The sad case of Niels Harrit

Thanks for pointing out the study by Dr. Lioy et al.:
Characterization of the dust/smoke aerosol that settled east of the World Trade Center (WTC) in lower Manhattan after the collapse of the WTC September 11, 2001. Environmental Health Perspectives, 110: 703-714, 2002.

Fortunately his paper is Open Access and can be read on the web.
http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.02110703

Dr. Lioy, of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute of New Jersey, warned of toxic materials in the WTC dust, and "these results support the need to have the interior of residences, buildings, and their respective HVAC systems professionally cleaned to reduce long-term residential risks before rehabitation."

Too bad that their study was not more widely publicized, to protect the health and lives of people who were told it was safe to work near Ground Zero. Lioy et al used techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, finding "volatile organic compounds" and other interesting components. I am a computer scientist, not a chemist, and will try try to email this study to someone like Dr. Jones or Harrit for comment. You may wish to do the same, or do your own experiment.

>Dr. Jones promised to make them available, but he has not done so
As you know, that would not be proper Chain Of Custody for the dust samples. They should come directly from the finders to you. If you would be interested in getting some, since you are a well established scientist, experienced in doing experiments, I'll grant $200 towards shipping, notary, and other expenses. Do you have access to a spectrometer at JPL? If so, I'll pay another $300 towards your expenses of writing a paper. Have it peer reviewed, and published in a journal of your choice (either open or subscription). A magnet will enable you to extract iron microspheres. Simply tell us what your equipment finds the red/grey chips to be. I realize that studies incur many more expenses, and hopefully others will join me in this research grant.
 
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Sword_Of_Truth said:
That's not a peer reviewer, that's called a "co-author".
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Griscom's credentials establish him as qualified to review the Active Thermitic paper. He has reviewed perhaps as many as 1000 papers. His review for the Active Thermitic paper might be considered abnormally long and detailed - which is a good thing.

"Typically referees are not selected from among the authors' close colleagues, students, or friends. (and they were none of these) Referees are supposed to inform the editor of any conflict of interests that might arise. Journals or individual editors often invite a manuscript's authors to name people whom they consider qualified to referee their work. Indeed, for a number of journals this is a requirement of submission. Authors are sometimes also invited to name natural candidates who should be disqualified, in which case they may be asked to provide justification (typically expressed in terms of conflict of interest). In some disciplines, scholars listed in an "acknowledgments" section are not allowed to serve as referees (hence the occasional practice of using this section to disqualify potentially negative reviewers[citation needed])." And in some disciplines they are allowed to serve as referees. wiki link


Also, this study might be of interest to debunkers (and people not familiar with "referees" or the whole paper review process:

Differences in Review Quality and Recommendations for Publication Between Peer Reviewers Suggested by Authors or by Editors
"Results : There were 788 reviews for 329 manuscripts. Review quality (mean difference in Review Quality Instrument score, −0.05; P=.27) did not differ significantly between author- and editor-suggested reviewers. The author suggested reviewers were more likely to recommend acceptance (odds ratio, 1.64; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-2.66) or revise (odds ratio, 2.66; 95% confidence interval, 1.43-4.97). This difference was larger in the open reviews of BMJ than among the blinded reviews of other journals for acceptance (P=.02). Where author-and editor-suggested reviewers differed in their recommendations, the final editorial decision to acceptor reject a study was evenly balanced (50.9% of decisions consistent with the preferences of the author-suggested reviewers). Conclusions Author-and editor-suggested reviewers did not differ in the quality of their reviews, but author-suggested reviewers tended to make more favorable recommendations for publication. Editors can be confident that reviewers suggested by authors will complete adequate reviews of manuscripts, but should be cautious about relying on their recommendations for publication. -Link

Effect of open peer review on quality of reviews and on reviewers' recommendations: a randomised trial
Conclusions: Asking reviewers to consent to being identified to the author had no important effect on the quality of the review, the recommendation regarding publication, or the time taken to review, but it significantly increased the likelihood of reviewers declining to review. -Link

The Fed's View of Peer Review:
In general, an agency conducting a peer review of a highly influential scientific assessment must ensure that the peer review process is transparent by making available to the public the written charge to the peer reviewers, the peer reviewers’ names, the peer reviewers’ report(s), and the agency’s response to the peer reviewers’ report(s). ... This Bulletin requires agencies to adopt or adapt the committee selection policies[3] employed by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS). -The National Academies.


"It doesn't matter if it is blind, double blind, or open peer review, the SCIENCE still stands!

"What do you say to those who will say your association with Griscom means the peer-review process is tainted by the appearance of a conflict of interest?" I understand you and the other authors would not have been privy to TOCPJ's process for selecting reviewers; was Griscom one of those recommended to TOCPJ as being qualified to review the Active Thermitic paper? (If yes, what difference do you think it makes?)"

What conflict of interest? What political statement does the paper make or is it an expose of science? Did Griscom get funding from the paper?

The two studies I linked to and the Federal Governments own position on peer review PROVE that the association between an author and a reviewer is meaningless and does not taint the review when it comes to the science."¹
 
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cicorp said:
Thanks for pointing out the study by Dr. Lioy et al.:
Characterization of the dust/smoke aerosol that settled east of the World Trade Center (WTC) in lower Manhattan after the collapse of the WTC September 11, 2001. Environmental Health Perspectives, 110: 703-714, 2002.

Fortunately his paper is Open Access and can be read on the web.
http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1289/ehp.02110703

Dr. Loy, of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute of New Jersey, warned of toxic materials in the WTC dust, and "these results support the need to have the interior of residences, buildings, and their respective HVAC systems professionally cleaned to reduce long-term residential risks before rehabitation."

Too bad that their study was not more widely publicized, to protect the health and lives of people who were told it was safe to work near Ground Zero. Lioy et al used techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, finding "volatile organic compounds" and other interesting components. I am a computer scientist, not a chemist, and will try try to email this study to someone like Dr. Jones or Harrit for comment. You may wish to do the same.

>Dr. Jones promised to make them available, but he has not done so
As you know, that would not be proper Chain Of Custody for the dust samples. They should come directly from the finders to you. If you would be interested in getting some, since you are a well established scientist, I'll grant $200 towards shipping, notary, and other expenses. Do you have access to a spectrometer at JPL? If so, I'll pay another $300 towards your expenses of writing a paper. Have it peer reviewed, and published in a journal of your choice (either open or subscription). A magnet will enable you to extract iron microspheres. Tell us what you find the red/grey chips to be. I realize that studies incur many more expenses, and hopefully others will join me in this research grant.
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Wow. I've just read that paper. They sure did do a thorough analysis which included many techniques.

No thermite though. Funny that. But they did find paint particles in all of their samples. How weird; paint but no thermite, who'da thunk it.
 
cicorp said:
The equipment used to study the WTC dust is objective. It gives the same results regardless of the opinions of the person running the equipment, such as what chemicals are present, and in what proportions.
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And those results demonstrate that the material is not thermite. This is obvious to anyone with scientific training and objectivity who actually looks at the results and checks them. Harrit's conclusions contradict his data, rather than being drawn from it.

Dave
 
Patriots4Truth said:
ug. I promised myself that I wouldn't reply to this sort of nonsense.
Here's just one link that oughta tide you over (but most likely won't for whatever cockamamie reason you might come up with): A peer-reviewer of the "Active Thermitic Materials" paper identifies himself
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I've just started reading the ".peer review"


By these means they determined the red material to contain (1) faceted grains consistently 100 nm (0.1 micrometer) in size which are largely ferric-iron oxide, (2) metallic aluminum in the form of platelets approximately 40 nm thick and about 1 micrometer broad, and (3) a binder matrix consisting of silicon dioxide and some sort of organic material.
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And it's wrong!! It doesn't even tally with the paper!

Page 15.

The consistently rhombic-shaped, faceted appearance of
the iron-rich grains strongly suggests that they are crystalline.
From these data, it is determined that the red/gray chips
from different WTC dust samples are extremely similar in
their chemical and structural makeup. It is also shown that
within the red layer there is an intimate mixing of the Fe-rich
grains and Al/Si plate-like particles and that these particles
are embedded in a carbon-rich matrix.
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So he gets #1 correct but says mainly when it's clear that it's all because of the morphology.

#2 he gets wrong because he claims metallic aluminium which suggest aluminium only and no silicon.

#3 he gets wrong because he claims the binder is SiO2 AND some sort of organic material. Well SiO2 is sand/silica/quartz (SiO4 structure). We would expect to see a 4th particle which by definition is not part of the binder, but we don't!! It's not in the paper.

Some reviewer. I expect as I read further more mistakes will cometo light.
 
Sunstealer said:
Wow. I've just read that paper. They sure did do a thorough analysis which included many techniques.

No thermite though. Funny that. But they did find paint particles in all of their samples. How weird; paint but no thermite, who'da thunk it.
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Of course the paper doesn't once mention XthermXte or explosive materials (or motivation to seek them out).

"The scientists did not broach the issue of whether the dust showed evidence of explosive residues. Their report does not appear to have sufficient detail to use it as a basis for drawing any conclusions about the question of explosives. All their disclosures of the dust composition are partial, addressing questions about the levels of heavy metals and toxic hydrocarbons, but failing to provide even complete compositional analysis of elements. " -link

No complete analysis of elements. Failure to look for explosives. What a "thorough" paper this is. But then again very few people thought to look for explosive materials back in 2002 (and 2001 for that matter).
 
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Patriots4Truth said:
The paper has been undisputed - perhaps because the conclusions are correct. If you strongly disagree with the science in the paper then write a rebuttal or get an e-mail exchange going with one of the several writers. Maybe they can help address your "no it didn't" concerns.
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Since the journal doesn't exist any more, there's no point replying to the journal; in any case, as Ryan Mackey found out, they charge for printing rebuttals. I see no point in e-mailing the writers, since they're too incompetent even to understand the law of conservation of energy. Since there's no danger of anybody competent ever taking this paper seriously, and it's no longer available anyway, there's nothing left to dispute. But, no, the paper is not undisputed, because the conclusions are not just incorrect, but absurd. It's just not significant enough to trouble a real journal with.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
Since the journal doesn't exist any more, there's no point replying to the journal; in any case, as Ryan Mackey found out, they charge for printing rebuttals. I see no point in e-mailing the writers, since they're too incompetent even to understand the law of conservation of energy. Since there's no danger of anybody competent ever taking this paper seriously, and it's no longer available anyway, there's nothing left to dispute. But, no, the paper is not undisputed, because the conclusions are not just incorrect, but absurd. It's just not significant enough to trouble a real journal with.

Dave
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fee based open access journals are fairly common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access_journal#Fee-based_open_access_journals
 
Wow it gets even better.

2Al + Fe2O3 --> Al2O3 + 2Fe (molten iron), ΔH = - 853.5 kJ/mole......

The energy release (ΔH =-853.5 kJ/mole) is about the same as that for burning pure carbon in pure oxygen. But the big difference is that in the case of thermite, no gaseous oxygen at all is required for the thermite reaction. Thermite can burn and release this amount of energy in a vacuum, under water ...or even buried deeply in non-inflammable dust. All it needs is a heat source to ignite it.
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So why did he not spot that performing the DSC in air is going to give a spurious result? Remember this

(3) a binder matrix consisting of silicon dioxide and some sort of organic material.
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What is an organic material mostly made of? Yep Carbon.

So he says that the thermite reaction gives out roughly the same energy as pure carbon burning in air, but has not spotted the error of performing the DSC in an oxygen environment when he himself has already said that the binder material is organic and contains Carbon and puts out similar energy!

Priceless!! In fact it's unbelievable that someone who should know this stuff misses it.
 
Patriots4Truth said:
Of course the paper doesn't once mention XthermXte or explosives.

"The scientists did not broach the issue of whether the dust showed evidence of explosive residues. Their report does not appear to have sufficient detail to use it as a basis for drawing any conclusions about the question of explosives. All their disclosures of the dust composition are partial, addressing questions about the levels of heavy metals and toxic hydrocarbons, but failing to provide even complete compositional analysis of elements. "

No complete analysis of elements. Failure to look for explosives. What a "thorough" paper this is. But then again very few people thought to look for explosive materials back in 2002 (and 2001 for that matter).
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Why do you want to analyse for elements when what you are looking for are compounds? Elemental analysis on a dust sample is completely pointless. It will determine nothing of any worth whatsoever.

They didn't specifically look for explosives, but their methodology would have found those explosive compounds regardless because of the analysis techniques and methods used. They got dust, put it in a machine, which gave determinate results, none of which were explosives. No explosives were present QED.
 
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Patriots4Truth said:
Of course the paper doesn't once mention XthermXte or explosive materials (or motivation to seek them out).
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No explosive seismic signatures were detected on 9/11.

it's physically impossible for explosives to have played a role in the buildings collapses.
 
Patriots4Truth said:
Of ... then again very few people thought to look for explosive materials back in 2002 (and 2001 for that matter).
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The FBI did. Darn, you make up lies as you go. Why do you make it up as you go? You sure are knowledge free on all 911 issues, why is that?

There were zero deaths due to blasts, why is that?

No burns due to thermite.

There were zero blast effects on the steel; why is that?

No fused iron on steel from thermite.

There were zero sound from explosives; why is that?

No piles of thermite products.

There was zero evidence of explosives on 911; why is that?

No evidence of thermite, save in the minds of 911 truth based on delusions and lies.

JetFuelandWoodBeatThermite.jpg

What if they found chocolate chip cookies, they would be claiming some new super explosive was found, or butter, gee whiz these Jones and his morons of CTers have no clue what happen on 911. Look up energy! Get to a physics teacher, take physics for presidents, hurry!
JonesHarritDelusion.jpg

Which one is Thermite? Hint:Al/Fe2O3... Why do the chips they tested no match the energy of Thermite? They are no thermite! BINGO

This is from data in the paper proves the samples were not thermite. Got chemistry?
 
Patriots4Truth said:
hint: cutter charges

(and now it's late and I'm going to bed)
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No explosive seismic signatures were detected on 9/11.

It's physically impossible for explosives to have played a role in the buildings collapses.

(Hint: a cutter charge is a shaped charge that is designed to rend structural members with as little energy expenditure as possible. Since structural members are connected to the pilings that run into the buildings foundation, cutter charges are also the most efficient means of generating seismic signatures with minimal amounts of explosives.)
 
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