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Thermite Debate

According to self-proclaimed experts on this forum, (who seem far more competent and qualified than the Steven Jones crowd and their "peer-reviewed" papers) and the logistic problems I've found with the idea, I'd say the most rational response is that 9/11 IS NOT a conspiracy. As far as I know, there is no credible evidence otherwise. Misinterpreted or misrepresented quotes along with "Oh, well, it COULD HAVE been like this..." theories don't cut it anymore. I've grown out of it, and I'm capable of buying into some crazy things as you'll see if you view my other posts.

However, I'll keep the debunking to those who know what they're talking about (physics-wise). Truthers are hard headed, I'd know, I used to be one. I couldn't put a dent in their logic or lack thereof on 9/11.

As an added note, I suspect bill_smith of being a troll, as I've seen him post a lot and his logic seems broken, even for the most convinced truther. Plus, as my own little conspiracy theory, I find his name "Bill Smith" to be suspicious, as it's too generic and the initials are B.S. ...Just a thought.

PS: I bought the 9/11 Commission Report on eBay a few days ago, so I should be getting that soon. It will be my first reading of the "OCT".
 
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wollclark said:
According to self-proclaimed experts on this forum, (who seem far more competent and qualified than the Steven Jones crowd and their "peer-reviewed" papers) and the logistic problems I've found with the idea, I'd say the most rational response is that 9/11 IS NOT a conspiracy. As far as I know, there is no credible evidence otherwise. Misinterpreted or misrepresented quotes along with "Oh, well, it COULD HAVE been like this..." theories don't cut it anymore. I've grown out of it, and I'm capable of buying into some crazy things as you'll see if you view my other posts.

However, I'll keep the debunking to those who know what they're talking about (physics-wise). Truthers are hard headed, I'd know, I used to be one. I couldn't put a dent in their logic or lack thereof on 9/11.

As an added note, I suspect bill_smith of being a troll, as I've seen him post a lot and his logic seems broken, even for the most convinced truther. Plus, as my own little conspiracy theory, I find his name "Bill Smith" to be suspicious, as it's too generic and the initials are B.S. ...Just a thought.

PS: I bought the 9/11 Commission Report on eBay a few days ago, so I should be getting that soon. It will be my first reading of the "OCT".
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All Truthers believe that WTC7 was a controlled demolition. Given that it looked so much like one and the fact that you used to be a Truther yourslef- what specifically made you change your mind about WTC7 ?
 
I've seen the damage to the south-side of the building, I've seen the corner blown out along with the outrageous fires. The fact that firemen said that the building was going to come down does not tell me "Well, they're in on the conspiracy!" anymore. I can't believe guys like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLTKROU4zhw are paid liars or dupes.

Specifically, it's the idea of the government bringing down the building even though no plane hit it. It's seems far too fishy and unnecessary. You could say there were incriminating files, but why not a paper shredder? Why not burn the remnants of the shredded papers afterward? I'd think that would be far easier to get away with than bringing down the building with a fake terrorist attack (that doesn't even attack the building directly) in the middle of a busy, populated city. Knocking down a building for a few files is overkill.
 
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wollclark said:
I've seen the damage to the south-side of the building, I've seen the corner blown out along with the outrageous fires. The fact that firemen said that the building was going to come down does not tell me "Well, they're in on the conspiracy!" anymore. I can't believe guys like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLTKROU4zhw are paid liars or dupes.

Specifically, it's the idea of the government bringing down the building even though no plane hit it. It's seems far too fishy and unnecessary. You could say there were incriminating files, but why not a paper shredder? Why not burn the remnants of the shredded papers afterward? I'd think that would be far easier to get away with than bringing down the building with a fake terrorist attack (that doesn't even attack the building directly) in the middle of a busy, populated city.
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Pay no attention to the papers. That was purely a distraction. But never mind...you have made your decision and we can leave it at that.
 
wollclark said:
I've seen the damage to the south-side of the building, I've seen the corner blown out along with the outrageous fires. The fact that firemen said that the building was going to come down does not tell me "Well, they're in on the conspiracy!" anymore. I can't believe guys like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLTKROU4zhw are paid liars or dupes.

Specifically, it's the idea of the government bringing down the building even though no plane hit it. It's seems far too fishy and unnecessary. You could say there were incriminating files, but why not a paper shredder? Why not burn the remnants of the shredded papers afterward? I'd think that would be far easier to get away with than bringing down the building with a fake terrorist attack (that doesn't even attack the building directly) in the middle of a busy, populated city. Knocking down a building for a few files is overkill.
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I posed this very same question to a truther before and got no response: What would be more easier to destroy documents? Shredding documents and setting fire to the offices or taking a much more riskier method; being noticed and chance of failure with the attempt of placing explosives in the building?
 
wollclark said:
Has this been addressed? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z02QrY-jcdk&t=5m29s
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Yeah, AFAIK the initial reports were retracted by both the media and NYPD.
No hard evidence is presented, just hearsay - ie there is no evidence that explosives of any kind were confiscated and booked as evidence to be used in any trial.

It's rather ironic that truthers, while insisting that the MSM is not to be trusted, seize on these reports nonetheless and refuse to accept the retractions!! There is a frightening lack of logic in this.

Both the FBI and NYPD denied any knowledge that explosives had been found, after the initial story broke. For some bizarre reason truthers insist that the Police Commissioner Kerik covered the whole thing up, but of course HAD there been explosives found in the van or truck, he would not have had the power to do so, even if he had tried.
The Police Commissioner does not have authority over the FBI, after all.

Most of these myths are perpetuated by a process of selective denial of facts and highly illogical thought processes. I would guess most 'normal' average people would quickly come to the correct conclusion that the initial reports were erroneous.
 
bill smith said:
All Truthers believe that WTC7 was a controlled demolition. Given that it looked so much like one and the fact that you used to be a Truther yourslef- what specifically made you change your mind about WTC7 ?
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Wow. It LOOKED like a CD? That's it? That's the whole of your reasoning.

The world LOOKS flat right?

Why not stick to evidence?
 
Tomtomkent said:
Wow. It LOOKED like a CD? That's it? That's the whole of your reasoning.

The world LOOKS flat right?

Why not stick to evidence?
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I should have been clearer I guess. WTC7 looked exactly like a controlled demolition Tom. That is what will be the downfall of the OCT in the end. The coup de grace .
 
bill smith said:
All Truthers believe that WTC7 was a controlled demolition. Given that it looked so much like one and the fact that you used to be a Truther yourslef- what specifically made you change your mind about WTC7 ?
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WTC 7's collapse looks nothing like a controlled demolition. Nothing at all. Controlled demolitions don't have rooftop penthouses crash through the building prior to collapse. Controlled demolitions have very noticeable explosive sequences. Sorry, none in WTC 7's collapse. Since you love teh youtubez so much: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tNhnTBzSyQ
 
Say, what would be the volume and area just one ton of thermite take up?
 
This has probably been asked and answered before, but here goes... Could thermite feasibly be used to bring the towers down? And if so, what's the minimal amount it would take?
 
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wollclark said:
This has probably been asked and answered before, but here goes... Could thermite, feasibly be used to bring the towers down?
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There isn't really an answer to this one. Truthers have demonstrated that it's possible to make horizontal cuts in steel beams, although the process IIRC involves welding a suitable container to the beam. In principle, therefore, it's possible that some set of devices could be contrived that would do sufficient damage to the WTC structure to cause a collapse. Whether it's practically possible to do so, however, is a different question; whether it makes any kind of sense, in what is supposedly a covert operation, to attempt an excessively complicated and totally untested means of building demolition in order to bring about a collapse which isn't even necessary to the aims of the operation, is a third question, and one quite easily answered from common sense.

wollclark said:
And if so, how much would it take?
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Again, with no practical means known, it's impossible to make any sensible estimates. We know that the amount of thermite needed would have to be comparable with the amount of steel it was intended to heat, so Jones and Harrit's few hundred microns of paint-on thermite would clearly have no significant effect whatsoever; Frank Greening calculated that, even assuming perfect efficiency and no heat loss to conduction, it would raise the temperature of a section of column by at most 4ºC. However, increase the thickness by a hundred times and most of the molten iron will flow away without heating the steel. Weld on a thermite trap, and you've got to add the weight of the object you weld on; and, of course, you're assuming a different scenario to the one Harrit and Jones mistakenly think they've got evidence for.

This whole line of argument, in any case, relies on shifting the burden of proof. The cause of collapse of the WTC buildings is relatively well known and understood, and is consistent with observations and physical and documentary evidence. If truthers want to demonstrate that a different cause was responsible, the burden of proof is on them. At present, it's neither necessary nor possible to disprove the thermite hypothesis, because there is no coherent hypothesis to disprove.

Dave
 
bill smith said:
I should have been clearer I guess. WTC7 looked exactly like a controlled demolition Tom. That is what will be the downfall of the OCT in the end. The coup de grace .
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And the world looks EXACTLY like it is flat.

So please Bill. Enlighten us, what SHOULD the WTC collapse "look" like?
 
Tomtomkent said:
And the world looks EXACTLY like it is flat.

So please Bill. Enlighten us, what SHOULD the WTC collapse "look" like?
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It's estimated that only 25% of Americans have seen the collapse of WTC7. When that figure is 100% they are going to think that it looks exactly like most of the other controlled demolitions they have ever seen on TV. Why is that ? Because it does.
 
wollclark said:
This has probably been asked and answered before, but here goes... Could thermite feasibly be used to bring the towers down? And if so, what's the minimal amount it would take?
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What Dave Rogers says.

Some added remarks:

1.
We had a thread here maybe 3 months ago, opened by DaveThomasNM... (can't remember his exact username) about a real-world demo with thermite: They brought down two steel-lattice towers at the Expo premises in, I think Chicago, sometime in the 30s. I think they destroyed two of the four corner legs of these towers, using a pretty significant amount of thermite, something like close to a ton. So yes, it has been demonstrated that tjermite could be used to demolish steel structures.
No great surprise here.

2.
It could equally be shown that one could use an army of midgets with saws to cut steel columns; or clever devices that use acids; or lasers; or ... (fill in your own imaginary devices).
What do those possibilities tell us about the probability that the twin towers were demolished using thermite, saws, acids, lasers or whatever you fancy? Well, pretty much nothing in the absence of any evidence that such devices were in fact used.
So why don't you ask how many midgets it would take? How many gallons of acid (without even saying which acid)? How many lasers with what power? You don't ask all these questions because there is no evidence that midgets did it, or acids, or lasers, or...
Do you have any evidence that thermite did it? No? So why do you ask how much would be needed?

3.
Truthers are notoriously unclear about what kind of thermite they think was used. They happily mix thermate and nano-thermite and speculate about all the additives that might give the stuff any magical property they'd desire for some particular effect, whilst ignoring the fact that the same properties and additives make another part of their theory even less improbable.
Take for example that red-gray material that Harrit e.al. report about, and that Mark Basile supposedly confirms: It consists largely of iron oxide NOT mixed with aluminium (gray layer) and organic matrix that these truthers forgot to analyse altogether. The consequence is that only a maximum of 14% of the mass of this "active thermitic material" would be a mix of the actual substances that make thermite. Much of these 14% however is silicon which plays no role in any thermite except to slow it down, and the remainder contains too little aluminium; so all in all, much less than 5% of that material could be thermite. What is that organic matrix? Harrit can't tell. What's the silicon doing there? Harrit can't tell. What's the purpose of the gray layer? Harrit has no clue! So how could one possibly guess how much of this material would be needed for any purpose at all, if those "scientists" who claim it's "thermitic" can't explain 95% of their sample?
Gage believes the twin towers were brought down by explosive thermite - huh? Could someone please tell us what explosive thermite is? Some technical data please? No-one has presented this magical potion yet, so how can we guess how much would be needed? Gage also believes that WTC7 was brought down by incendiary thermite. His evidence? Zip, zero zilch.



In summary, what we need is for truthers to present a full theory: The what, the how, the where, the when, the how much...
They then need to present evidence.
Only after we get this theory, and the evidence, should we start asking questions.
 
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