Why is concrete dust important?

[Travis]

When the towers fell they produced a tremendous amount of dust. I remember it when it happened and it never struck me as odd in any way. In buildings filled with dry wall, partitions, paper and insulation loads of dust would be expected.

But for some reason Truthers think that most of the dust was from concrete and that this is somehow important.

Is it? I would like to know why it is important.

As such could the following be answered: explain a form of controlled demolition that would turn the majority of the concrete in the towers into dust. This method of controlled demolition cannot use weapons of fantasy (so no invisible space stations with laser weapons). Also there should be some sort explanation as to how this form of controlled demolition was conducted in secret.

 

[patchbunny]

Because there were clouds of dust, and they think the only way concrete could be turned to dust is 'splosives?

 

[Mel Odious]

The CTers I've run across think there wasn't enough potential energy available to turn all the concrete into fine powder^*, therefore explosives must have been employed.

But when you ask these people to QUANTIFY how much potential energy was available, and how much of that would be needed to "dustify" the concrete, you never get a straight answer. Funny that!

^* The concrete wasn't all turned to fine powder anyway, but who expects the twoofers to have their facts straight.

 

[Oystein]

Also, truthers should explain why anybody who wanted to demolish a building whose structural elements are solely steel would waste significant amounts of energy on fracturing the non-structural concrete.



Also, I'd like for truthers to make a more formal case, and answer the following:

Even if only structural steel had been attacked to make the buildings collapse, it is abundandly clear even to truthers that some of the concrete would turn to dust simply by falling from a certain height and being crushed in the process. So the truthers' issue is not that there was any dust at all, but that there was "too much" dust. Imn other words, truthers claim that there was more dust because of explosives (or whatever) (A) than they would have expected from an purely gravitational collapse (B): "A > B".
Truther should explain why they think A > B. It is only possible to know that A > B if you can quantify a lower bound for A and an upper bound for B.
It follows that truthers should be able to
(A) Quantify how much concrete dust was in fact produced by the collapses
(B) Quantify how much concrete dust would be expected from unassisted gravitational collapse
If truthers can't do that, then it's clear they don't know if their claim of A > B is even true.

Once they have given us their estimates of A and B, from which we can compute a lower bound for the additional dust, truthers could or should compute the additional energy necessary to produce the difference.

 

[Travis]

Also, truthers should explain why anybody who wanted to demolish a building whose structural elements are solely steel would waste significant amounts of energy on fracturing the non-structural concrete.

I thought that would be implied by my question. I cannot figure out any reason someone doing a controlled demolition would place explosives all over the floorplates in order to turn them into rubble.

 

[LSSBB]

This method of controlled demolition cannot use weapons of fantasy (so no invisible space stations with laser weapons). Also there should be some sort explanation as to how this form of controlled demolition was conducted in secret.

Is nano-thermite included as a weapon of fantasy? After all, no one had ever used it for demolitions.

 

[Seymour Butz]

Once they have given us their estimates of A and B, from which we can compute a lower bound for the additional dust, truthers could or should compute the additional energy necessary to produce the difference.

Don't forget the end, when the concret hit the ground....

 

[Sam.I.Am]

I thought that would be implied by my question. I cannot figure out any reason someone doing a controlled demolition would place explosives all over the floorplates in order to turn them into rubble.

Look, the NWO just doesn't do things half-@$$ed. They said to make sure that the demolition was as spectacular as possible and paid really good money (in Jew gold no less) for all of the bells and whistles we could come up with. We came up with a carpeting that was not just laced with nano-thermite but it was actually made out of the stuff with a specially formulated hushaboom polymer resin to hold it all together. We had to kill all of the the scientists involved after they made it of course but sometimes you need to break some eggs to make to make an omelet right?

 

[Travis]

Is nano-thermite included as a weapon of fantasy? After all, no one had ever used it for demolitions.

Of course it actually exists while invisible space stations are just nuts.

Naturally one would need to explain how the stuff would be of any use in bringing down the buildings, why nobody saw it reacting and how it got there.

 

[GlennB]

I thought that would be implied by my question. I cannot figure out any reason someone doing a controlled demolition would place explosives all over the floorplates in order to turn them into rubble.

The dust is, indeed, an obsession for many truthers.

Hoffman went to the limit when he proposed that 4million (or was it 2million?) explosive ceiling tiles were secretly installed in the Towers as a plausible explanation for that much smashed concrete.

Meanwhile everyday CD's of much smaller buildings produce huge amounts of dust to nobody's surprise.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Truther should explain why they think A > B. It is only possible to know that A > B if you can quantify a lower bound for A and an upper bound for B.
It follows that truthers should be able to
(A) Quantify how much concrete dust was in fact produced by the collapses
(B) Quantify how much concrete dust would be expected from unassisted gravitational collapse
If truthers can't do that, then it's clear they don't know if their claim of A > B is even true.

Some time ago I coined the phrase "Unevaluated inequality fallacy" to describe precisely this type of non-argument. The claim that there was not enough energy in the collapse to create the concrete dust is a classic example of the form, as (for example) is the claim that the Twin Towers fell faster than they should have if the collapses were not initiated by explosives, or the claim that not enough wreckage was found at Shanksville.

The strong form of the fallacy is something like this:

(1) A given observable has a value A, which is not known.
(2) Assuming a certain sequence of events, the expected maximum value of that observable is B, which is also not known.
(3) By assertion, A > B.
(4) Therefore the sequence of events in (2) did not occur.

The flaw is step (3), which is a non sequitur given that A and B are not known. There is also a weaker form of the fallacy, no less fallacious, in which either A or B, but not both, is known; again, (3) is necessarily a non sequitur.

On a less rational level, I think there's an element of affirming the consequent; we know that demolition using explosives produces a collapse that generates dust, therefore some truthers reason that a collapse that generates dust must indicate an explosive demolition. This is only tenable because there is so little experience of building collapses from other means than explosive demolition; it should be obvious to the meanest intelligence that any kind of building collapse is highly likely to produce significant amounts of dust, but truthers are able to avoid making this conclusion due to their lack of direct experience.

Dave

 

[WildCat]

I predict no truther will be able to answer this question.

 

[NoahFence]

Concrete dust is important because truthers figured out that the rest of the world knows it's no big deal - which to them is a red flag of conspiracy!

 

[sylvan8798]

The strong form of the fallacy is something like this:

(1) A given observable has a value A, which is not known (or at least not known by the claimant).
(2) Assuming a certain sequence of events, the expected maximum (minimum) value of that observable is B, which is also not known by the claimant.
(3) By assertion, A > B (A < B).
(4) Therefore the sequence of events in (2) did not occur.
...
Dave

ftfy. Now the fallacy also includes claims such as that there wasn't enough debris, therefore proving that the towers were dustified by space beams

 

[cantonear1968]

I thought that would be implied by my question. I cannot figure out any reason someone doing a controlled demolition would place explosives all over the floorplates in order to turn them into rubble.

I think you and Oystein are giving them far too much credit for thinking things through that far. It would be an exercise in futility to #1 convince them that not all the concrete was turned to dust (look in my signature) and #2 that it would take placing explosive charges drilled into the concrete floor every 25 ft (as per Bazant), on every floor, to accomplish this. IIRC, Bazant estimated about 150 tons of TNT would be required.

Again, as per your question, why would someone do this? They wouldn't. But try convincing a truther of that. All you'll get in response is "This wasn't a CONVENTIONAL controlled demolition.".

Pointless!

But I will say I actually have admired your recent threads, Travis. They are very simply questions which really get to the heart of truther claims and how ridiculous they are!

Cheers!

 

[Dave Rogers]

ftfy. Now the fallacy also includes claims such as that there wasn't enough debris, therefore proving that the towers were dustified by space beams

Yes, you're absolutely right that it works with the inequality going either way; I was being a bit sloppy in my definition. Quite often, though, and very bizarrely, the claimant makes it part of the claim that one or both of the variables is not known; this is usually in response to being provided with values for both that don't satisfy the inequality the claimant wants to assert.

Dave

 

[cantonear1968]

Look, the NWO just doesn't do things half-@$$ed. They said to make sure that the demolition was as spectacular as possible and paid really good money (in Jew gold no less) for all of the bells and whistles we could come up with. We came up with a carpeting that was not just laced with nano-thermite but it was actually made out of the stuff with a specially formulated hushaboom polymer resin to hold it all together. We had to kill all of the the scientists involved after they made it of course but sometimes you need to break some eggs to make to make an omelet right?

That was beautiful!

 

[leftysergeant]

On a less rational level, I think there's an element of affirming the consequent; we know that demolition using explosives produces a collapse that generates dust, therefore some truthers reason that a collapse that generates dust must indicate an explosive demolition.

This, of course, disregards the fact that the collapse itself creates dust, mostly at the bottom of the building. The dust from the squibs appears almost instantly, travelling outward from the structure at supersonic speeds and does not noticeably flow anywhere before the collapsing structure catches up to it.

This is only tenable because there is so little experience of building collapses from other means than explosive demolition; it should be obvious to the meanest intelligence that any kind of building collapse is highly likely to produce significant amounts of dust, but truthers are able to avoid making this conclusion due to their lack of direct experience.

Verinage is a rock on which this way of thinking founders. That process also creates great quantities of dust.

Nearly all of the dust generated in verinage is from concrete. Much of the dust from WTC was gypsum and insulating foam. These would be removed in a normall demolition. The foam alone would have been greater than the amount of concrete in most buildings when they are shot. Deliberate steps are taken to remove potential sources of dust before demolition, including the drywall and foam.

Whacky punk Hoffman at least got one thing right about the cieling tiles. There were millions and they did contribute to what we saw. They can be ground to a powder under a boot heel.

Maybe someone with better math skills than mine could start another thread to calculate the amounts of dust that would have to be generated to reproduce what we saw. We have at least approximate values for all substances present which would create dust. We can plug these values into the equation to determine what percentage of these materials must be pulverised to produce that much dust.

The demolition of the Kingdome should be a good one to compare. We know that all of that dust is concrete. There may be data still available as to how much rubble was removed from the site afterwards. Since it occurred unnder conditions that permitted filming from multiple angles, we have multiple measuring points on which to base any measurement of the dust cloud.

Balsac-Vitry would also be a good baseline specimen, since we know that none of that dust was explosively-generated.

 

[fess]

That there was a large amount of dust when the buildings collapsed does not surprise me at all. If there wasn’t a large amount of dust, I would be calling for a full investigation myself.

 

[Travis]

I think you and Oystein are giving them far too much credit for thinking things through that far. It would be an exercise in futility to #1 convince them that not all the concrete was turned to dust (look in my signature) and #2 that it would take placing explosive charges drilled into the concrete floor every 25 ft (as per Bazant), on every floor, to accomplish this. IIRC, Bazant estimated about 150 tons of TNT would be required.

Again, as per your question, why would someone do this? They wouldn't. But try convincing a truther of that. All you'll get in response is "This wasn't a CONVENTIONAL controlled demolition.".

Pointless!

But I will say I actually have admired your recent threads, Travis. They are very simply questions which really get to the heart of truther claims and how ridiculous they are!

Cheers!

Thanks, when you read Truther nonsense for as many yeas as I have you start to understand that so much of what is talked about is besides the point. Debating the amount of concrete turned to dust is meaningless unless you first establish why it would be important in any way.