Split Thread Was global collapse of WTC inevitable?

[A W Smith]

Excaza, I believe you were involved in that thread yourself. It was only from last week. I think it's been established that no other steel-framed buildings have suffered complete collapse from fire alone. Except for the shoddily built Thai sweatshop, the details of which are sparse.

If you have some new information since last week, please inform the crowd.

Call for perfection logical fallacy noted. and highlighted

 

[alienentity]

You cited Bazant as part of your deebunking?? No way!

Who is this "Bazant" you speak of? I don't believe we've heard of him before. He must be an exciting new researcher! I am eager to read his fresh new ideas!

Einstein wrote his most important papers about 100 years ago. The ideas are still fresh, because they're very good.

Bad ideas are bad as soon as they're published, like the various papers by Gordon Ross and Hoffman, etc.. They are forgotten almost immediately, never published (ever) in high-quality journals. (note: I'm referring to the truly incompetent and awful stuff published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies - these things have about as much chance of being published in a mainstream, high profile journal as I have a a chance to sing at Carnegie Hall - not bloody likely based on lack of merit, you see)

Unlike the body of work of Bazant, whom you are forced to disrespect simply for the reason that you can't refute what he's published. Too bad for you that your only allies are incompetent 9/11 Truthers looking to pin the tail on a nonexistent donkey's arse.

That is why your views are worthless and trivial. You are not even capable of an intelligent, informed opinion. IMO.

 

[Oystein]

You cited Bazant as part of your deebunking?? No way!

Who is this "Bazant" you speak of? I don't believe we've heard of him before. He must be an exciting new researcher! I am eager to read his fresh new ideas!

Some of his achievements include:

- Winner of the Czechoslovak Mathematical Olympics in 1955 (at age 18)
- Top of his classes throughout his civil engineering studies
- CE degree with highest distinctions
- Professor at the Professor of Civil Engineering and Materials Science in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University's Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science - one of the 10 best Civil Engineering departments in the world
- >480 peer reviewed engineering papers
- authored 6 books and edited 20 more
- One of 250 most often cited engineers in the world (all engineering fields) with about 600 citations annually
- Elected to National Academy of Engineering in 1996
- Elected to National Academy of Sciences in 2002
- Named Honorary Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers
- Elected Fellow of American Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2008
- Elected to European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2008
- Has received six honorary doctorships from prestigeous universities in Europe and USA
- Has received numerous medals and awards worldwide from engineering and science institutions

He was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE, from 1988–94 (the #1 journal worldwide in its field)
Has tought the following courses at Northwestern University: 1. Stability of
Structures 2. Inelastic Analysis of Structures 3. Fracture of Concrete 4. Cohesive Fracture and Scaling 5. Continuum mechanics 6. Structural Analysis 7. Advanced Structural Analysis 8. Design of Reinforced Concrete 9. Design of Pre-stressed Concrete 10. Concrete Inelasticity 11. Behavior of Reinforced Concrete 12. Concrete Shells 13. Inelastic Structural Stability 14. Material Modeling Principles 15. Mechanics (Statics and Dynamics) 16. Mechanics of Materials I and II 17. Selected Topics in Materials Science

Source: http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/resume.pdf


There probably isn't a more accomplished structural engineering scientist in this world.

 

[Sam.I.Am]

Well yeah sure... but can he convincingly stack cardboard boxes?

 

[ergo]

Einstein wrote his most important papers about 100 years ago. The ideas are still fresh, because they're very good.

Bad ideas are bad as soon as they're published, like the various papers by Gordon Ross and Hoffman, etc.. They are forgotten almost immediately, never published (ever) in high-quality journals. (note: I'm referring to the truly incompetent and awful stuff published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies - these things have about as much chance of being published in a mainstream, high profile journal as I have a a chance to sing at Carnegie Hall - not bloody likely based on lack of merit, you see)

Unlike the body of work of Bazant, whom you are forced to disrespect simply for the reason that you can't refute what he's published. Too bad for you that your only allies are incompetent 9/11 Truthers looking to pin the tail on a nonexistent donkey's arse.

That is why your views are worthless and trivial. You are not even capable of an intelligent, informed opinion. IMO.

Newton wrote his over 300 years ago. Have they gone stale? Are bee dunkers agitating for new laws of gravity and motion? Perhaps Bazant will provide them for you. He just waves his wand and, voila, they are assumed. No need to account for them at all! They're just "in there" somewhere.

I may not be able to refute what he's saying, but others can and have.

 

[Architect]

I may not be able to refute what he's saying, but others can and have.

Links? Who do you mean?

Evens says they've already had their counter arguments dealt with here and found wanting.

 

[A W Smith]

Newton wrote his over 300 years ago. Have they gone stale? Are bee dunkers agitating for new laws of gravity and motion? Perhaps Bazant will provide them for you. He just waves his wand and, voila, they are assumed. No need to account for them at all! They're just "in there" somewhere.

I may not be able to refute what he's saying, but others can and have.

Nothing wrong with newtons laws, You are just too profoundly ignorant to apply them correctly. As has been pointed out.

 

[ergo]

Sarcasm aside, the real problem with Bazant is that as soon as you take what he's actually saying outside the cloak of mathematical jargon, it becomes immediately apparent that what he's proposing is absurd.

I really don't mean to cast aspersions on his character, but you have to wonder why someone with such obvious accomplishments would risk all that to find some scientific legitimacy to the WTC collapses--and then to defend it so obstinately! He's not interested in revising his theory towards any resemblance of reality. He's not interested in scientific collaboration or really listening to what anyone else has to say. For whatever reason, he felt compelled to find a natural explanation for something that is very difficult to explain naturally, and seems more interested in defending that than in considering any other possible explanations.

 

[twinstead]

Sarcasm aside, the real problem with Bazant is that as soon as you take what he's actually saying outside the cloak of mathematical jargon, it becomes immediately apparent that what he's proposing is absurd.

I really don't mean to cast aspersions on his character, but you have to wonder why someone with such obvious accomplishments would risk all that to find some scientific legitimacy to the WTC collapses--and then to defend it so obstinately! He's not interested in revising his theory towards any resemblance of reality. He's not interested in scientific collaboration or really listening to what anyone else has to say. For whatever reason, he felt compelled to find a natural explanation for something that is very difficult to explain naturally, and seems more interested in defending that than in considering any other possible explanations.

An alternate explanation would be that maybe there is PLENTY of scientific legitimacy to the WTC collapses, and your little cult is the one obstinately defending an untenable position.

It would explain why legitimate scientific and engineering organizations ignore you, you know. Just a thought.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

ergo has referred to Newton's laws when it suited him, but when pressed for specifics he hides behind the fact that he isn't a scientist or engineer and quite evidently doesn't know anything about science or engineering.

Yet he's more than willing to criticize members of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science:

He's not interested in scientific collaboration or really listening to what anyone else has to say. For whatever reason, he felt compelled to find a natural explanation for something that is very difficult to explain naturally, and seems more interested in defending that than in considering any other possible explanations.

 

[Dave Rogers]

I really don't mean to cast aspersions on his character, but you have to wonder why someone with such obvious accomplishments would risk all that to find some scientific legitimacy to the WTC collapses--and then to defend it so obstinately! He's not interested in revising his theory towards any resemblance of reality. He's not interested in scientific collaboration or really listening to what anyone else has to say. For whatever reason, he felt compelled to find a natural explanation for something that is very difficult to explain naturally, and seems more interested in defending that than in considering any other possible explanations.

Dave

 

[Architect]

Newton wrote his over 300 years ago. Have they gone stale? Are bee dunkers agitating for new laws of gravity and motion? Perhaps Bazant will provide them for you. He just waves his wand and, voila, they are assumed. No need to account for them at all! They're just "in there" somewhere.

I have started a separate thread regarding the application of physical theory in lieu of structural modelling, and you may find it of interest inasmuch as reliance on the perceived former seems central to your proposition.

See you over there.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Actually, the strength in Bazant and Zhou's work (and in later iterations, add Benson, Greening, and Le) is that it reveals energetically that the towers global collapse is indeed completely natural as well as fully expected once it initiates. What truthers seem to miss is that the work is correct regardless of whether the collapses were started by impact and fire damage or whether some nefarious scheme (thermite, explosive demolitions, etc.) were used. All Bazant and Zhou (and Benson, Greening, and Le) ever did was discuss the energetics of the collapse once it started.

You see, if truthers had any smarts about them and worked to understand studies conducted about the collapses, they'd latch right onto the BZ and BLBG papers and posit that the demolitions were used in the collapse initiation zones. That way, they wouldn't be stuck with so much ambiguity about the state of the structure below those zones, plus they'd be in line with accepted, published research and force people to contend with a theory that embraces elements of accepted research. Of course, the standard response would still center around the lunacy of explosives in a fire zone, plus the documentation of the steel recovered, so it would still fail. But they'd be arguing from a more accepted starting position, and not be suffering the indignities of having zero responses to issues regarding extreme noise, zero preparation on lower floors, zere recovery of demolitions material after the fact, zero stairwell survivors near columns being killed when the building collapsed, etc.

That's the thing that just kills me about the "controlled demolition" fantasies: Truthers bent over backwards to find the most wrong way of positing that explosives were used. I mean, it's almost as if the goal was not to provide an alternate suggestion, but to propose a hypothesis that was the most oppositional to what was know and what could happen. Initiation-zone-only demolitions propositions would still fail for the obvious reasons, but at least it wouldn't have so many points along the argument where it could be refuted like current demolitions myths have.

 

[excaza]

He's not interested in revising his theory towards any resemblance of reality.

Do you have specific technical objections to Bazant's work, or are you making assertions again? Remember, you're living in your own little world, so you have a different reality than everyone else.

He's not interested in scientific collaboration or really listening to what anyone else has to say.

Which is why he published it to a peer reviewed journal in order to find out what everyone else has to say? What has the truth movement done again? Oh that's right, nothing.

 

[beachnut]

Sarcasm aside, the real problem with Bazant is that as soon as you take what he's actually saying outside the cloak of mathematical jargon, it becomes immediately apparent that what he's proposing is absurd. ...

Only for those who can't comprehend math and physics.

 

[tsig]

I'm sorry, but are JREF posts all you can cite? Given what we know of debating tactics here, it doesn't instill confidence. Have you published these refutations anywhere else? I believe it's you folks who are constantly demanding that others publish in peer-reviewed journals. What about yourselves?

I gather you didn't even look at them let alone try to understand the math.

 

[tsig]

Sarcasm aside, the real problem with Bazant is that as soon as you take what he's actually saying outside the cloak of mathematical jargon, it becomes immediately apparent that what he's proposing is absurd.

I really don't mean to cast aspersions on his character, but you have to wonder why someone with such obvious accomplishments would risk all that to find some scientific legitimacy to the WTC collapses--and then to defend it so obstinately! He's not interested in revising his theory towards any resemblance of reality. He's not interested in scientific collaboration or really listening to what anyone else has to say. For whatever reason, he felt compelled to find a natural explanation for something that is very difficult to explain naturally, and seems more interested in defending that than in considering any other possible explanations.

Romulan math?

 

[Oystein]

...Perhaps Bazant will provide them for you. He just waves his wand and, voila, they are assumed. No need to account for them at all! They're just "in there" somewhere.

I may not be able to refute what he's saying, but others can and have.

Sarcasm aside, the real problem with Bazant is that as soon as you take what he's actually saying outside the cloak of mathematical jargon, it becomes immediately apparent that what he's proposing is absurd.
...

What you really mean is: As soon as someone employs actual math, the argument becomes cloaked and hidden from your comprehension, because you can't follow the jargon. Math is some kind of mysterious magic to you and your ilk.

 

[Carlos]

Truthers do not know the difference between "reaction" and "resistance."

The Newton's Third Law refers only to "reaction", not "resistance."

An extreme example: if you drop an anvil on a sand castle, the force applied to the sand castle will be exactly the same force applied on the anvil. This is Newton's Third Law, which states only the existence of a pair of action-reaction forces.

And of course the sand castle will not withstand the weight of the anvil. This violates Newton's Third Law? Of course not! The Newton's Third Law does not concern the capacity of a body to resist any force.

 

[Quad4_72]

Sarcasm aside, the real problem with Bazant is that as soon as you take what he's actually saying outside the cloak of mathematical jargon, it becomes immediately apparent that what he's proposing is absurd.

I really did laugh out loud when I read this. It is a perfect example of how twoofers think. They can't understand the math, so they simply dismiss it. Incredible, you really can't make this stuff up.