Toles Stares into the Abyss
Tom Toles gets snarky: Fall weather.
The economy of the 21st century will be based on an educated workforce. This will entail a familiarity with science and technology and the ability to recognize that peer-reviewed scientific work is a conspiracy. Employers will be looking for people to compete against foreign workers by having the skills to look online and find a Web site that tells them that entire fields of science are a hoax.
November 15th, 2010 at 10:55 am
I suppose that’s one way to look at it, the other is that the 20th century produced a population educated enough to see through the scam, identify the scammers and understand that in this hopefully isolated case the peer review process has failed us. But that’s ok, when processes fail us honest people make changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again, that is what brought the peer review process into existence in the first place.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:59 am
OMG, Geraldo is leaning towards the Truth side. Now I am going to have to re-evaluate my beliefs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFPobKeSzKQ&feature=player_embedded
November 16th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
But don’t you have the same logistics problems, how do you get thousands of pounds of explosives in a building, rip out 6 floors of drywall and framing to get to the main supports, and place those explosives in a building in the middle of New York without being detected? It’s not enough to say “a building can’t fall that fast” well, it did, and if the only way for that to happen is to simultaneously blow the lower 6 floors I want more than “I don’t know how they did it” give me a theory.
These people are hurting and they will always hurt, it’s sad, they can’t get at the guys that did this because they are dead so they will go after someone else, but it all it does is make the pain stronger longer.
November 16th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
No, if the surviving relatives believed the guys who did this were dead they would have closure.
Haha, you asked for a theory! I’ll provide a couple, cribbed from other sources:
…shcb, your “logistics problem” assumes that the demolition would have to be set up like a conventional commercial one, with fuses and large numbers of cutting charges. First, note that the demolitions could have been controlled using wireless detonators, which have been commercially available for decades. It is not terribly high tech to have the charges activated via radio signals in a precise fashion controlled by a computer.
Second, the demolitions could have been achieved without accessing the perimeter columns. The fact that the Twin Towers exploded into vast clouds of pulverized concrete, hurling steel assemblies up to 500 feet in all directions shows that they were destroyed with much more energy than a conventional demolition — perhaps two orders of magnitude more. That gave the planners much more leeway in the placement of charges required to totally destroy the buildings. The core structures contained the building services such as elevators, and plumbing and cabling shafts. It would have been easy for people who controlled building security to surreptitiously install devices in hidden portions of the cores. Any such job would have been far simpler than the structural retrofit of the CitiCorp Tower in New York, carried out unbeknownst to the building’s very tenants (http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/O_ekNosnieQ) .
Third, explosive devices could be disguised as or concealed within legitimate equipment, such as smoke alarms or ceiling tiles, and installed by workers oblivious to their surreptitious function. Numerous such possibilities are afforded by the properties of energetic materials.
So how would the charges be pre-positioned in the Towers in such a way that the plane crashes and fires wouldn’t have set them off?
There are several possible answers to this. First, some charges may indeed have been set off by the crashes but masked by the huge fireballs created by the combustion of aerosolized jet fuel. Second, explosives can be engineered so that heat alone will not detonate them. The high explosive RDX, for example, requires the simultaneous delivery of high heat and pressure to induce detonation. … Fourth, it is relatively easy to design casings for explosives that would allow them to survive even the most violent assaults. The casings of jetliners’ black boxes protect their contents from impact accelerations of 3,400 Gs and from temperatures of 2,000ºF for up to 30 minutes.
The first and second possibilities are probably what happened. Prior to 2001, the national laboratories and Pentagon contractors had developed advanced energetic nanocomposites which, in addition to providing much higher energy densities than conventional high explosives, were engineered to be very stable and require highly specific conditions for detonation.
Workmen were coming and going for months prior to 9/11 installing spray on “fireproofing” and related work in the elevator shafts (providing access to central structural columns.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSXmZVVCMI&feature=player_embedded
The spray on “fireproofing” could have been applied by workers who did not realize they were working with an incendiary: i.e. “Thermate incendiary coating compound: A mixture of aluminum powder, iron oxide powder, sulfur and other additives in a binder. Applied in a liquid form like paint, it dries to form durable coating that requires a high-temperature igniter to start the reaction by heating a spot to the 2,200ºC ignition temperature.”
You want a theory? Here you go: http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/blasting_scenario.html
Excerpt: “The only part of the installation work that requires direct access to steelwork is the application of the thermate coating compound and the attachment of high-temperature igniters to the coated areas. Because this treatment is applied only to steelwork in the core around the planned crash zone and the hat truss, the number of access points is relatively small, and can be reached almost entirely through parts of the building controlled by building services.
The use of a spray applicator with a flexible snake hose and integrated borescope allows a worker to treat an entire section of column walled off by sheetrock by drilling a few 2-inch-diameter holes in the sheetrock,…”
November 16th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
No, if the surviving relatives believed the guys who did this were dead they would have closure.
November 16th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Haha, you asked for a theory! So if I provide a theory, next you put me down as a conspiracy theorist? Big deal, I’ve been called worse…
Here you go, cribbed from other sources:
…shcb, your “logistics problem” assumes that the demolition would have to be set up like a conventional commercial one, with fuses and large numbers of cutting charges. First, note that the demolitions could have been controlled using wireless detonators, which have been commercially available for decades. It is not terribly high tech to have the charges activated via radio signals in a precise fashion controlled by a computer.
Second, the demolitions could have been achieved without accessing the perimeter columns. The fact that the Twin Towers exploded into vast clouds of pulverized concrete, hurling steel assemblies up to 500 feet in all directions shows that they were destroyed with much more energy than a conventional demolition — perhaps two orders of magnitude more. That gave the planners much more leeway in the placement of charges required to totally destroy the buildings. The core structures contained the building services such as elevators, and plumbing and cabling shafts. It would have been easy for people who controlled building security to surreptitiously install devices in hidden portions of the cores. Any such job would have been far simpler than the structural retrofit of the CitiCorp Tower in New York, carried out unbeknownst to the building’s very tenants (http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/O_ekNosnieQ) .
Third, explosive devices could be disguised as or concealed within legitimate equipment, such as smoke alarms or ceiling tiles, and installed by workers oblivious to their surreptitious function. Numerous such possibilities are afforded by the properties of energetic materials.
November 16th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
So how would the charges be pre-positioned in the Towers in such a way that the plane crashes and fires wouldn’t have set them off?
There are several possible answers to this. First, some charges may indeed have been set off by the crashes but masked by the huge fireballs created by the combustion of aerosolized jet fuel. Second, explosives can be engineered so that heat alone will not detonate them. The high explosive RDX, for example, requires the simultaneous delivery of high heat and pressure to induce detonation. … Fourth, it is relatively easy to design casings for explosives that would allow them to survive even the most violent assaults. The casings of jetliners’ black boxes protect their contents from impact accelerations of 3,400 Gs and from temperatures of 2,000ºF for up to 30 minutes.
The first and second possibilities are probably what happened. Prior to 2001, the national laboratories and Pentagon contractors had developed advanced energetic nanocomposites which, in addition to providing much higher energy densities than conventional high explosives, were engineered to be very stable and require highly specific conditions for detonation.
November 16th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Workmen were coming and going for months prior to 9/11 installing spray on “fireproofing” and related work in the elevator shafts (providing access to central structural columns.)
The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday [September 11]. Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday [September 6], bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed. [NY Newsday]
…there was a power down in WTC 2 the weekend before 9/11…
On the weekend of 9/8, 9/9 there was a ‘power down’ condition in WTC tower 2, the south tower. This power down condition meant there was no electrical supply for approx 36 hrs from floor 50 up… “Of course without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors and many, many ‘engineers’ coming in and out of the tower.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSXmZVVCMI&feature=player_embedded
The spray on “fireproofing” could have been applied by workers who did not realize they were working with an incendiary: i.e. “Thermate incendiary coating compound: A mixture of aluminum powder, iron oxide powder, sulfur and other additives in a binder. Applied in a liquid form like paint, it dries to form durable coating that requires a high-temperature igniter to start the reaction by heating a spot to the 2,200ºC ignition temperature.”
November 16th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
See also:
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/blasting_scenario.html written by a guy with pretty decent credentials with respect to scientific thinking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Hoffman
November 16th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
and if you question whether such work was undertaken… http://911blogger.com/node/13272
and if you question the fireproofing and assumptions in Hoffman’s theory…
http://911blogger.com/node/19271
November 16th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Nothing else going on, I’ll play. You wouldn’t need to have all smoke and mirrors you’re talking about on the top floors if this engineer is correct, you would want to knock out the lower floors so the planes would have just been a diversion in your theory. Which tends to make all these theories kind of goofy, why make things more complicated than they need to be. If there is some super explosive, and if the government or some rogue faction of the government wanted to do this they still, according to this engineer had to gain access to six floors. We aren’t talking about James Bond slithering down an elevator cable and dropping a sachel charge, we’ve all watched shows where they destroy old buildings, they spend weeks drilling holes in columns, filling them with explosives, hundreds of pounds, maybe thousands for a building this size… times 3… some of the largest buildings on earth, and nobody noticed? Sorry, that is just too preposterous.
You see if you guys want to pin this on the government, keep it simple, a few TSA agents were recruited by the CIA to allow a few groups of terrorists through screening with weapons. A rogue faction of the CIA had found a group that was planning this attack and decided to help out a little, they didn’t think it would do all the destruction it did, they were happy if one of the planes even came close, that sort of thing. You lose people when you start talking about holograms of planes flying into buildings at the exact time set explosives go off.
The Global Warming people made the same mistake, they just over reached.
November 16th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
holograms? what are you smoking. What a doofus.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Sorry. I guess I expected more from shcb than a grossly ignorant dismissal (e.g. drilling holes in columns – not how cutter charges work) and utter disregard for the excessively well researched information provided in favour of his projecting airy fairy thriller fictions about rogue CIA factions (utter speculation) and transparent attempts discredit reputable scientific investigations by the likes of Jones and Hoffman by non-sequitor associations with goofy theories (holograms).
Any respect I had for shcb was erased with his last post.
November 16th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
WTC was filled with asbestos. Remediation costs in the Billions. Silverstein would benefit for their demolition. Add to that the terrorist clauses he added to his insurance contracts in 2001 and he would (and did) benefit times 3. Ergo, a willing accomplice. A rallying event was needed to get support for massive military plans in Afghanistan & Iraq. One solution is to demolish the Manhattan buildings and blame the enemy. Problem is that there is no way the enemy could bring down the towers properly. Elegant solution is to blow the hell out of the buildings in a way that could look like a collapse initiated by crashed airplanes – a circus event so spectacular nobody would question the physics. Except some people did, and increasing numbers of people do, question the basic physics. The official story is not credible.
Which parties had the technical expertise necessary to make it happen. (means)
Who profited from 911. (motive)
Who were the people in positions to influence events on that day and managing the media messaging after that day. (opportunity)
November 17th, 2010 at 3:15 am
“Any respect I had for shcb was erased with his last post.”
You can spout racist nonsense all day and all night, but if you ever mention holograms, there will be hell to pay.
November 17th, 2010 at 5:02 am
To be fair when the hologram theory was trotted out there even Knarly thought it was going too far.
See Knarly it’s all about salesmanship, if your motive is to get George Bush you have to sell something that is believable. A dozen or even a few dozen people can be involved in a conspiracy but after that it starts to fall apart.
“Problem is that there is no way the enemy could bring down the towers properly” sure there is, fly an airplane into the side of them. You can also go down to the feed store and buy a couple tons of fertilizer.
November 17th, 2010 at 6:22 am
one last thing, I don’t doubt the possability of the pieces, just the probablility of it all coming together.
November 17th, 2010 at 10:48 am
knarls, I wish I could ‘believe’ in the Truther case for the planned demolition of the three WTC buildings, but I think a much simpler case for the banality of the w regime’s evil: they just let it happen.
I used to date a woman who worked for a very big architectural firm in Chicago. She was deep into their computer aided design and load calculations and the engineering of these kinds of buildings. I think the simplest case is that these buildings (and I’ve lived there, I’ve been on top and inside, in 99 I held my unborn son in my wife’s belly at their base and said quietly into her ear “these are the new cathedrals. monuments to science and reason and commerce”) were state of the art when they were built (but they were indeed getting on in their years – are you aware of how far those things swayed? every day?) and when you ram a fully fueled airplane (bigger than the one they had designed for) into the top 1/4 of the building, it may weaken the steel enough to catastrophically fail. Yes I know there are tons of architects who believe otherwise, but I think the physics of it aren’t magical.
I don’t see any smoking gun. I would like to, but I don’t see it. You might think I ‘hate’ the shrubco regime so dang much (eye roll) that I’d be blinded to anything but the Truther way. But it just is too far beyond the realm of the likely.
The other corroborating point on my thinking is: name one other thing this band of incompetents carried off as perfectly? They were utter failures from start to finish. 9/11 was just their biggest failure.
Sorry. =\
btw a 30 story building just burnt somewhere, but it didn’t have a jumbo jet smack into it, so I don’t think we can really draw any firm conclusions one way or the other on that data point.
November 17th, 2010 at 10:51 am
No, you make no sense. If all you did was fly an airplane into the side those towers would remain standing as they did for 1 hour and 15 minutes and 45 minutes respectively and when they did collapse the inertia of the stationary floors below would significantly slow the fall and almost certainly stop it before it hit ground. Plus you would NEVER succeed in totally demolishing another building blocks away. Try it yourself with a Leggo /popsicle stick model and a pack of matches if you don’t believe such basic concepts.
The aircraft were insufficient means to cause the damage that occured. AE911Truth have that fully documented.
The Saudi’s also had insufficient means to smuggle a couple tons of fertilizer into the buildings, you know since that attempt failed in 1993 there was security involved. What a canard. Your logic keeps getting worse.
Doubt the possibility of it all coming together? Well, it’s a hell of a lot more probable than defying conservation of momentum and other laws of physics and evading NORAD defenses, and etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
November 17th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Building 7 – the smoking gun.
November 17th, 2010 at 11:13 am
sorry knarly, iirc, a big chunk of one of the towers fell right into WTC7
a big chunk of one of those towers weighing X tons, falling roughly 9.8 m/sec x distance travelled = a whole lot of energy
+
again, fire compromises steel’s strength
nope =\
really, I’d like to, but it just doesn’t square with reality
November 17th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
I definitely believe they knew it was coming (the Bush admin) and did everything in their power to just let it happen. This is what they were wishing for according to the “Project for a New American Century.”
On a side note, and a rather hilarious one, check this out:
“Upset by Palin dancing, man shoots TV”
http://thestar.blogs.com/stargazing/2010/11/this-is-a-great-story-about-a-man-shooting-his-television.html
November 17th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
enk,
No problem.
Yes a big chunk did take out a big chunk of one side of WTC, and there were fires. But WTC 7 was a MASSIVE building, standing at 47 floors high yet it fell at virtual freefall indicating all the supports failed everywhere virtually simultaneously. See below?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD06SAf0p9A
And this one from another angle recently released by NIST under Freedom of Info., EXCEPT the beginning of collapse is deleted in the NIST release seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIbqaybkbWI&feature=related
FYI it is not 9.8 m/s, that is a speed. A falling object accelerates at 9.8 m/s/s (i.e. after falling for 1 second its speed is 9.8 m/s but at 1.1 second it’s speed is approx. (9.8 m/s + 0.98 m/s=~10.8 m/s) or 35 feet per second.
November 17th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
The videos do not mesh with the damage. What makes you think that 1360 Architects and engineers, who’ve risked their professional reputations by taking a stand, are wrong and that you, with no such training, apparently unfamiliar with speed vs. acceleration, and with no dog in this fight are right? That sounds a lot like shcb bellyaching about stupid climate scientists.
Also, iirc, many lesser buildings (e.g. WTC 6) were far worse damaged by burning debris and did not collapse. So what made WTC 7 so special?
And as for the fires weakening steel, how come the The February 13, 1975 North Tower Fire which was much worse did not do any structural damage to the steel? http://guardian.150m.com/wtc/small/not-so-hot.htm
And how come the steel in other towers do not weaken during fires to bring those towers down? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5NrGtCy4Y
http://stevex09.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/fire-has-never-caused-a-steel-frame-building-to-collapse/
November 17th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
The videos do not mesh with the damage. What makes you think that 1360 Architects and engineers, who’ve risked their professional reputations by taking a stand, are wrong and that you, with no such training, apparently unfamiliar with speed vs. acceleration, and with no dog in this fight are right? That sounds a lot like shcb bellyaching about stupid climate scientists.
Also, iirc, many lesser buildings (e.g. WTC 6) were far worse damaged by burning debris and did not collapse. So what made WTC 7 so special?
And as for the fires weakening steel, how come the The February 13, 1975 North Tower Fire which was much worse did not do any structural damage to the steel? http://guardian.150m.com/wtc/small/not-so-hot.htm
November 17th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
And how come the steel in other towers do not weaken during fires to bring those towers down? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5NrGtCy4Y
http://stevex09.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/fire-has-never-caused-a-steel-frame-building-to-collapse/
November 17th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
NL,
Wonder if the shooter was a Republican?
November 17th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Is this to fight global warming by reducing air travel? (The examples get worse and worse as the clip goes on…) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhkQoiaf7Uc&feature=player_embedded
November 18th, 2010 at 4:48 am
You guys really do hate Bush don’t you, as much as I dislike Obama and absolutely hate his policies, I can’t imagine a situation where he would put tens of thousands of people at risk to advance an agenda. Kristol and Kagan aren’t evil monsters, neither is Bush. They wanted regime change in Iraq to prevent a 911, they didn’t want to cause it to force change. Do you guys ever consider the risk reward aspect of an issue? Knarly thins the owner of the building was part of an intricate scheme so he didn’t have to remove asbestos, which I don’t think you have to do as long as it remains contained, you don’t have to get in bed with terrorists, just sell the building, or pay off a crooked politician. Bush didn’t have to crawl on the other side of the terrorist’s bed, send in the troops, use the CIA, whatever it takes to get rid of Sadam, but you don’t have to kill thousands of Americans. Jon Stewart was right, think about these things a little, these guys aren’t evil.
November 18th, 2010 at 7:45 am
wow wwnj, knarls is gunna rip acouple new ones from you for your HUGE typo! “thins”! lol
knarls – switch to a different brand of weed, this bud is hurtin your cpu
fine fine I missed the superscript 2 or 9.8m/s/s
yes it is acceleration, not velocity (duh)
a cursory reading of the context would have straightened that out for you
you remind me of a New Yorker cartoon:
christ, what an asshole!
;)
November 18th, 2010 at 7:47 am
and yes, wwnj, Cheney is evil
November 18th, 2010 at 8:12 am
Seems like a nice guy to me… just don’t go hunt’n with him.
November 18th, 2010 at 8:14 am
What I find comical about typos is they often are more true than the intended word, or at least more funny.
November 18th, 2010 at 10:30 am
“They wanted regime change in Iraq to prevent a 911” Huh? Saddam was strongly anti-Al Queda, as that group & religious factions were as much or more of a threat to his secular/Baathist regime than to anyone else. No, it makes more sense to follow the money and remember that Bush was a Texas oilman wannabe.
Silverstein & asbestos – there’s no evidence and it’s not a law of physics so fine you can have your opinion on who the players were and who knew what and whether or not the workers thought they were applying fireproofing or paint when in fact it was a thermate spray…
Enk, yea sure you meant m/s/s. It wasn’t just that, I didn’t want to draw attention to this but since you bring it up again you should know that you also totally screwed up the rest of the formula. If you multiply the acceleration by “distance” the answer is meaningless. Acceleration is multiplied time of fall which gives a speed at the end of the time period. iirc, speed times the mass gives the force of impact. It’s really hard to figure out what your point is, especially “fire weakens steel” Duh. Are you seriously suggesting that weakened steel falls faster than non-weakened steel, or that WTC steel was somehow more susceptible to fire than opther buildigns? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5NrGtCy4Y
November 18th, 2010 at 10:32 am
“fireproofing or paint” or an asbestos abatement compound
multiplied *by* time
November 18th, 2010 at 10:42 am
and Enk, with respect to “weed” you must have me confused with someone else.
Christ, what and asshole! ;-)
November 18th, 2010 at 10:53 am
nice typo(s)
November 18th, 2010 at 11:02 am
check
November 18th, 2010 at 11:19 am
“You guys really do hate Bush don’t you”
Yeah, pretty much.
And did somebody mention something about good weed?!
November 18th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
I don’t hate him, intensely dislike his shoot-from-the-hip-think-with-your-colon ‘mentality’ (and seriously, have we *ever* had a *dumber* President?) sure. That these idiots were so startlingly incompetent (except for 9/11, there they executed the biggest false flag attack with clockwork precision – happy knarly?)
mb knarls should take up smoking? =) mellow you out
November 18th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
actually fire weekend steel would fall faster than non weekend steel, especially if it were on a weakened where there was a lot of grass being burned.
November 18th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
nah, smoking just makes me crazy. ;-)
November 18th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
nah, smoking just makes me crazy. ;-)
November 18th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
…and forgetful.
November 18th, 2010 at 7:30 pm
http://video.popularmechanics.com/services/player/bcpid1745093293?bctid=1745050112
From the NIST World Trade 7 report:
“Today’s report confirms that a fire was, indeed, the cause. “This is the first time that we are aware of, that a building taller than about 15 stories has collapsed primarily due to fires,” Sunder told reporters at the press conference. “What we found was that uncontrolled building fires–similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings–caused an extraordinary event, the collapse of WTC7.” The unprecedented nature of the event means that understanding the precise mechanism of the collapse is important not just to answer conspiracy theorists’ questions, but to improve safety standards in the engineering of large buildings.
The final report describes how debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7 at the western half of the south face. Fires on Floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 burned out of control, because the water supply to the automatic sprinkler system had failed. The primary and backup water supply to the sprinkler systems for the lower floors relied on the city’s water supply. Those water lines were damaged by the collapse of WTC 1 and 2. These uncontrolled fires in WTC 7 eventually spread to the northeast part of the building, where the collapse began.”
“After 7 hours of uncontrolled fires, a steel girder on Floor 13 lost its connection to one of the 81 columns supporting the building. Floor 13 collapsed, beginning a cascade of floor failures to Floor 5. Column 79, no longer supported by a girder, buckled, triggering a rapid succession of structural failures that moved from east to west. All 23 central columns, followed by the exterior columns, failed in what’s known as a “progressive collapse”–that is, local damage that spreads from one structural element to another, eventually resulting in the collapse of the entire structure.”
“Spurred by conspiracy theorists’ questions, investigators did look specifically at the possibility that explosives were involved. “Hypothetical blast events did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7,” the report states, adding that investigators “found no evidence whose explanation required invocation of a blast event.” Moreover, the smallest charge capable of initiating column failure “would have resulted in a sound level of 130 dB [decibels] to 140 dB at a distance of at least half a mile.” Witnesses did not report hearing such a loud noise, nor is one audible on recordings of the collapse.”
And from Structure Magzine:
http://www.structuremag.org/Archives/2007-11/SF-WTC7-Gilsanz-Nov07.pdf
You know, in some ways this all reminds me of the global warming argument on this site, only with the roles reversed. A group of people, and a small subset of scientific professionals (in comparison with the relevant scientific community at large) passionately believe in a hoodwinked general public and an arrogant or compromised scientific/political consensus.
November 18th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Yes, Craig, and it’s Sunder who’s doing the hoodwinking. What was described is a progressive collapse & that is not compatable with the speed of the collapse. It says that ONE girder attached to ONE column out of 81 (?) columns failed, and then a cascading failure brought the whole friggin building taking up a city block (?) to the gound instantaneously? That’s crazy science. What are Sunder’s credentials as a scientist anyway? How do they compare to Hoffman?
November 18th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Yep, that what the investigative team said (see more detail in the Structure Magazine article), based upon some unique structural characteristics of the building. Its funny how the vast majority of the relevant scientific community does not bat an eye at such a conclusion, even though its “crazy science” or prejudiced science by some.
Again, I refer to the global warming analogy.
November 19th, 2010 at 9:31 am
If the investigative team you speak of was based on NIST data
The NIST hypothesis offers no explanation for the collapse of half the core columns.
More strikingly, your investigation team and Sunder FAILED to acknowledge NIST’s admission that their explanation SUCKS:
In case you missed it Craig the theory you espouse is admitted by it’s “scientists” having “only a low probability of occurrence.”
In contrast, the demolition hypothesis has a high probability of occurance because it is consistent with the video AND physical evidence.
November 19th, 2010 at 9:32 am
signing off for the day
November 19th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
It seems to me you are pulling that quote from the 2002 FEMA report, and that, indeed further investigation coordinated between FEMA and the NIST have produced progress reports and drafts in 2004, 2007 and 2008. These reports include the one I attached, that Structure Magazine used.
So, the best working hypothesis has evolved since that 2002 report.
One more thing from the FEMA draft of 2008:
In a video, it appears that WTC 7 is descending in free fall, something that would not occur in the structural collapse that you describe. How can you ignore basic laws of physics?
In the draft WTC 7 report (released Aug. 21, 2008; available at http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NIST_NCSTAR_1A_for_public_comment.pdf), NIST stated that the north face of the building descended 18 stories (the portion of the collapse visible in the video) in 5.4 seconds, based on video analysis of the building collapse. This time period is 40 percent longer than the 3.9 seconds this process would have taken if the north face of the building had descended solely under free fall conditions. During the public comment period on the draft report, NIST was asked to confirm this time difference and define the reasons for it in greater detail.
To further clarify the descent of the north face, NIST recorded the downward displacement of a point near the center of the roofline from first movement until the north face was no longer visible in the video. Numerical analyses were conducted to calculate the velocity and acceleration of the roofline point from the time-dependent displacement data. The instant at which vertical motion of the roofline first occurred was determined by tracking the numerical value of the brightness of a pixel (a single element in the video image) at the roofline. This pixel became brighter as the roofline began to descend because the color of the pixel started to change from that of the building façade to the lighter color of the sky.
The approach taken by NIST is summarized in Section 3.6 of the final summary report, NCSTAR 1A (released Nov. 20, 2008; available at http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf) and detailed in Section 12.5.3 of NIST NCSTAR 1-9 (available at http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%202.pdf).
The analyses of the video (both the estimation of the instant the roofline began to descend and the calculated velocity and acceleration of a point on the roofline) revealed three distinct stages characterizing the 5.4 seconds of collapse:
•Stage 1 (0 to 1.75 seconds): acceleration less than that of gravity (i.e., slower than free fall).
•Stage 2 (1.75 to 4.0 seconds): gravitational acceleration (free fall)
•Stage 3 (4.0 to 5.4 seconds): decreased acceleration, again less than that of gravity
This analysis showed that the 40 percent longer descent time—compared to the 3.9 second free fall time—was due primarily to Stage 1, which corresponded to the buckling of the exterior columns in the lower stories of the north face. During Stage 2, the north face descended essentially in free fall, indicating negligible support from the structure below. This is consistent with the structural analysis model which showed the exterior columns buckling and losing their capacity to support the loads from the structure above. In Stage 3, the acceleration decreased as the upper portion of the north face encountered increased resistance from the collapsed structure and the debris pile below.
November 21st, 2010 at 6:51 pm
So a falling chunk of WTC1/2 hitting WTC7’s north side & then fires caused some steel beam connection to fail, resulting in this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD06SAf0p9A
LOL
Meanwhile… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5iIoCiI8g&feature=player_embedded