Why the Harrit Nano-thermite paper has not yet been debunked

[Ragnarok]

Can I offer you a big heaping mug of STFU to go along with it?

No thanks, I've just had a coffee. Why don't you have it yourself?

 

[Pantaz]

Gunpowder is not an explosive, it deflagrates, so it's not an example of a explosive.

Gunpowder ("smokeless powder") is considered a "low explosive":

Low (or deflagrating) explosives are used primarily for propelling; they are mixtures of readily combustible substances (e.g., gunpowder) that when set off (by ignition) undergo rapid combustion. High (or detonating) explosives (e.g., TNT) are used mainly for shattering; they are unstable molecules that can undergo explosive decomposition without any external source of oxygen and in which the chemical reaction produces rapid shock waves.​

Source: Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia

 

[The Big Dog]

No thanks, I've just had a coffee. Why don't you have it yourself?

But I don't know how to make coffee! I shouldn't have even been asked how it was made, because by exposing my ignorance on this topic, you have latched on to it like a pitbull on a juicy bone to the exclusion of anything else I might have to say.

 

[Newtons Bit]

No. He doesn't have a clue about that.

But he did say something about igniting a stick of dynamite in the air, a bullet firing from a silencer, and slicing bread.

Yea, I don't get it. If you wanted to prove it was thermite above anything else, ignite it in an oxygen-free environment. There are very few substances that will do this. On the other hand, there's almost an infinite number of substances that will ignite in air.

But if you can't prove your hypothesis, and instead just keep the gullible masses believing, it does make sense.

 

[lapman]

Are you being deliberately obtuse? I just said that Harrit's opinions regarding the method of collapse are irrelevant, because he obviously knows nothing about this subject. But apparently, he does know about chemistry and they are the opinions you should be concentrating on.

The job for you derbunkers should be to prove there is no such thing as nanothermite and even if there is, that it did not exist in 2001.

It is not your job to ask how it was used yet.

Yet they are the ones that are claiming that nano-therm?te was used to demolish the buildings. Therefore they have to say how it was used or the presence of it is immaterial.

 

[jhunter1163]

YES IT IS! there is no evidence of thermite, thermate, nano-thermite, or EVEN combustible termites that when they fart can set a building on fire

That would make one hell of a YouTube video, no?

 

[T.A.M.]

unless you can prove that nano-thermite existed in 2001 in the amounts needed (thousands of tons of it) when in 2005 only small amounts existed in LABORATORIES (less than a ton so far), bringing up Nano-thermite to be used as anything but a research oddity, is nothing more than a red herring on the part of the Truth movement

but see you are forgetting the vast quantities of nanothermite that the USG and US military hold in secret for just such an occasion. The locations and quantities of this secret nanothermite are known only to a chosen few within the dozen or two people who carried out 9/11.

TAM

 

[HeyLeroy]

Now I know, why steel-framed building collapse all the time due to office fires.

yes they do

 

[A W Smith]

but see you are forgetting the vast quantities of nanothermite that the USG and US military hold in secret for just such an occasion. The locations and quantities of this secret nanothermite are known only to a chosen few within the dozen or two people who carried out 9/11.

TAM

Yeah they kept it under IronOxideAluminum Mountain for years in cold storage!

 

[triforcharity]

Gee you`re right! After no one has ever had anything bad happen to them for supporting alternative 9/11 theories. Well except for Barry Jennings, Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, Sybil Edmunds and most recently Van Jones.

Barry Jennins died, and was not murdered.

Kevin Ryan was stating an uneducated opinion about something that UL had nothing to do with, and was using ULs name to promote it.

Not sure whom the others are, and ehat their story is, but I am sure (if not done already) that someone will.

What about the following people?

Dylan
Jason Bermas
The other idiot that did LC
Dr. Woods
the idiot from "In Plane Site?" or whatever that failure was
Alex Jones (well, the NWO is in his head, so I will strike this)


Have any of them been threatened??? I think not.

Care to take another stab??

 

[beachnut]

Gee you`re right! After no one has ever had anything bad happen to them for supporting alternative 9/11 theories. Well except for Barry Jennings, Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, Sybil Edmunds and most recently Van Jones.

People with delusions may have problems with the rational world; what is new? This is proof they have failed ideas on 911 since they have no evidence.

These fools can't do a paper without messing up the chemistry and imply a lie as their final conclusion. Poor Jones is so insane on thermite he adopts the drug induced thermite in the ceiling tiles, the Hoffman delusion. These poor conspiracy theorist are past the fringe and fell into the pit of ignorance. Those who can't figure out why this paper is garbage have serious issues with reality and critical thinking. If people are not skeptical of this idiotic nano-thermite scam, they are lost.

Why are the drones just talking about this paper instead of going to every single college chemistry, physics, and engineering departments to gather more people to expose this!? Because this paper is pure garbage and no one will get support for this moronic tripe; not now, not in 8 more years. 8 years of stupid.

 

[Macgyver1968]

Gunpowder ("smokeless powder") is considered a "low explosive":

Low (or deflagrating) explosives are used primarily for propelling; they are mixtures of readily combustible substances (e.g., gunpowder) that when set off (by ignition) undergo rapid combustion. High (or detonating) explosives (e.g., TNT) are used mainly for shattering; they are unstable molecules that can undergo explosive decomposition without any external source of oxygen and in which the chemical reaction produces rapid shock waves.​

Source: Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia

I stand corrected. Thanks Pantaz.

 

[R.Mackey]

"Yes this is my rebuttal that completely demolishes you "point". Remember, you point was that the chips were not consistent because they had different thicknesses. See? I used an analogy to expose your invalid reasoning. A slice of bread is still a slice of bread no matter what the thickness."
:
"Well we know O in iron oxide is available and we know iron oxide is there. Maybe its not me who needs the chemistry class."

A bullet firing from a silencer is an example of a comparatively quiet explosion. A small explosion is quieter than a large one. Gee your simple but non-existent equation certainly is believable.

"So a stick of dynamite is not an explosive when ignited in air? Gee that throws my whole reality in a turmoil."


HA HA HA!!

Pretty good job reaching his level.

There was only one thing in that last "brilliant" response of his that merited a second look, and that was regarding the autoignition temperature of paint. This may be of public interest, so I'll explain this in detail.

NIST did not find the autoignition point of the paint. It is true that they tested it at temperatures of up to 800^oC, but that's not what they were testing for. The relevant work is on pages 433-434 in Appendix D of NCSTAR1-3C, which reads as follows:

Under the assumption that this was a typical paint with an organic binder, initial burn tests were conducted at relatively low temperatures, looking for the temperature at which the paint will combust. The paint was unaffected at exposure temperatures below approximately 250^oC (Fig. D-1a). Beginning with exposure temperatures of 250^oC, the samples began to exhibit noticeable "mud crack" patterns (Fig. D-1b). These were formed when the paint is put into biaxial tension under the influence of the thermal expansion mismatch between the paint and the base steel. This temperature where the first mud crack patterns appear did not vary between samples by more than 25^oC and was not found to be a function of exposure time beyond this range. ...

NIST then goes on to say that, from here to 650^oC, there is no visible change. But what then?

Beyond approximately 650^oC (plus or minus approximately 50^oC for the samples tested), a black scale formed between the steel and the paint, Fig. D-3. This scale layer had very poor adherence to the steel, and the paint was seen to flake off with slight pressure.

What's going on here, Truther? I'll tell you: The paint is oxidizing. That's why there's a physical change taking place. And it happens well below 800^oC. NIST continues:

Above approximately 800^oC, the kinetics of the scale formation were very fast, and after short exposures to this temperature a thick scale formed and spalled off the steel, carrying away the paint.

But, wait a moment -- if the paint burned at 650^oC, what's going on at 800^oC? Surely the paint would all have burned by then, right..?

Wrong. The shape of the paint changes the game. In NIST's tests, the paint was applied to a solid piece of steel. Paint requires not just heat to burn, but also oxygen. That oxygen is only available at the surface, and the surface has already oxidized over long years of exposure to air, having its own coating. At higher temperatures, parts of the paint begin to melt, exposing more surface to the air. That's the black scale. But those newly burned products don't melt and prevent air from reaching unburned paint still in the interior. At a much higher temperature, the steel itself begins to spall, and the paint all becomes exposed.

In Dr. Jones's ham-handed experiment, the paint is already in tiny little flakes -- indeed, microscopic flakes! Guess what, it burns easier.

You guys are already going on and on about how making thermite particles smaller makes them burn faster and at lower temperature, so even you should understand that smaller flakes of paint ignite earlier and burn faster than an intact coat of paint backed by steel. I really can't make it any simpler than that.

Bottom line, we have no reason to think that Dr. Jones's samples are not paint. Again, for cmatrix, the real problems you need to address are these:

• The "nanothermite" samples vary by about a factor of 10 in energy content. This nonuniformity proves it is not a "precision engineered" substance of any kind.
• The top end of energy content exceeds the theoretical maximum for thermite by a factor of two, and the observed content of nanothermite by a factor of five. The substance cannot be thermite of any type. Its "contaminants" are, in fact, the dominant species.
• Regardless of what it actually is, there's no evidence it was actually in the WTC to begin with, and considerable evidence against. The sampling strategy is wholly inadequate. A more thorough methodology was applied by Lioy et al., and they found no nanothermite at all. They did, however, find that a large fraction of the dust originated as paint, of numerous types.
• There is absolutely no coherent explanation for why nanothermite would be in the structure in the first place. It offers no advantages, either as an explosive or an igniter, over cheaper, less troublesome, actually available ordinary technologies.
• Absolutely no one has corroborated these findings, and the one person who was given a sample of the dust couldn't even match the visual description claimed by Dr. Jones.

If you can solve those problems, then we have something to talk about. If you can't, you're just running your mouth. Your move.

 

[alienentity]

Read the paper and you'll know as much as I know.

I'll state the question again, and you can dodge it again:
What are the two layers then? No guessing allowed - what are they?
What is the contribution of each layer in your alleged nanothermite?

You don't know, because Jones et al. don't know either. That is the point. You pretend to have information that you don't. Very simple.

I could care less what Mackey describes it as. Paint that does not ignite at over 800 C is fire-resistant. Since the chips ignite at 430 C they are definitely not the primer paint that NIST says was on the beams.

Covered by Mackey's response. Expect another denial and/or dodge from you.

So a stick of dynamite is not an explosive when ignited in air? Gee that throws my whole reality in a turmoil.

Ouch! Conflating a known high explosive with no proof. You really are bad at this. The actual test would be confirming an explosive without an air supply.
For example, a stick of dynamite could still operate underwater.
Try that with your red/gray chips.

The excuse is they assumed the readers of the paper would be competent scientists not hand-waving crackpots.

Another fail. Several scientists with actual experience in nano materials (Ola Nilson, for example) have criticized the methodology on exactly those grounds.
You think that was my idea? Nope. It came from materials scientists like those. Call them crackpots, but you're making yourself out to be even worse than that.
Reminds me of the truther who referred to 'NIST retards'. Very sad.

I only reference to support a point. I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

Wow. That's just lame. You guys go on and on about military nanothermite, yet you know diddly-squat about it. I asked you something specific, and you don't understand the question? Very, very lame. My question again:
'What is the energy density of sol-gel nanothermite? Please provide citations, no guessing allowed.'

The relevance is obviously that cmatrix and his ilk hand-wave critics questions on the organic binder by claiming that it is used to enhance the explosive effect. So, with that in mind, how does the binder affect the energy density of nanothermite? And just what is the typical ED of nanothermite anyway?
Of course they can't answer this, as they'd have to actually know something about the chemistry, which they don't.

Fail for you again cmatrix

I am not speculating, you are. The paper says the dust is from the WTC. They have evidence to support this.

Which building of the WTC? You can't just make stuff up. That doesn't cut it.

No I can't demonstrate any nano-thermite control because only the US military has it. There are documented characteristics of it though.

Except for the really important info, which you don't have. That's why you're making the rest up based on truther assumptions.

And responding to the total lack of evidence to show that the mythical red chips could actually do what Jones says they can:

We don't have to. The paper shows there is explosive nano-thermite in the dust. It doesn't make any other claims so doesn't need to support them.

Who said the claims are limited to the paper? Jones and Harrit are quoted from here to Timbuktu saying that nanothermite was probably painted on, so they need to demonstrate that it isn't just more empty speculation.

Unless you don't require anything by empty speculation. If that's your standard, I feel sorry for you. For me, and most other rational people, we call it B.S.

Like I said, call us when you guys have demonstrated your mythical material painted on and melting or destroying steel columns. Until then, thanks for coming out, we'll call you.

 

[alienentity]

Someday soon, an independent scientist is going to get hold of some red chips, and try to get them to combust in an inert gas.

I think we know what happens then.

Until that day....

 

[Dave Rogers]

Anyone want to remind me why you debunkers accept the words of Jones and Harrit when they talk about demolitions, which they know nothing about, but you won't accept a word they say about nano-thermite? Talk about cherry-picking!

Nobody here accepts the word of Jones and Harrit on anything. Not on demolitions, because their work proves they know nothing about them and resort to publishing fantasy as fact. Not about physics, because their work is riddled with unsupported conclusions and errors of fact. And not about chemistry, for the same reason. I have yet to see anything from Jones or Harrit that isn't obviously wrong, and wrong is wrong whoever's saying it.

Because like I just mentioned, I don't expect them to know how to bring a tower down by non-conventional means, but I do expect them to know a little bit about chemistry. Unless you can prove they have no qualifications whatsoever in this regard?

Or that you have better qualifications than them, perhaps?

Their qualifications do not turn fantasy into fact, nor do they turn non sequiturs into valid conclusions. The fact that I'm equally as well qualified as either of them isn't relevant either; what they say is simply, and obviously, wrong. Comparing the number of certificates on their walls won't change the fact that Jones doesn't understand elementary thermodynamics, and Harrit has forgotten the Law of Conservation of Energy.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? I just said that Harrit's opinions regarding the method of collapse are irrelevant, because he obviously knows nothing about this subject. But apparently, he does know about chemistry and they are the opinions you should be concentrating on.

Did you miss the multiple threads where Harrit's conclusions were show to be flawed in every detail? They've been very thoroughly concentrated on, and utterly torn to shreds.

The job for you derbunkers should be to prove there is no such thing as nanothermite and even if there is, that it did not exist in 2001.

Remind me why we should bother. Are we about to be subpoena'd by your new investigation? Hang on, there isn't one! And there won't be unless you can prove that there was nanothermite in the Twin Towers before their collapse, to our satisfaction.

Prove that, and we'll be your strongest supporters. Fail, and we'll carry on being the only ones to take any notice of you at all.

No it isn't! If I made a proposal about aeronautics, you'd expect me to have some knowledge in that field. Why are you holding Harrit to a false standard?

That doesn't even begin to make sense. Harrit made a proposal about demolitions. We'd expect him, therefore, by your reasoning, to have some knowledge in that field. He doesn't; therefore, by your own standards, he shouldn't have put his opinion forward.

He shouldn't have even been asked how it was done, because by exposing his ignorance on this topic, you have latched on to it like a pitbull on a juicy bone to the exclusion of anything else he might have to say.

He shouldn't have volunteered his opinion on a subject he knows nothing about. However, since the subject he claims to know the most about is chemistry, this suggests that he shouldn't have volunteered his opinion on anything.

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

I am truly impressed by that amazing display of hand-waving. What do we need of facts and logic when your inspiring beliefs will suffice.

cmatrix, you've come in here with the typical truther attitude that you're defying us to disprove your beliefs to your satisfaction, and that if we can't, you've won something. This is an ultimately unproductive and worthless starting point. I would explain further, but Horatius has already done so, and far more eloquently than I could hope to.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5021659#post5021659

Read, and (hopefully) understand.

Dave

 

[Ragnarok]

Mr Mackey, is there a bio about what you do and who you are, available on the web anywhere? I'd love to know a bit about your motivation on this board, and maybe what books you've wrote and the no doubt advanced qualifications you've achieved.

If you dont deem me worthy of reply, maybe one of your acolytes can clue me in?

 

[Ragnarok]

Dave, are you a Bolton fan? If so, I may as well end our discussion here, as I know you'll argue 'til you are blue in the face and are as stubborn as a mule.

 

[NutCracker]

And here are the Ad Hominems coming. Scrapping the bottom of the empty barrel labeled 'Pro controlled demolition/therm?te arguments' has now resulted in the bottom being ablated.