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WTC 1 & 2. What happened after collapse initiation?

That was the point I made in my original post. The people here at JREF believe in consensus science as opposed to the experimental method. The educated world at one time largely accepted Aristotle's belief that heavy objects fell faster than lighter objects. Then an upstart scientist named Galileo attempts to test this concept experimentally. Known as the falling bodies experiment, it showed in the absence of air resistance, the speed of a falling body is independent of its weight. What is the best way to determine scientific truth, an opinion poll or the experimental method?



The perimeter columns begin to fall or fail? What is happening to the core columns as the upper section of the tower begins to tilt?



NIST stated that one of the objectives of their investigation was to determine:

"why and how the WTC 1 and 2 (the WTC towers) collapsed after the initial impact of the aircraft, and why and how WTC 7 collapsed."

NIST stated in a response to a Request for Correction issued by members of the 9/11 Truth Movement,

"We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse."

Therefore, they have yet to meet their objectives. As well, they are still working on WTC7.




Yes, that is what I would expect. If the towers had not collapsed the death toll would have been much lower.



Why is there any significance to collapse initiation then? If they don't go beyond collapse initiation then they can't tell us why the collapse was global as opposed to merely a local event.



Where does Shyam Sunder say that it is in regards to initiation? He stated, "...we did not see any evidence of pancaking in the videos or photographs we have. Suddenly the columns snapped, and, as a result, the entire top of the building came down, pretty much in freefall, because kinetic energy that was unleashed was just huge."

The truss failure is the initiating event for the supposed pancake collapse hypothesis, not pancaking itself. As well, how can pancaking be interpreted from Ryan Mackey statement, "After a few floors collapse, the upper block is riding on a cushion of debris, and relatively smooth behavior is guaranteed...It will quickly become larger than the upper block, and it is responsible for most of the crushing."

If there is a separation between the upper and lower block and a cushion of debris is responsible for most of the crushing then how is this a pancake collapse. A pancake collapse is one floor falling on top of the floor beneath it.


Although Mark rammed your dishonest signature down your throat, you are too obtuse to remove it.

When will scientists from around the world begin discovering what you ignorant liars have discovered?
 
You're still on about this?

Leaving aside the poor history and philosophy of science lesson, please tell me: what do you mean by "consensus science?"

I'm not sure what you mean by my "poor history and philosophy of science lesson", but since you don't like my example I'll let Michael Crichton explain,

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period
."

Agree or disagree?

Because if you read the article you can see its clear. Also NIST departed from the pancake theory in 04.

Also again see previous posts. Repeating Sunder's statements a third time doesn't help your case. I thought it was clear. Again I've stated in the debris pile, many floors were smashed and compacted into each other, showing that pancaking indeed happened.
"we counted 14 floors compressed into 8 feet."
http://www.pbs.org/americarebuilds/videostories/ See Demo Dave.
As for Mackey's statements, I don't understand the problem.

If many floors were smashed and compacted into each other, then how do you know this wasn't due to the pile-driver effect? The original explanation promoted by the NOVA documentary was that the buildings pancaked. The initiating event for the pancake collapse was theorized to be truss failure, i.e. the floor trusses broke away from the perimeter columns and the floors began falling on top of each other in a progressive fashion. So truss failure leads to a pancake collapse of successive floors. NIST promoted the idea of column failure due to the inward bowing of the perimeter columns. The trusses maintained their connections to the perimeter columns, and as the floors sagged, the columns were bowed inward and eventually they snapped. This caused the upper block to come crushing down on the lower block. So Shyam Sunder in that interview is stating that there was no pancaking due to the fact that the floor trusses maintained their connections to the perimeter columns. Are you saying that column failure lead to a pancake collapse?

Although Mark rammed your dishonest signature down your throat, you are too obtuse to remove it.

When will scientists from around the world begin discovering what you ignorant liars have discovered?

What is dishonest about my signature? I just quoted you and Undesired Walrus. Scientists who have looked at the evidence have questioned the official story, but most aren't paying any attention.
 
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I'm not sure what you mean by my "poor history and philosophy of science lesson", but since you don't like my example I'll let Michael Crichton explain,

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period
."

Agree or disagree?

First, Michael Crichton isn't much of authority on these issues (could you give me a citation of this quote?), but -

he's completely wrong here. Totally wrong.

There is a large consensus in the scientific community about electromagnetism - I doubt Mr. Crichton would believe this to be a 'pernicious development.'

Crichton writes: "Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had." This is wrong. So because scientists 'agree' about general relativity, or about quantum mechanics, or that the sky is blue, or that there are laws of conservation of momentum and energy, we should not trust them?

Science is about consensus - something only becomes labeled 'scientifically true' when a community of practitioners agrees that it's true. That's not to say that there isn't an "external truth" out there somewhere; it's that we do not have unmediated access to that truth, and rely on practices to construct something that is (hopefully) close to but can never be perfectly mirroring that external reality. This is where we need a community of trusting practitioners.

Crichton continues: "Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results."

A closer look at these words finds the implicit contradiction that Mr. Crichton fails to identify. He claims that what matters in science is not consensus, but rather 'reproducible results.'

But...wait.

Who reproduces the results?

Furthermore, who says that such results are adequately reproduced? That replication has actually be achieved?

A community of practitioners!

Crichton fails to understand that all scientific inquiry - even the vaunted 'replication' - relies on consensus, on agreement, on coordination and cooperation.

Why do you believe in the laws of electromagnetism (assuming you do) - because you've tested them all yourself? Replicated all experiments? No. You implicitly trust the consensus of a community of practitioners, scientists, and a body of literature stretching back into the 18th century.

Science does not exist without a community. Without a community, it's just a bunch of people saying stuff about nature, with no way to sort out what's valid or not. But with a community, ah! There is science.
 
I

If many floors were smashed and compacted into each other, then how do you know this wasn't due to the pile-driver effect? The original explanation promoted by the NOVA documentary was that the buildings pancaked. The initiating event for the pancake collapse was theorized to be truss failure, i.e. the floor trusses broke away from the perimeter columns and the floors began falling on top of each other in a progressive fashion. So truss failure leads to a pancake collapse of successive floors. NIST promoted the idea of column failure due to the inward bowing of the perimeter columns. The trusses maintained their connections to the perimeter columns, and as the floors sagged, the columns were bowed inward and eventually they snapped. This caused the upper block to come crushing down on the lower block. So Shyam Sunder in that interview is stating that there was no pancaking due to the fact that the floor trusses maintained their connections to the perimeter columns. Are you saying that column failure lead to a pancake collapse?

He's not saying that the floor trusses maintained their connections through the entire collapse. It was reference to the incorrect initiation. I fail to see why this is still a debate. In 2005 when Sunder spoke with Popular Mechanics he clearly discussed the pancaking with regards to the squib effect. At this point truss failure was not NIST's belief, because NIST had explained in 2004 that the trusses maintained their connections to the perimeter columns during the collapse initiation. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=shyam_sunder

Yes after column failure there was some pancaking. Of course there was a pile driver effect.

Compare What Sunder said with Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, "the falling mass of the building compressed the air ahead of it—much like the action of a piston—forcing smoke and debris out the windows as the stories below failed sequentially."
PM Sunder:
The WTC towers contained a huge volume of air. As they pancaked, all that air — along with the concrete and other debris pulverized by the force of the collapse — was ejected with enormous energy. 'When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it's going to shoot air and concrete dust out the window,' NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder tells PM. 'Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a controlled demolition', Sunder adds, 'but it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception.'"

Hoffman had the same problem and misconception.
 
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First, Michael Crichton isn't much of authority on these issues (could you give me a citation of this quote?), but -

he's completely wrong here. Totally wrong.

A closer look at these words finds the implicit contradiction that Mr. Crichton fails to identify. He claims that what matters in science is not consensus, but rather 'reproducible results.'

But...wait.

Who reproduces the results?

Furthermore, who says that such results are adequately reproduced? That replication has actually be achieved?

A community of practitioners!

Crichton fails to understand that all scientific inquiry - even the vaunted 'replication' - relies on consensus, on agreement, on coordination and cooperation.

Why do you believe in the laws of electromagnetism (assuming you do) - because you've tested them all yourself? Replicated all experiments? No. You implicitly trust the consensus of a community of practitioners, scientists, and a body of literature stretching back into the 18th century.

Science does not exist without a community. Without a community, it's just a bunch of people saying stuff about nature, with no way to sort out what's valid or not. But with a community, ah! There is science.

He does discuss this. Michael Crichton states,

"In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.... In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way
."
 
He does discuss this. Michael Crichton states,

"In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.... In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way
."

Again, what's the source for this? It would be helpful to read this in context.

I'm not familiar with the cases he lists, but there are tons of cases in the history of science in which the consensus agrees against the "lone genius" and - lo and behold - it turns out that the consensus was actually correct. Crichton's cherry picking here.

As for the second bit, he's wrong. People do indeed claim that scientific facts are the consensus of a scientific community - historians, sociologists, philosophers of science, and of course scientists themselves. (Just ask some who post on the forum!)
 
OK, it was adressed to tanabear.

Yeah... and neither of you have given a remotely satisfactory or sensible answer.

Yes, that is what I would expect. If the towers had not collapsed the death toll would have been much lower.

Well, I am glad to see you are able to grasp some things that are obvious to the rest of us. However, how is the death toll remotely relevant to the cause of collapse - before or after collapse?

Why is there any significance to collapse initiation then? If they don't go beyond collapse initiation then they can't tell us why the collapse was global as opposed to merely a local event.

Why does it matter? The necessity was to determine if anything additional to the planes contributed to the collapse of the towers. What relevance does anything after the collapse start have to anything? They review all the events that led up to the collapse of the towers. They do not stop short at a point when local collapse was all that would be expected, as you imply. They just do not, and cannot, account for the motion and movement of everything within the building after a certain point.

You want the impossible and when it can't be delivered you hold it up as evidence to fit your agenda.

There is nothing relevant about the collapse of the towers after initiation. I still have no response from you or anyone about why it could be relevant. You don't like the fact that there was no evidence provided to support your theories from what available prior to collapse, and so you select an item that has unknowns and use it. Had it been possible for the entire collapse to have been examined and modelled, then you would be looking to some other grey area to 'confirm' your agenda - such as the rubble, perhaps.

If there had been any actions undertaken to bring down the towers, other than the planes, there would have been evidence of this prior to the collapse occuring. This is why I maintain that what happened once collapse started is irrelevant. What have you got to refute that one simlpe conclusion?
 
You were exposed as an ineducable incompetent by real engineers and physicists. Are you really brazen enough to trot out your thoroughly discredited rubbish again? How many threads demonstrating your ineptitude do we need?

Real engineers and physicists? Rather uniformed diletants. Plenty of those at JREF! Some say they are PhDs but you can buy that title on Internet for a penny. With reference to rubbish the rubble seen being produced and ejected from WTC1 at 911 is good evidence that gravity alone did not cause the WTC1 destruction!
Reason is that gravity forces and released potential energy applied to steel structures with composite steel/cement floors do not produce rubble of any sort! Only local failures ... but no real rubble. Read http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist3.htm .
Maybe Nist was blinded by all these smoke, dust, debris and rubble when producing its report? Anyway, Nist failed to address the issue.
 
Real engineers and physicists? Rather uniformed diletants. Plenty of those at JREF! Some say they are PhDs but you can buy that title on Internet for a penny. With reference to rubbish the rubble seen being produced and ejected from WTC1 at 911 is good evidence that gravity alone did not cause the WTC1 destruction!
Reason is that gravity forces and released potential energy applied to steel structures with composite steel/cement floors do not produce rubble of any sort! Only local failures ... but no real rubble. Read http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist3.htm .
Maybe Nist was blinded by all these smoke, dust, debris and rubble when producing its report? Anyway, Nist failed to address the issue.

And I suppose that our purchased credentials have fooled our employers all these years, eh? You'd better hope that at least some of us know our stuff because we've engineered things that keep you and millions of others safe...

And if you are comparing WTC tower to a lattice-grid building, you are no engineer, child. Once you push the walls out a couple of feet, WTC-type towers literally fall apart. Not even a chance of arresting collapse. Personally, I think this is a grossly defective design therefore.
 
He does discuss this. Michael Crichton states,

"In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them.

And today consensus agrees,mostly, what causes "fever" and how to treat it. Does that mean that women facing childbirth should not trust their doctors, because mostly they rely on facts other have deduced?

I think Crichton's point isn't more complicated than "Just because a lot of people say something is right, doesn't mean they are right", which is more or less a pretty basic statement.

But that doesn't mean that just because a lot of people say something is right, means that its wrong. To know if its right or wrong you have to either reproduce the entire process, or do as much research as you deem neccessary to make a reasonable well-founded assumption. Granted, it will be an assumption, but it can be a more or less well-founded one.
 
Hmmm, what we have here is two posters who essentially say the following:

"Although it has been discussed at extreme length and in minute detail, I still can't (or won't, take your pick) how the buildings fell down."

Heiwa even seems to claim that the collapse didn't start at all (if that is so, I'd like him/her to explain the big chunk of free estate in central Manhattan).

However, my reply to all this is: Tanabear, Heiwa, why the :rule10 should I care if you understand it or not?

Hans
 
And today consensus agrees,mostly, what causes "fever" and how to treat it. Does that mean that women facing childbirth should not trust their doctors, because mostly they rely on facts other have deduced?

I think Crichton's point isn't more complicated than "Just because a lot of people say something is right, doesn't mean they are right", which is more or less a pretty basic statement.

But that doesn't mean that just because a lot of people say something is right, means that its wrong. To know if its right or wrong you have to either reproduce the entire process, or do as much research as you deem neccessary to make a reasonable well-founded assumption. Granted, it will be an assumption, but it can be a more or less well-founded one.

Agreed.

I believe Newton's Laws of Physics (motion) are accepted by scientists as valid. Is that not a Consensus?

TAM:)
 
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So now the argument has degraded not to discussing a consensus, but discussing the difference between an obvious concensus (E=mc2) versus a suggested one (the towers came down due to impacts plus fire on unprotected steel), and that a suggested one is not solid...

Perhaps take Crichton's quotes, and then do up a list (likely as long or longer) of where the "consensus" was correct. I am sure there are MANY, MANY more cases where the suggested consensus was CORRECT, then incorrect.

TAM:)
 
Tababear,

You started this thread with the statement:
I have noticed that 9/11 debunkers appear to become irritated when truthers point out the fact that all they do is regurgitate government propaganda, regarding the events of 9/11.

After all the replies to your questions, do you stick with your statement?
 
Tanabear, earlier you stated that you accept the idea that water flows downhill because (only because? you didn't make that clear) it's something that "we all" have observed.

Bromine is an element that's liquid at room temperature.

Have you ever observed bromine flowing downhill? (If you have, substitute some other liquid that you haven't personally seen flowing downhill, such as bile or molten ruthenium, in the following discussion.)

Okay, now suppose you're on a jury in a civil case. A property owner is suing a chemical manufacturer over a bromine spill from a tanker truck accident, in which the bromine flowed downhill and contaminated the property. The owner has already been compensated for the loss and expenses incurred, but is suing for additional punitive damages because he claims the spill was deliberate. As evidence of that, he argues that the bromine should not have flowed downhill and therefore not have reached his property at all. He claims that the bromine must have been pushed, and this proves malicious intent.

The defense puts on the stand a chemical engineer, a chemist, a physicist (all Ph.D.s), and a fluid mechanics engineer and a chemical safety engineer specializing in chemical spills. They all testify that bromine, like all other liquids, flows downhill.

The plaintiff puts on the stand a Ph.D. marine biologist, who claims to have spent years studying bromine because of its important role in marine ecosystems. He describes himself as "The Bromine Doctor." He claims that bromine does not in fact flow downhill, and that all the other experts who testified, along with the rest of the scientific community, are blinded to that fact by consensus thinking, if not outright conspiracy to keep it a secret. He points out that if you search the entire body of published scientific papers, you will not find a single respected scientist stating that "bromine flows downhill." When you examine The Bromine Doctor's published papers (probably not allowed if you're on a jury, but let's say you did anyhow), you find several dozen papers in respectable journals, all having to do with the biochemistry of bromine in seaweeds and marine invertebrates, and none making any claim about whether bromine flows downhill or not.

Would The Bromine Doctor persuade you in this case?

Would that fact that you have never personally observed bromine flowing downhill influence your thinking one way or the other?

I'm trying to understand the thought processes that leads one to believe that engineers and physicists are wrong about applying methods of analysis that are decades to centuries old -- mass, weight, yield strength, dynamic load. You must be very brave, to believe that and yet still be willing to spend time indoors.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Concerning Crichton's quote, he is merely pointing out that, in the Global Warming debate, claiming "consensus" in order to end the debate, is wrong.

Elsewhere (sorry, no link) he makes it clear that NOTHING should end debate on any issue, and research should continue on all lines of inquiry if experts in a field feel there are questions to be answered.

Obviously, this doesn't apply to 9-11, because I have yet to read a single study by an acknowledged expert that questions the official version.

Now, since GW skepticism is persona non grata here, I'm sure some will dismiss Crichton out of hand. But his point, I believe, is legit.
 
Heiwa even seems to claim that the collapse didn't start at all (if that is so, I'd like him/her to explain the big chunk of free estate in central Manhattan).

Hans

Heiwa thinks that the destruction of WTC1 started in the upper block above the initiation zone. The upper block telescoped into itself as clearly seen on all videos. And then blocks of floors below are destroyed starting from above and all goes very quickly. Big chunks of structural parts are thrown out sideways. Heiwa is told that the upper block crushes down the structure below ... but Heiwa cannot see any upper block with roof and antenna crushing anything ... and then that this upper block lands on the rubble it has created below ... and that finally the upper block collapses. The roof and antenna should therefore be found on top of the rubble but is not found. Heiwa does not believe in fairy tales.

Heiwa does not believe that a steel tower with composite floors can be crushed into rubble by a little bit of structure getting loose up top. Heiwa has explained this in detail and in simple language in some popular articles ... and no valid criticism has been raised.
 
And I suppose that our purchased credentials have fooled our employers all these years, eh? You'd better hope that at least some of us know our stuff because we've engineered things that keep you and millions of others safe...

And if you are comparing WTC tower to a lattice-grid building, you are no engineer, child. Once you push the walls out a couple of feet, WTC-type towers literally fall apart. Not even a chance of arresting collapse. Personally, I think this is a grossly defective design therefore.

A new explanation for the destruction - you push the walls out a couple of feet, (and) WTC-type towers literally fall apart. Not even a chance of arresting collapse.

You may be on to something. How do you push the walls out a couple of feet? And how do you know that the collapse is not arrested. Have you checked your claims in a design analysis to conclude the WTC-type was a grossly defective design? Any other Towers have the same problem? Pls advise the owners (and people working inside).

Where did you purchase your credentials? Easier is just to scan any certificate and change the name with suitable software.
 
Has anyone explained how the collapse could just stop after it had started?
 

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