Message from a Truther

[BigAl]

Well, regarding #1 - it's only a false statement if you assume that everybody agrees with your timing methodology. There's obviously some subjectiveness to it, which is why there are so many different measurements.

#3 - probably not the best wording, but it's certainly not a "lie" (as in: malicious intent). Plus, if you put the quote back into context, he does describe the characteristics he's referring to.

Look, if you disagree with the opinions of AE911T, that's fine with me. You'll notice that I only really defend them against people who make unsupported claims about misrepresenting their numbers or expertise (or just deny that they exist at all).

Here's a video of the collapse. How many seconds do you count?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k6GMddY-lQ​

Anyone claiming 6.5 seconds is a liar.

 

[newton3376]

I don't know, my direct experience has been with civil engineers and structural engineers working on superstructure design (bridges and the like). Usually they will be billed out as a "Junior Engineer" while they have their EIT, an "Engineer" once they get their PE, and a "Senior Engineer" once they have had so many years of experience.

That could just be a regional thing, though.

I think taking the EIT exam and getting a PE is more common in civil and structural engineering than it is in electrical engineering....although I did ask a few friends last night and they reminded me that some EE's actually DO need a PE....

But I think its for jobs like working for the county/city or maybe in the power industry....like working for a utility company or a power plant. Since I'm not working in these fields it's not something I often encounter.

In my "area" it's important to get a Masters degree (and possibly PhD) and to build up years of good experience. So the labels are more experience based than anything else....although I ended up getting the label of "senior engineer" with less experience than is typical, so exceptions to the rule do occur.

 

[newton3376]

Are you suggesting that the term "engineer" is universally understood to mean "licensed engineer" (or "Professional Engineer")?

I don't think she was suggesting this at all....

According to Professional Engineer^WP:

"In the United States, however, there is still some debate as to whether a P.E. License is required for an engineer to progress in their career due to many industrial exemptions. As of 2009, less than 18% of Engineers will pursue the license in their career."​

I wonder how many of the forum regulars who are known to be "engineers" (and are referred to as such) are actually licensed?

As has been discussed....I think this licensing is more common among civil and structural engineers....

In other engineering fields it is less common although for utility and power companies there are electrical engineers who have their PE or need to it so sign off on certain things....

 

[alienentity]

Back to Hokulele's point about the deliberate confusion of the term 'engineer' by A&ETruth -
Here's a comment I found this morning on http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/06/debunking-911-conspiracy-theories.html

'There has been peer-reviewed research that say explosives were used. Almost a thousand architects and engineers are demanding a re-investigation. Hundreds of pilots say the official story is not possible.'

The reek of empty argument from authority is all over this one.

Here is the danger of such credential-inflation. NIST employed a lot of professional engineers in their investigation; if you look at their CV's you see they have relevant experience and qualifications.
OK, so structural engineer X becomes shortened to just 'engineer'. Forget the CV completely - that's exactly what truther propaganda does. Engineer X.

Someone from A&ETruth has studied electrical engineering, for example. Shorten that CV to 'engineer'. Engineer Y.

Joe Average truther can't tell the difference between X and Y - there isn't enough info left. So what stands out is the term 'engineer' and 'standard truther theory' that this engineer (or loose group of engineers and architects) is selling.

Joe Average truther can make the statement ''There has been peer-reviewed research that say explosives were used. Almost a thousand architects and engineers are demanding a re-investigation. Hundreds of pilots say the official story is not possible.'
without batting an eyelash, and that can be repeated on the internet over and over.

If I recall correctly Gage said that there were almost 600 in the group. The truther says that is almost 1000.
Funny, the 9/11 'truth' leaders do the same thing with the speed of WTC collapses: 64% of the speed of gravitational acceleration is 'virtually at freefall speed'.

I can just imagine how truthers would react if NIST had hired, as their top experts, a Theologian to investigate cell phone transcripts and air defences (David Ray Griffin), an Architect and a High School Physics Teacher to investigate structural engineering (Gage and his cardboard boxes, David Chandler and his Physics Toolkit), a Physicist to investigate Chemistry (Jones and his thermite).

Unfortunately, that's what 9/11 'truth' has done. It ain't pretty, and the results are....predictable.

 

[jaydeehess]

Getting back to initial failure and the PBS doc that bill linked to;


I am refering to the fact that when one sees the top section begin to drop one does not see the core punching up through the roof. One does not see the hat truss being held up by the core either.
THUS it is obvious that at the initial collapse the core columns on the fire floors failed. They did not fail lower down during that initial failure. This is obvious for two reasons;
1) the PBS doc shows that the core did not collapse at the same rate as the perimeter. Had the core failed low down then this could not have been the case
2) had the core failed, say in the basement, the perimeter columns on EVERY floor would have been pulled inward

So we know for certain then that there were no explosives or thermite used on lower floors and certainly not in the basement in order to cause that initial collapse.
Done and done, then, with any such suggestion.

Were there explosives in the core in order to ensure that not only the perimeter and the floors came down thus killing anyone inside, but also the core? This would require that said explosives be mounted such that despite the destruction occuring to the floors (debris would be raining down through the core floors as well,between the beams) they were not stripped off the columns. There might be one way to do this by mounting them inside the box columns, any wireless timing mecahnism would also have to be mounted outside the columns(and a wired system is even more vulnerable) not to mention that a wireless system would have to work through the dense falling mass of debris and dust.. However now this is not the simple task of smuggling a cartload of explosives past security which included bomb-sniffing dogs, it now also requires extensive and noisy work to be done to the core columns. Given that this now becomes a task that would have a miniscule probability of not being discovered ( even bill agrees that some conjectures are just way too complicated to be credible) I believe that we can be assured that it did not occur.

We are left then only with explosives at the fire/impact floors.
Once again we run into the problem of how to mount them such that they, and their timing mechanism, are unaffected by either the chaos of an airliner impact, or the subsequent, immediate, large area, multi-floors fires. We are alos confronted with the problem of having explosives mounted on the floors that are impacted. One might mount them on many floors in a target zone but that would require absolute certainty that one could call upon the ones at the actual impact zone and only those ones.

Once again this gets to very complicated it is an exercise in ridiculousness to seriously conjecture that it did occur.

On the other hand we do have the impact and despite the incredulity of some that an aluminum aircraft could cause significant damage to a steel structure it indeed can and did.
The fuel was dispersed over the impact floors and ignited thus accellerating the office fires in a way never seen in 'normal office fires'. It meant that the fires were immediatly at a stage that noramlly takes hours to reach, in a structure significantly damaged by the impacts. The impacts had also compromised the active and passive fire suppression built into the structure.

bump for bill

 

[jaydeehess]

Homeland Insecurity tried to argue the small-amount-of-explosives senario.

Link to my response

HI never did get around to addressing this. Perhaps deep or bill would care to.
the question is whether or not a large quantity of explosives were used. That is to say were explosives on many (or every floor) or just on the floors involved in the initial collapse?

If a small amount was used, only on the impact floors, then how could the explosives be protected against the effects of the aircraft impact, and how could the supposed perpetrators have mounted explosives only on the few floors that were actually involved in the impacts in each building? Furthermore if only a small amount of explosives on the impact floors were employed does this mean that NIST was correct is stating that once the initial collapse had begun that the most likely senario would be a progression to global collapse?

If explosives were required on many or all floors they would have to have been smuggled in past the dogs and other security measures. How was this accomplished? They would have to be mounted on the columns as well (or require even more explosives) and have to be timed to match the collapsing structure. How was this accomplished? If thermite was used how was it used on vertical steel columns and how was it accurately timed?

 

[NobbyNobbs]

Here is the really curious thing about the south tower:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SSS0DDqfm0

That is 52 minutes after the oscillation caused by the plane impact died out. The plane shifted that area of the building 14 inches sideways. But when that break occurred it shifted about TWENTY FEET sideways and had to break lots of columns. So how did gravity and fire make that much mass move sideways.

Oh that's right! We don't have information on the tons of steel and concrete on every level so we don't know how much mass moved sideways 20 feet in a few seconds because of gravity and fire.

psik

What do you suggest caused that sideways movement? (Hint: if you say "explosives", I predict this thread will be flooded with laughing dogs.)

 

[newton3376]

Excellent post all around... but this point was especially good....

I can just imagine how truthers would react if NIST had hired, as their top experts, a Theologian to investigate cell phone transcripts and air defences (David Ray Griffin), an Architect and a High School Physics Teacher to investigate structural engineering (Gage and his cardboard boxes, David Chandler and his Physics Toolkit), a Physicist to investigate Chemistry (Jones and his thermite).

 

[deep]

They are claiming a certain level of expertise as a correct appeal to authority on the topic of building design and construction (well, deconstruction). Richard Gage has repeatedly made this clear in his presentations. By using a misleading definition of "engineer" to compile the list (sanitation engineer, anyone?), he is turning a correct appeal to authority into the fallacious version.

Will you please point me to the presentations you're referring to, or provide direct quotes? Those alleged misrepresentations are the key to your argument.

 

[Hokulele]

Will you please point me to the presentations you're referring to, or provide direct quotes? Those alleged misrepresentations are the key to your argument.

Good grief, the claim that their professional credibility is key to their arguments is made as part of the justification for the very existence of that group. From their mission statement page:

Architects and Engineers are trained to design buildings that function well and withstand potentially destructive forces.

<snipped the blather about controlled demolitions>

We can play a very significant role as building professionals because we have the necessary technical credibility that Congress will respond to.

Source.

ETA: The text that I quoted is also featured in his extended version of the PowerPoint slides. You can see the screen capture from that webpage about a dozen slides into the thing, so it isn't some minor detail buried in the middle or hidden at the end. Claiming credibility is the first thing done in the presentation.

 

[jaydeehess]

Here is the really curious thing about the south tower:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SSS0DDqfm0

That is 52 minutes after the oscillation caused by the plane impact died out. The plane shifted that area of the building 14 inches sideways. But when that break occurred it shifted about TWENTY FEET sideways and had to break lots of columns. So how did gravity and fire make that much mass move sideways.

Oh that's right! We don't have information on the tons of steel and concrete on every level so we don't know how much mass moved sideways 20 feet in a few seconds because of gravity and fire.

psik

The really curious thing is that you cannot envision how the physical laws of motion apply here and instead wonder how fire and gravity caused this sway.

 

[FineWine]

Bill, you seem uncharacteristically reluctant to tell us what Mackey got wrong in his lecture. Is it possible that the no-planers are really as totally deranged as the rest of the world thinks they are?

 

[FineWine]

Uh, Bill? About Mackey's lecture...

 

[jaydeehess]

Homeland Insecurity tried to argue the small-amount-of-explosives senario.

Link to my response

HI never did get around to addressing this. Perhaps deep or bill would care to.
........................

I guess not.

 

[jaydeehess]

Originally Posted by bill smith
Well personally I would go for the intrinsic strengh of the core by libarally bracing it. But if people are happy to believe in your core braced only by floor trusses that is up to them. We will not know for sure until NIST allows examination of the blueprints of WTC2.

THAT is not what i said bill. Let's take it slow and simple then.

The columns that make up the core were braced to each other. That is to say they were braced, laterally, to the columns adjacent to each. There was no diagonal bracing either horizontally or between floors.

The core SYSTEM of columns/beams, was in turn braced laterally to the perimeter system. the perimeter columns were braced as well to each other(obviously in one dimension only).

The core SYSTEM of columns and beams however still represents a structure that could NOT support itself against buckling(look up Euler in google) without that bracing to the perimeter system.

As I stated already, during construction they built the core ahead of the flooring/perimeter but could only get so far ahead AND included temporary floor to floor diagonal bracing of the core during construction.

As I said, had the perimeter columns and the large floor space between core and perimeter suddenly and magically disappeared causing no undue stress during that magical 'poof', the core would soon buckle and/or twist itself and fail.

Getting back to initial failure and the PBS doc that bill linked to;


I am refering to the fact that when one sees the top section begin to drop one does not see the core punching up through the roof. One does not see the hat truss being held up by the core either.
THUS it is obvious that at the initial collapse the core columns on the fire floors failed. They did not fail lower down during that initial failure. This is obvious for two reasons;
1) the PBS doc shows that the core did not collapse at the same rate as the perimeter. Had the core failed low down then this could not have been the case
2) had the core failed, say in the basement, the perimeter columns on EVERY floor would have been pulled inward

So we know for certain then that there were no explosives or thermite used on lower floors and certainly not in the basement in order to cause that initial collapse.
Done and done, then, with any such suggestion.

Were there explosives in the core in order to ensure that not only the perimeter and the floors came down thus killing anyone inside, but also the core? This would require that said explosives be mounted such that despite the destruction occuring to the floors (debris would be raining down through the core floors as well,between the beams) they were not stripped off the columns. There might be one way to do this by mounting them inside the box columns, any wireless timing mecahnism would also have to be mounted outside the columns(and a wired system is even more vulnerable) not to mention that a wireless system would have to work through the dense falling mass of debris and dust.. However now this is not the simple task of smuggling a cartload of explosives past security which included bomb-sniffing dogs, it now also requires extensive and noisy work to be done to the core columns. Given that this now becomes a task that would have a miniscule probability of not being discovered ( even bill agrees that some conjectures are just way too complicated to be credible) I believe that we can be assured that it did not occur.

We are left then only with explosives at the fire/impact floors.
Once again we run into the problem of how to mount them such that they, and their timing mechanism, are unaffected by either the chaos of an airliner impact, or the subsequent, immediate, large area, multi-floors fires. We are alos confronted with the problem of having explosives mounted on the floors that are impacted. One might mount them on many floors in a target zone but that would require absolute certainty that one could call upon the ones at the actual impact zone and only those ones.

Once again this gets to very complicated it is an exercise in ridiculousness to seriously conjecture that it did occur.

On the other hand we do have the impact and despite the incredulity of some that an aluminum aircraft could cause significant damage to a steel structure it indeed can and did.
The fuel was dispersed over the impact floors and ignited thus accellerating the office fires in a way never seen in 'normal office fires'. It meant that the fires were immediatly at a stage that noramlly takes hours to reach, in a structure significantly damaged by the impacts. The impacts had also compromised the active and passive fire suppression built into the structure.

bill? bill???

{Is this thing on?}

 

[Audible Click]

bill? bill???

{Is this thing on?}

Hit it really hard with your hand.

 

[deep]

Good grief, the claim that their professional credibility is key to their arguments is made as part of the justification for the very existence of that group.

For one thing, I can't find that screen capture of your "source" in any of the four presentations posted on their webpage.

Either way - there's nothing in that mission statement that would lead someone to believe that AE911T is an organization that only accepts licensed architects/engineers. An engineer does not need a license to possess "professional credibility".

Engineer^WP: "An engineer is an engineering professional with an approved degree in engineering."

 

[Hokulele]

For one thing, I can't find that screen capture of your "source" in any of the four presentations posted on their webpage.

It is slide 11 of the 1 hour presentation and 14 of the 2 hour one.

Either way - there's nothing in that mission statement that would lead someone to believe that AE911T is an organization that only accepts licensed architects/engineers. An engineer does not need a license to possess "professional credibility".

Engineer^WP: "An engineer is an engineering professional with an approved degree in engineering."

And from the rest of the Wiki article:

"The title, Engineer, and its derivatives should be reserved for those individuals whose education and experience qualify them to practice in a manner that protects public safety. Strict use of the title serves the interest of both the IEEE-USA and the public by providing a recognized designation by which those qualified to practice engineering may be identified. The education and experience needed for the title, Engineer, is evidenced by

• Graduation with an Engineering degree from an ABET/EAC accredited program of engineering (or equivalent*), coupled with sufficient experience in the field in which the term, Engineer, is used; and/or

• Licensure by any jurisdiction as a Professional Engineer.

• A degree from a foreign institution (or the total education when one person holds a graduate degree in engineering but no accredited B.S. in engineering) can be evaluated through a service offered by ABET."

In some jurisdictions, it is against the law to call yourself an engineer if you aren't licensed. The appeal to authority from the end of the mission statement ("We can play a very significant role as building professionals because we have the necessary technical credibility that Congress will respond to. ") is precisely why the validation of the number of members is so important.

Of course, this isn't important at all if all you are trying to do is artificially inflate numbers to support your goals...

 

[dropzone]

I think taking the EIT exam and getting a PE is more common in civil and structural engineering than it is in electrical engineering....although I did ask a few friends last night and they reminded me that some EE's actually DO need a PE....

True story: Asked my pimp regarding a job she posted. She said,

"I see you've done residential. What is the highest voltage you've worked with?"

"Um, 120 and 240, obviously."

"And if I present that to my client he will laugh because he's looking for a minimum of 575 Volts."

"So you should modify the ad. "Low voltage" refers to 24V or less. 575V is HIGH voltage to most everybody."

"But they are talking about substations. 575V is low for them."

 

[ElMondoHummus]

And from the rest of the Wiki article:
[/list]In some jurisdictions, it is against the law to call yourself an engineer if you aren't licensed. The appeal to authority from the end of the mission statement ("We can play a very significant role as building professionals because we have the necessary technical credibility that Congress will respond to. ") is precisely why the validation of the number of members is so important.

Of course, this isn't important at all if all you are trying to do is artificially inflate numbers to support your goals...

Not that Hokulele needs help getting her point across - she rarely does - but the info at this link can serve to buttresss the essence of what she's saying:
http://www.asce.org/pdf/NSPEGuidelines.pdf

Sample quote:

The practice of engineering by unlicensed practitioners potentially places the public health, safety and welfare at risk...

... efforts to prevent unlicensed practice are intended solely to protect the public health, safety and welfare...