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Invitation to Derek Johnson to discuss his ideas

Derek Johnson said:
Scott, nobody has to take me seriously here, but unfortunately these 3 questions do have merit.

Is anyone here or elsewhere is strong enough to answer them?
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1. Does the molten metal/steel/iron testimonies have a lucid explanation?
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Yes, for anything but steel, trash fires are hot enough to melt. There was lots of AL and crap zinc die-cast metal in the towers. For claims of "molten steel", hyperbole, metaphor and the child's game of "telephone" work in the absence of any physical evidence or any science that can support the hypothesis of molten steel.

2. Does the 100' unopposed drop of building 7 have a reasonable explanation?
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Gravity and the sudden collapse of the core of the building that the top 100 ft depended on.
3. Do the NIST WTC 7 models and animations bear any resemblance to the videoed collapse of WTC 7?
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We don't have a video of the approximate bottom third of WTC7 when it collapsed so your point is unanswerable. This means you can't use the video to claim CD. The bottom third was involved in sustained fire for hours and literally no eyewitness claims fire and lack of firefighting as the primary cause of collapse.

I haven't finished going through you names yet. I do wish you didn't include those thst are not first-hand and don't include something like "I saw".
 
 
Derek Johnson said:
Actually, there are more than a few well qualified individuals who are skeptical of the WTC 7 events, as am I
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Awesome! Can you name them, and link to their peer-reviewed papers in respected engineering journals? :rolleyes:
 
It would be nice if, instead of sending unqualified liaisons to relatively obscure internet forums to debate in their behalf, these "more than a few well-qualified individuals who are skeptical of the WTC7 events" would actually start trying to convince their peers in the scientific and engineering communities. I mean, if the evidence is as strong as people like Derek say it should be easy, right?

Hell, I'm really sure some journalist hungry for a Pulitzer Price would be happy to assist them in their cause.
 
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aggle-rithm said:
Incorrect. Those who make claims bear the burden. If they are unwilling or unable to gather the data they need to prove their case, then tough luck.
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And how does this square with NIST's hypothesis that two unprecedented architectural events occur to cause WTC 7's collapse without any physical evidence to back it up?

Do you still think the burden of proof is on NIST?
 
Derek Johnson said:
Scott, nobody has to take me seriously here, but unfortunately these 3 questions do have merit.

Is anyone here or elsewhere is strong enough to answer them?
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Good grief! People have answered them before! Use the search function.

Derek Johnson said:
1. Does the molten metal/steel/iron testimonies have a lucid explanation?
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This has been answered. There are many metals present in the towers that have far lower melting points than steel, and on top of that, all of the witness testimony that I'm aware of places the sightings in the debris pile after collapse, sometimes weeks after. That makes it more logical that conditions in the debris pile caused the melting, not some disproven incendiaries in the towers prior to the collapses.

Until any of the sightings are 1. Shown to have existed to begin with, 2. Validated with leftover hardened remains (and the only ones I've heard of have been of aluminum, not steel), and 3. Shown to have something to do with the pre-collapse conditions, there's nothing suspicious about such sightings, nor is there anything which contradicts the NIST report.

Again:
http://www.911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html
http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm
http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lie...lssortingopera

Derek Johnson said:
2. Does the 100' unopposed drop of building 7 have a reasonable explanation?
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This has been discussed many times before; here's one thread. Summary: David Chandler discovered that there was a brief period of unresisted collapse bounded by periods of resisted collapse. Or in short, the drop is only part of the story, and merely indicates that the perimeter of the buildings was in unresisted collapse - free fall - for only a small portion of its descent. The most this indicates is that some floors failed together as a unit. How this is supposed to indicate anything suspicious, I'd love to know. But free fall =/= demolitions, let alone free fall for only a small portion of the collapse.

Derek Johnson said:
3. Do the NIST WTC 7 models and animations bear any resemblance to the videoed collapse of WTC 7?
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Another issue that's been discussed in the past. Here's one link out of several. I need to defer discussion on that topic to others better versed in it than me.
 
RedIbis said:
And how does this square with NIST's hypothesis that two unprecedented architectural events occur to cause WTC 7's collapse without any physical evidence to back it up?

Do you still think the burden of proof is on NIST?
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Exactly what "proof" would you have the NIST produce? Basically what they did was an educated--a VERY EDUCATED--guess based on every single bit of evidence they DID have. But, of course how much evidence could they have had?

What you need to do is produce a better educated guess about what felled that tower, based on what information YOU have, that is better than the NIST if you disagree with them. Maybe you'll be the first.
 
RedIbis said:
Do you still think the burden of proof is on NIST?
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NIST has generated a complete hypothetical explanation of how and why WTC7 collapsed. So far, that is the only hypothesis that has been presented in any detail whatsoever. At present, therefore, the burden is on anyone who disputes NIST's hypothesis to present a superior one. Since the truth movement declines to produce an alternative hypothesis at all, the NIST hypothesis remains unchallenged. The fact that some truthers mistakenly believe that a vague handwaving assertion constitutes a hypothesis is neither here nor there; until truthers come up with a specific alternative explanation that reproduces even as little as the gross features in the collapse (uncontrolled fires for seven hours beforehand, lack of loud reports at initiation, prior drop of mechanical penthouses, rapid lateral progression of failure would make a good start - no truther has even attempted to formulate a single hypothesis consistent with all of these), then there's nothing to be discussed.

At present, the NIST hypothesis is the only team on the field. Victory has so far eluded the truth movement's oft-stated strategy of refusal to field an opposing team. I wonder why.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
NIST has generated a complete hypothetical explanation of how and why WTC7 collapsed. So far, that is the only hypothesis that has been presented in any detail whatsoever. At present, therefore, the burden is on anyone who disputes NIST's hypothesis to present a superior one. Since the truth movement declines to produce an alternative hypothesis at all, the NIST hypothesis remains unchallenged. The fact that some truthers mistakenly believe that a vague handwaving assertion constitutes a hypothesis is neither here nor there; until truthers come up with a specific alternative explanation that reproduces even as little as the gross features in the collapse (uncontrolled fires for seven hours beforehand, lack of loud reports at initiation, prior drop of mechanical penthouses, rapid lateral progression of failure would make a good start - no truther has even attempted to formulate a single hypothesis consistent with all of these), then there's nothing to be discussed.

At present, the NIST hypothesis is the only team on the field. Victory has so far eluded the truth movement's oft-stated strategy of refusal to field an opposing team. I wonder why.

Dave
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Thank you Dave.

Derek, are you suggesting that conventional agents were used to cause the WTC buildings to collapse in a controlled demolition?

Are you suggesting that thermite was used to destroy portions of the WTC buildings and cause them to collapse?

Are you suggesting that space-based energy beams were used to 'dustify' the WTC buildings?

Are you suggesting anything at all? Or are you 'just asking questions'? If that's all, then list your questions. And if that list of 3 is exhaustive, then I suggest you read the answers already posted here. 'Cause if you're not suggesting anything, that means you've got no better explanation.
 
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Derek Johnson said:
A36 W14x740 w/the built up shown here (link to it below please) on 96 of 275 (report page 36) is suggesting 500-700 lbs of built up on figure 2-24 "typical built-up column details". This column in AISC's Steel Construction or Engineer's Toolbox will give you a Pcr (critical buckling load) of 20,000,000 lb for this particular built-up column arrangement...easy, and Euler's classical eq based on the modulus (stress/strain ratio) and 2nd moment will go higher still, the pinning was under 12 feet, rendering the slenderness ratio favorable to resisting such drastic things like a total collapse at the acceleration of gravity. Bottom line, this means that only 3, certainly 4 such columns will theoretically statically hold the roughly 63,000,000 lbm 8-story section(s) that allowed the structure to collapse unopposed for 100 feet. Since there are 81 columns…not 4... "factor of safety" comes quickly to mind.

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-1.pdf
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Good luck passing the P.E. if you're going to be using Eulers equation for calculating the capacity of elements in compression. Every test on columns with low slenderness ratios has showed that Eulers equation predicts much higher resistances than what happens in real-life. Which is why AISC developed formulas for capacities of columns at low slenderness ratios. It's called inelastic buckling. And it happened almost 100 years ago. Time to get with the times.

For those that are wondering, a A992 (50ksi) W14x730 has a capacity of 10,033k with an unbraced length of 12'. At 50' the capacity winds down to 3,300k.

I could calc it at 100', but I'm too lazy. Maybe I'll put it into enercalc when I get to work.
 
RedIbis once claimed to have a hypothesis better than NIST's. Shockingly, he refused to tell anybody what it is.
 
RedIbis said:
And how does this square with NIST's hypothesis that two unprecedented architectural events occur to cause WTC 7's collapse without any physical evidence to back it up?

Do you still think the burden of proof is on NIST?
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Should they have not bothered to do the report then?
 
NB can you check this:
For Euler’s critical buckling load of Pcr= Pi 2 E I / L2,
Where L=12’ ; L2 = 144

For L = 24’ (doubling the unbraced length) ; L2 = 576 ; 144/576= .25, that is when you double the unbraced column length the critical buckling load is reduced to 25% of a 12’ column.

For L = 36’ (tripling the unbraced length) ; L2 = 1296 ; 144/1296= .11, that is when you triple the unbraced column length the critical buckling load is reduced to 11% of a 12’ column.

And so on.
 
twinstead said:
Exactly what "proof" would you have the NIST produce? Basically what they did was an educated--a VERY EDUCATED--guess based on every single bit of evidence they DID have. But, of course how much evidence could they have had?

What you need to do is produce a better educated guess about what felled that tower, based on what information YOU have, that is better than the NIST if you disagree with them. Maybe you'll be the first.
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I would think that if you were to propose that thermal expansion caused column failure (something that has never happened in a large building) and that single column failure caused global collapse (something else that has never happened in a large building) you should produce some physical evidence for this unprecedented phenomenon.

But for some reason, the "skeptics" remain wholly unskeptical.
 
RedIbis said:
I would think that if you were to propose that thermal expansion caused column failure (something that has never happened in a large building) and that single column failure caused global collapse (something else that has never happened in a large building)...
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You are aware that the "has never happened" argument is just a special case of the argument from incredulity?

RedIbis said:
you should produce some physical evidence for this unprecedented phenomenon.

But for some reason, the "skeptics" remain wholly unskeptical.
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You know that such evidence will not come forward, right?
Is that why you are demanding it? So you can stick to your pet lunacy theory forever and ever?

But really. What IS your pet theory? If it wasn't thermal expansion, and if it wasn't single column failure - has anybody ever suggested a theory?

At least the NIST scenario has been shown to be theoretically feasibly, and it does explain ALL of the known observations.

Does your pet theory explain any or all known observations?
 
RedIbis said:
I would think that if you were to propose that thermal expansion caused column failure (something that has never happened in a large building) and that single column failure caused global collapse (something else that has never happened in a large building) you should produce some physical evidence for this unprecedented phenomenon.
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Do you have a better explanation? The NIST report goes into excruciating detail exactly how they came to this conclusion. Very few experts that I can see have too much of a problem with this.

So, I repeat: Do you have a better explanation?
 
RedIbis said:
I would think that if you were to propose that thermal expansion caused column failure (something that has never happened in a large building) and that single column failure caused global collapse (something else that has never happened in a large building) you should produce some physical evidence for this unprecedented phenomenon.

But for some reason, the "skeptics" remain wholly unskeptical.
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And I would think that, if you knew enough about the history of building failures to know these things, you should be able to come up with some other plausible suggestion that explained all the major features of the collapse. After all, there has to be some reason for the collapse, and if progressive failure initiated by thermal-expansion-induced single column collapse is not the reason then there has to be a different one. However, for some reason, the truthers seem disinclined to indicate in any detail what they believe to be the truth.

This is a genuine request. Come up with a better explanation, and I'll consider it. Try and shoot down the one explanation that's been offered without offering even a remotely plausible hypothesis to replace it (and, I'm sorry, but simply saying "it might have been explosives" or "thermite" isn't even a hypothesis, never mind plausibility), then nobody's interested.

Dave
 
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