Do we agree the towers were designed to withstand jetliner crash?

[Non Believer]

It is pretty simple. What scientific principles had to say on a subject before a particular event happens has bearing on the later evaluation of that event. If you wish to claim those principles have been proven to be inaccurate then science allows for such avenues to be pursued. But to claim they have no bearing is absurd


Please show us where "Skilling clearly stated they considered the impact of fire."

"Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there.


http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930227&slug=1687698

 

[DGM]

It is pretty simple. What scientific principles had to say on a subject before a particular event happens has bearing on the later evaluation of that event. If you wish to claim those principles have been proven to be inaccurate then science allows for such avenues to be pursued. But to claim they have no bearing is absurd

No one has done this. What you are doing is claiming it somehow supports your "theory". We've been asking you all along to support this belief. All you do is tap dance and claim we don't understand.

Your turn. How does any of this support your belief. I bet you dodge the question (as you have all along). .

 

[jaydeehess]

Here's a test
using a pencil and paper and performing long divison calculate
43,178.6/127.3 and time yourself. Assume 5 significant digits are sufficient. Multiply that time by 1 million. Now consider how fast a modern desktop computer arrives at a much more precise answer (less than a quarter of a second to display the answer on mine, and a big chunk of that would have been in getting it to the display after having done the calc)

An FEA on a super computer would have done this type of calculation 1 million times within 1 second or two (it does not have to send each result to a display) but a human who took 2 minutes on each calculation (the human is also prone to mistakes whereas the computer is very unlikely to do so barring cosmic ray interference with its operations) would take 11 years (working 8 hours per day) to do the same thing.

 

[Non Believer]

No one has done this.

No one has done what? Science existed in 1964. We can have a debate on what that science was but that does not seem to be your argument. Your argument seems to be that what science had to say was irrelevant. Please clarify your position

 

[jaydeehess]

It is pretty simple. What scientific principles had to say on a subject before a particular event happens has bearing on the later evaluation of that event. If you wish to claim those principles have been proven to be inaccurate then science allows for such avenues to be pursued. But to claim they have no bearing is absurd


Please show us where "Skilling clearly stated they considered the impact of fire."

"Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there.


http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930227&slug=1687698

The "principles" would be essentially the same. The preciseness of the calculations required, the accuracy of conclusions would be vastly superior using modern technology to perform many more operation per hour than humans can.

I too noticed his statement considering fires but did they take into account the amount of and distribution of the removal of passive fire insulation? Did they consider the complete loss of active fire suppression?
Did they consider materials in office furnishings that have a much higher heat content than the materials used in the 1960s?

Sorry NB all you have is heresay and second hand information and you are using it to draw a conclusion unsupported by direct evidence. As I pointed out anyway, even IF you had direct evidence in the form of the calculations done and the persons who performed them and wrote the three page white paper, the more accurate and precise FEAs done today trump those 1960s calcs.

 

[DGM]

No one has done this.

No one has done what? Science existed in 1964. We can have a debate on what that science was but that does not seem to be your argument. Your argument seems to be that what science had to say was irrelevant. Please clarify your position

What are you talking about. Science showed how the buildings collapsed. You have not shown how it was wrong. Did you sleep through 2006?

 

[jaydeehess]

No one has done this.

No one has done what? Science existed in 1964. We can have a debate on what that science was but that does not seem to be your argument. Your argument seems to be that what science had to say was irrelevant. Please clarify your position

No one has claimed that science is irrellevent.

 

[carlitos]

Like every other truthy subject, all that needed to be said was said. In 2007.

Anyway, most of your comments I find rather uninteresting, save one. The comments on the alleged 1964 impact study are, really, a non-issue. You write the following:

City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 131-132] describes evidence of the study (referred to by Skilling):

a three-page white paper, dated February 3, 1964, described its findings: “The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour (emphasis added). Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.”​

Thus, there exists documentation refuting the recent recollections of Robertson, an aging retiree. Furthermore, “The Complete 9/11 Timeline” [http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=john_skilling_1] describes a second study carried out by Robertson later in 1964. Consequently, these conflicting claims may be regarding separate studies.

Ryan Mackey fails to point out Robertson’s incorrect assumption the 767 was “fully fuelled”. Robertson’s conclusion that there is “absolutely no comparison” is based on his study and an incorrect assumption regarding the amount of fuel.

Yes, well. There are numerous problems with the alleged 1964 study. Mind you, I don't doubt that a study was performed, nor do I doubt that they considered a high-speed case. But we can't use this study in support of anything for the following reasons:

1. The study does not exist. Perhaps it did at one time, but it doesn't now. We have no means to evaluate the three-page whitepaper, not for accuracy nor for context.

2. Nobody has been able to reproduce this study's findings, either. If it was correct, or even approximately accurate, this should be a straightforward task.

3. Leslie Robertson, aging or not, retired or not (he is not), was nonetheless the engineer of record for the Towers. If he disputes the accuracy of this study, and gives his reasons, we cannot simply dismiss him.

Regardless, even if we had this study, the only real use it would serve would be to find out why it was wrong. Assuming its conclusion was reflected accurately above, clearly it was totally unrealistic. The study results are also in complete disagreement with the NIST study, the Purdue study, the MIT study, the Exponent Failure Analysis study, and the Weidlinger Associates study.

So, to sum up, we don't have it, and it was wrong to begin with. This document cannot prove a conspiracy. At most, it would be evidence of an error made by designers, but I think a pass is warranted given the incredible complexity of the scenario under study.
...

 

[Non Believer]

DGM- I am not sure if you capable of seeing one piece of the puzzle at a time, but what i am trying to point out is that there was established science when the buildings were built in terms of their structural integrity and expected performance in relation to certain types of stress. Do you agree or disagree with this? This is not to say there are other questions in relation to this puzzle, but the point is identifying this aspect first. That was the intent of the thread and I do not feel obligated in answering question which are peripheral to that focus at this time. If you could actually acknowledge the point we might move on, but you instead wish to move on first before acknowledging that pre-existing scientific understandings existed

 

[Non Believer]

1. The study does not exist. Perhaps it did at one time, but it doesn't now. We have no means to evaluate the three-page whitepaper, not for accuracy nor for context.


Interesting terminology. apparently you mean to say no copy of the report of the study exists. Instead you choose terminology which suggests it never occurred.

2. Nobody has been able to reproduce this study's findings, either. If it was correct, or even approximately accurate, this should be a straightforward task.

My understanding is that the blueprints are not publicly available.

3. Leslie Robertson, aging or not, retired or not (he is not), was nonetheless the engineer of record for the Towers. If he disputes the accuracy of this study, and gives his reasons, we cannot simply dismiss him.

Agreed, but if his statements are not consistent then he lends himself to a loss of credibility. Further he had ample time in the past to refute Skilling and choose not to. As far as I am aware he has never confronted Skillings statements and the apparent contradictions arising from them

Regardless, even if we had this study, the only real use it would serve would be to find out why it was wrong. Assuming its conclusion was reflected accurately above, clearly it was totally unrealistic. The study results are also in complete disagreement with the NIST study, the Purdue study, the MIT study, the Exponent Failure Analysis study, and the Weidlinger Associates study.

Obviously it was not unrealistic since the towers survived the initial impact. I have arguments against the studies quoted here, but i am trying to focus on the concept of what the science was when the structures were built or what it was on 9/11 and no retrograde analysis

So, to sum up, we don't have it, and it was wrong to begin with. This document cannot prove a conspiracy. At most, it would be evidence of an error made by designers, but I think a pass is warranted given the incredible complexity of the scenario under study.

The point that it was wrong to begin with is simply begging the question. Arguments are presented within the scope of individual merit and are not judged initially upon any one persons final conclusions about the event in question

 

[Non Believer]

No one has claimed that science is irrellevent.

They are claiming pre-existing science is irrelevant. If you are believer in the Sagan quote then this is a logical inconsistency

 

[deeper]

Non Believer, I say this as someone who once believed in 9/11 CT's. If you are trying to convince people that 9/11 was an inside job, your attempt to use Skilling to support your argument is not lending you any credibility. For the reasons pointed out to you in this thread, the supporting material and argument is just too weak (or non-existent).

Put your time and effort into something for which you think you have really hard evidence. And when that's shot to pieces, move onto the next thing. And so on...

Alternatively, you could just choose not to learn.

 

[BCR]

I just heard on the news that a building has collapsed in NYC. Never before has a building collapsed in NYC due to a hurricane. Must be controlled demolition fer sure.

We need an investigation of this blatant inside job.

 

[Non Believer]

jaydeehess -Your dismisaal seems to be accomplished under two basic premises. One- No reproducible calculations of the original scientific understandings and studies and Two- That it is all rendered moot because of your faith in NIST's and other studies. As to the latter, if folks come to the same conclusion as you regarding those studies so be it. I do not suggest to people that they ignore the NIST studies because Skilling analyzes showed them to be impossible. I say bring in all the relevant facts, but your position it would seem is indeed begging the question since you styart first with your conclusion and then include only the facts which support it.

As to no written documentation. Sure it would be preferable to have the documentation and the fact it does not exist raises questions. But beyond that the words of an expert do have meaning even if the documentation fails to appear. And again where is Robertsons documentation?

 

[grandmastershek]

As to no written documentation. Sure it would be preferable to have the documentation and the fact it does not exist raises questions. But beyond that the words of an expert do have meaning even if the documentation fails to appear. And again where is Robertsons documentation?

So non-believer has faith in the non-existent calculations, and ignores NIST's studies which underwent repeated peer review, and have been corroborated in multiple external studies...nice.

 

[Mark F]

Even if we concede that:

A. Skilling concluded in any form that a 600mph impact was survivable and,
B. He also considered subsequent fires,..

Who cares?

It doesn't matter.

We also must conclude that towers did indeed survive the impacts and that Skillings tools for studying the effects of subsequent fires were extremely limited, to the point of being irrelevant. Therefore, can we please stick a fork in this Skilling nonsense already?

IT DOES NOT MATTER.

Whatever Skilling did or is alleged to have done in 1964 proves absolutely nothing. The actual physical evidence of 2001 trumps any alleged theoretical evidence he had in 1964 and he is not around to clarify anything anyway.

So Non-Believer, if you have a point to make other than "Skilling said,..." please just get on with it already!

 

[Non Believer]

Actually deeper I am trying to show their reluctance to even acknowledge the simplest of facts and to accept the reasonable treatment of those facts within the framework of rational investigation. All of you have attributed some broader intention and belief system which i have not professed here. To me such attributions reveal the polarized nature of the belief systems which resides here

 

[triforcharity]

No one has done this.

No one has done what? Science existed in 1964. We can have a debate on what that science was but that does not seem to be your argument. Your argument seems to be that what science had to say was irrelevant. Please clarify your position

Yes, what the engineers designed for and could calculate in the 1960's is archaic compared to what they can do now. So, I would agree that it's irrelevant.

What is relevant is that the towers did survive the aircraft impacts. What it didn't survive was the milti-floor instantaneous fires combined with the damage, and as I said before, fire science was in it's literal infancy in 1964.

It's irrelevant what was calculated in 1964, at least in this context. If science said that the earth was flat, would we need to still take that into consideration now?

 

[Non Believer]

Like every other truthy subject, all that needed to be said was said. In 2007.

Even if we concede that:

A. Skilling concluded in any form that a 600mph impact was survivable and,
B. He also considered subsequent fires,..

Who cares?

I understand people that have made up their mind do not care. However those who understand the principles of rational argumentation understand that facts who have clear relevancy have a place in the field of facts for those who have not made up their minds. This principle seems to completely escapse all of you

It doesn't matter.

Says you, and quite honestly your opinion means nothing to me

We also must conclude that towers did indeed survive the impacts and that Skillings tools for studying the effects of subsequent fires were extremely limited, to the point of being irrelevant. Therefore, can we please stick a fork in this Skilling nonsense already?

IT DOES NOT MATTER.

Again no more than your conclusion, and you can stick your fork anywhere you want

Whatever Skilling did or is alleged to have done in 1964 proves absolutely nothing. The actual physical evidence of 2001 trumps any alleged theoretical evidence he had in 1964 and he is not around to clarify anything anyway.

So Non-Believer, if you have a point to make other than "Skilling said,..." please just get on with it already!

The point is that those who wish to overturn scientific understanding have the extra burden of proof upon them. 9/11 is of course full of such new understandings of reality

 

[Non Believer]

So non-believer has faith in the non-existent calculations, and ignores NIST's studies which underwent repeated peer review, and have been corroborated in multiple external studies...nice.

Actually it is you that have faith in the non existent. We have Skillings statements and reputation, but you wish to attach some faith in an unqualified possibility that his calculations were faulty apparently based on no more than not having the data in front of you. Or how knows maybe your faith based criticisms have you believing no calculations were even done