Rex Murphy on the Deniers
Here's a terrific article by Canadian journalist Rex Murphy on conspiracy theories in general and the 9-11 Deniers in particular:
I do not know why we give any oxygen to these extraordinary libels. Detestation for George Bush may qualify a person for many things, but it is not a degree of metallurgy, just as anti-Americanism is not a branch of physics.
These theories that suggest a sitting president and his advisors would murder their own citizenry are a calumny, as lunatic as they are contemptible. They come from the imagination of hate, the pernicious concoctions of minds allergic to reality, and are beneath the dignity of reasoning human beings.
Hat Tip: Emailer Ross. Thanks!
posted by Pat @ 10:16 AM
41 comments
41 Comments:
The criminals are frightened! The light of truth is shining on these roaches and they are in full protective mode; predictable.
9/11: Press for Truth
What left is there to do Basil...?
Take it like an adult and admit the criminality of our rulers.
Name calling only shows weakness, lack of insight, lack of intelligence and admission of defeat.
Another namecalling article.
Did you have any sort of point there, Red?
Rex Murphy Rules!
Rhodes Scholar, and a Newfoundlander. Great man with a wonderful talent for wit and sensibility.
TAM
Name calling? You think this is name calling? Are you THAT sensitive?
If you want name calling Joan, head on over to well... any CT site in which a rational person throws in his/her 2 cents.
God... you make that statement as though the majority of your movement isn't made up of immature teenagers and wannabe 20-somethings who have nothing better to do than rage against the machine while smoking pot in mommy's basement.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Name calling only shows weakness, lack of insight, lack of intelligence and admission of defeat.
No, it shows we've already deciminated all your "arguments" and now are moving on to having fun thanks to your insane thick-headedness.
God... you make that statement as though the majority of your movement isn't made up of immature teenagers and wannabe 20-somethings who have nothing better to do than rage against the machine while smoking pot in mommy's basement.
Nice. Couldn't have said it better myself.
TAM
FREE-FALL
None of the buildings fell at free-fall.
JR,
Facts:
"David Ray Griffin (FM)
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion & Theology, Claremont School of Theology & Claremont Graduate University"
No engineering credentials. No science credentials.
Steven Jones (FM)
Professor of Physics, Brigham Young University
No engineering credentials. Science credentials are in the field of muon catalyzed fusion, not applicable to analyzing the Twin Towers collapsse.
Compare to NIST team investigating the collapse:
William L. Grosshandler -
Chief of the Fire Research Division in the Building and Fire Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology... responsibilities and technical areas of interest include fire dynamics, material behavior in fires... advanced fire measurement and predictive methods, and advanced fire service technologies.
Richard W. Bukowski - Standards and Codes Coordinator for the Building and Fire Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Senior Engineer in the Integrated Performance Assessment Group... member of the Standards Council of the National Fire Protection Association,
Therese McAllister - research interests include reliability-based structural assessment, performance of structures in fire, structural stability and progressive collapse... conducted engineering research and development projects on the design and construction practices for multi-hazard mitigation
If you want to argue expertise, the 9/11 Scholars for Truth have none. None. Zero. That's a fact.
Bring on the facts people. Convince
me that your justified in your quips and sneers.
Read the rest of the site. We're not here to re-hash every tired old argument any time a new Troofer sticks pops his head into the comments section. Read over the analysis and arguments made on the rest of the site - afterwards if you've got any relevant questions we'll be happy to discuss them.
I'm looking forward to your refutation of the laws of physics.
Sure, here goes:
C4 can withstand fires burning at over a thousand degrees!
Thermite can burn sideways!
A missile can magically suck light poles out of the ground and punch massive holes through 3 sections of the pentagon!
How am I doing so far?
FREE-FALL = CONTROLLED DEMOLITION = INSIDE JOB
While technically true, what you fail to realize is how little difference there would be between freefall and what actually occurred at ground zero. The amount of potential energy present in the falling portion of each building was more than enough to plow through any resisting force within milliseconds. In other words, with the amount of resistance offered by the rest of the building we're not talking about a doubling or tripling of the amount of time required for the collapse, we're talking a difference of only a few seconds, which is NOT something you could measure using the video footage. A scientific analysis requires much more accurate data. That's why it's important for QUALIFIED people to study the collapse. Fetzer and Jones don't fall into that category.
Why do ya'll ignore them:
Ray Griffin Phd. Steve Jones Phd, st911.org (scholars for 911 truth)
Why do we ignore them? You must not have spent much time here, we have done dozens of posts on the scholars.
I have written a couple of papers on them too.
www.jod911.com
Not every post will deal with specific topics obviously, but believe me, we are not avoiding the facts.
None of the buildings fell at free-fall.
Well, the surly didn't 'pancake' either. More like beating a bag of flour Sherlock.
More like beating a bag of flour Sherlock.
Jeezus man, I thought we debunked the Kibbler Elves theory already....
1) The majority of the concrete and building contents were pulverized
to dust.
2) The entire core infrastructure, of extremely strong steel girders
designed to handle at least 3x the static load, was completely
undermined.
3) A large amount of molten iron/steel was produced at the foundation
that existed at 1000+ degrees for many days.
The answer to all three questions is quite simple. Very few materials can withstand being impacted by the weight of several floors of a skyscraper once they are in motion. Once these floors are in motion, they are no longer "static" load, they are "live" load, which is calculated differently. The more they accellerate, the more force they hit the floor below with, the smaller the pieces of the floor below, whose mass is now added to that which is falling on the floor below... Plus, umpteen tons of building debris provided very good insulation for the materials that were already burning at 1000+ degrees.
For your cinder block analogy to actually apply, it has to already be burning at 1000 degrees, and we're going to need more than just you jumping on it.
Why don't you just consolidate your argument and point us 'Troofers'
to it. A little organization please.
Pot, meet kettle.
Ranting the usual diatribe of dis-info that has been carpet bombed
on the net to confuse the public.
Ah, yes, ofcourse. Only YOUR troof is Da TROOF! All the other conspiratoids are either wrong or government shills. Ofcourse, we should all know this ahead of time, and only answer your questions instead of everyone else's.
Well actually video footage can be used to determine the speed of the fall quite accurately (probably +-100 ms), as long the measurement is done while the top of the building is still visible (more than 80% of the drop). Doing this one finds that for that period they fell at speeds closer to free-fall in a vacuum.
Really eh? Ok, let's see you do the math on that one. I'll double-check it for ya once you're done.
But for the hell of it, I'm
gonna give your extra 2 seconds, but in that time you have to prove
how:
I don't have to prove shit. The reports are out, feel free to read them. You're the one alleging government involvement, so it's your responsibility to prove it. In this case I'll answer your questions because they're so simple, for further questions, read through the site, and pick up the FEMA and NIST reports.
1) The towers contained approximately 1.7 terajoules of potential energy. That's something like 600 TONS (1,344,000 lbs) of TNT.
2) Impact and fire will do that.
3) The molten steel crap has never been documented. Extremely hot steel, on the other hand, was definitely present at ground zero, but was just more likely to be produced by the phenomenal amount of energy released by the collapse than some magical thermate substance that would have had no reason for being at the WTC in the first place.
Suggesting that all this could happen in 12 or even 15 seconds, or
frankly could happen at all, just from the given falling mass, is like
proposing that you could jump on a cinder block, crush it and turn it
to molten lava.
I don't contain 1.6 terajoules of potential energy.
Obviously you've never seen the result of a meteoroid impact. A boulder the size of a basketball can cause massive cratering, glassifying of sand, and melting of rock. Anyone who understands anything about physics will tell you that explosives and flammable substances are absolutely not necessary to produce those kinds of results - all you need is enough energy focused in a small enough area.
Thanks for coming out though. Your cookie and juice box are waiting in the kitchen.
JR, you continue to misinterpret things.
"The majority of the concrete and building contents were pulverized
to dust."
All that proves is that it was a horrendous collapse and that there was a lot of energy involved in it. It doesn't prove a single thing about the cause of the collapse.
"The entire core infrastructure, of extremely strong steel girders designed to handle at least 3x the static load, was completely undermined."
Correct. They were undermined because of the fires that were started.
"A large amount of molten iron/steel was produced at the foundation that existed at 1000+ degrees for many days."
People saw molten metal, but no analysis was ever done to verify that it was indeed steel or combinations of other metals (such as the significant amount of aluminum from the airplanes themselves, or the copper wiring and metals involved in the plumbing). Some puddles may have been other metals, many of which like aluminum melt at far lower temperatures.
Two, there was much red hot steel:
http://www.911blogger.com/uploaded_images/glowingsteel-704860.jpg
... but the amount of actually "molten" metals was never quantified, nor have pictures been produced.
Also: The fires continued in the piles of rubble below for 3 months.
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/12/20/rec.athome.facts/
Much combustible material was in the rubble, plus it was insulative. With nowhere for the heat to go - the rubble would be insulative - the temperatures would rise beyond which they would had the same material been burning in air, with no insulative effect from the material around it. That amount of time and that amount of "fuel" from all the combustibles would indeed account for 1. The reports of high temperatures months - not days, not weeks, months - after the event, and 2. The reports of red hot metals, such steel, being dug up from the rubble.
Besides, one explanation CT folks use to try and explain the high temps is the use of Thermite. To get thermite to burn through steel, you have to use a fast burning implementation, which means the thermite would be used up in seconds. Thermite cannot be used as an excuse for the fact that temperatures were extremely high for months after the event; it would've burned out before the towers even finished collapsing. The explanation for the red hot metals being pulled from the ground is because they were buried under other material, and pockets of rubble were still ablaze. Heat plus insulative properties of the concrete and other materials is enough to explain the high temperatures. Thermite use is a terrible hypothesis; it does not explain all the observations, and in fact cannot be used to explain the lenght of time the fires burned.
JR, seriously: Have you read the "official explanation" i.e. the NIST report? You seem to be making the same mistake that nesnyc keeps making, which is to rely on second and thirdhand observations and interpretations, and not go to original sources.
On top of that, you've yet to address the discrepency between the academic credentials and expertise of the 9/11 Scholars for Truth, which you put forth as "experts", and the engineering, structural design and failure, and fire research expertise of just that small sampling of the NIST research team. Only one 9/11ST member claims structural engineering expertise, and no one can find his CV or any articles he may have published. There are no experts on that team in the field of structural collapse or fire and structure research.
You and others keep talking about discrepancies between the "official" story and "what really happened", but your own stories are even further from "what really happened". You and others keep coming up with point explanations for invididual issues - such as "molten steel" - but those individual points do not build up to a comprehensive narrative. Many are even contradictory, such as the hypothesis about thermite vs. the long-lasting fires.
To properly analyze an event of the scope and magnitude of the WTC collapse, critical thinking is required. Not simply swallowing the explanations of some non experts because of a fantasy about the motives of actual experts. You, JR, and others are not applying the critical thinking necessary; you're only stopping at the fact that these alternate fantasies fit your worldview that there's a conspiracy involved. You all don't consider the obvious issues, such as the numbers of folks required to pull such a conspiracy off.
I know that too many posters here have resorted to simply poking fun at conspiracy fantasist, but that doesn't mean those fantasies are correct, or truly reflect reality. If you are indeed interested in the truth, then you need to apply the critical thinking to all the information, not just the "official" story. You must ask "does this alternate theory explain everything". And "does it contradict any other fact in the story". Then you'll get at the truth. But you won't get at it if you simply continue to uncritically buy into the fantasies about thermite and neocon world orders.
According to FEMA the jet fuel burned out in 10 minutes. That heat
source gone, where do we get the energy to produce all that molten
metal?
What, were the towers just empty shells? Where does a house fire get all it's energy? You are ofcourse aware that an average housefire will burn at between 1200 and 2000 degrees fahrenheit, right?
Are you sure you're a human being and not just a spam-bot?
NIST and others already confess that no girders melted. I
think you should re-read the official reports, even they aren't
as outlandish as your 'explanation'.
Most of us have read them. You obviously haven't. And he didn't say the steel melted. Nobody ever said the steel melted. That's just something you conspiracy dolts have been claiming from day one. At least YOU finally realize that the official explanation of events doesn't involve steel melting. That means you're one step ahead of 99% of the troofers.
And BTW molten aluminum is silver
not orange as the molten metal found was.
In other words "I get all my info from Jones and Fetzer, and am incapable of thinking for myself". Pure molten aluminum may be silver, but there's very little reason to believe that any aluminum which melted would have stayed pure for long. Assuming, ofcourse that you can even provide any evidence of "orange molten metal".
And furthermore, its unlikely that any signigicant amount of aluminum survived the initial impact.
Oh really. Then where exactly did it go, Einstein? What did it do, magically turn into gold? Aluminim doesn't just dissapear. You sure you actually attended science classes in highchool?
In case your unaware it takes massive amount of energy to pulverize concrete. Have you ever seen a jack-hammer in operation? And that's just to break it into chunks. But here we are looking at pulverizing 500,000 tons of it to dust.
You don't think 1.6 terajoules (600 tons of TNT) is enough to do that? Well. Thanks doc, but I'll want to have a look at your physics degree before I take your word on it.
Cinder blocks are not reinforced with steel, so that's a fair trade for your 'burning at 1000 degrees'. Also, I weigh 10x the mass of a
cinder block - the upper stories were less than 1 quarter the mass of
the rest of the building.
Wow. That last part just leaves me dumbfounded. Are you TRULY comparing the bottom two thirds of the WTC towers to a solid concrete block? You're like the new Judy Wood.
Face it: Your trying to make a dead turkey fly.
No, genius, we're not the ones claiming 1.6 terajouls of energy is irrelevant, nor are we the ones claiming that a structure which is more than 90% air should act the same as a solid block of concrete.
It took me 5 years to see the light myself.
I truly feel sorry for you. For 5 years you were a semi-rational, if not too intelligent, human being. Now your lack of intellect is displayed for all to see. You may as well have just tossed on a dunce hat.
According to FEMA the jet fuel burned out in 10 minutes.
And, with that gone, there was nothing left to burn, right?
In case your unaware it takes massive amount of energy to pulverize concrete. Have you ever seen a jack-hammer in operation? And thats just to break it into chunks. But here we are looking at pulverizing 500,000 tons of it to dust.
And the guy running the jackhammer is wearing a dust mask if he's smart, because even at those low levels, dust is produced.
The towers contained approximately 1.7 terajoules of potential energy.
I'm betting you have no concept of just how much energy is in a terajoule, j.r. For clarifiction, Wikipedia tells us that "As a rough guide, 1 joule is the absolute minimum amount of energy required to lift a one kilogram object up by a height of 10 centimetres on the surface of Earth." now try to wrap your mind around 1,700,000,000,000 joules. Hell, try to wrap your mind around just one trillion pennies. We're talking about 3,400,000 joules per ton of concrete. Are you getting clarity yet?
The upper stories were less than 1 quarter the mass of the rest of the building.
Yes, but if 20 stories are falling as one, they still only hit one floor at a time on the way down. You even said the girders (horizontal span by definition, only holds up one floor) were engineered to take 3x the static load that they had - this was 20+ times that mass, and it had kinetic energy to boot.
Also, my 1000 degree cinder block was to remind you that the buildings that collapsed were on fire. Oddly enough, that makes a differnce in how hot the rubble is.
"According to FEMA the jet fuel burned out in 10 minutes. That heat
source gone, where do we get the energy to produce all that molten
metal?"
Actually, the figure I saw was 4 to 7 minutes. Yes, the fuel burned off. Quickly. And set the other combustibles in the building aflame. The jet fuel was just the "lighter fluid", so to speak, for the rest of the flamable structural components.
"NIST and others already confess that no girders melted. I think you should re-read the official reports, even they aren't as outlandish as your explanation'"
Correct. They softened. That was the cause of the structural failure. And, how is the explanation "outlandish"? It properly addresses the observed events.
Plus, I discussed the glowing metal already; that was an artifact of being buried with an intense heat source in an insulative environment.
"And furthermore, its unlikely that any signigicant amount of aluminum
survived the initial impact."
Incorrect. The reports discuss many non-molten pieces of aircraft being recovered. It stands to reason that other parts could have gotten buried in the rubble and softened, heated, and possibly melted; reports show localized areas of the rubble burning at 1000+ degrees; you yourself mention this. That could easily explain the presence of molten metals. Plus, steel and aluminum were not the only metals present; what about the wiring? The plumbing? Other components of electronics in the building?
Besides which, what do you mean by "its unlikely that any signigicant amount of aluminum survived the initial impact"? What happened to it, then? The aluminum cannot simply have disappeared. Where would it have gone?
"In case your unaware it takes massive amount of energy to pulverize concrete. Have you ever seen a jack-hammer in operation? And thats just to break it into chunks. But here we are looking at pulverizing 500,000 tons of it to dust."
Correct. Go to the JREF or the Physorg forums and look up the calculations of the potential energy contained in the structure. Plenty was there, enough to account for the event as observed. No explosives are necessary once the structural integrity was compromised by the impact and the fires.
"Cinder blocks are not reinforced with steel, so thats a fair trade for your 'burning at 1000 degrees'. Also, I weigh 10x the mass of a cinder block - the upper stories were less than 1 quarter the mass of the rest of the building."
You cannot trade off aspects of a model like that. Besides, ignoring temperature, you're not properly modeling for the stresses on the structural components of the building if you're only talking about a cinder block, nor are you accounting for the fact that the "upper stories" were only facing the resistance from each individual floor below one at a time. Then, the combined mass would impact the next floor. You are simply not modeling properly. Plus, you're only taking mass and the lack of reinforcing steel into account. That's not the whole picture; to properly model the collapse, you'd have to scale for the dimensions of the structures. Otherwise, you're not accurately replicating the per-square inch pressure exerted. Jumping up and down on a cinder block does not replicate the conditions of the collapse.
" I just saw the WTC7 drop for the first time 2 weeks ago. Like many others I was unaware that it also fell."
You weren't watching the news when it collapsed?
Plus, structure 7 was terribly damaged. That is also contained in the reports, plus addressed by the PopMech article, and presumably the book (haven't read that one yet). The collapse is hardly proof of any conspiracy. It was natural to expect it to collapse, once everyone realized the extent of the damage that occured.
JR... this is not critical thinking you're displaying. It's obtuseness. It's fact parroting rather than analysis. Again, you're depending on allegations and sources two or three degrees separated from the investigation. You're allowing yourself to be swayed. That is not independent, critical, or coherent thinking. That's accepting a fantasy narrative.
And again, you've yet to address the lack of credentials by the 9/11ST group.
And again, you're not explaining how so many people would be involved, and yet no real proof, leaks from within, or admissions of guild have arose.
Since you consider yourself smart and observant, apply that intelligence and observational ability to the gaping holes in the conspiracy fantasies being espoused. How did they get the demolitions in? How'd they accomplish this? Etc. The conspiracy stories have many more gaping holes than the NIST reports or any other "official" story, yet all the conspiracy fantasists pretend they explain everything. Think. Don't just accept.
Another way of looking at it is that a compressor to drive about 4-5 jackhammers uses about 40kw. 40kwh works out to about 1,444,000,000 Joules. Meaning 1.7 Terawats is enough energy to power those jackhammers for 12,250 hours. You could do a lot of concrete demolishing with that much jackhammer time.
Although I think I made a mistake in my original calculations, so I'll post the figures here for anyone who cares to correct me:
Energy:
500,000,000kg * 200m * 9.8m/s^
= 980,000,000,000
= 0.98 terjoules per tower.
TNT Equivalent:
1 gram of TNT = 4184 Joules
therefore
980,000,000,000 / 4,184
= 234,225,621 grams
= 234.225 tonnes.
Jackhammer Equivalent:
1 killowat hour = 3,600,000 joules
therefore
980,000,000,000 / 3,600,000
= 272,222 kilowat hours
272,222 / 40 = 6,805 hours of multiple jackhammer operation.
Feel free to criticize my math or physics, it's been a while.
But wait! What fell to the ground at WTC? Mostly dust!
I think you have a very different idea if what "mostly" means than the rest of us.
Your having serious problems with scale here, claiming that forces with many orders of magnitude difference are comparable.
You mean like you jumping on your cinderblock?
AND create the pools of molten metal.
Pretty! You don't have any pictures of that, do you?
Gross exaggerations and cherry picking to blur the facts.
What's truly amzing is that you accuse us of these with a stright face.
Energy:
500,000,000kg * 200m * 9.8m/s^
= 980,000,000,000
= 0.98 terjoules per tower.
As much as I hate to pick on someone who's picking apart j.r.'s idiocy, alex, not all of the weight started at 200m off of the ground. Your equation needs to be a lot more complex.
If we shrunk WTC1 to size of a cinder block it would probably be
10 times stronger...
Changing the size of an object changes its material properties. Its thickest steel members are suddenly thinner than an aluminum can. Intricate, but flimsy. I failed projects in school for making assumptions like this (although not on this grand of a scale), but I've learned my lesson. Can you say the same?
... and 5 x more fire resistant than that block.
Your standard cinder block wall can be rated for up to two hours of fire protection. You just shrunk down the tower, so whatever gypsum wallboard and spray-on fireproofing are now microns thin, proividing no UL rating whatsoever. The rest of your arguments fall apart because you just did something you accused us of only moments ago - you are "having serious problems with scale here, claiming that forces with many orders of magnitude difference are comparable."
"What you really should be doing is determining how much energy is required to pulverize a cubic meter of concrete and than do your math on the volume contained in the towers."
A solid cubic meter of concrete? Was the WTC solid? Remember, buildings are mostly hollow; the ratio of wall thickness to internal volume is rather low.
"What fell to the ground at WTC? Mostly dust! "
Incorrect.
pic.
pic
pic
pic
"Somehow there was extra energy left over to neatly cut steel girders into pieces and have them fall into a pile in the buildings footprint AND create the pools of molten metal."
Ignoring your error about applying the energy - the energy of the floors above only have to defeat the immediate floor below, which then adds its potential energy and defeats the floor below, etc. - and your error about the "dust", you ignore the fact that it wasn't just kinetic energy which accounted for the steel failing, it was also their softening from the fires.
And again, you keep ignoring the fact that much red hot metal - I just noticed, no one ever claiming "molten" metal has ever shown proof, they've only shown heated but solid metal fragments - was produced by being under burning material.
"Man, and we haven't even begun to talk about WTC7"
Everyone who's tried to use WTC 7 as proof of a conspiracy has either taken quotes out of context (the infamous "Pull it" uttered by Silverstein) or have ignored the fact that fallen debris caused considerable damage to the structure.
"Your having serious problems with scale here, claiming that forces with many orders of magnitude difference are comparable."
You are the one with scale problems, if you continue to purport that a cinder block properly models the WTC.
"If we shrunk WTC1 to size of a cinder block it would probably be 10 times stronger and 5 x more fire resistant than that block"
Incorrect. You again need to properly consider all the dimensions, including wall thickness.
"Me Jumping vs. the upper stories collapsing.
Probably about 1000x more energy here with me jumping, because on this scale I'm at least 100x times as heavy as 15% of the mass of a cinder block and falling with 10x more force."
No, no, no, no, no. You are not traveling at the same velocity, you are not applying the pressure to the edges of the block in the same way, you are not adding the same amount of potential energy from the failed floors to the floors below in your model. Again, you are failing in your off-the-cuff calculations. You do not understand modeling properly. And, you are not accounting for the failure points of the structure. A cinder block is not the WTC; it is far, far more homogenous and has far, far fewer potential points of structural failure.
On top of that, a portion of it wasn't hit by a scaled amount of kinetic energy a 500MPH passenger jetliner provides, compromising structural integrity. Your example is the farthest thing from a proper model. It explains nothing.
elmondohummus, that's a helluva zoom lens they used for that fourth picture! It's making all of that concrete dust look like rubble!
In all seriouslness, I particulary like that it's got a cinder block at the center to give some sense of scale.
j.r., you are having serious problems with scale here, claiming that forces with many orders of magnitude difference are comparable.
Seriously, where did you cut & paste this line from? You clearly have no idea what it means, as you are trying to compare a paint can to WTC1.
If you actually want to understand the collapse, j.r., you can't do it with scale models. The very fact that you persist in arguing with scale models shows that you do not understand. In a nutshell, the mass increases & decreases with the volume (x³) of material, and the structural integrity increases & decreases with the cross sectional area (x²) of the structural members. You are going to have to wrap your brain around the kilojoules present at actual scale to truly understand.
(apologies for the triple-post)
For the love of God...
A paint can will have different per-inch and per-volume strengths. Plus, a malleable metal like a paint can won't react the same way to a structural interruption like two holes that concrete will.
Plus, again, a paint can's a homogenous structure. The WTC was a mix of metal, concrete, and various other structural materials combined, with all the points of failure that implies. These are not "nit picks". These are points of failure in your arguments attempt to reflect reality.
These are horrible models you're coming up with. You are clearly only considering mass. Not the progressive nature of the collapse, as it added mass and energy for every floor that sequentially failed, not the fact that the points of failure where load bearing structures met severely huge point increases in force applied to them, nothing. Again, not critical thinking.
I'm done. That's my last post on the subject. Take your stuff to a structural engineer, or an instructor in that field. You'll quickly discover how weak your argument is.
As much as I hate to pick on someone who's picking apart j.r.'s idiocy, alex, not all of the weight started at 200m off of the ground. Your equation needs to be a lot more complex.
No problem, glad someones actualy analyzing the equations.
To answer you though, the towers were 400 meters roughly. So 200 meters is the average height. That balances out parts that fell from 399 meters and those that only fell 1 meter.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
As far as JR's argument that a concrete block when scaled up to the size of the WTC towers would actualy be weaker....tell ya what JR. Your house should be much stronger than a block of concrete the same size, right? Go rent a crane, have it lift your car, and then drop it on the roof of your house. Obiously the car is much lighter than the house, so it shouldn't do any damage at all, right?
To answer you though, the towers were 400 meters roughly. So 200 meters is the average height. That balances out parts that fell from 399 meters and those that only fell 1 meter.
OK, I looked at it for a while, and you can average it like that - my bad. Still, that only for the potential energy. Kinetic energy would be trickier, because we would need to know velocity at time of impact - there were so many impacts.
"... they completely ignore the fact that the lower floors have any mass at all(!)..."
How do you get that from the statement you're quoting? The dynamic load overcame the ability of the rest of the structure to handle it, besides which the structure was designed to suport a static load.
"Steel and concrete just don't decide to get out of the way and disintegrate because the collapsing floors above are about to hurt them."
Correct. The steel was compromised - softened - by the fire.
"Laws of Nature will not permit the collapsing floors to move just as fast as moving through air."
No one said that.
" Fire cannot do that!"
Cannot do what? Weaken parts of a structure to the point it collapses and triggers a global collapse? Cannot disrupt structural integrity by softening steel members relied on to support the weight of the stories above? That is in fact what happened. How can you claim that it "cannot do that"?
"The fires were actually relatively weak."
Incorrect. The fires were widespread and in places were estimated to reach 1000 degrees, more than enough to soften steel.
"the impact... widely dispersed jet fuel over multiple floors; and (2) the subsequent unusually large jet-fuel ignited multi-floor fires (which reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius) significantly weakened the floors and columns with dislodged fireproofing to the point where floors sagged and pulled inward on the perimeter columns."
NIST FAQ link
"The design engineer of the WTC, John Skilling, said that they took airliner crashes and jet fuel fires into account and clearly stated that the structure would still be there."
Everyone quotes Skilling's Seattle PI interview where he talks about taking the jet fuel fires into account, but all of you ignore the other designer - Leslie Robertson - saying:
"To the best of our knowledge, little was known about the effects of a fire from such an aircraft, and no designs were prepared for that circumstance."
You also ignore the assertion by MIT Civil Engineering professor Eduardo Kausel:
"However, the World Trade Center was never designed for the massive explosions nor the intense jet fuel fires that came next—a key design omission."
Who's right? Who knows... but the assertation by Skilling is hardly unchallenged, and one of the challengers is one of the other WTC designers.
"They didn't explore any CD theories."
And geologists ignore flat-earth theories. And NASA ignores the cabal of "moon landings were faked". It's proper to only address facts and scientifically generated hypothesis, not random charges with no scientific basis.
"Start with their one and only conclusion, and try and get as much evidence together to support it."
They stared with the fact of the collapse and came to a conclusion based on the actual events that occurred. Your charge is false.
"I could literally pick apart every point they make and back it up"
I've seen so many people claim that, and not one of them has yet to do it. Put your money where your mouth is. What you've stated above doesn't count; it's already disproven by people other than me, and you only make a handful of claims. Debunk. Go ahead. Prove you can "pick apart" every point, then see if your nitpicks, errors of interpretation, and logical fallacies actually build to a cohesive narrative.
Anyone can find faults in how things are phrased, be selective about quotes, build an alternate hypothesis. But to reflect reality, the narrative must be cohesive, and the facts must build up logically and answer not just what happened, but other questions that may arise but have not yet been addressed. So far, this whole "government is at fault" fantasy does not do that. No one - no one - for example has yet to satisfactorally explain just how explosives were put in the buildings without anyone noticing. No one has yet to explain how so many people could be involved without one leak from the inside. So, go ahead and build your story. Then, if you're truly concerned about being "scientific", see if it explains everything, including the details on exactly how government did it. A proper theory - not hypothesis, not claim - provides predictions and explains all events, not merely the cherry picked ones. Come up with a cohesive narrative. Do it. Don't just talk big about it.
JR
Rumsfeld's admission is severe, and ought to cost him his job, but that doesn't prove one single thing about the WTC collapse. Not one. It proves financial irresponsibility, which is itself a serious charge that needs investigation and, if need be, prosecution, but it doesn't prove a single bit of 9/11. Not one.
You have yet to provide anything other than misguided belief about the events surrounding the collapse. No part of your beliefs have been proven. That's exactly what I meant about not thinking critically. You've been answered, your models are weak, yet you persist in your beliefs. That's simply not critical thinking on your part.
That's really it. I'm really done this time. Go ahead and have your last word. It doesn't matter, not when you refuse to build an argument based on reality.
Go ahead and have your last word. It doesn't matter, not when you refuse to build an argument based on reality.
You sound so much like a flat-earther that it'd be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
Alex? You realize I'm addressing the CT'ers with that remark? The conspiracy fantasists?
NIST was deceptive and unscientific at every step of their investigation.
Do you all you people just plug your ears and say "I'm not listening"?
HOWEVER...this is only if the 2 MASSES ARE EQUAL! That is DEFINITELY NOT the case with a few upper floors of a massive skyscraper collapsing onto the 80 floors below! The MASS of remaining part of the structure is HUGELY greater than the stack of floors from above!
You are proceeding under the false assumption that the remainder of the WTC acted as a monolithic structure. It has been repeatedly explained to you that this is not the case. Your linked analysis also falsely assumes that the floors directly below the intial collapse have full structural strength to resist the monmentum of the falling upper floors. How many times must we remind you that the lower floors' structure had been conpromised by the fire?
No mathematical equations regarding the Laws of conservation of momentum. Nothing!
Considering that the report was technically made for laymen in Congress, I'm not surprised that the calculations were in external documents.
And they purposely make it so long and full of useless rhetoric that very few people will actually read the damn thing.
If you think building professionals aren't examining those referenced documents, you've got another think coming.
In 1975, there was a fire in the North Tower that burned hotter and for longer (3hrs) and it didn't affect the steel.
I'm betting there wasn't an explosion before that fire to knock fireproofing off - apples/oranges.
The huge black plumes indicate that the fires weren't ver intense.
Most computers and carpets, being made of plastic, will burn with black smoke regardless of how much oxygen they have. Because we know those are commonly found in offices, we cannot assume that the black smoke has anything to do with the amount of oxygen present at the fire, epecially when we know there are holes in the size & shape of 757's in the side of the building and that the impact shattered glass 40 floors below the impact point.
Where does the inward force come from when the floors are disconnected?
The 1000 degree trusses sagged, and pulled exterior columns in.
I don't know who this guy is, or why he's saying these things...but it doesn't sound like he's done his research. He states the designers only designed it for a low speed hit lost in the fog, which is absolutely UNTRUE - considering they tested it at 600MPH. I don't believe any engineer would leave fire out at that point.
I haven't seen this analysis, so I'm not sure what they did or didn't test for. Did they take into account everything that actually happened, though (e.g. explosion stripping off fireproofing)? I think we can agree that, whoever is doing the testing and calculations, one false assumption will throw off all of your results.
Did you even read it? The collapse doesn't just affect one floor, but it has an effect on several floors below the impact zone.
Your linked report said 24 stories below initial impact would still act in congress; you said previously that all of the lower floors still act as one. You aren't even agreeing with your source. Were you exaggerating, or did you not understand your own source? I'm arguing against a monolithic reaction, and your linked source does not imply a monolithic reaction, simply resistance greater than one floor's worth. For what it's worth, I can agree with that much from it.
The velocity of the collapsing floors would be greatly reduced every time it impacted the large mass below.
Assuming the paper's math is correct, that reduction in velocity translates to damage moving down the building 24 floors ahead of the impact. As the multiple lower floors resist each impact, they are damaged by each impact, making them less able to resist each subsequent impact - something still not taken into account in your linked analysis.
Also, per the paper, we start with 16 floors moving at 0 m/s, accelerating at 9.8 m/s over a distance of 3.7 meters to a speed of 8.5 m/s just prior to the initial floor-to-floor impact. Per its calculations (which rely on a fully braced floor), after kinetic energy is absorbed in this impact (in the form of damage), we have 17 floors moving at 4.8 m/s. While it has its flaws, I'm OK with the paper up to this point. Unfortunately, its plastic strain calculations are assuming fully functioning steel, which, due to a fire of even 500 degrees, the steel simply does not have. We can't write off the influence of plastic strain entirely, but we still have 17 floors moving with an intial velocity greater than zero, accelerating at 9.8 meters per second over a distance of 3.7 meters before it makes its next impact. It's not just the additional mass conpounding the kinetic energy, it's that mass having a starting velocity greater than zero. The second floor-to-floor impact will not only have more mass, but also a greater velocity, and thus more kinetic energy to absorb than the first impact. As a result, the initial velocity after the second impact will be greater than that after the first, as will each subsequent one after that.
Their workstation burn tests, which they manipulated by overventilating,
Did you read my link? There was a lot more oxygen present than you think - unless a room is sealed, fire will draw in air to fuel itself.
Better sprinkler systems were installed after the 1975 fire.
The sprinkler lines were severed in the intial impact, and thus do not come into play.
The firefighters had it under control - referring to it as isolated pockets of fire needing just two lines to put out.
That was on the lowest floor the fire had spread to. The upper floors were much worse.
Post a Comment
<< Home