WTC Dust Study Feb 29, 2012 by Dr. James Millette

[thedopefishlives]

It really is this simple but, iirc, MM addressed this before by supposing they 'must have' performed other tests to isolate the thermitic chips from seemingly identical others.

OK, this contradicts the Bentham paper, but I doubt MM cares. And, btw MM, the resistivity tests were not part of the selection process for the chips.

Contradicts the Bentham paper and, iirc, Dr. Harrit's later statements on the matter as well. Several times in this thread alone, it has been pointed out that Dr. Harrit specifically denied applying MM's vaunted resistivity test to each and every chip as a separation criterion.

 

[DGM]

At ~430C your claim is either proven TRUE or FALSE.

So easy for someone like Millette.

So hard to accept for game players like yourself.

MM

What claim are you talking about?

Are you saying Millettes chips did not chemically match the a-d chips?

How were they not identical? If you look in the two papers the data is there.

You claimed he (Millette) only looked for physical appearance, that's a lie and you know it.

ETA: Nice touch with the personal insult. A sure sign of desperation on your part.

 

[Africanus]

If there is an official definition, I could not find it beyond the Truther echo pages. If anyone can supply one, please let me know. Otherwise, MM is right, there should be no thermitic material in the dust, only because there is no such thing as thermitic material.

My definition:

thermitic = a substance that reacts like thermite

But if we use this definition, a new problem arises: Is a thermitic substance indeed thermite?

One further comment: Every time I read the Harrit paper, I find something to complain about. This time it is Fig. 30 which I consider to be misleading.

 

[LSSBB]

My definition:

thermitic = a substance that reacts like thermite

But if we use this definition, a new problem arises: Is a thermitic substance indeed thermite?

One further comment: Every time I read the Harrit paper, I find something to complain about. This time it is Fig. 30 which I consider to be misleading.

That's nice. How much like thermite? With which characteristics? Are "iron rich spheres" a defining characteristic? Is there a specific chemical composition? Are certain tests to react in certain ways with certain parameters?

ETA: operational characteristics also. Should the material be shown to be as effective as thermite? Operate under the same conditions?

 

[Africanus]

That's nice. How much like thermite? With which characteristics? Are "iron rich spheres" a defining characteristic? Is there a specific chemical composition? Are certain tests to react in certain ways with certain parameters?

ETA: operational characteristics also. Should the material be shown to be as effective as thermite? Operate under the same conditions?

That is the very problem: Is a thermitic substance really thermite? In my understanding it is only a substance that behaves like thermite.

To iron-rich spheres: They are not specific of thermite, especially in the case of the Bentham paper. The problem with this paper is that Harrit doesn't state if his iron-to-oxygen-ratios are based on atomic or mass ratios. If he relates to mass ratios, the microspheres are in good accordance to iron oxides.

 

[MarkLindeman]

A few little things while we wait to see what MM has to say....

Harrit's Bentham paper (and I have asked MM to prove otherwise) implies that every single chip with red/gray layers and extracted by a magnet is and will always be thermtic and should anyone extracting chips using the two criteria above should get the same results as stated in the paper for any of the tests.

The fact that Millette used the extraction criteria and got DIFFERENT results proves the paper's conclusion incorrect.

I agree. I do think that it is logically possible for the Bentham paper to have presented evidence of sabotage even if the methods discussion is FUBAR -- although I don't think it does that, either.

That is the very problem: Is a thermitic substance really thermite? In my understanding it is only a substance that behaves like thermite.

To iron-rich spheres: They are not specific of thermite, especially in the case of the Bentham paper. The problem with this paper is that Harrit doesn't state if his iron-to-oxygen-ratios are based on atomic or mass ratios. If he relates to mass ratios, the microspheres are in good accordance to iron oxides.

For what it's worth, the first part of this is why I didn't simply ask MM to define "thermitic material," although that's certainly a fair question. Regardless of the definition of the term, if the paper doesn't provide evidence for something that has "no legitimate reason" for being in the dust, we're done. And yes, it seems that we should have been done very soon after the paper appeared, not that I'm posing as an expert in forensic chemistry.

 

[LSSBB]

A few little things while we wait to see what MM has to say....



I agree. I do think that it is logically possible for the Bentham paper to have presented evidence of sabotage even if the methods discussion is FUBAR -- although I don't think it does that, either.



For what it's worth, the first part of this is why I didn't simply ask MM to define "thermitic material," although that's certainly a fair question. Regardless of the definition of the term, if the paper doesn't provide evidence for something that has "no legitimate reason" for being in the dust, we're done. And yes, it seems that we should have been done very soon after the paper appeared, not that I'm posing as an expert in forensic chemistry.

You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

The paper fails in neither adequately defining the problem nor in supporting it's conclusions with complete data and thorough analysis.

 

[pgimeno]

The chips that were found to be thermitic contained the same material and no thermitic material should have a legitimate reason for existing in any of the 9/11 WTC dust!

No, there wasn't. There was no thermitic material. No metallic oxide other than iron oxide was found in the residue, in particular no aluminium oxide. That suffices to establish that the material that burned was not thermitic.

Unless you can show that zero chips were thermitic, you have no point to make.

Zero chips burned during the DSC test were thermitic as per the above reason. But this discussion is off topic for a thread dedicated to Millette's study.

 

[chrismohr]

I would define thermitic as something that has thermite in it.

 

[Miragememories]

I would define thermitic as something that has thermite in it.

Thank you for the voice of sanity Chris.

MM

 

[MarkLindeman]

No, there wasn't. There was no thermitic material. No metallic oxide other than iron oxide was found in the residue, in particular no aluminium oxide. That suffices to establish that the material that burned was not thermitic.

Given MM's response, this seems to end the thread -- or, really, to moot the thread. Certainly MM isn't getting anywhere by continuing to excoriate Millette for following Harrit et al.'s isolation methods.

 

[Gamolon]

I would define thermitic as something that has thermite in it.

So according to you and MM, any substance that has aluminum and iron oxide in it, in addition to any other item, is thermitic?

 

[LSSBB]

Thank you for the voice of sanity Chris.

MM

So, how much thermite does it take to qualify as thermitic? A molecule? A preponderance? A smidgen?

 

[Gamolon]

Question.

Didn't Millette find aluminum and iron oxide in his samples? Yet MM says he had the wrong chips. Doesn't that make Milette's samples/chips thermitic by default?

 

[Gamolon]

I guess this means laterite is considered thermitic?

 

[Sunstealer]

So much rubbish being spouted, it's the reason I rarely post now. I'll repeat it:


The general thermite equation is this:

M + AO → MO + A, where M is a metal or alloy, A is a metal or non-metal, MO and AO are their corresponding oxides (leaving out change in enthalpy H)

This reaction is a redox reaction, that is one reactant is reduced and the other is oxidised.

There are many different thermites and many of them do not use Fe as the metal oxide in the reaction at all! e.g.

For Al then MxOY + Al --> M +Al2O3

So using copper as the metal oxide gives

3CuO + 2Al → 3Cu + Al2O3

No iron reduction in that thermite!

The term "thermitic" is nonsense.

 

[MarkLindeman]

The term "thermitic" is nonsense.

Worse, it's multi-sense. It's wildly equivocal. I doubt that this is accidental.

I found the phrase "thermitic material" in a patent apparently issued in 1969, and a handful of other sources, although the vast majority of references were to the Bentham paper and associated woo.

At any rate, it's up to MM at a bare minimum, not just to define "thermitic material" in such a way that he can assert that it was found in the WTC dust, but to explain his conclusion that whatever was found in the WTC dust had no "legitimate reason" to be there.

 

[chrismohr]

Writing as a journalist and not a scientist:
the suffix "-ic" simply means "pertaining to"
Dictionaries don't include every suffixed version of every word, but "thermitic" fits the pattern. It doesn't matter if the thermite has aluminum or copper or anything else in its formula.
I think this is a huge waste of time. And it doesn't relate to the Millette paper, because Jim Millette never challenged the term. He just used chemical analysis to prove that the red-grey WTC dust chips were not, er, thermitic.

 

[ozeco41]

Writing as a journalist and not a scientist:
the suffix "-ic" simply means "pertaining to"
Dictionaries don't include every suffixed version of every word, but "thermitic" fits the pattern. It doesn't matter if the thermite has aluminum or copper or anything else in its formula.

So "trollic" would mean....

...I think this is a huge waste of time. And it doesn't relate to the Millette paper, because Jim Millette never challenged the term. He just used chemical analysis to prove that the red-grey WTC dust chips were not, er, thermitic.

There is little to discuss on this forum (and less on most others)

If it gets to discussing the colour of the typing of the report used to describe the thermitic stuff (OK absence thereof) I suggest finding another hobby.

9/11 reasoned discussion is decreasing asymptotic to zero - sure it will inevitably tail on for a long time but.......

The only other significant active topics seem to be the Tony Sz et al attempts to resurrect CD claims from 2006-7. Sophisticated responses proving futile as you would expect.

The threads seem to qualify on "active"... I needn't comment on "significant"

 

[Ivan Kminek]

Ozeco:
Personally, I seldom debate in any discussion threads, since I know very well from the past that when I do so, I easily develop a kind of addiction on it. This is definitely the case of "nanothermite" forums here, and when Millette published his results last year, which proved our hypothesis that Bentham chips (a) to (a) are indeed pieces of WTC epoxy paint with kaolinite and iron oxide, I told myself: well, this is our apparent (and expected) victory, but what will I discuss now as a chemist on JREF? Perhaps something about homeopathy (what is another weird topic which had fascinated me for some years in the past)?

Basically, there was still a lot things and details to discuss several months after publishing of Millette's study, but the topic seems to be really exhausted now and we are repeating the same things and arguments again, having basically only one active opponent: MM.

Without any additional real data (e.g. FTIR which Basile promised to measure on his red/gray allegedly thermiti... ergh thermite chips), this thread is going to "die", indeed, but I will still check everyday if there is something new... since it is simply my habit and I basically love this forum, as well as the most people discussing here.

And thanks again, Chris, for the arranging the Millette's study