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Frank Greening Refuted Easily

Apollo20 said:
Just setting the record straight with Mr. Baker!
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Please allow me to return the favour Dr Greening.

I unlike you am not a clever scientist, I am not a mathematical genius, and I am just a guy, a normal hard working guy who finds the entire prospect of these theories bordering on despicable. As such I would like you to know exactly how I feel.

I first started out debating this subject a while ago; I found the entire issue of conspiracies surrounding 911 morally offensive and totally unacceptable. I argued with many of the conspirators armed with nothing other than my own conviction that the American people would never allow this to happen, they would never allow this sort of wanton death and destruction to be brought upon their country for any reason. I found the entire prospect of such awful theories dreadful, totally unacceptable.

I looked around, I researched, I read article upon article until eventually I found 911 myths where your work was published. I read it, I admired your work, and I quoted it often in my debates with the conspirators. I believed I had finally found an academic that could prove my own beliefs correct.

I do not pretend to understand the fineries of the collapse of the towers, I do not pretend to understand the very complex issues that are clearly involved in such a catastrophic event but I do understand what is right and what is wrong. I know it is wrong to accuse perfectly innocent people of mass murder.

In your thread " debate what debate" you ,the very person I admired has belittled my beliefs, you have called me a NISTian, an apologiser for NIST, you have accused this very forum and the people who try their hardest to understand what happened this dreadful day of being nothing other that back slappers who will not engage in sensible and coherent debate. You have belittled the very people who look at you and rely on your expertise and knowledge to answer the unanswered questions. You have, through your hostile and down right aggressive posts alienated the very people you wish to take your work seriously. You have gone further and actually added credibility to the conspirators, you have thrown them a life line whereby they can now quote your words and your belittling of this forum.

Just for the record Dr Greening, maybe you could clarify exactly your position on the collapse of the Towers and state whether you really do believe that Americans carried out mass murder on that dreadful day.

I stand by my convictions they did not, but then again I am just Joe Public.
 
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Stateofgrace:

I am truly sorry you feel this way...

"Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails;
and put my finger into the print of the nails,
and thrust my hand into his side,
I will not believe.

John ch 20, v 25.
 
Apollo20:

Maybe I am just slow this morning, and I know your quote was directed at Stateofgrace, but...

Are you the doubting thomas, doubting the official story, or are we for doubting your stance on the matter...or am I missing the relevence of your quote all together.

TAM:)
 
Apollo20 said:
Stateofgrace:

I am truly sorry you feel this way...

"Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails;
and put my finger into the print of the nails,
and thrust my hand into his side,
I will not believe.

John ch 20, v 25.
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Believe what? What do I not believe?

That the towers were brought down by something else, along with the damage from the planes and fires? That some other force other than gravity was involved in their demise? Look at the ramifications of such beliefs; look at the implications of such beliefs. The conspirators are asking me to believe that Americans knowing murdered 3000 of their own.

I am asked to believe no end of stuff that is promoted by the 911 conspirators, holograms, space beams, fake plane crash sites, fly overs, NORAD stand down, missiles fired, bombs exploding, No Al Qaeda involvement,fake this, fake that, it goes on and on and then I am told to open my mind and believe them.

I will not, I will point an accusing finger at anybody without irrefutable proof of some form of wrong doing.

If you now believe that the towers were subject to some form of malicious tampering with before the planes slammed into them, then say so, lay out what you believe so everybody can see your position and fully understand why you now believe this. If not, then simply state, that although you are not very happy with NIST, you believe that the collapses were gravity driven.

Tell me you what you believe.
 
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Stateofgrace:

I have done calculations that convince me that a gravity driven collapse, once initiated by the descent of an upper section through one floor height, WAS POSSIBLE without the help of explosives. And I have done calculations that convince me that the observed degree of pulverization of the concrete WAS POSSIBLE without the help of explosives. And I have shown that there were plenty of "natural" sources of sulfur in the WTC. And I have shown that molten aluminum is capable of very violent reactions. But these studies are not PROOF that explosives were NOT used. And Occam's Razor is merely a dictum, not a universal law.... And by the way, my calculations say nothing about who was piloting the aircraft or how they were able to penetrate US air defences.

So this is my position: I want people to be very careful when they try to use science to prove one particular side of an argument surrounding the events of 9/11. The collapse of WTC 1 & 2 was extremely complex. The scientific method of test-observation-inference is barely applicable to such a chaotic event. Science is being used an abused in the great global warming dabate in the same way.... Science may indeed hold the key to the truth about 9/11, but it must be used correctly, not simply in an ad hoc manner to support a story that has no basis in fact.

NIST has presented one account of the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, but is unable to explain the collapse of WTC 7. What does that tell you! Furthemore, not all the NIST nay-sayers are "crackpots" - the very accomplished scientist Genady Cherepanov has presented calculations that suggest that a "fracture wave" was responsible for the destruction of the twin towers and his work deserves consideration. I believe this kind of debate is healthy and justified for such a complex, apocalyptic event as the destruction of the WTC.

You know there was a very famous industrial accident in June 1974 at a chemical plant in a place called Flixborough in the UK in which 28 workers were killed by a massive explosion. An official Public Inquiry was commissioned to determine the causes and circumstances of the disaster. The inquiry decided that the rupture of a 20" line was the root cause of the accident in spite of the fact that evidence for another, more complex, theory was presented by some scientists. History shows that the more controversial theory was undoubtedly correct and the commission probably reached false conclusions about the cause of the accident to satisfy the public's growing concerns about the safety of chemical plants in the UK.

So you want to know what I believe? I believe that NIST may have the "right answer", but for the wrong reasons. I have some ideas about the effects of the fires in the towers that I am still working on. If I am correct NIST may have missed a very important factor in the collapse. And if there was indeed some design flaw in the WTC that created unexpected conditions favoring premature collapse, WE NEED TO KNOW!

Finally, let me add that there is too much political ideology (on both sides) driving the 9/11 debate at the present time. This is why internet websites dedicated to discussing 9/11, such as the JREF forum or Physorg, are currently not good arenas for objective scientific debate. And that is why I hope to keep my postings on such sites to a minimum....
 
Wow. Just... wow.

We all saw planes crash into the towers... all saw the fires... heard no explosives... found no evidence of explosives afterwards... got no testimony from witnesses who saw explosives being planted...


And Greening says he has found no "PROOF that explosives were NOT used."


Wow.

I... I'm at a loss.
 
So there is no proof that explosives were used and no reason for them being used...But that's not proof that they weren't there.

It seems that demanding that one prove a negative is the only way this twoofer stuff stands a chance.

Which I suppose says something about how strong a position it is.
 
I mean, keep in mind, what Greening said there would make perfect sense if we were, say, examining the 1993 WTC bombing... and say at the beginning studies said it was a fertilizer bomb, and then later some speculated it was a different explosive based on chemical evidence.

In that case, both are working off the obvious thing that everyone had already observed: that a bomb went off in the basement.

Same for his 1974 plant explosion. That the plant exploded due to some failure or another wasn't in dispute; it was the finer points of what failed that had to be worked out. It was NOT a situation where a plane crashed into the plant, on live TV, and then later it turned out that some other explosion was orchestrated by conspirators and only made it appear to be the result of the plane crash.

That he can't grasp the gargantuan difference between those two scenarios is... kind of weird.
 
Apollo20 said:
Science may indeed hold the key to the truth about 9/11, but it must be used correctly, not simply in an ad hoc manner to support a story that has no basis in fact.
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And which of the various competing stories has "no basis in fact"? Is it the "laser beam from space" story, the "thermite" story, the "concrete core pre-loaded with explosives" story, the "no planes hit the Towers" story, or the NIST story?
 
Apollo20 said:
...my calculations say nothing about who was piloting the aircraft or how they were able to penetrate US air defences...
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I would like to add my "wow" for that comment.

Wow.

Dr. Could tell us about the "US air defences" you think should have prevented the "penetration" And when you do, please apply the same rigor and scholarly analysis as you do with your engineering.
 
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David Wong said:
Wow. Just... wow.

We all saw planes crash into the towers... all saw the fires... heard no explosives... found no evidence of explosives afterwards... got no testimony from witnesses who saw explosives being planted...


And Greening says he has found no "PROOF that explosives were NOT used."


Wow.

I... I'm at a loss.
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No, his making a valid point. Look at it this way:
1) The NIST report provides a reasonable explanation for the collapse of the towers
2) The explanation in the NIST report does not rely on explosives not being present (that is to say, it doesn't matter if they were or not from the NIST report perspective)
3) Therefore, one can not use the NIST report as proof that there were no explosives, as the NIST report is not presenting us with an exclusive or (XO) situation.
4) That being said, the onus is still on the proponents of the explosives theory to present evidence that there was explosives.


DavidJames said:
I would like to add my "wow" for that comment.

Wow.

Dr. Could tell us about the "US air defences" you think should have prevented the "penetration" And when you do, please apply the same rigor and scholarly analysis as you do with your engineering.
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I think he's point was that his work is not addressing the human element of the days events.
 
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So... in laymen's terms...

Say there's an expert in glass. In how glass breaks, how it melts, etc. He takes glass samples from the WTC and says:

"The way this glass broke, it could have been from the plane, or from explosives, or from lasers. You can't tell."

Now, because his expertise is limited, all he can do is comment on the glass. The fact that everybody else saw planes crash into the towers, that's not what he's commenting on. He's simply commenting on the fact that, purely from the glass, you can't tell what broke it.

Fine. I understand that.

But for that same guy to enter into a conversation between conspiracy buffs ("bombs brought down the towers!") and people rebutting them ("Everybody saw planes bring them down!") for him to enter the fray with, "You know, I'm an expert in glass, and looking at this glass, there's no evidence it wasn't a bomb."


Does everyone see the assumption that gets made there? And the problem it causes? What he's saying may be factually right. But the result of the comment, in context of that discussion, is 100% wrong. A sideways glance at the other evidence tilts your conclusion away from bombs and lasers. So why not acknowledge that?
 
While I agree that Greenings work is not PROOF that Explosives were NOT used, that does not mean that we should entertain as possibilities, any of the nonsense that the truth movement puts forward.

There is as much proof it was done by a high energy beam weapon as there is that it was done by a bunch of magical leprachauns, or by a cloaked alien space ship. Should we entertain ALL of these and develop studies to prove them wrong or right? Who will fund such studies.

Lets be realistic here. There is no evidence beyond paranoia, to entertain 99% of the truth movements "theories" on the collapses. If they want to take their own money and investigate such nonsense, than let them, but do you want your tax money to go into funding the "investigation" of "high energy beam weapons causing the collapse of the WTCs"? I wouldn't.

TAM:)
 
Apollo20 said:
NIST has presented one account of the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, but is unable to explain the collapse of WTC 7. What does that tell you!
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This is a bit of a misrepresentation of state of the investigation of WTC7. They are working on it, and will release a report this year. The work on 7 was delayed so they could concentrate their efforts on the towers. To characterize this as being "unable" to explain it is uncharitable at best. Better to say, "They haven't explained it yet."
 
I believe they have a "Best Guess" based on available data, but even that they felt was of "low probability". It is spring 2007, so it should be out soon.

TAM:)
 
Apollo20 said:
I have done calculations that convince me that a gravity driven collapse, once initiated by the descent of an upper section through one floor height, WAS POSSIBLE without the help of explosives. And I have done calculations that convince me that the observed degree of pulverization of the concrete WAS POSSIBLE without the help of explosives. ... And I have shown that molten aluminum is capable of very violent reactions. But these studies are not PROOF that explosives were NOT used.
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This is completely wrong.

It's wrong because the only evidence -- the only evidence at all -- for explosives, presented by anyone, is that "the collapses couldn't have occurred that way without them."

If you're aware of some other evidence that implicates explosives, say some residue, det cord and copper shapes found in the Pile, video of shockwaves, then please bring them to light. But thus far, there is none. Your answer, computed above, directly contradicts the only argument ever produced for explosives.

Apollo20 said:
So you want to know what I believe? I believe that NIST may have the "right answer", but for the wrong reasons. I have some ideas about the effects of the fires in the towers that I am still working on. If I am correct NIST may have missed a very important factor in the collapse. And if there was indeed some design flaw in the WTC that created unexpected conditions favoring premature collapse, WE NEED TO KNOW!
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This statement, on the other hand, I agree with. I look forward to reading your ideas about the effects of fires. I happen to think NIST is mostly right, but they may indeed have missed something.

But it wasn't explosives.
 
R. Mackey:

I agree with you on that... I also believe it wasn't pre-installed explosives or incendiaries that brought down the towers.

I am only trying to make the point that a calculation cannot rule out explosives, it can only show you if something was possible. A gravitational collapse was theoretically possible without explosives.
 
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