The Great Thermate Debate

[tsig]

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

So randomly chosen tidbits prove any thing. No

 

[kylebisme]

...NIST did completely simulate the collapse of WTC 7 and showed how it was possible.

NIST only produced video of their WTC 7 simulation starting to come down somewhat like WTC 7 did, and nobody has ever even gotten quite that far with the towers. Your claims to the contrary suggest you've got an overactive imagination.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Kylebisme. Why don't you tell us what you think happened.

How was the Thermite used?.
Who planted it?
How did they do it?
How much was used? (To the nearest ton will do)

You must have some ideas and opinions on this.

 

[A W Smith]

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.

show us where he goes wrong
http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/D25 WTC Discussions Replies.pdf

start here and continue

Discussion by James R. Gourley
The interdisciplinary interests of Gourley, a chemical engineer
with a doctorate in jurisprudence, are appreciated. Although none
of the discusser’s criticisms is scientifically correct, his discussion
provides a welcome opportunity to dispel doubts recently voiced
by some in the community outside structural mechanics and engineering.
It also provides an opportunity to rebut a previous
similar discussion widely circulated on the Internet, co-authored
by S. E. Jones, Associate Professor of Physics at Brigham Young
University and a cold fusion specialist. For the sake of clarity, this
closure is organized into the points listed subsequently and rebutted
one by one.
1. Newton’s Third Law: The discusser is not correct in repeatedly
claiming that Newton’s third law is violated in the paper
and particularly in concluding that the “two-phase collapse
scenario is scientifically implausible because it ignores
Newton’s third law and the equal but opposite upward force
dictated by it.” As explained at the outset in every course on
mechanics of materials, this law is automatically satisfied,
since all the calculations are based on the concept of stress or
internal force, which consists of a pair of opposite forces of
equal magnitude acting on the opposite surfaces of any imagined
cut through the material or structure. This concept is so
central to the discipline of structural mechanics and selfevident
to structural engineers that Newton’s third law is
never even mentioned in publications.
2. Are the Internal Forces in Upper and Lower Parts of
Tower Equal? Contrary to the discusser’s claim which is
based on his understanding of Newton’s third law, these
forces are not equal, as made clear by Fig. 2
g and h of the
original paper. Their difference is equal to the weight of the
intermediate compacted layer B plus the inertia force attributable
to the acceleration of layer B
for additional accuracy,
one may also add the energy per unit height needed for the
comminution of concrete and the expelling of air, which are
secondary phenomena not taken into consideration in the
original paper. When the compacted layer attains a sufficient
mass, which occurs after the collapse of only a few stories,
this difference becomes very large.

 

[alienentity]

NIST only produced video of their WTC 7 simulation starting to come down somewhat like WTC 7 did, and nobody has ever even gotten quite that far with the towers. Your claims to the contrary suggest you've got an overactive imagination.

Is this your bizarre way of trying to evade the reality that NIST modeled the WTC 7 collapse entirely?

 

[9/11-investigator]

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

You represent a serious case of solipsism.

 

[Dave Rogers]

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

Fabrication. Lioy et all report no such chips, therefore you cannot claim that such chips were found in any of their samples.

Does the red layer exhibit thermitic properties? Yes.

Incorrect. The chips have not been shown to react in the absence of oxygen, and the single exotherm recorded released more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction. From this, we may conclude that they are not thermitic.

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

Incorrect. Normal office materials would be expected to contain several times the energy released in these chips. However, they do exhibit more energy than thermite, which contains typically an order of magnitude less energy than normal office materials.

So, when we start from the real conclusions, rather than the ones MM would prefer to fabricate, we can immediately conclude that the red chips, very probably, did not contain thermitic material.

Dave

 

[beachnut]

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):

Failed, Skilling did not do the white paper. Skilling agrees with Robertson, 180 mph impact, it is a fact. The impacts on 911 were 7 and 11 times more kinetic energy, damaging the core and injecting fuel over multiple floors in seconds. 911 truth failed, for 9 years, welcome to their failure.

Planes at 700 feet lost in the fog are going 180 mph, not 600. You need to ask Robertson. Skilling never said 600 mph, Robertson presented the numbers, and the fact is it was confirmed the WTC towers could take impacts up to 200 mph with minor damage. Better brush up on your physics.

http://www.members.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/NAEW-63AS9S/$FILE/Bridge-v32n1.pdf?OpenElement

Robertson makes your claims lies based on ignorance.

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.

E=1/2mv²Is your failure to comprehend phyiscs why you make up lies?

Facts are the impact which the WTC towers would survive is:
707, 263,000 pounds, 180 knots, less than 6,000 pounds of fuel.
911 impacts:
Flt 11, 283,600 pounds, 470 knots, 66,000 pounds of fuel.
Flt 175, 277,580 pounds, 590 knots, 66,000 pounds of fuel.

You failed to get the weight right, you failed to do the physics. Why can't you get anything right about 911, why can't you do the physics?

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.

Again you expose your ignorance in physics and engineering as you attack Bazant's paper, which you can't comprehend.

Please write a paper to prove you delusion. Oops, it is a delusion, it has no real way to prove.

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.

There are iron rich spheres in the concrete. Jones lied about thermite, and switched to thermate, and thinks the earthquake in Haiti was caused by the government. You support nut case conspiracy claims, and you can't do physics.

 

[leftysergeant]

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.

You need to prove that they cannot be produced by the suspected means, such as burning of carbonless duplicating paper or welding fume, have been present in the fllyash mixed with the concrete or painted over in the foundary which made the columns.

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.

How is a violation of Newton's laws that an object weighing several times the weight of the object it hits overcomes the resistance of the target? Before you answer, I will call you several things you wish not to be called if you calculate how much resistance the ENTIRE structure below the target offered. You only need to crush one floor at a time or pry apart the columns of one level at a time. Same way you eat an elephant.

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:

Try opening your eyes when you watch videos. There is still structure left in the C block of Balzac-Vitry when dust is emerging from the uncrushable ground level floor. Crush-up was slower than crush-down. That bloody simple.

As for that doofus Cole, he shows you what happens when energy is applied in a pulse. Once the cue ball has moved away from the tip of the cue, there is no new kinetic energy being applied. What was applied is then transferred to the object ball on collision. There being no continued input of energy after collision, the cueball stops.

Well, freaking DUH!.

Block C of the towers was not driven by a bloody pool cue. It was driven by gravity. Gravity don't stop in-putting.

Cole is an educated moron.

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.

Bazant bases his conclusions on science. You base yours on the blather of educated morons.

Read up on this wierd force called "gravity." Fascinating stuff.

 

[Dave Rogers]

show us where he goes wrong
http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/D25 WTC Discussions Replies.pdf

start here and continue

Just to simplify this for the hard-of-thinking: The top block and the rubble are both falling on the bottom block. The force on the bottom block is therefore the sum of the force from the top block and the force from the rubble. Since the top block and the rubble are falling together, they are not exerting as great a force on each other astheir combined force on the lower block. Therefore, crush-down predominates over crush-up as soon as the rubble layer gets heavy enough to make a difference. This is what Newton's Third Law predicts.

Dave

 

[twinstead]

You represent a serious case of solipsism.

No, I represent a serious case of thinking truthers are idiots.

ETA: And when I turn off my computer, they stay that way.

 

[GlennB]

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.

You worked so hard on that. Shame there's so much wrong with it. Dave Rogers' reply is just a beginning, but sufficient.

 

[9/11 Chewy Defense]

No, I represent a serious case of thinking truthers are idiots.

And you'd be right!

Truthers often mistake their defense with the "Chewbacca Defense". Because their case doesn't make sense at all. Too many theories on top of theories, stories that don't add up with the evidence & wild hairbrained schemes to sucker people out of their money.

Where does this take them? It takes them into paranoia, fairy tale story realities & fraudulant claims, all mixed together to make a perfect nutcase seeking medical attention & the craving for attention from us at JREF.

 

[Miragememories]

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

"Fabrication. Lioy et all report no such chips, therefore you cannot claim that such chips were found in any of their samples."

Unconfirmed. The report you refer to does not characterize a finding of red/gray chips which does not prove they were not found. Dr. Jones and his associates identified red/gray chips from 5 completely random WTC dust samples, all from different locations in Manhattan.

You will also notice that Oystein in the exchange quoted below finds the language used in Lioy paper to be non-definitive.

"Lioy et al sampled drifted dust in 3 covered locations very shortly after 9/11 as part of a study into possible long-term health effects. They found primarily fibrous materials, pulverised gypsum and comminuted concrete products, totalling close to 100%"

"Uhm ... frankly, we don't know exactly what the 50% Nonfibers consist of, and they give no numbers for the proportion of iron in the dust, just saying it was "a large signal" (and an expected signal, of course). For example on page 708:"

"Cherry Avenue sample. The Cherry Avenue sample is mainly composed of construction debris (including cement, vermiculite, plaster, synthetic foam, glass fragments, mineral wool fibers, paint particles,
glass fibers, metals, calcite grains, and paper fragments), quartz grains, low-temperature combustion material (including charred woody fragments), and metal flakes."

"We may safely assume that large amounts of "dustified steel" would have raised a more than casual mention, but we can't be 100% certain about that."

"Does the red layer exhibit thermitic properties? Yes."

"Incorrect. The chips have not been shown to react in the absence of oxygen, and the single exotherm recorded released more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction. From this, we may conclude that they are not thermitic."

Even if I was to accept what you say as true, would not the existence of a single exotherm recording a release more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction, be of even greater scientific interest?

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

"Incorrect. Normal office materials would be expected to contain several times the energy released in these chips. However, they do exhibit more energy than thermite, which contains typically an order of magnitude less energy than normal office materials.

So, when we start from the real conclusions, rather than the ones MM would prefer to fabricate, we can immediately conclude that the red chips, very probably, did not contain thermitic material."

Well Physicist, Dr. Jeff Farrer disagrees with you;

"The calorimeter can't lie to you. If you get a sharp peak in the calorimeter, that material is energetic. The degree of its energy is determined by the height of the peak and the power at which it goes off is the width of the peak. We were finding that this very small chip had a lot of energy packed into it, more than you would find in everyday materials at the office. And certainly the number of chips they were finding in these random dust samples made the fact that they were present in such quantity, also made them significant."

MM

 

[9/11 Chewy Defense]

Bolding mine:

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

Does the red layer exhibit thermitic properties? No, because they have no thermitic properties.

When ignited in the DSC, do the red chips exhibit more energy than would be found in normal office materials? No, it would only fizzle like the skin of the Hindenberg.

Has anyone come forth with a study showing matching characteristics with paint? No, Because Truthers don't lack the education to determine what paint consist of.

Did paint samples taken from known WTC steel samples show a comparable composition to the red chip? Yes! A chemist actually solved that a long time ago.

When ignited in the DSC, did the WTC steel paint sample reveal iron microspheres in its residue? No. Because Truthers don't have the proper equipment to search for any.

When ignited in the DSC, did the the red chip reveal iron microspheres in its residue? Read the above for clarity!

Did temperatures in WTC Towers reach as high as 1100 C from the jet fuel or office cubicle fires? Yes! Because everything burns in an office fire.

Did the analysis of steel samples from WTC reveal phases that indicated exposure minimum temperatures of 1100 C? Yes. Therefore there wasn't any steel that was melted.

Could those phases have been created with an oxyacetylene torch or whatever torch you used to cut the steel? Yes! Remember, Truthers never worked in a steel mill as a welder or a CD employee.

Did randomly collected dust samples from different area in Manhattan were analyzed, did they show a matching composition? Of course, the dust flew everywhere after the Towers' collapsed from the raging fires.

MM

Fixed that for you MM!

 

[GlennB]

Even if I was to accept what you say as true, would not the existence of a single exotherm recording a release more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction, be of even greater scientific interest?

Not in the slightest. You must surely have noted at least one of the many posts here on the subject of thermite energy 'density'?

You (and many other truthers) seem almost enchanted by thermite. Why?

 

[beachnut]

... Even if I was to accept what you say as true, would not the existence of a single exotherm recording a release more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction, be of even greater scientific interest?... MM

... peanut butter has ten time the energy release, this is why we don't eat thermite for energy.

Jet fuel and gasoline, 10 time the heat energy of thermite, why we don't use thermite to power cars or burn down buildings

Plastics, 14 times the heat energy of thermite.

Why would anyone use thermite, when jet fuel has 10 times the heat energy? Explain this carefully. We have 315 TONS of TNT heat energy released from the jet fuel in each tower, spreading fires on multiple floors. Then we have office contents burning releasing about the same heat energy and you think thermite was used? How gullible are you?

We have Jones paper which his dust burns at energy levels below and above the heat released by thermite, proving it is not thermite, and you think they have something; why did they fail to make 60 minutes or 20/20 except when they show nut case conspiracy theorists in action spreading lies?

Bringing thermite to jet fuel fire, is like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

 

[Oystein]

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

Wrong. Off the bat, RJ Lee Group, USGS, EPA do not report these.

Does the red layer exhibit thermitic properties? Yes.

Wrong. This has not been shown, since the incompetent method of doing the DSC trace under 21% oxygene atmophere was used.

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

Wrong. They exhibit more energy than thermite, but less than most office combustibles, like paper or plastics.

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

True. So what

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

Hearsay. Inconclusive. The paper failed to mention this. Also, there was more than one kind of paint in the WTC complex.

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

Hearsay. Inconclusive. The paper failed to mention this. Also, there was more than one kind of paint in the WTC complex.

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

Hearsay. Inconclusive. The paper failed to mention this. Also, there was more than one kind of paint in the WTC complex.

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

Irrelevant. Strawman.

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

Yes. So what

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

Irrelevant. Strawman.

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

Vague. Ungrammatical.




You fail.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Even if I was to accept what you say as true, would not the existence of a single exotherm recording a release more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction, be of even greater scientific interest?

Not at all. As Dave Rogers wrote:

Incorrect. Normal office materials would be expected to contain several times the energy released in these chips.

The scientific community is already aware of what Dave Rogers wrote.

Well Physicist, Dr. Jeff Farrer disagrees with you;

That is one of the many things that tell us Dr Jeff Farrer is out of his depth here.

When burned, wood releases approximately 15 MJ/kg. The energy content of paper is about the same: 7500 BTU/lb, which is about 17 MJ/kg. Thermite and nanothermite release approximately 4 MJ/kg.

You don't seem to appreciate the importance of those facts. As Dave Rogers wrote:

The chips have not been shown to react in the absence of oxygen, and the single exotherm recorded released more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction. From this, we may conclude that they are not thermitic.

Is there anything we can do to help you understand this science stuff?

 

[Oystein]

Unconfirmed. The report you refer to does not characterize a finding of red/gray chips which does not prove they were not found. Dr. Jones and his associates identified red/gray chips from 5 completely random WTC dust samples, all from different locations in Manhattan.

You will also notice that Oystein in the exchange quoted below finds the language used in Lioy paper to be non-definitive.

This, or what I wrote, in no way, shaoe or form refutes what Dave said:

"Fabrication. Lioy et all report no such chips, therefore you cannot claim that such chips were found in any of their samples."

Indeed, the Lioy report did not report such chips. MM, please confirm the truth of this sentence!
Because of this, you cannot claim that such chips were found in any of their samples. MM, please confirm the logic validity of this conclusion!

Even if I was to accept what you say as true, would not the existence of a single exotherm recording a release more than the theoretical maximum possible energy available from any thermite reaction, including a nanothermite reaction, be of even greater scientific interest?

Maybe, if you are so inclined. But that is precisely where Harrit, Farrer, Jones e.al. stopped. The failure to identify the reactants is theirs, and theirs completely.

Well Physicist, Dr. Jeff Farrer disagrees with you;

We do not hold Mr. Farrer quite in the same kind of unassailable esteem as you do. I think you might have noticed by now. You again make an appeal to authority, without explaining why that authority is of any value here.

You are a faithful follower of a cult, and Farrer is your prophet.