9-11 Presentation at NMSR, May 19 2010

It is not meaningless to ask someone who is incorrectly applying a law of physics to explain what they mean.


But that is not the case here. I correctly applied the law of conservation of mass, to falsify your claim that "mass does not stay the same when an object is broken into many smaller pieces."

Since you also indicated that you expected the law of conservation of mass to be cited in response, which clearly implies that you already knew that the claim contradicts it and is therefore false, I'm not really sure what further explanation you or any other reader could benefit from.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
Conservation of mass is applicable to isolated systems only. In the WTC collapses, matter is ejected outward in massive volumes. This is energy lost to the system. Furthermore, conservation of mass does not explain the change in force which would result from a change in the size and weight of the structure or object.

If I throw a baseball at your window, the window will break. If I throw pieces of a baseball at your window, it probably won't break.
 
So it is the model you are defending here? Thank you.

It's a good enough model for the purpose for which it's used.

"Falling" through the 85% remaining vertical structure. Have it your way.

That bears no resemblance whatsoever to what I actually wrote, as anyone can see.

Please provide a source for this, if not Bazant.

You want me to provide a source other than Bazant to show that Bazant said what Bazant said?

No, I'm not. It is clear from all the visual evidence that an upper block exists before and as the collapse begins. It is also clear from the visual evidence that this upper block largely crushes up before any crushing down would even be hypothesized.

That's what I mean about there being no common ground. You're insisting that the sky is pink. There's no point responding; it's not even possible to exchange ideas with you.

Dave
 
Yaaayyy! Was waiting for this.

Please explain how Conservation of Mass applies to rubble crushing through an intact building.

First, prove that the earth is not supported by an infinite series of turtles.

As far as I can tell, no one has actually explained this minutiae yet. If it's so logical and so obvious, why don't you just simply show us right now?

The statement quoted above shows why it would be extremely difficult for you to understand any of the concepts necessary to understand such complex physical phenomena.

It also indicates to me that you have drawn the erroneous conclusion that, because you haven't found such an explanation, it doesn't exist. I can assure you that all of the minutiae have been discussed in incredibly minute detail. All of the arguments have been hashed and re-hashed a dozen times on this forum. You need only use the search function to find them.
 
Conservation of mass is applicable to isolated systems only. In the WTC collapses, matter is ejected outward in massive volumes.

What are "massive volumes"? Please show your math and methodology.

This is energy lost to the system. Furthermore, conservation of mass does not explain the change in force which would result from a change in the size and weight of the structure or object.

How much energy is lost to the system? How much was available? Please show your math a methodology.

If I throw a baseball at your window, the window will break. If I throw pieces of a baseball at your window, it probably won't break.


What if you slow pitch the intact ball underhand, does it still break the window? What if you take the pieces of baseball, load them into a cannon, then fire them at the window. Does the window still stay intact?
 
That's what I mean about there being no common ground. You're insisting that the sky is pink. There's no point responding; it's not even possible to exchange ideas with you.

Actually, it's pretty clear what I'm stating here:

ergo said:
It is clear from all the visual evidence that an upper block exists before and as the collapse begins. It is also clear from the visual evidence that this upper block largely crushes up before any crushing down would even be hypothesized.

It doesn't surprise me that a "debunker" wants to run away from the argument at this point, however.
 
If you drop a truck the height of a truck onto another truck, you will probably partly crumple the dropped-on truck, and the dropping truck will also be damaged. If you drop the pieces of a truck the height of one truck onto another truck, the dropped-on truck will sustain some dents but not be crumpled.

If you drop a cinder block etc... onto a stack of cinder blocks, well, the dropping cinder block may break. Not much will happen to the standing stack. If you drop pieces of a cinder block onto a stack of cinder blocks, the pieces will merely deflect to the side. The standing stack sustains no damage whatsoever.

Of course.

This is water afterl... it is much softer than a car... I bet it just washed it real good.



What? your incredulity is getting you into trouble again...
When you take those basic remedial courses you could walk into a physics classroom and ask about something called "scale." It might just help your incredulity.
 
What are "massive volumes"? Please show your math and methodology.



How much energy is lost to the system? How much was available? Please show your math a methodology.




What if you slow pitch the intact ball underhand, does it still break the window? What if you take the pieces of baseball, load them into a cannon, then fire them at the window. Does the window still stay intact?

Answer these, please.
 
I love the edit in frame 9.

Are you claiming that water won't crush a car?

Or that snow can't crush buildings?

or water can't cause buildings to collapse?

They are after all "small broken up things."
 
Ah, so mass does stay the same when an object is broken into many smaller pieces, and my response to the effect that this is false was correct.

What you meant to say, then, was something more like "mass of a system does not stay the same when an object is broken into many smaller pieces, and some of those pieces are removed from the system." That makes a lot more sense.

Do you see how you've just demonstrated that deliberately omitting important details and qualifiers can make the difference between making a reasonable truthful claim and an absurd false one? When you learn not to do that any more your life will improve in many ways.

Conservation of mass is applicable to isolated systems only. In the WTC collapses, matter is ejected outward in massive volumes.


How much matter, relative to the amount that is not ejected outward?

This is energy lost to the system.


How much energy, compared to the amount that is not lost to the system?

Furthermore, conservation of mass does not explain the change in force which would result from a change in the size and weight of the structure or object.


Despite the progress made toward clarity above, you're still confused on some points. When mass is conserved, so is weight, which is a force, and so likewise is the force that that mass exerts when forced to undergo a given acceleration.

For example, take two identical boulders, and grind one into sand. A truck carrying the sand will require the same amount of engine power and brake power to accelerate in any given way as the truck carrying the boulder.

What might be confusing you is confounding changes in the form of the mass (e.g. sand versus boulder) with changes in the time scale of a physical process involving that mass. It is certainly true that the boulder, dropped on a piano, will do more damage than the sand, poured in a slow stream onto the same piano. But that's not because of the shape, it's because of the timing. Slowly shift the weight of the boulder onto the piano over the same time span that you poured the sand onto the piano, and the damage will be similar in both cases. Likewise if you dumped all the sand onto the piano in the same amount of time it took the boulder to strike it.

In the wtc tower collapses, there was no opportunity for rubble broken from the upper or lower parts of the structure to trickle down gradually, a little bit at a time, so as to reduce its effects. It all fell at once, most likely in a mass that was considerably denser and less elastic than the original structures (since it was being compressed between any remaining intact upper structure and any intact floor below it). So no significant reduction (and most likely an increase) in the forces applied to the structure below would be expected as a result of the comminution of the components.

So, that leaves the "not a closed system" argument. Do you have a quantitative argument to make regarding the amount of energy and mass lost as a result of outward ejection of materials? Various researchers have used the distribution of the debris as a guide to making such estimates, and have not found any basis to conclude sufficient outward ejection to significantly affect the overall progress of collapse. It might be interesting to compare your calculations to theirs, to see if you have a better case.

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
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It is certainly true that the boulder, dropped on a piano, will do more damage than the sand, poured in a slow stream onto the same piano. But that's not because of the shape, it's because of the timing. Slowly shift the weight of the boulder onto the piano over the same time span that you poured the sand onto the piano, and the damage will be similar in both cases. Likewise if you dumped all the sand onto the piano in the same amount of time it took the boulder to strike it.

Um, no. Each grain of sand now has its own mass where it was formerly part of the mass of the boulder. That mass is affected by whatever work you're imparting to it. It is affected by air friction. It is affected by the random movements of neighbouring grains of sand. It is affected by the natural resistance of the piano. Therefore, grains of sand descending onto a piano do not do the same damage, even from the same height, or in the same amount of time, as a boulder does.

In the wtc tower collapses, there was no opportunity for rubble broken from the upper or lower parts of the structure to trickle down gradually, a little bit at a time, so as to reduce its effects. It all fell at once, most likely in a mass that was considerably denser and less elastic than the original structures (since it was being compressed between any remaining intact upper structure and any intact floor below it). So no significant reduction (and most likely an increase) in the forces applied to the structure below would be expected as a result of the comminution of the components.

A volume of rubble is not an integral unit. Its ability to apply force on something is mitigated by the differential actions of its thousands of independent components, all doing different things, many of them falling outside the crushing zone. Yes, it may have less air than an intact storey supported by steel columns, but force is distributed totally haphazardly on any structure below, and, as we can see, much of this results in a loss of mass to the system.

So, that leaves the "not a close system" argument. Do you have a quantitative argument to make regarding the amount of energy and mass lost as a result of outward ejection of materials? Various researchers have used the distribution of the debris as a guide to making such estimates, and have not found any basis to conclude sufficient outward ejection to significantly affect the overall progress of collapse. It might be interesting to compare your calculations to theirs, to see if you have a better case.

I don't have calculations. I know Bazant makes some, but obviously has to underestimate if his theory is to survive. The visual evidence shows massive volumes of dust and debris. The debris pile at ground zero was estimated to be only about 9 to 11 storeys high.
 
So was there a measurable jolt as this rubble was being compacted Myriad ? If the rubble was compacted so that it ''was considerably denser and less elastic than the original structures ''' you will admit that this would require massive compression between a stationary block and a moving one. And that would mean a measurable jolt.

Or do you have an amusing solution that would square that circle ?
 
Um, no. Each grain of sand now has its own mass where it was formerly part of the mass of the boulder. That mass is affected by whatever work you're imparting to it. It is affected by air friction. It is affected by the random movements of neighbouring grains of sand. It is affected by the natural resistance of the piano. Therefore, grains of sand descending onto a piano do not do the same damage, even from the same height, or in the same amount of time, as a boulder does.

So when loading trucks from a silo, they just dump everything in at once because it doesn't impart any more force on the truck than if they let it out slowly?
 
Not to mention that, without an upper block providing downward force, there is no compression.
 
So when loading trucks from a silo, they just dump everything in at once because it doesn't impart any more force on the truck than if they let it out slowly?

I don't know. What do they do?
 

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