Tower Collapse Questions for Critical Thinkers

[Justin39640]

I don't think the bolded phrase means what you think it means.

At least, given the context, I hope it doesn't.

(Google is your friend!)




Instead of winches, how about other structural framework members, that started falling earlier (which some did, as we know from the penthouse collapse), pulling the mass down?

Respectfully,
Myriad

i LOL'd at that one too
i couldnt figure out a way to bring it up without a breach of the MA lol

 

[sylvan8798]

But how did this 300-350 ton column 79 cause the rest pf the 40,000 ton steel frame to collapse in such a way that all four corners collapsed st exactly the same time ? They were after all seperated from each other by the entire length and breadth of the building and still all four went down at the same time like mirror images of each other ?

The wind frames were in the exterior walls - at least the north-south frames, which were in the east and west walls. The moment frames are VERY solidly connected together. They would not be the weak points, so the sides would be pulled inward towards the center like an envelope.

 

[DGM]

But how did this 300-350 ton column 79 cause the rest pf the 40,000 ton steel frame to collapse in such a way that all four corners collapsed st exactly the same time ? They were after all seperated from each other by the entire length and breadth of the building and still all four went down at the same time like mirror images of each other ?

Why don't you read the report? Maybe you should have someone read it to you. It's all in there.

 

[kylebisme]

You can't argue that the collapse of the penthouses has nothing to do with the severe compromise of interior structural integrity.

That isn't my argument at all, but rather that the severe compromise of structural integrity you refer to doesn't account for sheer absence of structural resistance demonstrated by the period of free fall acceleration.

I don't think the bolded phrase means what you think it means.

It is a metaphor referring to a sheer absence of resistive force, usually used in a sexual sense but applicable to other situations too, such as the one Dave Rogers was proposing.

Instead of winches, how about other structural framework members, that started falling earlier (which some did, as we know from the penthouse collapse), pulling the mass down?

That will only the fall to accelerate at the rate gravity minus the the resistance of the remaining structure, not the straight up acceleration at the rate gravity seen in the collapse. Achieving the latter though a resistive force requires force beyond that of gravity alone, such as a winch.

It' apparent your engaging in faith based observations. I don't think anyone here finds that surprising. That being said I'm in for $50 that says you can't find a structural engineer that will attest to Copperfields mystical powers. I'll email a money order to a neutral party of your choosing from here in the forum. I'd prefer a moderator if willing. A time frame has to be set, I can't have all my assets tied up in this thing. If you win the money is yours, if I win your $50 gets donated to the forum in your name.

You've got until Halloween. No one from your home town or the University you may have attended counts (for obvious reasons. I can get a buddy to swear her saw Nessy). You game or what?

To make a bet with someone I don't rightly know I'd require a mediating party who has vested interest in remaining neutral. I would be willing to split the costs of hiring such an individual, a established lawyer would be an obvious choice. I'd also require a little more time to accomplish the task, perhaps until the end of the year. If you are comfortable with such terms, feel free to PM me so we can start working out all the details, and then we can post the finalized agreement here.

Why do you think 'it needed to be done', kyle?

For the same reasons demolition teams do destroy several stories of a structure when bringing a large one down; because that is what it takes achieve the force needed to turn such a building into a pile of rubble.

 

[Hokulele]

It is a metaphor referring to a sheer absence of resistive force, usually used in a sexual sense but applicable to other salutations too, such as the one Dave Rogers was proposing.

This word doesn't mean what you think it means, either.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

That isn't my argument at all, but rather that the severe compromise of structural integrity you refer to doesn't account for sheer absence of structural resistance demonstrated by the period of free fall acceleration.

That's a qualitative argument. And you aren't providing numbers to demonstrate this. I posit that whatever resistence that might have been present was too minute to be discernable on a video.

... That will only the fall to accelerate at the rate gravity minus the the resistance of the remaining structure, not the straight up acceleration at the rate gravity seen in the collapse. Achieving the latter though a resistive force requires force beyond that of gravity alone, such as a winch.

See above. You're presuming that the difference is discernable on 24 frames per second video. It would not be.

Ps., you attributed a quote regarding winches to me by mistake. Myriad made that statement.

 

[A W Smith]

its the bestest computer ever!

It's not the engineers that would have been doing the modelling; they just set the parameters. If a computer couldn't do it, it's because they likely didn't apply enough computer to the task. Or didn't even attempt to, which is curious seeing how inquisitive scientists are meant to be!

Do you really believe that the best computer in the world couldn't have mapped or modelled what happened after collapse initiation?

you mean like the computers that accurately predict the weather so that simon bar sinister can control the world?

or like the computer that can accurately predict which lottery ping pong balls will fall into order so that greedy mcreedy can win billions?

or like the computer that can predict market futures so that the sheik can take over a country's economy?

Are you that stupid?

 

[kylebisme]

This word doesn't mean what you think it means, either.

I meant situations. Spellchecking often leaves me with such weird grammatical errors due to my dyslexia, though I probably would have caught that one if I hadn't been distracted by a friend dropping by.

I posit that whatever resistence that might have been present was too minute to be discernable on a video.

It most obviously was. However, unlike you, I'm offering a rational explanation of how that sheer lack of resistance can be achieved. Besides, your posit isn't even supported by NIST's model, which shows large sections of the structure bending under force. This is why NIST couldn't show their model archiving free fall acceleration, as the conditions they simulated simply can't explain those observable results.

You're presuming that the difference is discernable on 24 frames per second video. It would not be.

On the contrary, all you need is three frames and the time between them to calculate acceleration, as it is simply the change in velocity over time. This is why NIST was unable to deny the period of free fall. On a side note, the videos referenced are 29.97 frames per second, it is film which generally uses 24.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

EDIT: never mind.... teaching ignorants is infeasible.

 

[Arus808]

18 pages of a troll who was answered on page 1.. could you guys stop feeding apparent trolls?

 

[Furcifer]

To make a bet with someone I don't rightly know I'd require a mediating party who has vested interest in remaining neutral. I would be willing to split the costs of hiring such an individual, a established lawyer would be an obvious choice. I'd also require a little more time to accomplish the task, perhaps until the end of the year. If you are comfortable with such terms, feel free to PM me so we can start working out all the details, and then we can post the finalized agreement here.

I'm not sure why you'd need a lawyer. Any reputable 3rd party should suffice. We're talking about $50, not a million. I'd give you the money if you could get two professionals you don't know, to publically admit they believe Copperfield actually vanished the statue of liberty just to see you learn something. Even if they were kidding it would be worth the $50 to see someone like yourself actually talk to real professionals and see how seriously they take their work.
And that's the point really. I've seen too many "truthers" laugh off some very accomplished scientists and professionals because they have no respect for how seriously they take their responsibilities. Most truthers, if any, have never accomplished anything in their lives so they have no idea what's really involved here. We're not talking about a bunch of goof balls working a deep fryer at Taco Bell. We're talking about people who have the responsibility to get things right because lives are potentially at risk.
As far as I'm concerned the $50 would be well spent if you found a couple of structural engineers to admit they believed Coppefield vanished the statue of Liberty. Better to find them now and have their licences revoked, than to let them continue to practice and see them vanish an overpass or bridge.

 

[Dave Rogers]

You don't have to imagine anything to understand, all you'd have to do is recognize the fact that both Tour Broca verinage and Building 7 collapsed with a period of free fall acceleration, both accouting for about 15% of the distance of the fall.

Ah, the old bait-and-switch approach. "A looks exactly like B, so they're exactly the same." "But they don't look remotely similar." "No, but they're alike in one subtle detail, so they're exactly the same."

Show me your measurements of the accelerations of WTC7 and Tour Broca, and demonstrate that they show similar accelerations over similar parts of the collapse. Then advance a fully realised explanation of why this proves some similarity in mechanisms. When you've done that, I may pay attention to it. At the moment, as usual, you're making things up, because I don't for one moment believe you've actually measured the Tour Broca acceleration. And when you have got some results, you'll have proved that the collapse of a multi-floor segment of a falling building results in a period of freefall acceleration, without any reference to how that collapse was initiated. Different mechanisms can produce similar results.

The roof line is stays fairly symmetrical for a considerable distance of the fall, and to say it feel symmetrically is to speak pf that fact in general terms. To deny that fact in refusal to accept it's implications is a case of straining at a gnat while swallow a camel.

Rubbish. Utter, utter rubbish. WTC7 can be seen in this video to fall in a clearly different way to any building implosion I've ever seen. The abuse of the word "symmetrical" is a piece of wilful dishonesty. It's a Big Lie, that tries to represent the collapse as something it wasn't in order to argue a case that has no merit. To say the collapse was symmetrical "in general terms" is as much of a lie as to say it violated the second law of thermodynamics; it simply was not, by any rational definition, symmetrical.

It obviously didn't resemble a building very much at, all as evidenced by the free fall acceleration though it. However, the penthouses coming down first does not explain that complete lack of resistive force, and neither does any amount of fire. This is why NIST couldn't show anything of the sort, and neither can anyone else.

Uninformed speculation. All that's needed to explain the freefall period is a multistorey collapse at some point in the collapse of a multistorey building. There's no mystery to it. Your determination to create one is classic denialism; you don't want to increase our understanding of events, but to erode it, in order (again) to argue a case that has no merit.

They'll bend over and possibly snap in parts, rubbing across other columns and coming down on to beams, all of that is resistive force which would have kept the building from ever archiving free fall acceleration, let alone over 100 feet of it. The throwing a hotdog down a hall scenario you propose isn't rightly applicable here, and again not even NIST could simulate anything of the sort.

Without numbers your comments are meaningless. How much resistance are you talking about? Enough to reduce the acceleration by how much? What's the error margin on the measured acceleration, and does the actual acceleration fall within that margin? You have no idea, so stop pretending that you know.

In both cases the falling mass will accelerate the part it hits downwards, leaving less force to pull down whatever it might still be attached to above.

This is close to scientific illiteracy. If there is a falling mass that precedes the main collapse, it isn't attached to anything above. It will simply accelerate the part it hits downwards.

To achieve downward acceleration in excess of the gravitational and resistive forces involved you'd need something along the line of winches pulling the mass down, or rocket thrusters pushing it that way.

Globally, yes. But consider the 50th floor of WTC1. It hit the ground in far less than the time required to freefall from its original height. It did so because a significant mass struck it from above at high speed. There was a significant mass of WTC7 fallin in advance of the main collapse. It's trivial to visualise how that mass could have collided with other elements of the structure to produce an increased downward acceleration.

I'd ask you to find a building outside of 9/11 which collapsed with a period of free fall acceleration without without destroy several stories of the structure at a specific instant, but knowing it isn't physically possible I wouldn't suggest you waste your time. Put simply, you aren't going to see why this needed to be done until you let go of the false premise by which you dismiss the explanation.

Most likely the period of freefall was caused by the simultaneous destruction of several storeys. It's purely your invention that there is anything surprising about this; when the whole building is collapsing, it's expected behaviour that a large section can collapse in a single impact, leaving the remainder of the structure to fall through the height of that section. Your arbitrary decision that such a section can't be as big as a hundred feet is pulled out of thin air (to be polite), and your entire argument rests on it. Show me data or a reasoned explanation, or you have nothing to say.

Dave

 

[Dave Rogers]

That will only the fall to accelerate at the rate gravity minus the the resistance of the remaining structure, not the straight up acceleration at the rate gravity seen in the collapse. Achieving the latter though a resistive force requires force beyond that of gravity alone, such as a winch.

At this point, you simply don't know what you're talking about. If an object is already falling, it has momentum. Collision with another object will exert a force on that object, thus transferring the momentum. The resultant force on the second object will be gravity minus the structural resistance plus the momentum transfer force. As I've pointed out using WTC1 floor 50 as an example, that can easily lead to a downward acceleration well in excess of 1G, for a limited period. Now, what was it we saw in WTC7 again? Oh yes, an acceleration close to 1G for a limited period.

The force of the collision is a force beyond that of gravity. As long as you can't understand that, you can't refute it, and you continue to advance untenable arguments.

Dave

 

[kylebisme]

I'm not sure why you'd need a lawyer. Any reputable 3rd party should suffice. We're talking about $50, not a million.

Again, I'd need a mediating party who has vested interest in remaining neutral. It's not a matter of the size of the pot, but rather one of principle. We're talking scouting down people to meet the qualifications proposed, which would cost me considerably, and doing so would be foolish without being reasonably assured that the wager would be honored. If you would be interested in upping the pot to that beyond which would cover your side of the expresses, or better yet cover mine, I'd be down with that.

Regardless, my "I'd bet" comment was originally only intended rhetorically in the context of disputing the idea that qualifications in a given field absolve people from holding irrational beliefs related to it. I've seen plenty of examples to demonstrate the opposite, and just last night stumbled upon Stephen Colbert interviewing a man discussing one I had researched previously; our military's efforts to develop paranormal powers for use in warfare (the introduction to the topic starting at about 1:45). Considering examples such as that one, I've little doubt that structural engineers who believe Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear exist, and I would be happy to hire a PI to track such individuals down if I can be reasonably sure the evidence aquired will not simply be ignored.

Show me your measurements of the accelerations of WTC7 and Tour Broca, and demonstrate that they show similar accelerations over similar parts of the collapse.

Tour Broca was a 15 story structure in which 2 stories being pushed out resulted in a period of free fall for about about 13% of its hight.

WTC7 was a 47 story structure which expeanced a free fall equvanlt to 8 stories, which comes out to about 17% of its hight.

Which part of that are you attempting to deny?

WTC7 can be seen in this video to fall in a clearly different way to any building implosion I've ever seen.

Can you exemplify the clear differences you allege?

How much resistance are you talking about? Enough to reduce the acceleration by how much? What's the error margin on the measured acceleration, and does the actual acceleration fall within that margin?

I know the structure of the building had provided over 100% of the resistive force necessary to hold up the roof before it started to fall, and falling with free fall acceleration can only be acomplished when the restive force is approximately 0% of that.

If there is a falling mass that precedes the main collapse, it isn't attached to anything above. It will simply accelerate the part it hits downwards.

Rather, there is an instant of transfer of momentum, but that doesn't explain the whole roofline coming down with free fall acceleration over a period of seconds, which is the issue I was discussing in the quote you responded to.

Most likely the period of freefall was caused by the simultaneous destruction of several storeys.

Rather, there is no other way it could have happened, which has been my argument all along. Your "most likely" makes me curious to know what less likely possibilities you are imagining.

 

[beachnut]

Go straight to the source.

1) "Tilt of approximately 3 to 4 degrees to the south and 7 to 8 degrees to the east occurred before bulding section fell." NIST NCSTAR1-6D, Table E-1.

2) A graphical representation of the stress at the moment of collapse initiation (predicted) is given in NCSTAR1-6D, figures 4-120.

3) Not directly, no. The columns above can only transmit a force through them equal to their individual buckling strength, which does not account for the magnitude or complexity of impacts at the interface. Force and destruction are also not directly related quantities in any event.

Great answer.

Here is a video for reference sake, if someone knows of a better one, please share it and I will add it to this post.

For ease of responding, I'll number the questions below:

1) What is the orientation of the upper portion mass?

2) How does this orientation relate to the force exerted on the lower portion of mass?

3) Is that distribution of force reflected in the destruction of the lower portion of mass?

1) see photo
2) Looks like a chaotic gravity collapse.
3) Looks like a chaotic gravity collapse, RUN!

I would like the conclusion all wrapped up and delivered so you can stop whining about engineering facts you are messing up. What is your big picture conclusion? Are you too afraid to yell it out? Why do you ask these questions? What is your motive besides exposing your inability to express your conspiracy theory up front and truthful like?

State your overall thesis and present your piles of overwhelming evidence. Bet the questions are indicative or part of your evidence. Did you sign the 911 truth petition?

... Rather, there is no other way it could have happened, which has been my argument all along. Your "most likely" makes me curious to know what less likely possibilities you are imagining.

What does it mean then? What is your final conclusion? Just questions, or do you have a point to make? The penthouse structure fell through the entire building before the facade starts to fall, and you can't figure out why the building fell? Or you are arguing the free fall close to the acceleration of gravity can only happen due to what? Gee, after tons of building fall through the center of the building, then the facade begins to fall why cant a section of WTC7 be close to the speed it should be falling? Falling with g could be near g, since we fall due to g. Gee

Are you studying the gravity collapse or are you trying to make a moronic conclusion of controlled demolition?

From the towers in the OP to the WTC7 out of control fires not fought and collapse. No professional engineers who can build buildings as big as the WTC towers or WTC7 are surprised by the failures in fires of these buildings. This leaves those who fail to understand fire science and building collapse in the fringe world of anti-intellectual poppycock and failure. The dissenting views on 911 about structural engineering are owned by the paranoid conspiracy theorists with no basis in engineering, just pure fantasy. What was your stand? Gravity collapse or some moronic conspiracy theory you can't define or defend with evidence?

 

[NutCracker]

[snipped loads of bullocks]

Cut the nonsense arguments please. It's boring and it makes you look like a delusional moron. Build your case, please. C'mon, 8 years..

Lay all the evidence all the table and show us how it leads you to your conclusion.

And no, equating (part time) "free-fall" to CD, doesn't cut it: that's associative-thinking moron nonsense.

 

[CORed]

The part he won't get is this "more weight" that he's talking about is the center of gravity that he says should move because of the weight. Anyone else (everyone) see this confusion?

It seems to me he has it exactly backwards. If explosives, ther*te (yeah right) or space beams were blowing the lower part out from under the upper part, the upper part would continue rotating, and remain fairly intact until it hit the ground. If the upper part initially rotated because one side failed first, then broke loose and fell straight down, the lower side of the upper part hitting the lower part first would tend to stop or slow the rotation. In any case, once the upper part is free, it is going to fall nearly straight down, not topple off the top of the tower. It seems like the truthers are expecting the upper part to behave like a cut tree, but a tree has a completely different height to diameter ratio and mass distribution than the top portion of the tower.

 

[rwguinn]

It seems to me he has it exactly backwards. If explosives, ther*te (yeah right) or space beams were blowing the lower part out from under the upper part, the upper part would continue rotating, and remain fairly intact until it hit the ground. If the upper part initially rotated because one side failed first, then broke loose and fell straight down, the lower side of the upper part hitting the lower part first would tend to stop or slow the rotation. In any case, once the upper part is free, it is going to fall nearly straight down, not topple off the top of the tower. It seems like the truthers are expecting the upper part to behave like a cut tree, but a tree has a completely different height to diameter ratio and mass distribution than the top portion of the tower.

See Judy "Keebler Elves" Wood's dissertation on this.
You got it almost exactly right!

 

[CORed]

that term never really made sense to me when i thought about it in a complex way
i hated using it when i was trying to teach people at my old job (believe it or not, i was the head tech and trainer before i left lol) as i felt it could confuse them (which wasnt hard to do and hence my omega comment earlier) but you have to start somewhere lol

im a field tech (and owner now) and i work on a lot of 100% electric vehicles (forklifts, jacks, cushmans etc)
even though i cant engineer a circuit (well at least a very complex one)
understanding how it works is crucial to successful troubleshooting (and the downfall of many techs in my field)

i was tempted to post earlier:
"if that was a law of electricity your computer would never work"
but to most here thats pretty obvious lol

If "path of least resistance" were actually how electricity worked, every time your refrigerator kicked on, the lights (or actually light, since only the one with the least resistance would actually be working), would go off.

 

[WildCat]

If "path of least resistance" were actually how electricity worked, every time your refrigerator kicked on, the lights (or actually light, since only the one with the least resistance would actually be working), would go off.

Sounds like my old apartment...