Merged Applicability of Bazant's model to the real world

[GlennB]

You can examine the collapse initiation until your face turns blue, you can trace tiny little pixels on a scree until the cows come home, NONE of it explains CD and it never will. So knock yourself out Champ.

Once again, this about sums it up.

Truthers desperately seek some fault, some nook, some cranny in the OT and hope to nail their colours to that mast as though it 'proves' that CD is possible.

It's a logical leap so vast that it defies comprehension.

What they should of course be doing is providing evidence for CD and allowing critics to analyse that evidence.

But femr2 and Major_tom prefer to operate by a stealth that promises to take this discussion into 2013. Perhaps they just enjoy the attention?

 

[tsig]

Once again, this about sums it up.

Truthers desperately seek some fault, some nook, some cranny in the OT and hope to nail their colours to that mast as though it 'proves' that CD is possible.

It's a logical leap so vast that it defies comprehension.

What they should of course be doing is providing evidence for CD and allowing critics to analyse that evidence.

But femr2 and Major_tom prefer to operate by a stealth that promises to take this discussion into 2013. Perhaps they just enjoy the attention?

It looks like they're not just arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin but the color of the clothes they're wearing, the music they're dancing to and who's playing the instruments.

 

[rwguinn]

It looks like they're not just arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin but the color of the clothes they're wearing, the music they're dancing to and who's playing the instruments.

In their effort to leave no stone unturned in looking for a way to blame Bush and the US for the situation, they now are using a pair of tweezers and looking under mouse droppings...

 

[Major_Tom]

I have stated the exact same thing since starting the OOS propagation thread in May.

We have documented proof of why such a delay has continued for the last 8 months. Denial and insult, denial and insult.

8 months later and people couldn't tell the difference between BZ and BV. You blame me for the delay?

A shallow well, no doubt.


I never mentioned "Bush". I study collapse features and mechanics, not "Bush".

 

[Major_Tom]

This is from page 3 of the OOS propagation thread.

Enlighten us, R Mackey. Can you answer these questions?

1) In BL, can you explain why Dr Bazant insists that crush down must be complete before crush up occurs. Does he mean this literally?

2) Do you consider the equations of motion in BL, equations 12 and 17, to be accurate considering the information in the ROOSD study?

3) Is the following statement true or false:

Dr Bazant believes that a crush-down phase must continue to completion before a crush up phase can begin.

If you answer false, please provide evidence to the contrary.

4) Is ROOSD consistent the claims of crush down preceding crush up in BV and BL?

Teach us how quotes like

"So it must be concluded that the simplifying hypothesis of
one-way crushing (i.e., of absence of simultaneous crush-up),
made in the original paper, was perfectly justified and caused
only an imperceptible difference in the results. The crush-up
simultaneous with the crush down is found to have advanced
into the overlying story by only 37 mm for the North Tower
and 26 mm for the South Tower. This means that the initial
crush-up phase terminates when the axial displacement of
columns is only about 10 times larger than their maximum
elastic deformation. Hence, simplifying the analysis by neglecting
the initial two-way crushing phase was correct and
accurate."

Represent a limiting case.

Does anyone recognize these questions? I wrote that on May 17th, 6 days after starting the thread. I haven't needed to change a word in 8 months.



On page 2 of that thread, I thought I was being pretty freaking clear when I wrote:

CRUSH DOWN FOLLOWED BY CRUSH UP, 2006-2010, R. I. P.

BAZANT AND VERDURE EQUATIONS OF MOTION, EQS 12 AND 17, 2006-2010, R. I. P.


If we accept the ROOSD study as accurate, one logical consequence is that the claims in the papers BV and BL are incorrect.


Let's ask R Mackey and NB the following questions and see what they have to say:

1) In BL, can you explain why Dr Bazant insists that crush down must be complete before crush up occurs. Does he mean this literally?

2) Do you consider the equations of motion in BL, equations 12 and 17, to be accurate considering the information in the ROOSD study?

3) Is the following statement true or false:

Dr Bazant believes that a crush-down phase must continue to completion before a crush up phase can begin.

If you answer false, please provide evidence to the contrary.

4) Is ROOSD consistent the claims of crush down preceding crush up in BV and BL?

Could I have been more clear?



Imagine how boring the last 8 months must have been for me while I watched posters make mistake after mistake after mistake. I was ready to progress beyond this crap from my first posts.

And I am to blame for a delay? Very shallow well, but infinitely hypocritical.

 

[tsig]

I have stated the exact same thing since starting the OOS propagation thread in May.

We have documented proof of why such a delay has continued for the last 8 months. Denial and insult, denial and insult.

8 months later and people couldn't tell the difference between BZ and BV. You blame me for the delay?

A shallow well, no doubt.


I never mentioned "Bush". I study collapse features and mechanics, not "Bush".

And you still don't understand how engineers do models.

 

[tsig]

This is from page 3 of the OOS propagation thread.





Does anyone recognize these questions? I wrote that on May 17th, 6 days after starting the thread. I haven't needed to change a word in 8 months.



On page 2 of that thread, I thought I was being pretty freaking clear when I wrote:



Could I have been more clear?



Imagine how boring the last 8 months must have been for me while I watched posters make mistake after mistake after mistake. I was ready to progress beyond this crap from my first posts. And I am to blame for a delay? Very shallow well, but infinitely hypocritical.

Why didn't you?

 

[ProBonoShill]

I have stated the exact same thing since starting the OOS propagation thread in May.

We have documented proof of why such a delay has continued for the last 8 months. Denial and insult, denial and insult.

8 months later and people couldn't tell the difference between BZ and BV. You blame me for the delay?

A shallow well, no doubt.


I never mentioned "Bush". I study collapse features and mechanics, not "Bush".

You've got to be kidding.

You've been asked several times about CD and have completely ignored the questions.

You've done more dodging than kids on ritalin at a school-wide snowball fight.

Beechnut brought up CD in page two of your thread and you didn't address it once.


How about this one?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6820360#post6820360

I can post other examples if you like.

Can we get to CD? If not stop wasting our time.

 

[ProBonoShill]

Why didn't you?

I don't think he has any intention of ever doing so because he'll have to stop playing with his pixels and talk about proof and evidence, none of which he has.

 

[ozeco41]

What's wrong with a (non-fallacious) appeal to authority?

Doesn't it simply move the authority to the person/entity which decides that it is "non -fallacious"?

So there could be two domains of authority.
1) Those "authorities" who are accepted by all parties in the debate as being authoritative. In which case it is hardly an "appeal to authority" in the normal sense of being a tactic which at least one party to the debate disagrees with.
2) "you" decide what is "non-fallacious" which simply substitutes "you" as the relevant authority - making it "an appeal to a different authority".

...then I never did study philosophy other than as a half unit credit way back in my engineering undergrad days circa 1960.

 

[pgimeno]

Doesn't it simply move the authority to the person/entity which decides that it is "non -fallacious"?

So there could be two domains of authority.
1) Those "authorities" who are accepted by all parties in the debate as being authoritative. In which case it is hardly an "appeal to authority" in the normal sense of being a tactic which at least one party to the debate disagrees with.
2) "you" decide what is "non-fallacious" which simply substitutes "you" as the relevant authority - making it "an appeal to a different authority".

...then I never did study philosophy other than as a half unit credit way back in my engineering undergrad days circa 1960.

Do you think that citing the NIST engineers' qualifications as authoritative in their field is fallacious?

Do you think that citing Bazant's qualifications as authoritative is fallacious?

Of course I would agree to reach a consensus on whether a certain appeal to authority is fallacious. I think both I mentioned aren't. If you also think they aren't, then there's a consensus. If you think they are, we could discuss that point further.

Bazant's prose seems to be difficult to follow and understand for many people. Just look at the problems MT is having in understanding them, by looking at his last messages where he misrepresents them for the zillionth time. Therefore, in order to evaluate the correctness or falsity of the claims in the papers he coauthored, it takes an authority to refute them. It's easy for the layman to see "mistakes" where there are none, because of a misunderstanding of the work (ibid.). Just look at the "shadows are not parallel, therefore the pics are fake" claim of the no-mooners. They believe they have made an amazing and obvious discovery based on a misinterpretation of the data. Even you seemed to take a while to understand the distinction between the description of the model's behavior and the description of the actual towers' behavior. It was the message that my OP tried to send; it seems I failed.

 

[ozeco41]

Do you think that citing the NIST engineers' qualifications as authoritative in their field is fallacious?

Do you think that citing Bazant's qualifications as authoritative is fallacious?

er...the subject of the fallacy is not the qualifications the authorities possess, rather the subject is what they say. "Is what Bazant says not fallacious?"

So it is not "Is Bazant qualified?" but rather "Is what Bazant says something which must be accepted without query?".

....Bazant's prose seems to be difficult to follow and understand for many people...

No argument from me. Throughout my career I have been opposed to the academic practice of writing things in the most obscure technical looking style as a means of intimidating the non-academic.

However, back to "appeal to authority"...

... Just look at the problems MT is having in understanding them, by looking at his last messages where he misrepresents them for the zillionth time. Therefore, in order to evaluate the correctness or falsity of the claims in the papers he coauthored, it takes an authority to refute them. It's easy for the layman to see "mistakes" where there are none, because of a misunderstanding of the work (ibid.). Just look at the "shadows are not parallel, therefore the pics are fake" claim of the no-mooners. They believe they have made an amazing and obvious discovery based on a misinterpretation of the data. Even you seemed to take a while to understand the distinction between the description of the model's behavior and the description of the actual towers' behavior. It was the message that my OP tried to send; it seems I failed.

Which authority has decided that MT is totally wrong and you are totally right? (And that I am one of those slow learners who doesn't get it right first time?)

Now that comment is phrased in the "black and white" style which many posting here seem to prefer.

The reality is in defining various shades of grey. For example you have put forward a framing of Bazant which distinguishes "what the model says" and "applying WTC 9/11 data to the model" from "what happened in the real world". A neat way to defend Bazant. I don't happen to fully accept it at this stage of my understanding. But, in the polarised climate of this sub-forum, no way will I waste time discussing technical details and nuances.

 

[pgimeno]

er...the subject of the fallacy is not the qualifications the authorities possess, rather the subject is what they say. "Is what Bazant says not fallacious?"

So it is not "Is Bazant qualified?" but rather "Is what Bazant says something which must be accepted without query?".

I disagree. The opinion of an expert in relation to his field can't be validly challenged by a non-expert in that field.

However, back to "appeal to authority"...
Which authority has decided that MT is totally wrong and you are totally right? (And that I am one of those slow learners who doesn't get it right first time?)

Not every argument consists of appeals to authority; it's not an authority who decided that. While discussing the crush direction, MT was interpreting every time that Bazant was talking about how the building actually behaved. I saw no reference in the text indicating that that was so and challenged him to show an actual comparison of the crush direction of the model with the real crush direction. He ignored my request, perhaps realizing that he couldn't fulfill it. Anyone can check that such a comparison is absent from each of the papers.

Also, I am not the only person in this thread arguing the same.

But, back to the appeal of authority argument, that is a clear example of how a non-expert can misrepresent the argument of an expert because of lack of expertise. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong in my assessment of how Bazant deals with crush direction; the mere fact that the possibility I mention exists and that MT can't refute it validly means that MT is making an argument against an authority which doesn't prove that authority as wrong.

That's why I say that the opinion of an expert can't be validly challenged by a non-expert. I happened to identify that flaw in MT's argument; however imagine this scenario: imagine that it's right that Bazant is talking about his model and not about the actual behavior in every instance he talks about crush direction, but that no one identifies it and challenges MT's argument. In that scenario, MT's claim is still wrong, but no one is challenging him and those readers who accept his premise will believe that he has proved Bazant wrong, despite being him the one who's wrong.

The mechanism to prevent that scenario from happening is to rely on the authority of the source and let it be challenged only by another authority.

ETA: Unfortunately, that mechanism is not perfect either, because it still leaves room for charlatans with qualifications to talk about missing jolts or the rapid onset of collapse as a proof of CD, to say an example. But that's where peer review can help too.

 

[pgimeno]

Let me give an example of fallacious appeal to authority:

"The architect Richard Gage says that the pyroclastic clouds are proof of controlled demolition."

That's obviously out of the field of expertise of an architect, therefore fallacious. It's also obviously false for many, but not for others, so who decides whether it's reliable or not? The fact that it's a fallacious appeal to authority should help in that.

I am in a similar case: it's obvious for me how wrong MT's arguments are, but it seems it's not so obvious for you; who decides who is right? Bazant is an authority in that matter; MT is not. That should suffice to dismiss the validity of MT's arguments. Mine can also be dismissed for the same reason, of course, but not Bazant's.

Let me quote from that Wikipedia article:

The first form of the appeal to authority is when a source presenting a position on a subject mentions some authority who also holds that position, but who is not actually an authority in that area.

[...]

The second form, citing a source who is actually an authority in the relevant field, carries more subjective, cognitive weight. A person who is recognized as an expert authority often has greater experience and knowledge of their field than the average person, so their opinion is more likely than average to be correct. In practical subjects such as car repair, an experienced mechanic who knows how to fix a certain car will be trusted to a greater degree than someone who is not an expert in car repair. There are many cases where one must rely on an expert, and cannot be reasonably expected to have the same experience, knowledge and skill that that person has. Many trust a surgeon without ever needing to know all the details about surgery themselves. Nevertheless, experts can still be mistaken, wilfully deceptive, subject to pressure from peers or employers, have a vested financial interest in the false statements, or have unusual views (or views that are widely criticized by other experts) within their field, and hence their expertise does not always guarantee that their arguments are valid.

Hopefully that will help you see peer review as a necessity (though not a guarantee) for trustfulness.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I disagree. The opinion of an expert in relation to his field can't be validly challenged by a non-expert in that field.

That's putting it a little too strongly.

Bertrand Russell put it best, in his essay On the Value of Scepticism:

There are matters about which those who have investigated them are agreed; the dates of eclipses may serve as an illustration. There are other matters about which experts are not agreed. Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. Einstein's view as to the magnitude of the deflection of light by gravitation would have been rejected by all experts not many years ago, yet it proved to be right. Nevertheless the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.

These propositions may seem mild, yet, if accepted, they would absolutely revolutionize human life.

 

[tfk]

femr,

1) Where was the actual initial failure for WTC 1 ?
No reply yet tom.

Yeah, no reply.

And not likely to be many replies any more.

My father advised me to simply exclude annoying jerks from my life. He observed that they are a needless drain on one's quality of life. For some inexplicable reason, I seem to have forgotten that wise advice.

It's far more important to eliminate incompetent annoying jerks. They're a giant waste of time. This post is a fine example.

Once again, you jumped into my conversation with someone else, in this case Patriots4Truth. I cited for him the significant differences between a) fire alone and b) plane impact & subsequent fire, which includes loss of insulation & physical damage to the structure.

You claim that the loss of insulation is "Largely speculative".

loss of insulation

Largely speculative, especially given the level of uncertainty from many as-to where initial failure could have been.

Only to the mechanically incompetent.

Interesting.
1) Where was the actual initial failure for WTC 1 ?

The location of the initial failure is irrelevant to the "loss of insulation" question. All of the following is true, regardless of the location of the initial failure of WTC1.

We'll use the South Tower collision, because it was better documented.

In the case of UA175, a B767, weighing about 140 tons, flying at ~540 mph hit the South Tower. (AA11, weighing about the same, hit the north tower at about 440 mph.)

The collision shredded the airplane and brought 98% of its contents to a halt in about 1 second. It also generated an enormous explosion inside (& outside) the building, and generated an enormous amount of high speed shrapnel of jet & office contents. It was that shrapnel's impact with the beams & columns of the tower that ultimately transmitted its energy to the tower.

There was enough energy in the South Tower's impact to cause the top of that 500,000 ton building to sway about 27" to the north, and to rotate around its vertical axis. The ONLY way for that impulse to have caused the building to sway was to pass that energy to the structural lattice of columns & beams.

The ONLY way to pass that 90% of that impulse to the columns & beams was thru the spray on fire retardant foam insulation.

For comparison, in the Sight & Sound Theater fire - a steel framed building that collapsed due to fire alone - the removal of the same type spray on insulation was a contributing factor to the collapse of the building. It was knocked free by workers moving stage equipment & hammering on a stage supported by the beams.

The stage storage area, prop assembly building, and prop maintenance building were protected with a sprayed-on fire resistant coating on all structural steel. The plans called for the coating to meet a two-hour fire resistance assembly rating. The sprayed-on coating, which was susceptible to damage from the movement of theater equipment, was protected by attaching plywood coverings on the columns to a height of eight feet.
…

The two theater employees told the State Police Fire Investigator that when they first discovered the fire they noticed that the sprayed-on fire proofing had been knocked off the underside of the stage floor bar joists and support steel. The fire proofing was hanging on the wire mesh used to hold the coating to the overhead. The investigation revealed that the construction company’s removal of the stage floor covering down to the corrugated decking involved striking the floor hard enough to knock off the sprayed-on protection, exposing the structural steel and bar joists in the storage area.

U.S. Fire Administration/Technical Report Series $15 Million Sight and Sound Theater Fire and Building Collapse
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
USFA-TR-097/January 1997

I stand by my original statement.
If workers' hammers can dislodge spray on foam, only a "mechanical incompetent" would think that removal of the same type insulation by the shrapnel from a 450 - 550 mph, disintegrating 140 ton jet's impact & fireball is "speculative".
___

You then claimed that physical damage to the building was also "largely speculative".

physical damage from plane impact

Largely speculative, especially given the poor level of accuracy of the NIST impact states.

Only to the ludicrously, laughably incompetent.

WTC 2 impact trajectory and orientation used by NIST was WRONG. Not just wrong, but badly wrong. The reasoning behind their choice of parameters is clear. Very poor. And yep, still haven't bothered to take this beyond draft. Might get around to it...

No reply yet tom.

Yeah, anyone who thinks that the physical damage to the buildings was "largely speculative" - because someone may have gotten an impact angle wrong by a couple of degrees - is "ludicrously, laughably incompetent".

2) Why is NISTs use of incorrect WTC 2 impact orientation and trajectory values not *ludicrously, laughably incompetent* ?

I have seen nothing published in any significant journal by any competent researcher that suggests that NIST got the impact orientation & trajectory wrong.

And, since "competent researcher" excludes you, for completeness I should add that I've never seen anything published by you that proves that either.

Get writing… Lots o' peer reviewed journals out there that'd LOVE to see your work.

the enormously increased rate of creep because of the high stress levels

So, do you think the the enormously increased rate of creep applies only from 9.5s in advance of release ?

I'm not incompetent.
I know the time scales over which creep operates.
I wouldn't confuse "creep" for "yield".

Not an answer to the question tom.
Movement of WTC1 features transitions from *none* to *significant* ~9.5s in advance of release.

Yeah, it is an answer to the question. You're not competent enough to understand it.

Here is what real creep of structural steel in a fire looks like, compared to your cartoon version.

3) Do you think the the enormously increased rate of creep you stated applies only from 9.5s in advance of release of WTC1 ?

No, I stand by my previous statement.

You don't know what creep is.
You don't know how to measure it.

Prove me wrong. Post your crap, uh excuse me, your "creep" data.

 

[Carll68]

Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark!

 

[femr2]

The location of the initial failure is irrelevant to the "loss of insulation" question.

Were the members at the location of initial failure affected by loss of insulation, or not ?

Where was the initial failure for WTC 1 ?

It was that shrapnel's impact with the beams & columns of the tower that ultimately transmitted its energy to the tower.

Shrapnel ? Want to rephrase that ?

There was enough energy in the South Tower's impact to cause the top of that 500,000 ton building to sway about 27" to the north, and to rotate around its vertical axis.

Still using inaccurate figures I see.

The ONLY way to pass that 90% of that impulse to the columns & beams was thru the spray on fire retardant foam insulation.

Where ? South Face only ? Which columns ? Which beams ?

I stand by my original statement.
If workers' hammers can dislodge spray on foam, only a "mechanical incompetent" would think that removal of the same type insulation by the shrapnel from a 450 - 550 mph, disintegrating 140 ton jet's impact & fireball is "speculative".

No twisting tom. WHERE was the insulation removed -versus- where was the initial failure is what is on the table, for WTC 1. Why do you try and shift the goalposts so primitively ? It's not like it's hard to spot.

Yeah, anyone who thinks that the physical damage to the buildings was "largely speculative" - because someone may have gotten an impact angle wrong by a couple of degrees - is "ludicrously, laughably incompetent".

ROFL. The NIST impact simulations result in damage ESTIMATES. aka speculative. Getting the impact orientation and trajectory paramaters wrong reduces the accuracy of such ESTIMATES even further. As I said earlier. Again, trying to shift the scope is very transparent tom. Tsk tsk.

I have seen nothing published in any significant journal by any competent researcher that suggests that NIST got the impact orientation & trajectory wrong.

But you do know they messed up for WTC2, as I've shown you

Prove me wrong. Post your crap, uh excuse me, your "creep" data.

You keep avoiding the question.
Motion of features on WTC1 transitions from *none* to *significant* roughly 9.5s in advance of release.

So lets try and get some kind of an answer from you...

You stated enormously increased rate of creep...

When does that apply from ? A time after impact fro WTC1, or a time before release is fine.

What scale is your suggested enormously increased rate of creep over ?

(NIST have some disgrams you will probably want to refer to ?)

 

[pgimeno]

Does anyone recognize these questions? I wrote that on May 17th, 6 days after starting the thread. I haven't needed to change a word in 8 months.

May that be because...

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2005/06/08 ?

 

[Myriad]

Were the members at the location of initial failure affected by loss of insulation, or not ?

Not really. They undoubtedly lost their insulation, but as they also failed simultaneously, the insulation loss on those particular members probably had little effect.

Where was the initial failure for WTC 1 ?

At the columns severed by the airplane impact, of course. They failed completely, resulting in their loads being transferred to other columns.

I know, that's not what you really meant by "initial failure." But that was the initial failure in actual fact. And that's important. As long as you keep thinking of the collapse initiation as a race between isolated individual pieces to see which broke first, rather than as just one stage of an ongoing systems failure, you will continue to exhibit confused thinking, such as claiming "WHERE was the insulation removed -versus- where was the initial failure is what is on the table, for WTC 1."

Respectfully,
Myriad