Szamboti's Missing Jolt paper

[beachnut]

Can you show calculations to support what you are saying?

We have measured the actual tilt and drop now and the collisions of the core columns occur in less about 250 milliseconds and this alone does not allow the continued fall to compensate for the velocity loss. If the east and west walls are added it gets worse. A significant velocity loss should have been observable in a natural collapse with the actual tilt observed.

What is the significant velocity loss? What is the velocity lost? Can you post the value, or are you just making up more nonsense to go with your real-CD-deal?

First a missing jolt now missing velocity. What is next?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

The error can only be 0.44 feet. You can't have a 0.88 error so you are wrong here too.

Does ANYBODY believe that he can specify the vertical location of the roof within 5" with a video camera? At that distance?

Tony's saying the maximum error was 5.28 inches, not 5.

 

[Furcifer]

That's not entirely a strawman, since that's the word I used on the DU board when I attempted to explain to Tony why a tilt would mean that the upper block could no longer act uniformly on all the lower columns at once. (I won't post the graphic again since Tony's ability to ignore it is firmly established.) If the force of the falling upper block were applied to only a subset of the columns at any one time, then there might not ever have been a time that the columns being crushed could have supported even the static weight of the upper block, much less the (highly exaggerated) five-times reserve that Tony assumes. If that were the case, then no "load amplification" would be necessary to crush the columns sequentially, and no deceleration would be observed because there wouldn't be any time when there was enough resistance to cause deceleration. That is what I meant when I said that a tilt would obviate any need for a "jolt," and since Tony seems determined to dodge that argument rather than explain where it's wrong, I'm not much impressed with his changing "strawman" to "fallacy."

I suppose obviate could be considered the right word here then because it isn't an absolute. It leaves it open for possibility either way.

 

[TruthersLie]

Wishful thinking?
Massaging the data?
Fraud?
(I won't tell you my choice)

rw.

You left out incompetence and outside the scope of his field and education.

 

[WilliamSeger]

I suppose obviate could be considered the right word here then because it isn't an absolute. It leaves it open for possibility either way.

Yes, my argument only addresses Tony's claim that there had to be a "jolt." Others have argued that there could have been lots of small jolts spread out over time, and each was very short in duration, so they are simply undetected by Tony's method. He doesn't seem to have a refutation for those arguments, either, except to keep saying the "lost velocity" would be detectable regardless. But you can't lose what you never had, and the tilt explains why (unlike a Verinage demolition) the collapse was not a series of free-falls punctuated with collisions that would have all the lower columns reacting virtually at once.

 

[Furcifer]

Yes, my argument only addresses Tony's claim that there had to be a "jolt." Others have argued that there could have been lots of small jolts spread out over time, and each was very short in duration, so they are simply undetected by Tony's method. He doesn't seem to have a refutation for those arguments, either, except to keep saying the "lost velocity" would be detectable regardless. But you can't lose what you never had, and the tilt explains why (unlike a Verinage demolition) the collapse was not a series of free-falls punctuated with collisions that would have all the lower columns reacting virtually at once.

I agree. Everything we've seen indicates a perceptible tilt negates the possibility of the column ends coming in contact during the collapse. Except the very few which happen to line the direction of the tilt. Even then it's very unlikely they all meet at the same time.

I don't know why Tony continues to argue this. It amounts to a very simple calculation in which the angle of the tilt offsets the column ends greater than their width. Even in the core this amounts to no more than 4". This equates to an angle of tilt approximately 0.17 degrees.

 

[Dave Rogers]

On a relative scale based on what I see you say here, if I am hung up on principles a 3rd year engineering student could breeze past then you have to be back at the kid taking his placement test to get into college.

Most third year engineering students have learned to sum vectors, can measure an angle between one and ten degrees, are familiar with trigonometry, and understand that force and acceleration are dimensionally different. If you're competent at any of these things, you've done a very good job of concealing it.

Dave

ETA: Most of them understand data precision and error analysis too. I'll give you a pass on perspective; you'd need to be a freshman art student to understand something that tricky.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Pedro, the real fallacy is that a tilt would obviate a need for a jolt in a purely gravity driven collapse. The energy dissipation happens much too quickly to allow the continued drop to compensate for lost velocity.

The tilt increases the duration of the interval over which the energy is dissipated. That's the point you seem determined to fail to grasp. In fact, as has been pointed out to you ad nauseam, for a tilt in excess of about 3º there is no restricted interval over which the energy is dissipated; the energy dissipation is continuous. Therefore, for a tilt angle of greater than about 3º, no major variations in acceleration are expected.

Dave

 

[tfk]

WTC 1,2
In order for the top block moving columns to fall one story, they must first bypass the lower stationary columns at their point of failure.

The columns fail in one of two modes at their weakest/most stressed point.
1) Columns buckle in the body. (36 foot high columns) – or-
2) Columns fracture at the butt joints. (every 36 feet- 1/3rd staggered every 10 feet horizontally at the perimeters, in-line 3 feet above the slab at the core.)

The columns bend and deform in compression (creep-calculated by NIST in WTC2 up to 14" differential settlement) until they fracture at the body (buckle) or butt joint as both fractured ends momentarily remain in eccentric contact due to gravity. This new dynamic eccentric moment forces the columns ends at their fracture to bypass each other and the top columns fractured ends hit the slab below.

It isn't even required that the top be tilted.

The top columns buckled/fractured ends fell onto the slab below not onto another column end below. There was no column end below.

Tony Szamboti’s jolt hypothesis assumes all perimeter and core, upper and lower column ends to axially and simultaneously hit by falling a distance of one story, 12 feet, before impact. This did not happen, therefore the jolt hypothesis is false.

Nice job!!

You got it.
You got it exactly right.
You picked out exactly the key flaws.
Superb.
[Or, as they say in this quaint little corner of our country (Boston), "wicked pissah!"]

And you beat me to it.
Rat bahstahd!

I'm sure that some others have gotten earlier the precise flaws in his arguments. This doesn't diminish one iota the fact that you've figured them out yourself, prioritized them, and picked out the real issues from the distractions.

I'm sure that I (too quickly) read thru this post of yours, as well. But until I worked out the details myself, I didn't appreciate it because I hadn't distinguished the significant from the trivial.

And the direct consequence of your analysis: No (significant) jolt. A bunch of little ones. So don't bother looking for it in Tony's data.

The result of a correct reading of BZ's paper: No jolt expected. The 31g nonsense is uniquely the product of Tony's & McQueen's incompetence at reading & understanding what BZ said.

Su-weet job putting this to bed.


Tom

 

[rwguinn]

rw.

You left out incompetence and outside the scope of his field and education.

Yes, my argument only addresses Tony's claim that there had to be a "jolt." Others have argued that there could have been lots of small jolts spread out over time, and each was very short in duration, so they are simply undetected by Tony's method. He doesn't seem to have a refutation for those arguments, either, except to keep saying the "lost velocity" would be detectable regardless. But you can't lose what you never had, and the tilt explains why (unlike a Verinage demolition) the collapse was not a series of free-falls punctuated with collisions that would have all the lower columns reacting virtually at once.

The tilt is also a result of the remaining structure resisting the fall untill sufficient progressive failures allow contact at some velocity less than v=g*t. That velocity reduction is due to absorbed energy in bending and failing the "fulcrum" about which the tilt occurs.
The "jolt" is a continuous process, or more likely, a series of small discontinuous functions as each structural component is impacted, absorbs energy, and fails

I agree. Everything we've seen indicates a perceptible tilt negates the possibility of the column ends coming in contact during the collapse. Except the very few which happen to line the direction of the tilt. Even then it's very unlikely they all meet at the same time.

I don't know why Tony continues to argue this. It amounts to a very simple calculation in which the angle of the tilt offsets the column ends greater than their width. Even in the core this amounts to no more than 4". This equates to an angle of tilt approximately 0.17 degrees.

this is also true, and part of the reason the process was more continuous than it was a "jolt"

 

[femr2]

It amounts to a very simple calculation in which the angle of the tilt offsets the column ends greater than their width. Even in the core this amounts to no more than 4". This equates to an angle of tilt approximately 0.17 degrees.

May I suggest you try that calculation again.

1000 series columns produce the largest displacement, with the hinge(pivot) being the North face...

 

[Dave Rogers]

May I suggest you try that calculation again.

1000 series columns produce the largest displacement, with the hinge(pivot) being the North face...

Half the width of the building is 104 feet. 4" is a third of a foot. 4"/104' gives 0.032, and arcsin(0.032)=0.18º. Looks about right to me. I think the core columns were a bit wider than 4", though. Since the top block rotated through more like 8º and no jolt above the detection threshold would be expected for an angle greater than about 3º, it's not particularly relevant.

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

I've just realised how stunning a piece of hypocrisy and inconsistency this is from Tony.

Although Figure 5 above claims to present "actual measured velocity", that is a lie. Here are the actual measured velocities, as computed directly from their unsmoothed data in the table on pages 6-7:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/will/Music/Jokes/Szamboti/figure5honest.jpg

As can be seen from the unsmoothed data in my graph, there appear to have been three mild jolts around 1.00, 1.33, and 1.67 seconds. Tony's expected delta-V of 13.13 ft/sec is shown in the dashed line, followed by the subsequent 1g acceleration implied by their model (instead of the incorrect reduced acceleration shown in their Figures 5 and 6, which was also incorrectly labelled as "reduced velocity"). If you compare the solid and dashed lines at 2 seconds, you will see that the sum of the three (or more) mild jolts was equal to Tony's expected jolt to within quantization error.

Your graph is based on the error being in favor of your position all the time, which is statisically improbable. Additionally, the error would not be an entire pixel or 0.88 feet but half of that.

This is a bogus use of the data you are showing here.

We also did not conclude there was no jolt simply because it wasn't obvious on the graph but because there was no velocity loss commensurate with the energy dissipation that would have occurred. Your bogus distortion of the data in an attempt to show some sort of step still can't eliminate that anomaly.

Let's go back over that one again, shall we? Tony has said all along that there is no jolt visible in the data, and that the final velocity is different from that which would be expected even had the jolt been smeared out between multiple impacts. W.D.Clinger then presents a graph of Tony's data, showing that multiple impacts are visible in the data (and, incidentally, that the final velocity is in close agreement with what Tony predicted).

Tony's response is to deny the validity of his own data.

He's claiming that the jolts visible in his data cannot be taken as evidence of real jolts, because the noise level on the data is too high. Therefore, he's claiming that the jolt he claims not to see cannot possibly be seen, because his data is not good enough. That's what we've been telling him all along. And he claims that the overall reduction in final velocity is not seen; well, I've looked at WDC's graph, and it's not just visible, but obvious.

This is classic conspiracy theorist cognitive dissonance. Tony has been looking for something he was determined not to see, and when it's shown to him in his own data, he refuses to see it.

There's no bogus distortion there, Tony. It's your own data, pure and unadulterated. I plotted it out myself and it looked the same. Your jolt is there, split into a series of smaller jolts, just like everyone's been telling you. End of story.

Dave

 

[femr2]

Half the width of the building is 104 feet. 4" is a third of a foot. 4"/104' gives 0.032, and arcsin(0.032)=0.18º. Looks about right to me. I think the core columns were a bit wider than 4", though. Since the top block rotated through more like 8º and no jolt above the detection threshold would be expected for an angle greater than about 3º, it's not particularly relevant.

Dave

Here's the calc for the full width at 3º
calc

And data for the tilt itself...
WTC 1 Tilt.

 

[Newtons Bit]

Here's the calc for the full width at 3º
calc

And data for the tilt itself...
WTC 1 Tilt.

Everyone needs to go to femr2's calculation there. I actually LOL'd.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Here's the calc for the full width at 3º
calc

Oh yeah, (1-cos) not sin. You're right. I need to stay awake.

Personally I doubt they'd miss entirely, but it really isn't too relevant. Tony's data looks entirely consistent with multiple impacts due to tilt; in fact, three separate jolts is what you'd expect for a rotation about one side (one as the leading edge hits the perimeter columns, a second as the core columns impact, and a third as the trailing edge hits the perimeter columns; the tilted side perimeter column impacts just give a roughly constant retardation). But they may not be real anyway, they're very close to the noise level due to pixellation error alone.

And data for the tilt itself...
WTC 1 Tilt.

It looks to me like you still haven't got a definitive answer for angle and drop vs. time, but I posted a couple of video stills a while back that measured out to a 2º tilt on the image (i.e. the component about an axis parallel to the direction of viewing, so a lower bound for the actual angle) for a drop of the top corner of about one pixel, where a pixel scaled out to about a quarter of a storey. From that, I'm convinced that there was at least a 2º tilt before the first floor-on-floor impact occurred. At that tilt, even ideal impacts give less than 1g peak retardation, hence no actual deceleration is expected.

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

Everyone needs to go to femr2's calculation there. I actually LOL'd.

Scroll down a little, to the bit where Tony's presented with a picture of WTC1's upper block tilting before it dropped. His response? The video isn't reliable because it was taken from over three miles away , and the building can't have tilted because he doesn't believe it could have. Who are you going to believe, Tony Szamboti or your own lyin' eyes?

Dave

 

[tsig]

Scroll down a little, to the bit where Tony's presented with a picture of WTC1's upper block tilting before it dropped. His response? The video isn't reliable because it was taken from over three miles away , and the building can't have tilted because he doesn't believe it could have. Who are you going to believe, Tony Szamboti or your own lyin' eyes?

Dave

If the video isn't reliable then Tony's whole argument about the "missing jolt" is completely frivolous.

 

[Furcifer]

Everyone needs to go to femr2's calculation there. I actually LOL'd.

I dememand accuracy to at least the billionth of an inch.

And I drink Dosequis.

 

[Newtons Bit]

I dememand accuracy to at least the billionth of an inch.

And I drink Dosequis.

Actually, the part where Tony Szamboti says that Cos(1 deg) is the same as 3*Cos(1 deg) is what I was laughing at.