Gage's next debate

[chrismohr]

Hi gang,

I have some path of least resistance rebuttal material below which two Truth people are challenging. Does my explanation hold water or can this be explained better?

Thanks
Chris

184 SLIDE ROYAL GORGE: Richard Gage talked about following the path of greatest resistance downward, but an object can't just move itself into the path of least resistance. Here is a river in Colorado that carved itself through a gradually uplifting mountainous area, plowing itself through a path of most resistance, when just a few miles away the river could have followed a path of much less resistance over a flat surface. Gravity tends to pull things straight down, even through resistance.

Chris, another thing you probably do not understand is that water does not "push down" to create the Royal Gorge (as you asserted in your powerpoint in the debate). Instead the gorges are created by water which follows the path of least resistance over thousands of years and slowly wears away the rock and soil to create the gorge.


Fran is right. Your gorge comparison was in no way helpful or useful. The path of least resistance for a water flowing through earth is often NOT straight down, but diagonal. That is part of why rivers do not flow in a straight line, they deviate sideways as they follow the path of least resistance, as they slowly cut through the earth. Likewise, a building that was collapsing for ANY natural reason will NEVER fall straight down, unless very skilled engineers go to great lengths to design the straight down collapse using PRECISELY timed explosives. Any significant deviation/mistake in their calculations of timing or quantity of explosives can cause the building to fall more sideways, potentially doing disastrous damage to adjoining buildings. For a building to fall straight down, into what was, just milliseconds before, the path of greatest resistance, is the opposite of natural. It is VERY UNNATURAL.

That you find this so hard to grasp shows that you do not grasp the basics of how the material world operates. As such, you can be fooled by NIST's pseudo-science, since you don't notice the glaring "errors" (more likely very deliberate and intentional fraud) in their cover-up.

I also said this:


#185.) Rebuts: REASON # EARTHQUAKE in the absence of any lateral forces acting on the falling mass, gravity will cause the mass to collapse straight down.


Slide 186 REASON # What Richard is saying is that the tops of the Twin Towers should have floated to the side and into midair and then drop over here just because it would be the path of least resistance. Box example, now separated.

Funny, I use boxes in my demonstration and Richard seems to have stopped doing that!

Chris

 

[NoahFence]

I think truthers spend too much time trying to explain why it shouldn't have looked the way it did, and zero time trying to explain how they feel it should have looked.

Regardless, the amount of resistance a single floor would have given the top 30 or so floors above it would be minimal, one would think. There wasn't 80 floors trying to hold up the top 30 - it was one. Then the one below had to hold up 31 floors, and so on. Richard Gage and those people are too narrow minded to allow reality to slip into their train of thought. Not one truther has come up with a more plausible scenario.

It's fascinating to see them try to explain how something that's never happened before should result in something commonly seen.

 

[Steve Oliver]

Gorge Analogy

Hi Chris

Personally speaking as a layman not a scientist I don't like your use of water as an analogy from a presentational view. To the minds of many the science of geology/hydrology and building collapse are too distanced for it to work.

I understand where you are coming from but when I heard you use it in your debate with RG I felt it was weak and could be seen as sidestepping the issue.

You're far better off sticking with emphasing the power of gravity. Listening to your debate I thought you came across very strongly when you talked about the power of gravity to overcome the path of most resistance in the context of a collapsing building. Combine that with your excellent arguments concerning lateral force and earthquakes and you're on stronger ground. IMHO you should dump the water analogy completely.

I love this line you use:

What Richard is saying is that the tops of the Twin Towers should have floated to the side and into midair and then drop over here just because it would be the path of least resistance. Box example, now separated.

If it is OK with you I'm going to use that on Richard when I go to his presentation next week in London.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Oystein]

Hi gang,

I have some path of least resistance rebuttal material below which two Truth people are challenging. Does my explanation hold water or can this be explained better?

Thanks
Chris

184 SLIDE ROYAL GORGE: Richard Gage talked about following the path of greatest resistance downward, but an object can't just move itself into the path of least resistance. ...

Hey Chris,

I would not put it this way. This sounds like you are agreeing with Richard's claim that the building did indeed fall through "the path of greatest resistance".

It did, by and large, not.

The greatest resistance is offered by braced columns. Resistance is greatly diminished when columns become unbraced, and/or buckle.
Most of the falling material bypassed the columns alltogether: Some fell outside of the building footprint (for example, large sheets of perimeter wall), a great lot fell on floors that were not designed to carry such loads / offer nearly as much resistance as the columns.
In fact, we have direct proof that at least the North Tower did not fall through "the path of greatest resistance": That path would be the core, but we have video of a large part of the core still standing several seconds after all the rest had collapsed.

Other than that, of course large masses fall straught down, unless a very great force pushes / accelerates them sideways. In a building collapse, such lateral push can ONLY come from structural resistance! So the fact that the building fell straight down instead of sideways is part of the proof that it did NOT fall through much resistance!

 

[ozeco41]

...184 SLIDE ROYAL GORGE: Richard Gage talked about following the path of greatest resistance downward, but an object can't just move itself into the path of least resistance....

(NOTE: I wrote this some hours ago then delayed posting whilst I had dinner - in the interim I see that Oystein has commented on the same point. So be it. Here is mine for what it is worth.)

...again I acknowledge your willingness to engage truthers on their own ground.

HOWEVER.

Don't lose sight of the simple fact that the Twin Towers collapses went down the path of least resistance. The open office space [often abbreviated to "OOS"] was the vulnerability of the Towers and the path of least resistance.

All too often the truther claim is made based on the premise of "path of greatest resistance". AND that false premise is accepted....

The "truth movement" (yes I know there is no such entity) specialises in creating false memes. "Path of most resistance" is one, "Free fall == Demolition" is another. Both are lies but the truth movement takes them as if they were accepted fact. And "debunkers", all to often IMNSHO, "we" allow them to get away with that false foundation.

I would not give time of day to anyone who approached me with lies based on foundation lies such as these.

You are in a different position having undertaken to treat Gage et al as if they were reasonable and honest people. I comprehend your reasons for doing so. But what do you then argue when you are faced with one of their claims that is based on one of what are well established untrue memes?? Your call - I would not place myself in that position.

 

[Oystein]

(NOTE: I wrote this some hours ago then delayed posting whilst I had dinner - in the interim I see that Oystein has commented on the same point. So be it. Here is mine for what it is worth.)
...

Hehe I had breakfast in front of my computer and did not interrupt writing my post for it, so I beat ya

 

[ozeco41]

Hehe I had breakfast in front of my computer and did not interrupt writing my post for it, so I beat ya

...In fact, we have direct proof that at least the North Tower did not fall through "the path of greatest resistance": That path would be the core, but we have video of a large part of the core still standing several seconds after all the rest had collapsed...

Even that is not strictly true. The core, if engaged with it's full load bearing capacity, would be a candidate for "path of greatest resistance".

BUT it wasn't engaged that way. My explanation is that the core cross beams were sheared off as the main mechanism of core collapse. The overall collapse found the "weakest link".

The base problem is that the concept of "path of greatest/least resistance" is an emotive model which has very little real meaning the the world of 9/11 collapses. It is better avoided altogether - which is what I was trying to say to Chris. BUT given that he probably needs to keep addressing truthers (esp Gage) on their(his) own ground he is almost committed to using that devious bit of misrepresentation of a foundation.

Fortunately, as chrismohr has shown through this exercise, there is so much more "truth' on the debunker/official/rational/honest side of this debate that a lot of truther side dishonesty can be absorbed and "our side" still comes out in front.

 

[Jono]

I love this line you use:

Yes it condensed the idiocy very well.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Chris,

The problem here is that you're letting the truthers choose the battleground. And it's a false battleground, because they're equivocating vertical resistance with overall resistance, and in effect pretending that there is nothing preventing the falling block moving sideways. In fact, there is a very real and very large resistance to lateral movement: simple conservation of momentum.

There is, in fact, no physical law that says that falling objects take the path of least vertical resistance. It's something truthers have made up. It's true to say that a flowing liquid will take the path of least vertical resistance, because hydrodynamics allow it to flow away from paths of higher resistance, but solid objects don't flow in the same way as liquids. As long as they remain solid, they move according to the forces exerted on them, and if there's no force to produce a movement in a particular direction, there will be no movement in that direction.

To take an example that anyone can understand:

Drop a brick on top of an egg. The egg will present some resistance to the fall of the brick. The path of least vertical resistance, therefore, is for the brick to move sideways, so as to miss the egg. In reality, though, as anyone will realise, the brick simply falls on the egg and smashes it. There's no sideways force available to move the brick away from the egg, so it doesn't move away from it. Put another way, the brick's own mass gives it a resistance to lateral movement that's greater than the resistance of the egg to vertical movement.

Going back to the Twin Towers, look at the forces on the top blocks. There was a very large downward force due to gravity, which dominated their behaviour. There was a smaller force, directly upwards, due to structural resistance. Neither of these forces had any component acting sideways, so neither of them moved the falling block sideways. The only forces that could move the falling blocks sideways were bending forces in the structure, which could only be transmitted while the structure was intact, and glancing impacts, which truthers won't even admit exist. So how could the top blocks, weighing tens of thousands of tons, be moved sideways, when truthers claim there wasn't any force that could move even a couple of hundred tons sideways?

So, just cast aside the "path of least resistance" argument, rather than trying to respond to it. It's a cleverly worded piece of deception that truthers use to confuse the issue. It's got nothing to do with reality.

Dave

 

[Oystein]

Chris,

The problem here is that you're letting the truthers choose the battleground. And it's a false battleground, because they're equivocating vertical resistance with overall resistance, and in effect pretending that there is nothing preventing the falling block moving sideways. In fact, there is a very real and very large resistance to lateral movement: simple conservation of momentum.

There is, in fact, no physical law that says that falling objects take the path of least vertical resistance. It's something truthers have made up. It's true to say that a flowing liquid will take the path of least vertical resistance, because hydrodynamics allow it to flow away from paths of higher resistance, but solid objects don't flow in the same way as liquids. As long as they remain solid, they move according to the forces exerted on them, and if there's no force to produce a movement in a particular direction, there will be no movement in that direction.

To take an example that anyone can understand:

Drop a brick on top of an egg. The egg will present some resistance to the fall of the brick. The path of least vertical resistance, therefore, is for the brick to move sideways, so as to miss the egg. In reality, though, as anyone will realise, the brick simply falls on the egg and smashes it. There's no sideways force available to move the brick away from the egg, so it doesn't move away from it. Put another way, the brick's own mass gives it a resistance to lateral movement that's greater than the resistance of the egg to vertical movement.

Going back to the Twin Towers, look at the forces on the top blocks. There was a very large downward force due to gravity, which dominated their behaviour. There was a smaller force, directly upwards, due to structural resistance. Neither of these forces had any component acting sideways, so neither of them moved the falling block sideways. The only forces that could move the falling blocks sideways were bending forces in the structure, which could only be transmitted while the structure was intact, and glancing impacts, which truthers won't even admit exist. So how could the top blocks, weighing tens of thousands of tons, be moved sideways, when truthers claim there wasn't any force that could move even a couple of hundred tons sideways?
So, just cast aside the "path of least resistance" argument, rather than trying to respond to it. It's a cleverly worded piece of deception that truthers use to confuse the issue. It's got nothing to do with reality.

Dave

I highlighted a keen observation, where Gage contradicts himself. Yes, claiming at the same time that parts of the assembly experiencing lateral forces is proof for explosives, and that the entire assembly not experiencing lateral forces is also proof for explosives is indeed quite an excercise in mental gymnastics. Gage is a Zen meister.

 

[Edx]

So how could the top blocks, weighing tens of thousands of tons, be moved sideways, when truthers claim there wasn't any force that could move even a couple of hundred tons sideways?

Did you mean to write downwards?

 

[Oystein]

Did you mean to write downwards?

I think Dave is referring to Gage's repeated claim that large pieces of steel were hurled hundreds of feet and slammed into the Wintergarden or what was it, suggesting that this would not be possible in a non-aided collapse.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Did you mean to write downwards?

No, I meant sideways. The truthers claim that, because column trees were thrown hundreds of feet sideways, there must have been explosives, because there was no other force in the collapse that could project objects weighing hundreds of tons through hundreds of feet. At the same time, they claim that the collapses were unnatural because the tops of the towers, weighing tens of thousands of tons, were not thrown hundreds of feet sideways - specifically, at least two hundred feet, as would be required for them to fall off the lower blocks. So they're saying that only explosives can move a couple of hundred tons sideways by a couple of hundred feet, but a natural collapse can move a few tens of thousands of tons sideways by a couple of hundred feet.

Dave

ETA: Yes, Oystein, that's exactly what I mean. As with all the other claims, though, Gage just copied it from earlier truthers.

 

[chrismohr]

Here's a part of the quote from my "least resistance" post no one has commented on yet. The guy who repeatedly accuses me of incompetence has training as an engineer and lets me know it:

"That you find this so hard to grasp shows that you do not grasp the basics of how the material world operates. As such, you can be fooled by NIST's pseudo-science, since you don't notice the glaring "errors" (more likely very deliberate and intentional fraud) in their cover-up."

Now, I haven't talked about the qualifications of David Ray Griffin or others since I myself am not a scientist. I think the one thing real scientists have that I don't have is an aptitude for detail. Beyond that, does anyone think I'm completely unqualified to even talk about this stuff?

BTW I may or may not drop the Royal Gorge slide. I'm thinking of first showing the box moving over to the side live and saying no lateral force no sideways movement. Then rebuttung "least resistance" argument as shown above. THEN saying OK, objects take the path of least AVAILABLE resistance. The open air is not available to an object being pulled straight down by gravity into the lower part of a building, any more than thios river had the option of jumping over the mountain and flowing through a flat path of lesser resistance just a few miles away. I just like varying imagery as a speaker, and there's still a point to be made here I think.

Yes I am answering everything according to the 911 Truth terms. That is the point of this exercise. That's why it'll be over three hours of YouTube videos in 18 parts. If I ignore the "path of greatest resistance" argument or any other one Richard Gage proposes, Truth activists will continue to believe it's true.

Thanks to all of you, the final result will be easily twice as good as the debate was in terms of solid scientific answers. It will be better than the debate in many ways. Coming soon to a YouTube near you...

 

[R.Mackey]

You don't need any particular qualification to participate in science. What matters is that your claims are testable, repeatable, and verifiable.

Based on the commentary, I rather doubt that your opponent knows much about science.

Anyway, if you want to spend more time on the "path of least resistance," we had a thread about that years ago (much like everything else). I put a more scientific explanation in there in case you were looking for one.

There is no way to shut Truthers up, but if there were, the best way would be to ask what they think should have happened if falling roughly straight down doesn't meet their expectations. If you think about it, there really isn't much other choice, is there?

 

[chrismohr]

Hi Chris

Personally speaking as a layman not a scientist I don't like your use of water as an analogy from a presentational view. To the minds of many the science of geology/hydrology and building collapse are too distanced for it to work.

I understand where you are coming from but when I heard you use it in your debate with RG I felt it was weak and could be seen as sidestepping the issue.

You're far better off sticking with emphasing the power of gravity. Listening to your debate I thought you came across very strongly when you talked about the power of gravity to overcome the path of most resistance in the context of a collapsing building. Combine that with your excellent arguments concerning lateral force and earthquakes and you're on stronger ground. IMHO you should dump the water analogy completely.

I love this line you use:



If it is OK with you I'm going to use that on Richard when I go to his presentation next week in London.

Cheers

Steve

Of course you can use it!

 

[chrismohr]

OK gang,

Here is the revision of the section with the "path of least resistance" clarified. Thanks Ryan and all for your explanations.

Chris Mohr

Symmetrical destruction / path of least resistance

Face, continued: Richard Gage also asserts that Building 7 had a nearly symmetrical collapse. What he can say truthfully is "the collapse of the upper half of north face looks pretty clean".
Slide #183: But that face twisted towards the end, rotated southwards, and the north face developed a visible kink off-centre as the column failures progressed outwards from the initial point of failure, so there's no symmetry in any horizontal direction.

Controlled demolitions don't always produce symmetrical collapses;
184. PLAY SLIDE VIDEO DELFT COLLAPSE if there are structures close to one side of the building, they make the building fall the other way. Gage asserts that a natural fire collapse would topple like buildings in an earthquake, which is not true. The Delft University tower collapse of 2008 was natural and it went almost straight down, because gravity is a natural force that tends to pull things straight down unless a lateral force pushes it sideways. Here is the video of the Delft collapse again to remind you that a natural collapse can and does fall mostly straight down because of gravity, and that there is now a history of tall steel frame buildings collapsing.

Face: Richard Gage talked about the buildings following what was the path of greatest resistance downward. Richard claims that all objects follow the path of least resistance, but that path is limited by which paths are actually available. An object can't just move itself sideways just because there is lower resistance there. What Richard is saying is that the tops of the Twin Towers should have floated to the side and into midair and then drop over here just because it would be the path of least resistance. Box example, now separated.. With the Twin Towers, that lateral force would have had to be great enough to move 180,000,000 pounds hundreds of feet to the side, and even a jet crashing into the building didn’t have THAT kind of force.

Slide 185. This Colorado river carved itself through a gradually uplifting mountain, over millions of years plowing itself through a “path of least resistance” down the middle of a growing mountain; a few miles away the river could have followed a path of much less resistance over a flat surface. But that path was simply not available to it.

This liquid river will take the path of least vertical resistance, but to be more precise, solid objects move according to the forces exerted on them, and if there's no force to produce a movement in a particular direction, there will be no movement in that direction.

Slide 186 If a brick falls on an egg, will it move to the side because that’s the path of least resistance? The brick's own mass gives it a resistance to lateral movement that's greater than the resistance of the egg to vertical movement.

Gravity tends to pull things straight down, even through resistance. In order for anything to fall sideways, the structure has to generate a large enough lateral force. It’s a simple example of conservation of momentum. An inclined plane, if it does not collapse, can do this. But the World Trade Center force gradient was one direction : Straight down. That is the "path of least resistance," to a gross order.

Slide 187.) Objects flying to path of least resistance Zooming in a bit, we can see that the buildings did in fact fall through the path of least resistance available to them. In the Twin Towers, the greatest resistance was offered by braced columns. Most of the falling material bypassed the columns:

188 Slide of core collapsing last Large sheets of perimeter wall and aluminum cladding were pushed outward and hit Building 7; objects also fell downward onto the vast open office spaces themselves. The North Tower did not fall as quickly through "the path of greatest resistance": the core. A large part of the core still stood several seconds after all the rest had collapsed. That’s because the core had more strength, and when possible falling objects deflected away from it and into the open office space. The overall collapse found the "weakest link".

Slide 189 What does Richard think should have happened if falling roughly straight down doesn't meet his expectations? If you think about it, there really isn't much other choice, is there?


Slide 190 REASON #
Thomas Eagar: "The building is 95% air and can implode onto itself. A 200,000 ton structure has too much inertia to fall in any direction other than nearly straight down."

REASON # as Michael Brown states: "The buildings did not fall down perfectly straight. Their collapses were tilted toward the weakened collapse points."


#191.) SLIDE OF BUILDING TILTING TOWARDS EAST PENTHOUSE If it were ctl demo it wouldn't tilt 6 degrees like this prior to its collapse. This is a photo of a building undergoing progressive structural decay due to fire.

#192) SLIDE OF THESE REASONS
There was no visible or auditory sign of explosion directly triggering collapse. No explosive squibs flew out. Bldg 7 was a Squat building, wider than it was high, even less likely that asymmetyrical destruction would happen cuz even greater lateral forces required.
#193.) One of the perimeter walls folded whole on top of everything else.
#194.) Slide damage
WTC 7 didn't fall in its own footprint, there was extensive damage to Fiterman Hall and $1.4 billion in damage to the Verizon building. If classic controlled demo, then would fall more neatly in own footprint. debris flew 16 acres around; the Verizon Building had $1.4 billion in damage. Does Richard have any other examples of successful "controlled demolitions" that were this sloppy?

#195.) Slide Debris Pile Richard talks about the convenient sizes of the broken column pieces, which by the way were similar to the size of original pieces prior to assembly, but has he ever talked to a first responder who said there was anything convenient about the removal of the WTC rubble? I have, and 9/11 firefighter Vincent Palmieri emailed me this picture and personally told me that "Richard Gage has claimed in his presentations that the steel columns were conveniently broken into 30-foot pieces by the thermitic destruction for easy and quick removal. As a first responder, I can assure you that there was nothing convenient about the debris pile we encountered in the fall of 2001. Such a claim is absolutely inaccurate."

#196 Reasons.) The Controlled Demolition advocates have told me that the nanothermitic explosions would not have gone off until triggered by a radio signal, even at very high temperatures. The original 2001 Tillotson study found that real nanothermite ignites at 985°F; Niels Harrit's 2009 Trade Center dust sample, which Harritt, Gage and others claim is also nanothermite, ignited even earlier, around 825°F. So AE9/11's own science source proves that Nanothermite or thermate could never survive even moderate office fires. That’s why Even former controlled demolition employee and 9/11 activist Tom Sulliavan says this would be impossible. And what kind of RADIO RECEIVER would survive the raging fires at the crash points and receive the signal to trigger the collapse at precisely the right time?

There are some differences among the collapses of the three buildings. They didn't collapse straight into their own footprint. In Tower 2, the jet hit the building at more of an angle and caused this building to fall in a somewhat asymmetrical way, where the top tilted a bit and then followed the rest of the building's path to complete collapse. Fires got hot enough to cause the steel to lose its structural strength. There are many websites that talk about this; type in "fracture and deformation of materials" in your favorite search engine. The horizontal steel beams expanded, then bowed downward because of resistance of the permiter walls and the massive gravitational forces that were pulling them downward in the middle. The steel beams, bowing downward as the heat softened the steel, pulled the buildings inward as they collapsed. In Building Seven, smoke was pouring out of most of the side of the building facing the now-destroyed WTC Towers.

Face: There was resistance to vertical fire spread, but the fireproofing may have been compromised in the southwest corner from the debris damage, and NIST says the building was eventually no match for the flames that raged out of control for several hours after the firefighters were unable to pour any more water on it. Near the end of the seven hours of burning, NIST says the fires probably jumped from floor to floor.

In part 15 of our respectful 9/11 rebuttal, we’ll look at the compelling eyewitness accounts around building 7 and evidence of foreknowledge of the building’s destruction. Thank you for watching.
SLIDE 197 end credits

 

[ozeco41]

.... debris flew 16 acres around; the Verizon Building had $1.4 billion in damage. Does Richard have any other examples of successful "controlled demolitions" that were this sloppy?

A minor point - possibly already considered and discarded - if there was demolition assistance on 9/11 it could be "dirty" with no regard for collateral damage to adjoining buildings. Even though we - both sides - use the term "Controlled Demolition" or CD in the setting of9/11 there would be no need to meet the normal CD criterion of no adjacent property damage.

Otherwise - looks good to me.

 

[chrismohr]

A minor point - possibly already considered and discarded - if there was demolition assistance on 9/11 it could be "dirty" with no regard for collateral damage to adjoining buildings. Even though we - both sides - use the term "Controlled Demolition" or CD in the setting of9/11 there would be no need to meet the normal CD criterion of no adjacent property damage.

Otherwise - looks good to me.

Thanks... I know this. Richard says the destruction of these buildings has all the hallmarks of of a classic controlled demolition, except when it does not. That's kind of an undercurrent throughout my rebuttal, so I keep going back to classic controlled demo so Richard et al will have to say "here is yet another example of where it is NOT like a classic CD." Eventually it may dawn on people that this really isn't much like a CD at all.

 

[BasqueArch]

OK gang,

Here is the revision of the section with the "path of least resistance" clarified. Thanks Ryan and all for your explanations.

Chris Mohr

Symmetrical destruction / path of least resistance

.....

For WTC1,2 “ Destruction proceeds through the path of greatest resistance ..." - Gage
For WTC7 ‘Symmetrical "structural failure" – through the path of greatest resistance ...’ - Gage

The “path of greatest resistance” for WTC1,2,7 is a collapse where all the columns above strike all the columns below both axially and simultaneously. This did not occur in WTC1,2 where the top sections tilted before the remaining structure progressively collapsed.

This did not occur in WTC7 where the columns supporting the penthouse failed many seconds before the exterior columns.

The failures did not proceed “through the path of greatest resistance” and Gage’s claims are falsified.