When you put the fresh piece of wood or paper on a hot fire, the smoke you see is those volatile hydrocarbons evaporating from the wood. They start vaporizing at a temperature of about 300 degrees F (149 degrees Celsius). If the temperature gets high enough, these compounds burst into flame. Once they start burning, there is no smoke because the hydrocarbons are turned into carbon dioxide and water (both invisible) when they burn.
What is smoke and why do some fires seem to have more smoke than others?
Smoke is a collection of tiny solid, liquid and gas particles. Although smoke can contain hundreds of different chemicals and fumes, visible smoke is mostly carbon (soot), tar, oils and ash.
Smoke occurs when there is incomplete combustion (not enough oxygen to burn the fuel completely). In complete combustion, everything is burned, producing just water and carbon dioxide. When incomplete combustion occurs, not everything is burned. Smoke is a collection of these tiny unburned particles. Each particle is too small to see with your eyes, but when they come together, you see them as smoke.
The four attributes of smoke – volume, velocity, density and colour – must be analyzed.
Smoke volume is an indicator of the amount of fuels that are off gassing within a given space. In itself, smoke volume tells very little about the fire.
The speed at which smoke leaves a building is referred to as velocity. Smoke velocity is an indicator of pressure that has built up within the compartment.
Smoke movement caused by heat (convection) will typically rise and slow gradually after it leaves the building. If the velocity of smoke leaving an opening is agitated or turbulent, then rapid fire progress is likely to occur. In these cases, the structure must be ventilated and cooled.
You are going to get the Pulitzer Prize for this great work and your CD delusion is only a minor set back, along with voltage, physics, and temperature. Don't let failure keep you from making more moronic posts which mean nothing.
You make it too easy, ergo. After asking several times for examples of your physics blunders, you repeated two of your blunders in your closing paragraph:
You still don't understand that the distinction between "temperature" and "heat" is important. (Indeed, you still don't appear to understand the difference, even though several people have given you excellent explanations of that difference; as quoted below, you have been trying to save face by pretending that temperature is the measure of heat energy, while heat energy is the thing measured by temperature. That's not right.)
You are denying that temperature is more relevant to weakening of steel than heat.
You don't have to tell us that temperature and heat are related; we (speaking for the many technically competent people who have been corresponding with you in this thread) already know that. The difference between you and us is that we understand that relationship, and you don't.
And yet none of you are able to simply state what the relevance is. Are you not capable of doing so? Or is it that there really is no relevance?
Many pages back, you made several blunders concerning gravity and acceleration. I was too lazy to go back that far, but I did make a list of your more evident physics blunders from just the last few pages of this thread:
No, ergo, all of your blunders quoted above are blunders at the high school or freshman level. The scientists and engineers with whom you are arguing certainly understand the extremely basic principles that you, in your ignorance of physics, believe to be subtle or arcane.
I like how you avoided the statement, "In itself, smoke volume tells very little about the fire." I also like how you avoided quoting the parts of that article that directly contradict things you've been posting. It's very telling of a mind that is determined to not admit a fault.
From the article:
Thin, light-coloured smoke moving lazily out of the building usually indicates a small fire involving ordinary combustibles. Thick, dark grey smoke “pushing” out of a structure, suggests a larger, more intense fire.
Haven't you been saying that thick dark smoke means "not active" or "smouldering" fires in this very thread? What is the source of this canard? It's certainly not that article, it states the exact opposite.
yes, that's a lot of smoke, and that's what we see in the ABC video as well. But it seems to be largely drifting out. It isn't being forced out in plumes and billows such that a large, flaming fire would produce.
Your carelessness may lie at the root of your blunders. When you start to care whether you're posting facts or nonsense, your batting average may begin to improve.
If your errors don't matter, then why do you think it's so important for you to continue making them and (as in the quotations above) to make even a lame effort to defend them?
As for why I didn't bother to explain why voltage is not a measure of the electrical energy within a circuit: Not only is that common knowledge, it has already been explained by at least one prior post (by beachnut). Why should I repeat an explanation that you, in your hubris, have already rejected?
Please explain why, according to your new "theory of temperature", from about 140 to 200 km up in the atmosphere, the temperature rises from about 300°F to over 1000°F … and yet someone up there would freeze rapidly.
Please explain why, according to your new "theory of electricity", people walking across a carpet can easily pick up 20,000 to 50,000 volts, and yet are never killed when they short to ground. And yet people are killed daily when they short 110 volt wall circuit to ground thru themselves.
I know you're embarrassed. I know you need to save face. But don't take us down some winding, stupid, narrow alley where you pretend that something is not quite what we think it is, because you're bee-dunkers and you understand the finer, subtle details of science which nobody else does, not even scientists.
You were wrong the first time you said it. You were wrong the next 10 times you said it. You're wrong this time. And you'll still be wrong every other time you say it.
Perhaps if you said it in big letters, maybe bold & italic, maybe in colors…!!
Nor does this have any relevance to anything we were saying about fires in the WTC7. It is a completely stupid aside, typical of what happens when a bee dunker tenet of 9/11 anti-science gets trashed.
It proves you don't have the slightest clue what you are talking about when it comes to the simplest of technical issues. Something kids learn in high school.
And it proves that you are so intransigent, clueless and immune to the penetration of facts that, when people point out your simple, trivial, ludicrous errors, you are incapable of seeing it, acknowledging it, or learning from it.
Those things are completely relevant.
They are the reason to completely dismiss your insipid comments.
I didn't at all. I was hoping someone would notice that. I'm glad you did.
I also like how you avoided quoting the parts of that article that directly contradict things you've been posting. It's very telling of a mind that is determined to not admit a fault.
From the article: "Thin, light-coloured smoke moving lazily out of the building usually indicates a small fire involving ordinary combustibles. Thick, dark grey smoke “pushing” out of a structure, suggests a larger, more intense fire."
Haven't you been saying that thick dark smoke means "not active" or "smouldering" fires in this very thread? What is the source of this canard? It's certainly not that article, it states the exact opposite.
It's the velocity of the smoke clouds, the "pushing", that seems to matter most. Also, smoke that never ignites into flame is obviously not a flaming fire, is it?
Hey ergo (BTW, are you really "pDoh". I feel honored. You're something of a legend around here. Have I ever crossed paths with you under any other name?)
Rather than the incredulity, the honest thing to do would be:
- My theory about what happened to building 7 at the WTC is _____________.
- <Insert whatever supposed anomaly "too much/not enough smoke" etc.> about this event is relevant to the above because ____________.
I didn't at all. I was hoping someone would notice that. I'm glad you did.
From the article: "Thin, light-coloured smoke moving lazily out of the building usually indicates a small fire involving ordinary combustibles. Thick, dark grey smoke “pushing” out of a structure, suggests a larger, more intense fire."
It's the velocity of the smoke clouds, the "pushing", that seems to matter most. Also, smoke that never ignites into flame is obviously not a flaming fire, is it?
Goalpost move noted. Now it's not the colour of the smoke you're on about - because your argument failed.
Please don't bore us with another feeble argument based on your superficial reading of topics you don't understand.
After all, we have many accounts of firefighters who describe the building as 'fully involved' in fire. Guess what? They actually know what they're talking about, whereas you clearly don't.
Your prattling will never trump the accounts of professionals on the scene that day, nor should it. Would you really want us to take you seriously? Really? Surely you don't.
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