the demolition squibs, and if so, where can I find it?
Fire caused the collapse, 911 truth lied. There were no squibs, no explosives, just air. A gravity collapse. Science. Knowledge.
You could not dumb down 9/11 truth claims enough for anyone but nuts to understand CD.

lol, the differential pressure was really neat... guess that is why my scuba tank works, and why the collapsing building acted as a piston, pushing air out, from high pressure, to low pressure... you need to dumb it up more
 
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No, that's not at all accurate. Only a differential in pressure will cause a fluid to flow. Basic. Very basic. Pressure, on its own, won't cause flow.

Bravo. As points scoring goes you just earned a very small fraction of one, but only in the eyes of some small children who are impressed by that kind of playground rhetoric.

Do you believe those buildings were demolished with high explosives?
 
Bravo. As points scoring goes you just earned a very small fraction of one, but only in the eyes of some small children who are impressed by that kind of playground rhetoric.

Do you believe those buildings were demolished with high explosives?

Sure, because there's no other explanation that doesn't defy basic physics. I don't believe in some miracle that everything just spontaneously disintegrated.

If you haven't looked into thermobaric explosives and how that technology can be modified using nano technology, then I would suggest that you begin there.

Back before the events of 9/11, I would have thought that there would be flashes of light, or as someone else here suggested, blasts of sound, if explosives were used. It turns out that this nano technology is much different, behaviorally, than more conventional explosives.

Oh yeah, and good luck finding any detailed info on this nano thermite stuff in the public record. You'd probably have better luck finding detailed info on the centrifuges that are used to separated fissionable uranium. Just be aware that it is nothing at all like conventional thermite. Night and day, actually.
 
Hi steveupson,

it appears that you believe the collapses were actually demolitions caused by explosive charges.

Can you briefly explain how an explosive demolition works? What is the proper order of events?

The way I see it, it goes like this:

  1. Explosive charges cut structural supports
  2. Gravity pulls the top of the top part, above the cuts, down
  3. The mass of the building crushes itself and breaks the rest of the structure as well as non-structural assemblies (such as drywalls, windows...)
  4. As the volume occupied by the skin of the building decreases (roof descends more or less vertically), dust and debris are pushed out laterally at various speeds

Do you agree that these four things happen in that temporal order?

Then you should be surprised that the "explosions" that you believe you see occur after the tops of the buildings have already started to descend. You'd need a reasonable explanation for this, and you'd need to show where the explosions are that preceded the first indication of downward motion. You also need to either present us with evidence of the sound of explosions, or an explanation for why none were heard.

As an excercise for the latter point, I'd invite you to search for videos of actual explosive demolitions - as many as you can find - and listen carefully to the soundtracks. Please link us to any and all such actual explosive demolition videos where the sound of the collapse is audible, but no explosions preceding the sound of the collapse are heard. I make a prediction: You will not find a single explosive demolition with that characteristic.
 
lol, the differential pressure was really neat... guess that is why my scuba tank works, and why the collapsing building acted as a piston, pushing air out, from high pressure, to low pressure... you need to dumb it up more

Where did the high pressure come from? How was this differential between low and high created? What caused the two pressures to be different?
 
No, that's not at all accurate. Only a differential in pressure will cause a fluid to flow. Basic. Very basic. Pressure, on its own, won't cause flow.



Escape from whom or what?

Still no good at reading comprehension, I see. Both of these points are answered in the post you quoted; if you can't understand them the first time I have little hope that you will if I repeat them.

Dave
 
Sure, because there's no other explanation that doesn't defy basic physics. I don't believe in some miracle that everything just spontaneously disintegrated.

If you haven't looked into thermobaric explosives and how that technology can be modified using nano technology, then I would suggest that you begin there.

Back before the events of 9/11, I would have thought that there would be flashes of light, or as someone else here suggested, blasts of sound, if explosives were used. It turns out that this nano technology is much different, behaviorally, than more conventional explosives.

Oh yeah, and good luck finding any detailed info on this nano thermite stuff in the public record. You'd probably have better luck finding detailed info on the centrifuges that are used to separated fissionable uranium. Just be aware that it is nothing at all like conventional thermite. Night and day, actually.
What a load of BS. You can't dumb down CD more than 9/11 truth had done with the delusional fantasy. Or can you.

Gravity collapse, it is physics, you have fantasy. Who funded your fantasy explosives, the super secret stuff? 15 years, no evidence. Oh, yes, it was destroyed by the super secret MIB you can't name.

19 terrorists did 9/11 with four planes... can't wait for your Flight 93 and Pentagon nonsense.
 
If you haven't looked into thermobaric explosives and how that technology can be modified using nano technology, then I would suggest that you begin there.

[...]

Oh yeah, and good luck finding any detailed info on this nano thermite stuff in the public record.

So there's no point beginning there, then.

Just be aware that it is nothing at all like conventional thermite. Night and day, actually.

For which we simply have to take your word? Sorry, no. And actually we mostly know quite a bit about nanothermite, having discussed and dismissed it long ago.

Dave
 
If you haven't looked into thermobaric explosives ..... detailed info on this nano thermite stuff ...

And here your over-excited bluster exposes your ignorance.

Thermobaric weapons use ambient oxygen - they're 100% fuel near as dammit. Thermitic materials use oxygen that's 'built in' to the compound and can - to illustrate the point - operate under water.
 
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