Merged Jeff Farrer Reshashes Jones's nonsense

[uk_dave]

I agree with your diamond statement but the rest of your post is unsupported crap.

MM

So you agree that your opinion about 'raw' diamonds somehow being different in structure from 'un-raw' diamonds was unmitigated crap, but think your opinion about the rest of his post still matters?

Give it up, you're so far out of your depth on this subject it's not even funny any more.

 

[uk_dave]

I agree with your diamond statement but the rest of your post is unsupported crap.

p.s. I don't believe any diamond dust was discovered.

MM

Well that edit was akin to you deciding to wear cast iron boots while totally out of your depth.

 

[Oystein]

I agree with your diamond statement but the rest of your post is unsupported crap.

You wouldn't say this if my prediction weren't true:

How predictable that MM would not reply to
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6513726&postcount=22
...

That post (i.e. Sunstealer's anaylsis 16 months ago) shows the rest of my post is well supported. Please respond to it!



Do you also find this part of my post unsupported?

"the yields are estimated to be approximately
1.5, 3, 6 and 7.5 kJ/g respectively"? With some samples, according to Niels Harrit, even not reacting at all? Let me illustrate that "consistency" for you:

• Chip (a): |===
• Chip (b): |======
• Chip (c): |============
• Chip (d): |===============
• Chip (x): | (one of Harrits non-reacting specimen)

And how about this:

Farrer is out of his field of expertise here. He has very likely never before or after analysed the debris of any other building.

Are you aware that Farrer has ever before or after analysed any building debris?

p.s. I don't believe any diamond dust was discovered.

Your assumption that we are as dumb as you are is unfounded.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

No, no. He shouldn't respond to it because I have him on ignore and don't care to read, let alone reply to him anyway. And Sunstealer's analysis stands in refutation of Farrer's claims whether MM comments on it or not. From your post above, MM is obviously reciting standard trutherisms about the supposed thermite (refined, man made, etc.), and Sunstealer already addressed those talking points long before MM posted in this thread. Kaolin's morphology is precisely the shape and consistency that Farrer claims is not "naturally occuring", yet occurs naturally anyway, and as you've pointed out, the energy releases are drastically in contradiction to the notion of consistency but is something he doesn't pay attention to. The data itself refutes Farrer, Harrit, Jones, Legge, etc. because it shows that the material has properties contradicting those researchers' claims of thermite.

So there's no reason for MM to respond to that post. There's nothing for him to say about it.

 

[grandmastershek]

Platelike particles, huh?

​

"...consistent in shape, in composition, and in size leads me to believe that these are not naturally occurring materials". Huh. Imagine that. I'll just let Sunstealer address that:

​

Shame for the thermite advocates that his statement was already refuted... back in April 2009. But it's good of them all to confirm kaolin for everyone in their work.

More reading: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4607894#post4607894

I saw in SS's analysis that he says there was no aluminum present, yet in the paper they claim they did find it via the MEKS method. Can someone clear that up? Thanks.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

I saw in SS's analysis that he says there was no aluminum present, yet in the paper they claim they did find it via the MEKS method. Can someone clear that up? Thanks.

No, no, that's a misreading. When Sunstealer said

...it is safe to say that these platelets consist of Kaolinite, which does not contain any "elemental aluminium"...

... he meant exactly that: No elemental aluminum, i.e. aluminum atoms unbound to anything else. Kaolin is aluminum silicate, i.e. Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄. Or in other words, aluminum atoms bound to silicon and oxygen atoms. That's what he meant. And that's the important part of his observation: The chips that Jones and Harrit studied could not have been thermite because the morphology of the structures - in plain english, the shape of the crystals - in conjunction with the spectroscopic evidence indicated that what Jones and Harrit was looking at was kaolinite. And that means that whatever aluminum that was present was already bound to some other atoms. And because of that, it was not available to react with iron oxide in a thermite reaction. That is one of the main reasons - and just one, believe it or not! - why we've all been saying that Jones's and Harrit's own data contradicted the notion of thermite being present. Thermite requires that elemental aluminum be present. That is what the thermite reaction is: Fe₂O₃ + 2Al --> Al₂O₃ + 2Fe. But the "2AL" is not available; it's bound up as Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄.

Does that make sense? In sum: No unbound aluminum atoms were in the sample; it was Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄ that was being seen.

Sunstealer, or anyone else: If you have something to add, or have spotted an error I've made, please feel free to correct me.

 

[grandmastershek]

No, no, that's a misreading. When Sunstealer said

​

... he meant exactly that: No elemental aluminum, i.e. aluminum atoms unbound to anything else. Kaolin is aluminum silicate, i.e. Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄. Or in other words, aluminum atoms bound to silicon and oxygen atoms. That's what he meant. And that's the important part of his observation: The chips that Jones and Harrit studied could not have been thermite because the morphology of the structures - in plain english, the shape of the crystals - in conjunction with the spectroscopic evidence indicated that what Jones and Harrit was looking at was kaolinite. And that means that whatever aluminum that was present was already bound to some other atoms. And because of that, it was not available to react with iron oxide in a thermite reaction. That is one of the main reasons - and just one, believe it or not! - why we've all been saying that Jones's and Harrit's own data contradicted the notion of thermite being present. Thermite requires that elemental aluminum be present. That is what the thermite reaction is: Fe₂O₃ + 2Al --> Al₂O₃ + 2Fe. But the "2AL" is not available; it's bound up as Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄.

Does that make sense? In sum: No unbound aluminum atoms were in the sample; it was Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄ that was being seen.

Sunstealer, or anyone else: If you have something to add, or have spotted an error I've made, please feel free to correct me.

Thanks...so how is it then that Jones is claiming there was elemental aluminum present? Would the MEKS treatment separate bound aluminum and make it into elemental aluminum?

 

[Miragememories]

"Thanks...so how is it then that Jones is claiming there was elemental aluminum present? Would the MEKS treatment separate bound aluminum and make it into elemental aluminum?"

Dr. Jones is not the only scientist making the claim.

Physicist Jeff Farrer "We did find small amounts of aluminum in some of the specimens. More significantly probably, was the sulphur content that we found. In fact in one piece, I found a pore in the steel that had pure sulphur embedded in the pore, which I thought was very strange. That is when I really began looking for sulphur and finding it in great abundance in some of these phases.

There are possibilities for sulphur. Any number of possibilities. There is a version of thermite called thermate which has sulphur. And what the sulphur does, is sort of like salt on ice, it creates a eutectic temperature, so it lowers the melting point of steel and in that way the thermate can melt the steel more quickly than regular thermite. The finding of aluminum in these steel samples, or what used to be steel samples, also supports the theory that thermite was used to melt the steel. I would certainly love to get an official sample of the steel that we know came from a large piece of the steel.

Eventually Steve came to me and said; "we're finding these red/gray chips", and I didn't really think anything of it. They could have been anything.. The significant thing about the red/gray chips was not just the frequency that they were finding them, but also, they were attracted by a magnet which was his method for pulling out these spheres. So he was pulling out the spheres as well as the red/gray chips. And so he came to me and said; "were getting some interesting compositional analysis from the red layer of these red/gray chips, we're actually seeing peaks of aluminum ", as well as other things, but the aluminum peak was significant. He would find those aluminum peaks as well as iron peaks and oxygen peaks and various other peaks. But the aluminum, the iron, and the oxygen together were very significant because this is your composition for thermite. So that is when I started to get a little bit more interested and more interested in these red/gray chips. But I didn't really start working on these red/gray chips and Steve and Daniel were continuing to find things about the chips and they would bring that information to me and eventually I said, "okay."

So now what we have is from the composition of the red layer, we have an aluminum peak, we have a silicone peak, we have the iron and the oxygen as well as other peaks.

So we were looking at clean edges in order to get the composition and that is where we found the silicone, as well as the aluminum peaks and the iron and oxygen peaks in abundance and throughout all of the red layers in all of these chips.

Additional studies in the TEM (transmission electron microscope) found these were iron oxide phases. There were other particles present in the red layer. There were some plate-like particles and those again, were consistent throughout the red layer, throughout all of the samples that we found. Those appeared to have higher aluminum and silicone peaks in their compositional analysis and one of the significant things that we find in the red layer is the fact that these particles that we find in the red layer are..the fact that they are consistent. The fact that they are consistent in shape, in composition, and in size, leads me to believe that these are not naturally occurring materials."

MM

 

[excaza]

You do know that you can't pick up aluminum with a magnet, right?

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Thanks...so how is it then that Jones is claiming there was elemental aluminum present? Would the MEKS treatment separate bound aluminum and make it into elemental aluminum?

That was one that slipped by me the first (and second, and third ) time I read the paper way back when. Sunstealer noted the following earlier in the thread I lifted his above analysis from:

The "red layer" on the sample for MEK testing (Chip Fig 13) is of a different composition to that of samples a)-d) in the paper. Compare "red layer" EDS spectra in Fig 14 to Fig 7, a)-d).

Also notice how (Chip Fig 13) does not have any detailed SEM analysis, therefore we have no idea what the characteristics are of the particles that make up that chip. Therefore it is impossible to know what the MEK is doing to that chip.

It means that you cannot say that there are aluminosilicates in "Chip Fig 13" and that it does not represent any of the testing performed on samples a-d).

Without seeing the morphology and the EDS spectra of that chip then nothing can be determined from it in relation to any other sample in the paper - it stands on it's own.

It's becoming more obvious each time I do any work on the paper that samples a-d) are similar, sample "Chip Fig 13" is different material to samples a-d) and sample "Chip Fig 31" is different material again. There is no continuity amongst the samples therefore one cannot use data from the MEK chip and correlate it with data (DSC specifically) from samples a-d).

I'll go into this in more detail in the moderated thread because it will open up some questions to put to Jones et al in this thread http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139960

(and while you are there have a look at the "sample test table" I produced to help people understand the paper- it's a WIP atm, but I should finish it today.)

The paper also specifies an MEK test on sample to free this elemental Al, but it isn't any of the samples a,b,c,d that had the full analysis and DSC tests conducted. Infact it's another material altogether.

So this is a bit more subtle of an error, but it's an experimental error nonetheless. Does the above make sense to you?

 

[sheeplesnshills]

Dr. Jones is not the only scientist making the claim.

Physicist Jeff Farrer "We did find small amounts

LOL Jeff was the lab manager of the Lab where Jones did his "work".....when he says "we" he means Jones. As far as I am aware none of the other names on the paper were present during this testing and only one could even remotely be said to be qualified to have an opinion in any case.

 

[sheeplesnshills]

Thanks...so how is it then that Jones is claiming there was elemental aluminum present? Would the MEKS treatment separate bound aluminum and make it into elemental aluminum?

MEK can be used in the manufacture of the Al powder used in thermite (I posted the patent number in another thread on the subject but can find it again if anyone needs it) as it seem to have some effect on reducing the formation of Al Oxide on the particles or even reducing the thickness of the oxide coating (the Patent did not say how it worked merely that it did). Given that, it seems to have been a strange choice of solvent to use if you were looking for Thermite.

 

[tsig]

I agree with your diamond statement but the rest of your post is unsupported crap. p.s. I don't believe any diamond dust was discovered.

MM

That's certainly a pungent argument.

 

[tsig]

So you agree that your opinion about 'raw' diamonds somehow being different in structure from 'un-raw' diamonds was unmitigated crap, but think your opinion about the rest of his post still matters?

Give it up, you're so far out of your depth on this subject it's not even funny any more.

A man on a leaking life raft floating over the Challenger Deep.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep

 

[Oystein]

Dr. Jones is not the only scientist making the claim.

Physicist Jeff Farrer "We did find small amounts of aluminum in some of the specimens. More significantly probably, was the sulphur content that we found. In fact in one piece, I found a pore in the steel that had pure sulphur embedded in the pore, which I thought was very strange. That is when I really began looking for sulphur and finding it in great abundance in some of these phases.

There are possibilities for sulphur. Any number of possibilities. There is a version of thermite called thermate which has sulphur.
...

Why then did they not find more than trace amounts of sulfur in the red-grey chips? The infamous Bentham paper mentions sulfur exactly twice:
- Along with "potassium, ...lead, barium and copper" in "Lesser amounts" (p. 29) and
- "calcium, sulfur, zinc, chromium and potassium. The occurrence of these elements could be attributed to surface contamination due to the fact that the analysis was performed on the as-collected surface of the red layer. The large Ca and S peaks may be due to contamination with gypsum from the pulverized wallboard material in the buildings." (p. 17)

Could the Jones/Farrer/Harrit/MM posse please stick to one theory?

 

[grandmastershek]

That was one that slipped by me the first (and second, and third ) time I read the paper way back when. Sunstealer noted the following earlier in the thread I lifted his above analysis from:

​

So this is a bit more subtle of an error, but it's an experimental error nonetheless. Does the above make sense to you?

I think what i am getting out of it is that they performed a set of tests to some samples and then another set to others. Then combined the results of them all together and claimed the properties were universal. I could e totally off. Chem is not my strong suit.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

I think what i am getting out of it is that they performed a set of tests to some samples and then another set to others. Then combined the results of them all together and claimed the properties were universal. I could e totally off. Chem is not my strong suit.

That's exactly how I'm reading it. Again, credit to Sunstealer for picking up on that; I actually missed that point when I read the paper.

 

[beachnut]

Dr. Jones is not the only scientist making the claim.

Physicist Jeff Farrer "We did ... MM

Where do you guys dig up these morons on 911?
Jeff proves it was not thermite/mate used at the WTC. There goes your CD delusion, debunked by Jeff. Your lack of knowledge in chemistry and physics keeps you in the dark falling for each new failed expert 911 truth pushes forward to quote mine and use hearsay as evidence. ... failure continues in 911 truth, shooting for 10 years to infinity, and beyond ... forever, amen

 

[Miragememories]

"Why then did they not find more than trace amounts of sulfur in the red-grey chips? The infamous Bentham paper mentions sulfur exactly twice:
- Along with "potassium, ...lead, barium and copper" in "Lesser amounts" (p. 29) and
- "calcium, sulfur, zinc, chromium and potassium. The occurrence of these elements could be attributed to surface contamination due to the fact that the analysis was performed on the as-collected surface of the red layer. The large Ca and S peaks may be due to contamination with gypsum from the pulverized wallboard material in the buildings." (p. 17)

Could the Jones/Farrer/Harrit/MM posse please stick to one theory?"

Infamous only amongst your group of closed-minded Official Conspiracy Theory bigots.

"...in order for you to get sulphur out of the wall board you've got to heat up the gypsum board to high enough temperatures to dissociate the calcium from the sulphur. And then you would have free sulphur and then the sulphur could attack the steel and create these sulphide phases which go into the grain boundaries. You have got to get extremely high temperatures to dissociate those two things. And then certainly if you've got those temperatures, you've got the temperature to melt the steel. So this would require high temperatures. Certainly higher temperatures than you would get in normal office fires. This is impossible to achieve in a normal office fire. Even a jet-fuel fed office fire."

MM

 

[Dave Rogers]

Farrer's an idiot. Decomposition of gypsum is well documented to occur below 1000ºC, way below the melting point of steel.

Dave