Invitation to Derek Johnson to discuss his ideas

[Stout]

Would you have thought corrcectly so?

As it turns out, no. It's simply something I might have thought, and possibly said were someone to ask me what GZ looked like. I'd have been wrong had I identified the material as steel and I wouldn't have taken it personally if someone told me I was wrong about what I saw.

I'm just speculating on why the witnesses may have acquired the belief that what they were looking at was molten steel. Defending that belief OTOH is a whole different ballgame.

Who was it, Douglas Hunter who wrote that fictional piece about the missing gold from the federal reserve bank. Had I read that beforehand i might have thought I was looking at molten gold.

 

[Scott Sommers]

As it turns out, no. It's simply something I might have thought, and possibly said were someone to ask me what GZ looked like. I'd have been wrong had I identified the material as steel and I wouldn't have taken it personally if someone told me I was wrong about what I saw.

I'm just speculating on why the witnesses may have acquired the belief that what they were looking at was molten steel. Defending that belief OTOH is a whole different ballgame.

Who was it, Douglas Hunter who wrote that fictional piece about the missing gold from the federal reserve bank. Had I read that beforehand i might have thought I was looking at molten gold.

I was trying to avoid this one, since it seems so obvious to me.

First off, it has been pointed earlier accounts of people describing molten metals at GZ at "molten steel" are not reliable. But assuming that they are true, what else are witnesses supposed to call it? Molten aluminum? Molten nickel? Molten cadmium?

Without evidence that observers can tell the composition of molten metals from visual inspection, this is not a physical problem. Instead, the probelm is why observers would choose the word 'steel' to desribe the molten metal they see. This is psycholinguistic.

In linguistics, we have a concept called colocation. Words are not associated with each other randomly. Some words group together 'naturally'. No one would talk about "powerful tea" and the term "strong tea" would seem more 'natural'. That 'steel' and 'molten' colocate more naturally that 'cadmium' and 'molten' seems pretty straight forward to me. If you want more evidence for this, there's a special search engine you can use for free call Sketch Engine.
http://www.sketchengine.co.uk/
You can register for a 30-free trial and find out for yourself about the colocations of the word 'metal'.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

While all of the above is certainly true for many of the sightings, let's not forget that one option is that the conspiracy advocate is simply wrong about what the purported witness said. Remember: Too many conspiracy peddlers like to do en-mass cut & pastes in order to overwhelm with mass. So they'll be reaching with some (probably many) of their citations. The plain fact of the matter is that not every quoted "witness" believes they saw molten steel either. It's exactly like the "Patriots Question 9/11" list: Truthers are twisting statements to fit the conspiratorial bill, even though the original utterer never meant anything conspiratorial about it. So don't forget the easy explanation: The truther is not accurately presenting - or openly distorting - the gist of the witness's statement to his own advantage. I pointed out one example earlier:

So, the molten steel testimonies really didn't mean molten steel. They were all mistaken? All?

At least one of the sightings you cite is being misinterpreted or misrepresented:

An expert stated about World Trade Center building 7, "A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been PARTLY EVAPORATED in extraordinarily high temperatures“.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/ny...rld-trade.html

That link is to a November 2001 story that quoted Dr. Jonathan Barnett, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, who's studies of the WTC steel I've read. Guess what? The steel was not molten. It was corroded. The "evaporation" was actually a sulfidation attack that ate holes into the steel. It was indeed due to seriously high temperatures, but not temps high enough to melt steel. Rather, those were temperatures high enough to melt the either the iron sulfide or the iron oxide component of the eutectic mixture that was created by the steel, sulfur, and oxygen available in the fires. In short, those "partially evaporated" steel elements were not in fact evaporated via some introduced substance like thermite, or vaporized from some high explosive. Instead, they were the results of a chemical reaction creating species that not only melts at lower temperatures than steel, but also ends up eroding holes into that same steel.

How do we know this? The very Jonathan Barnett who was quoted in the NYTimes article continued his research far beyond the point he was interviewed. And he along with some other Worcester Polytechnic colleagues published it:

• Initial study: http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Biederman/Biederman-0112.html
• Further analysis: http://www.springerlink.com/content/g5w603461r3078t3/

So, was Dr. Barnett "mistaken"? Well, no, not in the sense that he mistook or improperly described what he saw. But is citing him as a witness to "molten steel wrong"? You'd better believe it. Steel that was eroded due to a chemical reaction is not "molten".

Now, does this discount the other witness statements? Of course not; it merely speaks to Dr. Barnett's sighting. But as an example of your rigor in examining what those witnesses really said, well... it's telling.

The point here is that, for some of the testimonies being cited, the conspiracy peddler is simply wrong in claiming that the witness saw or even claims he/she/they saw molten steel. In the case of Barnett, this is most certainly not the case, and what he saw was very well documented.

And the meta point is that in general, truthers are not good researchers. Selectivity bias as well as selective subtraction of content - as illustrated above - is how they make their arguments.

 

[Hokulele]

...I know him well and can talk to him again about his time at WTC. I'll have a chat with him about this alleged "molten steel" and get his thoughts on this.

Better yet, have him register here so he can answer questions directly. First hand accounts are always better than second hand information.

 

[MikeW]

for some of the testimonies being cited, the conspiracy peddler is simply wrong in claiming that the witness saw or even claims he/she/they saw molten steel. In the case of Barnett, this is most certainly not the case, and what he saw was very well documented.

Ah, I missed that, but you're right. I spoke to Barnett years ago about this & he sighed when I mentioned the "evaporated" word. I guess he probably still hears about it on a regular basis.

Amazingly he still seems willing to talk to people, though. So there's no real excuse for truther's not contacting him to find out what he really believes. Unless, of course, they're frightened they might learn something inconvenient to their beliefs.

 

[Oystein]

As it turns out, no. It's simply something I might have thought, and possibly said were someone to ask me what GZ looked like. I'd have been wrong had I identified the material as steel and I wouldn't have taken it personally if someone told me I was wrong about what I saw.

You might have been right, but the point is of course: You don't know, because you can't know.

I'm just speculating on why the witnesses may have acquired the belief that what they were looking at was molten steel.

Yeah, and it is so obvious. To all except Derek.

Defending that belief OTOH is a whole different ballgame.

Who was it, Douglas Hunter who wrote that fictional piece about the missing gold from the federal reserve bank. Had I read that beforehand i might have thought I was looking at molten gold.

Take my test - I have gold in it

 

[Oystein]

The entire molten-steel-argument has several steps, and each step must be shown to be correct for it to mean anything with regard to the collapse of a building:

Step 1: It is true that witnesses reported the presence of molten steel in the trash heap

Step 2: There are methods available to these witnesses to accurately identify the material as molten steel (both the "molten" and the "steel" are of course necessary)

Step 3: It can be shown that the witness arrived at his conclusion by such a valid method

Step 4: We conclude from the presence of molten steel in the trash heap at some time after the collapse that it had a temperature of T then.

Step 5: There is nothing that happens in the trash heap of a building that collapsed do to office fires that could heat steel to temperature T

Step 6: We conclude that something unusual must have heated the steel such that it had at least temperature T when it was observed some time after the collapse

Step 7: We formuate a hypothesis of what that something unusual was and show that it would not only explain temperature T some time after the collapse, but would also provide a realistic method to intentionally demolish the building

Step 8: No other known observation falsifies that theory



We find that Step 1 is weak (we have to discard several alleged witness testimonies, but I think we can agree that at least some witness has reported molten steel

Step 2 and 3 are completely without any support from Derek, and that's where the entire chain of evidence is already broken

Step 4 could be reasonably done, if 2 and 3 were shown to be valid

Step 5 is more difficult - it is not at all clear that some steel alloys, after being subjected to all kinds of environmental influences found in a trash heap, could not be molten by some fires that are possible in such a trash heap

Step 6: Once we have verified 1-5, step 6 follows

Step 7: Entirely missing. That's what I kept asking at the beginning of our disussion after Derek entered: What IS this fabled hypothesis? Thermite? How would you demolish a building with thermite, and how would this same thermite continue to melt steel for days and weeks?

Step 8: Impossible as long as we have no theory.


So the whole molten-steel argument is weak both at its beginning and end, and broken in three separate places along the way.
That's a lot of explaining Derek has to do. Or he might declare that he rather retire this argument and purge it from any and all presentations in the future.

 

[TexasJack]

So let me get this straight, Derek's entire argument is that it is just too coincidental for that many people, none of which appear qualified or in a position to do so, to mistakenly call what was molten, molten steel? The mind boggles.

 

[Oystein]

So let me get this straight, Derek's entire argument is that it is just too coincidental for that many people, none of which appear qualified or in a position to do so, to mistakenly call what was molten, molten steel? The mind boggles.

To be honest, that is only one of I think two arguments he has.

The other is that he doesn't understand NIST's simulation, doesn't believe the results, and promises to neither understand nor believe, until he is given every single bit of data (as if he could do anything with it) and has some totally independent (independent of whom?) committee of more qualified engineers (such as himself?) run a better simulation at higher costs (funded by...?).
Ok, I admit, this is not an argument, and we can predict what will happen if that new investigation comes up with the same result (fire-induced loss of bracketing, buckling of key column, fast progression of failure resulting in global collapse with episodes of unopposed free fall deep into the collapse sequence): He will not understand, not believe, call them liars and frauds and call for yet another, bigger, more expensive investigation.

 

[BigAl]

Right - the "molten steel" that firefighters could stare right into, without their faces melting off from the heat.

http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/Search.jpg

That picture is a screen-grab from the Naudet 9/11 film. In the film, the source of the glow is clearly work lights.

 

[carlitos]

Right, but I think that Steven Jones used a heavily-saturated version of that image to "prove" molten steel. It was the only Jones steel photo I could recall. Sadly, I just re-skimmed his 2006 paper; the entire thing is basically one long argument from ignorance.

ETA - here is the saturated version I found via a quick google search - http://www.puppetgov.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/171106firewtc.jpg . It appears in an article titled, wait for it, Molten STEEL Flowed Under Ground Zero for Months After 9/11.

 

[Stout]

I was trying to avoid this one, since it seems so obvious to me.

First off, it has been pointed earlier accounts of people describing molten metals at GZ at "molten steel" are not reliable. But assuming that they are true, what else are witnesses supposed to call it? Molten aluminum? Molten nickel? Molten cadmium?

Without evidence that observers can tell the composition of molten metals from visual inspection, this is not a physical problem. Instead, the problem is why observers would choose the word 'steel' to describe the molten metal they see. This is psycholinguistic.

Yes, it seems obvious, but we have to keep in mind that truthers like to present this as evidence of something throwing more energy into a system that, according to truther logic, shouldn't have had enough energy to melt steel.

IMO, once we get twoofers to consider that the eye witnesses were mistaken in their identification of what they saw through a mistake all of us can make or relate to, then we con go to attack the hunk of "Swiss cheese" steel that inevitably follows "what happened in the rubble pile" piece of evidence that truthers present next.

Chemical attack, is where I've gone with this hunk-o-cheese in the past, to raise doubts that that exhibit was actually burned/vapourised and maybe tying the two misidentification events together might be a useful tactic.

 

[Oystein]

...truthers like to present this as evidence of something throwing more energy into a system that, according to truther logic, shouldn't have had enough energy to melt steel.
...

Actually, it would be great if a truther presented this argument, for we would get a hearty laugh out of it: Thermite releases less heat energy per pound than paper, wood, plastics or many other things that burn in office buildings

 

[Toke]

To be honest, that is only one of I think two arguments he has.

The other is that he doesn't understand NIST's simulation, doesn't believe the results, and promises to neither understand nor believe, until he is given every single bit of data (as if he could do anything with it) and has some totally independent (independent of whom?) committee of more qualified engineers (such as himself?) run a better simulation at higher costs (funded by...?).
Ok, I admit, this is not an argument, and we can predict what will happen if that new investigation comes up with the same result (fire-induced loss of bracketing, buckling of key column, fast progression of failure resulting in global collapse with episodes of unopposed free fall deep into the collapse sequence): He will not understand, not believe, call them liars and frauds and call for yet another, bigger, more expensive investigation.

I do not see why the level of detail in NIST's simulation is necessary for others than the engineers etc. who write building codes?

It is not as if the sequence of, building burn long enough --> building collapse, is great news to others.

Sure, the "long enough" can be extended by changes in construction, and I am sure that this have provided valuable lessons, like Ronan Point and Piper Alpha did.

 

[WildCat]

So, with the molten steel quotes, everyone is lying, mistaking, misquoting or exaggerating, yes?

I'm certain all you super-elite truther investigators have since interviewed many of those people and thus verified their stories of molten steel, can you link to those interviews? Google can't seem to locate them...

 

[Scott Sommers]

Thank you Oystein for summing up the issues.

The entire molten-steel-argument has several steps, and each step must be shown to be correct for it to mean anything with regard to the collapse of a building:

Step 1: It is true that witnesses reported the presence of molten steel in the trash heap

Step 2: There are methods available to these witnesses to accurately identify the material as molten steel (both the "molten" and the "steel" are of course necessary)

Step 3: It can be shown that the witness arrived at his conclusion by such a valid method

Step 4: We conclude from the presence of molten steel in the trash heap at some time after the collapse that it had a temperature of T then.

Step 5: There is nothing that happens in the trash heap of a building that collapsed do to office fires that could heat steel to temperature T

Step 6: We conclude that something unusual must have heated the steel such that it had at least temperature T when it was observed some time after the collapse

Step 7: We formuate a hypothesis of what that something unusual was and show that it would not only explain temperature T some time after the collapse, but would also provide a realistic method to intentionally demolish the building

Step 8: No other known observation falsifies that theory



We find that Step 1 is weak (we have to discard several alleged witness testimonies, but I think we can agree that at least some witness has reported molten steel

Step 2 and 3 are completely without any support from Derek, and that's where the entire chain of evidence is already broken

Step 4 could be reasonably done, if 2 and 3 were shown to be valid

Step 5 is more difficult - it is not at all clear that some steel alloys, after being subjected to all kinds of environmental influences found in a trash heap, could not be molten by some fires that are possible in such a trash heap

Step 6: Once we have verified 1-5, step 6 follows

Step 7: Entirely missing. That's what I kept asking at the beginning of our disussion after Derek entered: What IS this fabled hypothesis? Thermite? How would you demolish a building with thermite, and how would this same thermite continue to melt steel for days and weeks?

Step 8: Impossible as long as we have no theory.


So the whole molten-steel argument is weak both at its beginning and end, and broken in three separate places along the way.
That's a lot of explaining Derek has to do. Or he might declare that he rather retire this argument and purge it from any and all presentations in the future.

I think it's imperative that Derek sort out this issue of the identification of molten meltals. He has publicaly represented himself as an authority on relevant aspects of this issue because he has special experience and education. Until he clarifies our problems with the idenification of molten metals at GZ during the 911 cleanup, I am going to have to assume one or both of the following

1) Derek, despite his claims, is not knowledgable enough to be speaking for AE911.

AND / OR

2) Members of AE911, in fact, have no special knowledge relevant to 911 and can be treated just like any other Truther making claims about 911 conspiracies.

Personally, that Derek could come here with tired old claims cut & paste from the usual Truther sites, while at the same time presenting himself in the ways we have seen, says something about his level of sophistication.

But then I may be wrong. Derek may have something up his sleeve none of us have ever imagined. Show us. We're ready and waiting to hear this.

Derek, you may think you can avoid addressing this issue, but you're wrong. You have been repeatedly told that YES, all those accounts you continue to cite are wrong. You have been given many reasonable explanations for why that could be. You wonder why there are no accounts of controlled demolition at the WTC in engineering textbooks or coursework? You wonder why there are no accounts of molten steel at the WTC in engineering textbooks or coursework Because there is no reason to believe this happened.

Answer this point or go away.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

ITAR.

The same computer code can be used to research, for instance, ballistic penetrators and effects on armor. It's illegal to export this technology without approval of the State Department, hence no unrestricted release.

This, by the way, is another thing that an engineer really should be familiar with.

You have an enormous pile of responses, questions, and other issues that you've completely ignored and run from. Very, very typical.

I think the discussion here was about the somewhat recent NIST refusal to release information requested by FOIA, for structural calculations or ANSYS analysis results that substantiate the walk-off failures of girders at columns 79 and 81 in WTC 7, which precipitated the global collapse according to NIST. The reason given was that it "might jeopardize public safety".

So it is interesting that you say ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) restrictions on the computer code was the reason NIST would not release this data since

- NIST does not mention ITAR in their refusal of the FOIA.

- The FOIA asked for structural calculations or ANSYS analysis results.

- NIST used ANSYS and LS-DYNA FEA software packages that are publicly available to do their analyses on WTC 7, and the walk-off failure analysis did not
use LS-DYNA, which I assume is what you were referring to when mentioning ballistic penetrators and their effects on armor.

- ITAR applies to the export of restricted information to foreign nationals which the structural engineer who requested the information was not.

Are you guessing here? If not, how do you know this?

 

[BasqueArch]

Derek

What report (s) did you read in preparation for your WTC7 opinions.? Did you read these report(s) thoroughly or did you give these reports just a cursory review?

 

[newton3376]

- ITAR applies to the export of restricted information to foreign nationals which the structural engineer who requested the information was not.

Are you guessing here? If not, how do you know this?

No...ITAR does not only apply to the export of restricted information to foreign nationals...

Ryan is not guessing.....he has some experience working on projects for the DoD...this is how he knows this.....as others who do similar work know this.

 

[Tony Szamboti]

No...ITAR does not only apply to the export of restricted information to foreign nationals...

Ryan is not guessing.....he has some experience working on projects for the DoD...this is how he knows this.....as others who do similar work know this.

I also work on ITAR restricted programs, and I see no ITAR reason for that information not being released.

ITAR applies to items on the U.S. Munitions List and it most certainly does apply exclusively to the export of these items to foreign nationals.

ANSYS software is in wide public use in the U.S. and there is no reason not to release the data to a U.S. citizen who is also a registered structural engineer who uses that software in his work.

I think the reason NIST did not state ITAR as a concern is because it had no basis.

I think you and Ryan are both guessing here and are wrong, but let's see what Ryan has to say about it.