The Great Thermate Debate

[kylebisme]

Skilling never said the WTC would not collapse due to fire.

Skilling said, "There would be a horrendous fire... The building structure would still be there." Furthermore, from the witepaper released by Skillings firm (quoted in City in the sky: the rise and fall of the World Trade Center):

The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.

So, Skilling both personally and through his firm said the towers would not collapse due to slightly smaller and lighter but also notably faster jet impacts and the resulting fires.

Bazant model is sound, you can't produce a paper to show otherwise.

Anyone can produce real world examples to show Bazant's claims of crush-down before crush-up is pseudoscientific crackpottery until their arms fall off, while nobody will ever produce even a computer simulation to support Bazant's nonsense, as it stands in flagrant violation of Newton's third law. If you believe you need a paper to explain that to you further, you can't rightly be expected to understand it anyway.

When was the dust collected? If you mean RJ Lee, it was 8 and 13 MONTHS after the collapse.

The USGS found the iron rich spheres in the dust they collected just days after the attacks. As for your "other possible reasons" for the spheres, you might as well argue that they were planted by the devil for all the experimental confirmation one could ever rightly hope to produce in support of such notions.

 

[TruthersLie]

The USGS found the iron rich spheres in the dust they collected just days after the attacks. As for your "other possible reasons" for the spheres, you might as well argue that they were planted by the devil for all the experimental confirmation one could ever rightly hope to produce in support of such notions.

Ah.. but you see in SCIENCE you have to be able to eliminate any possible confounds. Especially if it is something which throws your entire claim into question.

Were microspheres found in the wtc dust? Yes.

Are microspheres a byproduct of therm*te? I guess.
are microspheres a byproduct of plastic fires? yes.
are microspheres present in drywall and gypsum? Yes
are microspheres present in flyash which is used in concrete? Yes
are microspheres produced by welding? yes.

Now unless you can eliminate any other possible source of microspheres, you CANNOT claim they are from therm*te. That is just how science works.

Can you eliminate any other plausible source for the microspheres? yes or no?

 

[Grizzly Bear]

So, Skilling both personally and through his firm said the towers would not collapse due to slightly smaller and lighter but also notably faster jet impacts and the resulting fires.

Remember, that nobody claims that the impacts were singularly responsible for the collapse, it was a combination of factors (impact, and fire). The studies you continually cite do not detail the expected behavior of the structure under such additional stresses and subsequent weakening. They detail only the impact event. And the WTC withstood the impacts as designed. The added effect of uncontrolled large fires was never accounted for, and I implore you to locate one of his studies where they do. Good luck with that

while nobody will ever produce even a computer simulation to support Bazant's nonsense, as it stands in flagrant violation of Newton's third law.

The mechanism Bazant discusses is better known as progressive collapse, examples of which exist in the form of Ronan point, and the Murrah building. I guess Ronan Point is also a violation of Newton's third law according to your own words. Afterall according to your own logic, one floor cannot cause the collapse of 20, for example.

 

[Edx]

The USGS found the iron rich spheres in the dust they collected just days after the attacks. As for your "other possible reasons" for the spheres, you might as well argue that they were planted by the devil for all the experimental confirmation one could ever rightly hope to produce in support of such notions.

If you find a penny on the street, this penny could have been dropped by your high school sweetheart, but it could also have been dropped by a thousand other people.

See? No? Not surprised.

 

[alienentity]

Are you unaware of the fact that neither NIST, Purdue, nor anyone else has produced any simulation of the towers actually coming down to disprove Skilling's claim that "the building structure would still be there"?

This is a rather feeble strawman argument.

For the record, Skilling didn't do a simulation or any model which supports his opinion, he didn't do a study, but there are reports of a study on aircraft impact at 180mph or the very implausible 600mph (that figure is found only in a whitepaper from the Port Authority, and the source hasn't been located).

There are no reports that a fire study was carried out, and Robertson concurs with that opinion.

The NIST did actually model the failure of the WTC towers up to the point of collapse. Now, to an engineer, that's the relevant point - to spend enormous time and effort to model the collapse all the way down accomplishes nothing in terms of prevention, so it wasn't carried that far.

'The scope of the NIST investigation was focused on identifying "the sequence of events" that triggered the collapse, and did not include detailed analysis of the collapse mechanism itself (after the point at which events made the collapse inevitable)'

As to your use of vague terminology (which is irrelevant to the various reports, and is a semantic argument) such as 'simulation', the various Bazant papers thoroughly examine the physics of the entire collapses, and you have not provided any details as to why they are not valid.

Merely casting aspersions on Bazant is not an adequate rebuttal to the engineering arguments. But that's all you've offered thus far.

You appear to have very little substance to offer behind your opinions. That's why they're so weak.

 

[Edx]

So truthers here are saying the lead structural engineer on the WTC is either completely incompetent or lying?



Its a good thing they have people like Anders "CGI planes" Bjorkman to be their expert.

 

[alienentity]

The USGS found the iron rich spheres in the dust they collected just days after the attacks. As for your "other possible reasons" for the spheres, you might as well argue that they were planted by the devil for all the experimental confirmation one could ever rightly hope to produce in support of such notions.

Materials scientists have recently pointed out that melting points of materials can vary depending on the size of the item. It's called 'Melting-point depression'.

That means in a large office fire you would expect to see all kinds of spheres, not just iron-rich, depending on the materials which are burning. Since there are many sources of ferrous materials in office contents, then you would expect to see that element present as well. This is exactly what has been found.

There is no mystery to it.

btw, IIRC the Jones/Harrit spheres varied considerably in composition and contain variously O,Si,Al,Ti,S,Mg C,K,Ca. And Iron isn't the main element present in most cases!!!

Reminds me of those 'juice' drinks which contain only 10% real juice

 

[kylebisme]

Ah.. but you see in SCIENCE you have to be able to eliminate any possible confounds.

Rather, in science; if want to claim your hypothetical sources for the iron rich spheres have any merit, you've got to provide some semblance of experimental confirmation to demonstrate as much. Again, otherwise you might as well be arguing the possibility that the dust was planted by the devil, and science ignores such unfounded speculation.

The added effect of uncontrolled large fires was never accounted for, and I implore you to locate one of his studies where they do.

Skilling's comment "There would be a horrendous fire... The building structure would still be there" suggests they did account for that in their study, but unfortunatly the actual documentation of that study has gone missing.

The mechanism Bazant discusses is better known as progressive collapse...

I'm aware of what people like to call it, but Bazant's claims of crush-down before crush-up are what his argument deserves to be best known for, as that's what stands in flagrant violation of Newton's third law.

This is a rather feeble strawman argument.

It's a point of fact; nobody produced any simulation of the towers actually coming down by impact damage and fires to even come close to disproving Skilling's claim that "the building structure would still be there." Claims of having identified "the sequence of events" that triggered the "collapses" are completely unsupported absent any experimental confirmation to substantiate the notion that such a sequence events could actually result in any such "collapses."

 

[Edx]

Rather, in science; if want to claim your hypothetical sources for the iron rich spheres have any merit, you've got to provide some semblance of experimental confirmation to demonstrate as much. Again, otherwise you might as well be arguing the possibility that the dust was planted by the devil, and science ignores such unfounded speculation.

What does science say about peer review? Oh yes, suddenly you wont care about the scientific process right?

I'm aware of what people like to call it, but Bazant's claims of crush-down before crush-up are what his argument deserves to be best known for, as that's what stands in flagrant violation of Newton's third law.

Thats right you're not wrong, Dr Bazant is wrong, the lead structural engineer for the WTC is wrong. All the scientists at NIST are wrong. The scientists who studied the steel are wrong, all the scientists and engineers that wrote the hundreds of papers published in legitimate journals on the collapses are all wrong but you and a guy that thinks the planes should have bounced off the WTC and that all the footage was faked, well, you guys know real science! Even unqualified truthers on the internet know more science than all these scientists put together!

 

[twinstead]

if you agree that science ignores unfounded speculation, Kylebisme, then why do you continue using unfounded speculation?

 

[GStan]

if you agree that science ignores unfounded speculation, Kylebisme, then why do you continue using unfounded speculation?

Because it ROCKS?!?

 

[alienentity]

Skilling's comment "There would be a horrendous fire... The building structure would still be there" suggests they did account for that in their study, but unfortunatly the actual documentation of that study has gone missing.

Unfortunate for your argument, you mean. You have no science to back up your claim, just an anecdote. Your argument is very weak.

Your argument against Bazant is that crushdown violates Newton's third law?

Let's play your game of bare assertions: No, it doesn't violate Newton's third law.

Thanks for playing

 

[Miragememories]

"Ah.. but you see in SCIENCE you have to be able to eliminate any possible confounds. Especially if it is something which throws your entire claim into question.

Were microspheres found in the wtc dust? Yes.

Are microspheres a byproduct of therm*te? I guess.
are microspheres a byproduct of plastic fires? yes.
are microspheres present in drywall and gypsum? Yes
are microspheres present in flyash which is used in concrete? Yes
are microspheres produced by welding? yes.

Now unless you can eliminate any other possible source of microspheres, you CANNOT claim they are from therm*te. That is just how science works.

Can you eliminate any other plausible source for the microspheres? yes or no?"

Have red/gray chips been found in every WTC dust sample to date? Yes.

Does the red layer exhibit thermitic properties? Yes.

When ignited in the DSC, do the red chips exhibit more energy than would be found in normal office materials? Yes.

Has anyone come forth with a study showing matching characteristics with paint? No.

Did paint samples taken from known WTC steel samples show a comparable composition to the red chip? No.

When ignited in the DSC, did the WTC steel paint sample reveal iron microspheres in its residue? No.

When ignited in the DSC, did the the red chip reveal iron microspheres in its residue? Yes.

Did temperatures in WTC Towers reach as high as 1100 C from the jet fuel or office cubicle fires? No.

Did the analysis of steel samples from WTC reveal phases that indicated exposure minimum temperatures of 1100 C? Yes.

Could those phases have been created with an oxyacetylene torch or whatever torch you used to cut the steel? No.

Did randomly collected dust samples from different area in Manhattan were analyzed, did they show a matching composition? Yes.

MM

 

[alienentity]

kylebisme - let me wash away your remaining confusion (some would call it obfuscation but I'm in a charitable mood ) regarding 'simulation'.

NIST used models to show, in engineering terms, how the failures occurred and led to the point of collapse.

You claim that nobody has simulated the towers coming down. Nevermind your terms are so vague that they mean almost nothing.

But....but...the word 'simulate' does mean something - it means 'to create a simulation, likeness, or model of'

So, yes, NIST did in fact model or simulate the conditions which led to collapse. Computer models are by definition simulations.

Sorry to burst your babblebubble.

 

[A W Smith]

Skilling said, "There would be a horrendous fire... The building structure would still be there." Furthermore, from the witepaper released by Skillings firm (quoted in City in the sky: the rise and fall of the World Trade Center):

the buildings structure would still be there in relation to the impacts, No study was ever done on the effects of fire on this remaining structure.

So, Skilling both personally and through his firm said the towers would not collapse due to slightly smaller and lighter but also notably faster jet impacts and the resulting fires.

you are begging the question. Produce the fire study

Anyone can produce real world examples to show Bazant's claims of crush-down before crush-up is pseudoscientific crackpottery until their arms fall off, while nobody will ever produce even a computer simulation to support Bazant's nonsense, as it stands in flagrant violation of Newton's third law. If you believe you need a paper to explain that to you further, you can't rightly be expected to understand it anyway.

you can misapply Newtons third law until your "arms fall off" Riddle me this. Open system or closed?

The USGS found the iron rich spheres in the dust they collected just days after the attacks. As for your "other possible reasons" for the spheres, you might as well argue that they were planted by the devil for all the experimental confirmation one could ever rightly hope to produce in support of such notions.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102021

 

[twinstead]

Does the "Great Thermite Debate" stop cold when I turn off my computer? YES

 

[alienentity]

Have red/gray chips been found in every WTC dust sample to date? Yes.

Hmm. Henryco found only one in his samples. The rest were Red/Red and didn't produce the results of Jones' tests.

So the Jones paper results have not been duplicated by peers.

 

[alienentity]

Kyle is very fond of the idea of computer simulation. Very well, the NIST did completely simulate the collapse of WTC 7 and showed how it was possible.

You can go home now Kyle, the work has all been done.

 

[tsig]

Skilling said, "There would be a horrendous fire... The building structure would still be there." Furthermore, from the witepaper released by Skillings firm (quoted in City in the sky: the rise and fall of the World Trade Center):


So, Skilling both personally and through his firm said the towers would not collapse due to slightly smaller and lighter but also notably faster jet impacts and the resulting fires.


Anyone can produce real world examples to show Bazant's claims of crush-down before crush-up is pseudoscientific crackpottery until their arms fall off, while nobody will ever produce even a computer simulation to support Bazant's nonsense, as it stands in flagrant violation of Newton's third law. If you believe you need a paper to explain that to you further, you can't rightly be expected to understand it anyway.


The USGS found the iron rich spheres in the dust they collected just days after the attacks. As for your "other possible reasons" for the spheres, you might as well argue that they were planted by the devil for all the experimental confirmation one could ever rightly hope to produce in support of such notions.

Iron rich spheres after a steel building collapses, where did they come from?

 

[kylebisme]

What does science say about peer review?

Peer review can be a helpful too, but it doesn't rightly prove anything in itself. Regardless, there is not experimental confirmation to support the notion that the iron rich spheres could have been been produced by anything but a thermitic reaction, either in a peer reviewed paper or otherwise.

Thats right you're not wrong, Dr Bazant is wrong...

Bazant's claims of crush-down before crush-up are stand in flagrant violation of Newton's third law, and no amount of appealing to authority can change that.

Let's play your game of bare assertions: No, it doesn't violate Newton's third law.

Again, anyone can produce real world examples of the crushing happening simultaneously in accordance with Newton's third law. The Verinage demolitions being obvious examples, and Jon Cole presented some more here:



On the other hand, you defenders of Bazant are the who can't produce anything more than bare assertions to support his claims of crush-down before crush-up, and you never will, because it stands in flagrant violation of Newton's third law.