Loose Change

[delphi_ote]

Don't you think it's somewhat of an over-simplification to suggest a simultaneous structural failure that would send 1/3 of the building hurtling into the other 2/3 is what happend?

It's not 1/3, but yes. You can watch it happen. The upper floors do not disintigrate until they've toppled several hundred feet. Massive structural failures happened in the floors where the planes struck the buildings. The upper floors dropped their nearly full weight onto each floor beneath them. The whole mass accumulated and brought floor after floor down as they crashed to the ground.

I'm not disputing the law of momentum. I'm disputing your implicit assumption that the conditions existed in order to send several tens of thousands of tons of steel moving at 5 meters/sec in one instant, as if a magic carpet had been pulled out from beneath it.

Actually, it only takes the mass falling from a height less than half a meter. Several floors were taken out by the jet. I think that's a fair estimate, but even if you make that height much smaller, the upper stories are still hitting the first floor beneath them with the energy of several hundred pounds of TNT.
(doesn't this sound a lot like the old creationist "that's just microevolution. Show me macro-evolution" argument?)

While you're in the habit of debunking, could you debunk Stephen A. Jones, a professor of Physics at BYU?

I am not your monkey.

 

[WildCat]

That was a rather tedious use of the fallacy of reverse appeal to authority. Unfortunately, fallacies don't invalidate evidence. Why don't you stick to the evidence?

It's not a fallacy if the authority is, indeed, an expert on the subject. Structural engineers are the appropriate experts on why buildings collapse. Now, a good example of the "appeal to authority fallacy" is the "scholars for truth" site you posted. Pure hogwash.

And your evidence has been shown to be false.

 

[Alek]

I guess if you're going to accuse people of thousands of murders with no evidence, calling people liars with no evidence isn't really a big deal.

It's pretty disingenuous to claim I have no evidence, when 1) this is my first series of posts on this forum, and 2) I've provided plenty of evidence, you just refuse to acknowledge it, or consider it in an objective manner.

Better question: why would someone who knew it was all going to happen not cash out their investment immediately, especially knowing the markets would be closed soon for several days? Or would that be too obvious? If that's too obvious, why wouldn't this whole scam be too obvious?

What did you think I meant by "realizing their good fortune"? And how would they know the status of the markets after 9/11? For a skeptic, you seem to try and portray a lot of your assumptions as implicit facts. This is dishonest.

 

[WildCat]

Are you implying that the 9/11 truth movement is driven only by hucksters, for profit?

Yes, mostly. the rest are just idiots who let their politics trump their critical thinking skills.

Because if you want to get into cui bono, then why don't you calculate the profits of the panopticon security state that's being created here, for the "homeland". Why don't you calculate the profits of war, and oil?

OK, I get $1.98.

Do you think it's objective to state that "Every single person" making claims counter to the 9/11 commission is not a structural engineer? Are you in fact aware of the credentials of every single person who has made such claims, and have you in fact read every engineering journal? Are you supposed to pass for a skeptic? I suppose all swans are white.

I haven't seen one yet, have you? Structural enginers have their professional integrity to protect, unlike, say, a tenured Philosophy professor.

I do see the problem. When one is incapable of attacking the message, one attacks the messenger. We live in a highly specialized world, one which dictates that we delegate an inordinate amount of trust in so-called "experts", experts which have all too often proven unworthy of that trust.

I have attacked the messenger and the message w/ equal fervor. My next post will demonstrate how full of bull excrement your "WTC & was hardly scratched" claim.

 

[kookbreaker]

While you're in the habit of debunking, could you debunk Stephen A. Jones, a professor of Physics at BYU?

www-physics-byu-edu/research/energy/htm7.html

Dr. Jones is a physics professor, not a structural engineer, nor a demolitions expert. His work is little more than a rehash of the old conspiracy theories with a few words tacked on. He misuses physics (2nd Law of Thermodynamics to explain why a chunk started to fall?) and as a physics major I can rightly say that he is out of his field. Especially given that his field for the past few decades has been in High Energy physics and Cold Fusion.

Conversely, Structural Engineers in China have written papers that essentially agree with the basic model. To date, no Structural Engineer I have heard of has said the model is signifigantly wrong.

If you want some more detail, you might wish to read the bautforum thread here: http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php?t=34793&

I would also like to hear your analysis of what happend to WTC7, a building not hit by a jet, and slightly farther away from the north tower than the Banker's trust building was from the south tower. The facade of banker's trust was damaged, but miraculously, it remained standing. WTC7 collapsed in a stunningly impressive 6.5 seconds into a tight debris pile, having been hit by no jet, and exposed to only minor fires. It was the third modern steel structure in history to have collapsed by fire, the first two buildings being of course the twin towers.

Large chunks of debris fell on WTC7 and what you call 'minor fires' were nothing of the sort. They raged very intensely for over 7 hours. The building visibly fell fast, but it was showing signs of failure 30 seconds before the video most conspiracy sites show starts.

Maybe after that you could explain how kerosene fires could create the pools of molten steel that were found in the basements of all three buildings.

To date, not one white of evidence has been produced that there were any pools of molten steel anywhere in the basement. This is a myth of the CT crowd. The primary source has admitted that he did not see it himself, first hand, and there is no video or photo evidence of these pools. So there is no need to explain something that did not happen.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

No, that's pretty much it.

 

[Alek]

Yet clearly that is what you're doing with this conspiracy theory. You're not skeptical at all. You've swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

"Free-fall" Get real.

Yet clearly, that is what you're doing with the official government conspiracy. You're not skeptical at all. You've swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Are you going to resort to this kind of banter, or shall we stick to the facts, and the evidence?

The free fall is *what happend*. Time the collapse on video. You're the one rationalizing the free fall collapse.

Why don't we stick to the facts instead of making fishing analogies.

 

[WildCat]

I would also like to hear your analysis of what happend to WTC7, a building not hit by a jet, and slightly farther away from the north tower than the Banker's trust building was from the south tower. The facade of banker's trust was damaged, but miraculously, it remained standing. WTC7 collapsed in a stunningly impressive 6.5 seconds into a tight debris pile, having been hit by no jet, and exposed to only minor fires. It was the third modern steel structure in history to have collapsed by fire, the first two buildings being of course the twin towers.

It was heavily damaged:

So we go there and on the north and east side of 7 it didn’t look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn’t look good.

But they had a hoseline operating. Like I said, it was hitting the sidewalk across the street, but eventually they pulled back too. Then we received an order from Fellini, we’re going to make a move on 7. That was the first time really my stomach tightened up because the building didn’t look good. I was figuring probably the standpipe systems were shot. There was no hydrant pressure. I wasn’t really keen on the idea. Then this other officer I’m standing next to said, that building doesn’t look straight. So I’m standing there. I’m looking at the building. It didn’t look right, but, well, we’ll go in, we’ll see. So we gathered up rollups and most of us had masks at that time. We headed toward 7. And just around we were about a hundred yards away and Butch Brandies came running up. He said forget it, nobody’s going into 7, there’s creaking, there are noises coming out of there, so we just stopped. And probably about 10 minutes after that, Visconti, he was on West Street, and I guess he had another report of further damage either in some basements and things like that, so Visconti said nobody goes into 7, so that was the final thing and that was abandoned.

So your "scholars" don't know what the hell they're talking about, see?

 

[delphi_ote]

It's pretty disingenuous to claim I have no evidence, when 1) this is my first series of posts on this forum, and 2) I've provided plenty of evidence, you just refuse to acknowledge it, or consider it in an objective manner.

You have not presented any evidence that the 9/11 Commission lied about anything.

What did you think I meant by "realizing their good fortune"? And how would they know the status of the markets after 9/11? For a skeptic, you seem to try and portray a lot of your assumptions as implicit facts. This is dishonest.

If they know who's going to hijack which planes when and what effect that is going to have on the economy and that the building is wired for explosives etc. etc. etc. Why are they not smart enough to predict that the market would close for a few days after the attack?

 

[WildCat]

The free fall is *what happend*. Time the collapse on video. You're the one rationalizing the free fall collapse.

If you actually watched the video you'd see debris falling faster than the building collapses. So you're either lying about the collapse being at free-fall speeds or haven't seen the video.

 

[delphi_ote]

The free fall is *what happend*.

Then show me your math, tough guy. I showed mine.

Time the collapse on video.

Just under 10 seconds. Even Dr. Wood's site uses that number.

 

[WildCat]

Then show me your math, tough guy. I showed mine.

You really want to see math, check out this report!
Which concludes:

7.0 CONCLUSIONS​

[FONT=Symbol,Bold]

​

[/FONT]An analysis of the energetics of the WTC collapse events has shown that the kinetic
energy of the aircraft collisions and the subsequent gravitational energy released by the
descending blocks of floors were quite sufficient to destroy the twin towers in the manner
observed. The use of explosive devices in either of the two towers is not necessary to
explain the collapse events and is considered to be highly unlikely.​

[FONT=Symbol,Bold]

​

[/FONT]The times calculated for the collapse of WTC 1 and WTC 2 show good agreement with
the observed collapse times verifying the basic assumptions of the momentum transfer
model used in the calculations.​

​

The calculated times represent the minimum theoretical times of building collapse. If
shorter times are to be physically achieved they must involve an unknown additional
source of energy acting in a downward direction. Such a source of energy does not appear
to have been involved in the collapse of the twin towers.​

​

The kinetic energy of the collapse events was sufficient to crush the WTC floor
concrete in both towers to particles 100 m in diameter, or smaller, which is consistent
with the observed WTC debris particle size distribution.​

​

From a consideration of the strength of the WTC columns, and the effective area of
support they provided, it is demonstrated that the conditions necessary for the initial floor
collapse were initiated by the aircraft impacts and made irrevocable by the subsequent
eccentric loading of the core columns. The fires that were initiated by the jet fuel spilled
within the towers certainly weakened steel in localized areas in the impact zones.
However, it is suggested that the total collapse of both towers would have occurred even
without the jet fuel fires.​

F.R. Greening
greening@sympatico.ca​

Original version, (1.05): March 1, 2005
This version, (2.06): February 16, 2006​

​

Just under 10 seconds. Even Dr. Wood's site uses that number.

The addendum to the above report uses seismic data to calculate the time of the collapses as:
WTC 1 - 13.48 sec.
WTC 2 - 12.07 sec.

 

[Alek]

Actually, it only takes the mass falling from a height less than half a meter. Several floors were taken out by the jet. I think that's a fair estimate, but even if you make that height much smaller, the upper stories are still hitting the first floor beneath them with the energy of several hundred pounds of TNT.
(doesn't this sound a lot like the old creationist "that's just microevolution. Show me macro-evolution" argument?)

Several floors were taken out by the jet? What brought the towers down, the jets, or the kerosene? It certainly wasn't the jets, otherwise an assymetrical collapse would have begun immediately.

Was it the kerosene? Air-aspirated hydrocarbon fires don't reach temperatures hot enough to turn steel into the structural equivalent of wet noodles. They require blast-furnaces with pressurized, pre-treated air. According to most accounts, most of the jet fuel burned off in less than ten minutes, and the remaining fuel was office furniture and similar materials. Cellulosic fires require the most optimal of conditions to even remotely affect steel, and eyewitness accounts of firefighters indicate the fires were under control. If I'm wrong, and this isn't the case, then certainly controlled demolition got a whole lot more cheap and convenient after 9/11. Why bother with extensive planning and thermite, when a simple jet fuel fire will suffice?

I am not your monkey.

I didn't suggest you were. But since you went from inquiring about websites which debunk the myth that the towers couldn't collapse in a free fall to an authoritative physics expert who thoroughly debunked my claim in the span of a few posts, I figured you had the credentials to debunk Jones. Since I'm interested in the truth, I'd be more than happy to see you do it.

 

[WildCat]

Several floors were taken out by the jet? What brought the towers down, the jets, or the kerosene? It certainly wasn't the jets, otherwise an assymetrical collapse would have begun immediately.

Read the report I linked to in my previous post.

 

[kookbreaker]

Several floors were taken out by the jet? What brought the towers down, the jets, or the kerosene? It certainly wasn't the jets, otherwise an assymetrical collapse would have begun immediately.

Was it the kerosene? Air-aspirated hydrocarbon fires don't reach temperatures hot enough to turn steel into the structural equivalent of wet noodles.

They don't need to be, steel loses much of its strength at much lower temperatures than is needed.

They require blast-furnaces with pressurized, pre-treated air.

To melt steel yes. Much less is needed to weaken it.

According to most accounts, most of the jet fuel burned off in less than ten minutes, and the remaining fuel was office furniture and similar materials. Cellulosic fires require the most optimal of conditions to even remotely affect steel,

Bull. Take a look at steel exposed to fire from normal sources. Set a barn on fire and the farming tools inside will be warped to hell and back. You are mixed melting with other effects.

and eyewitness accounts of firefighters indicate the fires were under control.

No, they were not. You better produce serious evidence of this.

If I'm wrong,

Oh, you are.

and this isn't the case, then certainly controlled demolition got a whole lot more cheap and convenient after 9/11. Why bother with extensive planning and thermite, when a simple jet fuel fire will suffice?

Because controlled demolitions are just that: Controlled. They are designed to have minimal impact on the surrounding area. The WTC collapse was nowhere near that as its collapse damaged several buildings and left debris over several acres. Not to mention the dust cloud that covered most of Lower Manhattan for hours afterward. If a demolition crew had these results, they'd be cashiered.

 

[Alek]

Then show me your math, tough guy. I showed mine.


Just under 10 seconds. Even Dr. Wood's site uses that number.

I'm not a physicist, I'm quoting the work of others. The buildings both collapsed symmetrically in under ten seconds, which is virtually free fall speed, which implies there was virtually no resistance from floor to floor, or from the 47 load-bearing steel columns.

Your comment was that the massive kinetic energy generated by X tons of structure falling was more than enough to overcome any resistance. I find this quite reasonable. The only problem is, I can't get from A to B. I find it hard to intuit how the structure at the point of impact would go from bearing the entire load, to none of it, unilaterally, symmetrically, and instantaneously, without any signs of buckling or weakening beforehand. The steel would have to go from say, 60% to 0% instantly. I find this infeasible. It's not as if modern buildings just disintegrate and collapse into a free fall when their structures fail. They buckle, then they topple, slowly (absent a thermite induced controlled demolition). I'm well aware that the effects of physics are often counter-intuitive, but I've also viewed evidence of burning steel skyscrapers (such as in Madrid) whereby the buildings burn for days, with white hot flames, yet no collapse. The heart of the evidence really lies with WTC7, because no planes hit the building. Even FEMA in the 9/11 commission report doesn't have a suitable explanation why this skyscraper imploded in a free fall. Check your emotions at the door and watch the WTC7 video and tell me that wasn't a controlled demolition. It's just blatantly obvious. I don't need to be a physicist to know that that building's core columns couldn't miraculously fail all at once, resulting in one of the most impressive controlled demolitions i've seen.

wtc7.net

 

[kookbreaker]

I'm not a physicist, I'm quoting the work of others. The buildings both collapsed symmetrically

I assume when you say symmetrically, you mean they fell straight down. That is becuase there was insufficient force to move a large enough parts. This was something that fell over, this was

in under ten seconds, which is virtually free fall speed,

Several sources give times that are much longer than that. Objects can be seen falling at what really would be freefall, and they are faster than the tower collapse.

which implies there was virtually no resistance from floor to floor, or from the 47 load-bearing steel columns.

Only if you start with a false premise.

 

[Alek]

It was heavily damaged:

So your "scholars" don't know what the hell they're talking about, see?

It was heavily damaged on one side, so it collapses in a symmetrical free fall. I'm supposed to believe this? There is a dearth of photographic evidence documenting just how damaged the building was. You do realize that the weak supposition given by FEMA in the 9/11 report is that fire from some generators caused the collapse, right? Or do you believe that a girder which may have damaged the facade of the building would result in a total collapse? Do you really believe that, skeptic?

 

[WildCat]

I'm not a physicist, I'm quoting the work of others. The buildings both collapsed symmetrically in under ten seconds, which is virtually free fall speed, which implies there was virtually no resistance from floor to floor, or from the 47 load-bearing steel columns.

I showed you evidence of the actual times, verified by seismic data, and they're greater than 10 seconds.

The heart of the evidence really lies with WTC7, because no planes hit the building. Even FEMA in the 9/11 commission report doesn't have a suitable explanation why this skyscraper imploded in a free fall. Check your emotions at the door and watch the WTC7 video and tell me that wasn't a controlled demolition. It's just blatantly obvious. I don't need to be a physicist to know that that building's core columns couldn't miraculously fail all at once, resulting in one of the most impressive controlled demolitions i've seen.

wtc7.net

Now you're getting annoying. I linked to a NYC Fire Captains first-hand account of the WTC 7 damage, fire, and collapse. yet you brought it up again! I can only assume you're deliberately ignoring the evidence in order to confirm your own pre-determined beliefs.

 

[WildCat]

It was heavily damaged on one side, so it collapses in a symmetrical free fall. I'm supposed to believe this? There is a dearth of photographic evidence documenting just how damaged the building was. You do realize that the weak supposition given by FEMA in the 9/11 report is that fire from some generators caused the collapse, right? Or do you believe that a girder which may have damaged the facade of the building would result in a total collapse? Do you really believe that, skeptic?

The entire interior of the building was on fire! READ THE FREAKING FIRE CAPTAIN"S ACCOUNT!!

 

[kookbreaker]

Your comment was that the massive kinetic energy generated by X tons of structure falling was more than enough to overcome any resistance. I find this quite reasonable. The only problem is, I can't get from A to B. I find it hard to intuit how the structure at the point of impact would go from bearing the entire load, to none of it, unilaterally, symmetrically, and instantaneously, without any signs of buckling or weakening beforehand. The steel would have to go from say, 60% to 0% instantly. I find this infeasible. It's not as if modern buildings just disintegrate and collapse into a free fall when their structures fail. They buckle, then they topple, slowly (absent a thermite induced controlled demolition).

No, they do not. Ever hear of the Sampoong Department store?