This guy doesn't sound too much like the usual CT. But, what do the experts on this BB think?

http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0...160132,00.html

__________________
I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

My undergraduate professor is one of the principal engineers and the local office director for a high-profile engineering consulting company that was hired to determine exactly what happened to the World Trade Center that led to its collapse. His speciality is failure analysis of materials and mechanical systems, accident reconstruction, physical and mechanical metallurgy, and thermodynamics. He had absolutely no problem with the official story. Figuring out how and why things fail is his speciality, and he has worked a number of high-profile cases. The guy in this article is an expert on fusion and solar energy, he doesn't appear to have a background in failure analysis, mechanical engineering, explosives, materials science, or any number of other fields that would be needed to accurately assess what happened. They seem to expect us to take his word for it because he is a physics professor, but he is way out of his area of expertise here. I personally trust someone I know personally and who is an expert at analyzing this sort of thing over some guy I never heard of who has little or no background in any applicable fields.

Begging the question. He is assuming that this was done by explosives in a controlled manner, and basing his analysis off that conclusion. It is not a valid assumption. Symmetric damage would result in a symmetric collapse, there is nothing too amazing about that.

How many steel frame building have been soaked in burning jet fuel?

Why would they demolish a building that is not connected to the main two buildings? Seems like a bit of a waste of time. Besides, that is assuming it fell from the top down, if it fell from the bottom up or all floors at the same time then there wouldn't be anything in the way of upper floors as they fell.

Why would explosive convert it to flour-like powder any more than a conventional collapse? In fact, I would expect an explosion would send out far more solid debris from the high force of the shock-wave, while a collapse would crush everything below it into a fine powder, which is what we see.

I would have to see this, but once again begging the question. He is using explosives terminology under the assumption that it is a controlled implosion. I can think of a number of reasons that we could see such puffs of smoke: stress on the building cracking windows or concrete; dust, some or debris falling down the stairwell, or in fact the stairwell itself collapsing; or water pipes bursting or exploding.

Even if it only burned for a few minutes, if it burned at or above 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit than the jet fuel would caused the observed effect. The temperature of vaporization is the temperature of vaporization, no matter how short a time something burned at. As a metal, steel has relatively low heat capacity so it would heat up relatively quickly.

What about high-temperature fires from jet fuel? High temperature is high temperature. And although I am no expert, and please correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression they usually didn't use thermite in controlled demolitions. I was under the impression they used explosives, specifically shaped charged explosives for cutting and slurries or plastic explosives inserted into drilled holes for breaking support columns. I do not think thermite is an explosive, it produces an extremely exothermic reaction but does not actually explode, which would make it of limited use for demolitions.

Stuff falling down the stairwell, pipes exploding, windows breaking under stress, any number of things could have caused this.

This is, of course, assuming anything this guy claimed is true. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I would not be surprised if some of these "facts" turn out to be wrong, or at least not to be the whole truth. However, in the absence of evidence to the contrary I will assume he is telling the truth.


There is one very simple question I have regarding all this. How could someone set up a controlled demolition in a building packed with people? It requires drilling, extensive wiring (probably miles of wiring for a building that size), cutting out sections of the ceiling or walls, careful measurements. It probably would have taken weeks, maybe months to set up. Don't you think somebody would have noticed them setting up explosives throughout the building?

__________________
I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

Sure he is a professor of physics but he is not really qualified to talk about construction issues.

Does anyone know any civil or structural engineers willing to read this?

__________________
All the woo-woos come out on the internet. Someday a real mod's gonna come down and wash all the scum off of this message board.

I haven’t a clue about American construction but I have heard that companies do cut corners ,cheap steel ,lack of fire protection or just simple bad concrete mix, rusted bolts ect. Now if any of the above or other factors similar are used in such a high building then it would have a weakness. When in my younger years many moons ago I supplemented my collage years by working with a chimney sweep part time my job was to hold the canvas sheet covering the fireplace using two sticks of wood cut to size whilst the sweep would access the roof and put a rope with a steel ball and brush attached to the end of the rope down the chimney, this he would do slowly with an up and down motion until the ball reached the hearth, on one occasion we where running late so the sweep decided to rattle the lum this you do by just using the ball and rope with no brush this was on a tenement of five stories, being in a hurry he took no safety precautions rattled the chimney and came downstairs to help me clean up, when he entered he found me up against a wall fifteen foot from the fireplace covered in soot and the living room destroyed the cause of this was air pressure the fast fall of soot from five stories high had such force it lifted me of my feet and slammed me against the wall now my point about the twin towers is the lift shafts could have adopted the same principle as the chimney, falling debris and burning material causing a pressure strong enough to do enough damage to weaken or amplify a existing weakness inherited in the buildings construction

The puffs of smoke they always talk about is actually the windows of the building blowing out from the air preasure caused by the contraction of the buildings. Just somebody else lookin for another reason to hate. Could swab the pit at a gass station or be a Phd at the local university, doesn't matter. The guy just wants to see a conspiracy. As if a religious fanatic mesmerizes enough young men to come to America, wiggle their way into a cockpit and run airplanes into buildings isn't enough of a conspiracy.

Again, I am amazed at how many people there are who know for sure exactly what's supposed to happen when a hundred-story building collapses.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I pointed this out in the other thread. Re: the Molten metal, there is no evidence, beyond a few unrealiable eyewitness accounts, that there was ever any large quantity of molten metal found in the basement.

Furthermore, explosives don't really make pools of molten metal. Thermite doesn't make squibs. Mixing explosives and cutting fires is a recepie for failure.

I would point out that the good professor was third fool only to Pons & Fleichmann in the whole Cold Fusion fiasco. Not exactly a prize thinker in my book. Also, a physics professor is not a Structural Engineer.

Exactly.

When I first saw the WTC buildings in New York in the 1970s, I wouldn't go anywhere near them. I had spent years in San Francisco hearing a lot of TV interviews with architects who talked about building design and strength regarding earthquakes. I was in San Francisco when the tall Trans-America pyramid building was built. Several of its architects described exactly why that tall building must be wider at the base than at the top.

The problem with the WTC buildings was that they were the same width at the bottom as at the top, they were much too tall for their width, and they were built to very minimum strength and specifications, so they could cram a lot of people into the office space, while the two buildings had an absolute minimum of a “footprint” a foundation base and a minimum width.

I’m surprised the WTC buildings didn’t fall down due to their own weight, and that’s why I wouldn’t go near them every time I visited New York.

What happened after the two plane crashes was that the two buildings “unzipped”. They ripped apart at the seams, from the top down, and they “unzipped” as the outside seams split apart, from top to bottom.

I doubt if the two buildings could have withstood the weight of fully loaded airplanes on their roofs even if the planes had been gently placed on top of each building, and without any fire being involved.

American companies often construct buildings to “minimum specifications.”

For example, the Oklahoma City Federal Building was not built to withstand an earthquake. It had a long transfer girder on a few pedestals holding up one side of the entire building.

The OKC federal building was not “blown up”. It collapsed. The explosion knocked the transfer girder off its pedestals and it fell to the ground, and then half of the entire building fell to the ground. Look at the pictures taken of the building after the explosion. No debris is shown as being “blown upward”. All the debris is “drooping downward”. The building collapsed because the transfer girder was knocked off its pedestals by the explosion that took place just a few feet away from the girder.

Now, you just wait and see.... the building that replaces the WTC buildings most likely will be wider at the bottom than at the top, and that building will probably be much stronger than the original WTC buildings.

Actually its not at all plausible "that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes." I am surprised someone with the smarts to get a doctorate in physics would actually say such a thing. But actually, Dr. Jones knows virtually nothing about building construction and demolition techniques. He is merely using his credentials to advance his personal conspiracy theory.

Dr. Jones also dabbles in sonoluminescence and cold fusion and believes that Christ visited the Mayans. Here is his website:

http://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/b...c/jones_cv.htm

Follow some of the links for an amusing read. Getting an education doesn't necessary insulate one from getting a job on the assembly line of the nonsense factory.

__________________
Anything may be possible, but not everything actually is. Some things are true and some things are not. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

i doubt any high rise could, but since when are buildings designed to put fully loaded airplanes on their rooves? also, neither of us really knows the true answer, do we? without fact, both statements are anecdotal and proof of nothing.

i didn't go up the WTC towers because i'm afraid of heights. i'm quite certain i had a plausible rationalization then, however...

this is an uniformed opinion. back it up with evidence, and then show us why minimum specifications aren't already sufficient for the task at hand.

when built, the WTC towers were hailed as marvels of engineering. they were very well designed for handling fire. however, nobody envisioned a 757 full of fuel flying into the side. to criticize the architects for this is very disingenuous.

no kidding. the odds of that building experiencing an earthquake large enough to level it were ridiculous. there is no need to protect against something that can't be remotely expected.

as a matter of practicality, in colorado springs, we don't build our homes to withstand hurricanes, either.

taks

__________________
goodbye richard pryor :(...

I emailed the link to a civil engineer I know. He wrote: "the professor knows a lot more about physics than he does about building demolition." Actually he wrote a lot more than that but that's the gist of it.

__________________
All the woo-woos come out on the internet. Someday a real mod's gonna come down and wash all the scum off of this message board.

Maybe someone can defend this statement for me. Wouldn't moving the center of gravity of the WTC entail a good bit more work that a symmetric collapse?

__________________
In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

Both airliners struck fairly high up on both buildings. Maybe they were trying to topple them over.

__________________
I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

I accept that few people have the technical background to understand the collapses in detail. I believe, however, that many people have sufficient technical background to understand the flaws in claims such as the professor's.

__________________
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

That's correct. Thermite is a mixture of a metal oxide and aluminum (often Fe2O3 and Al), which, once heated above a certain point, will suddenly react to form iron (or a different metal, depending on the reactants used) and aluminum oxide, creating a violent exothermic reaction, sometimes making a ball of plasma, with flames and molten metal. However, it does not detonate. It would serve no purpose in damaging or destroying a building, except for heat damage, which, as TheBlackCat pointed out, could have more easily (and plausibly) have been caused by burning jet fuel.

How Building Implosions Works gives a basic explanation.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/bui...implosion1.htm

“Sometimes, though, a building is surrounded by structures that must be preserved. In this case, the blasters proceed with a true implosion, demolishing the building so that it collapses straight down into its own footprint (the total area at the base of the building). This feat requires such skill that only a handful of demolition companies in the world will attempt it.”

Yah. The little bit of reading I've done on the subject leads me to believe that true implosion is difficult and even considered "showy" by demolition professionals. Which makes it doubly interesting that the professor mentions his problem with the buildings falling straight down. I agree with him there -- who ever you want to pin a conspiracy on, their goals can only be advanced the more by sending the buildings toppling sideways.

If only it were mechanically possible to do! It looks better to the untrained eye, it causes more damage, and it's a lot less tricksy to pull off. That they fell straight down is, to my eye, weight in favor of the official explanation.

Oh, yeah, and the only mention I could find of "Pull" (which the 9-11 conspiracy buffs keep bringing up as a phrase meaning "bring down by demolitions") was specifically NOT implosion and fall-into-footprint. It was to pull sideways, mechanically if needed.

__________________
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

A bit off-topic, but I was watching a documentary on engineering disasters. One of them was a building demolition. They set all the explosives, and set them off. There was a massive bang and then...nothing. It turns out the building was more reinforced than they realized, and their charges weren't enough to bring it down. So they blew out the reinforcement as well. The building began collapsing. However, it was in two sections, and the section collapsed into each other. This ended up propping up the building and preventing it from collapsing further. It just stood there, leaning in on itself. They ended up having to use a wrecking ball to bring it down.

__________________
I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
-Steven Wright



My Website: The Black Cat's Web Page

There have been some good shows on the WTC and how it collapsed.

First: The building was designed with most of it's strength on the outside walls. Most buildings, the strength is distributed. In this case the weaker portions are in the center of the building.
Second: It was the flooring system that was the point of failure (although other components were sufficiently weakened). The falling concrete of the floor destroyed the next floor below and so-on. As these floors collapsed the structure pulled the inner walls inward.

The building was designed for an airplane strike. That was a well known problem since it happend to the Empire State Building during WW2 (b17?)
The largest plane at the time it was designed was a 707, and that was the basis on that scenerio.

The planes didn't strike further down, because (IMO) they feard they would other buildings before striking WTC.

And my last 2 cents? Lets aim the plane and strike the building at the same floor that the explosives have been placed. (I don't think so)

I analyzed this extensively over at Apollohoax. BYU is owned and operated by the Mormon Church, and so all its faculty are expected to be active, orthodox members of the religion, but he hasn't brought any of that into this specific analysis. He's not wrong because of his religious beliefs; he's wrong because he doesn't know a darn thing about engineering.

Physics and engineering are not the same thing.

Basically his arguments are pretty much the same laundry list of uneducated suspicions dredged up by all the self-proclaimed "experts" on the various web sites. There isn't really anything new. He just went down the standard 9/11 conspiracy arguments and signed his PhD to them.

He reports that he held an informal seminar at the university to which he invited several other professors -- some of mathematics and some of physics and some of engineering. He said that after two hours some of them had left, but others remained and were keenly interested. However, those who were interested seemed to have been the mathematicians. I have yet to find out whether the engineering faculty put any stock in it.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

You know, if you watch the footage closely (which you'll have ample opportunity to do every September, just as the Kennedy stuff should start airing soon), you can see the mast on the top of whichever one it was does not fall straight down. It falls straight enough down as to make no real difference, but watching the footage shows that the tops of both buildings do move out of 90 degrees a little as they fall.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

What caused the 3rd building to collapse? You hardly hear anything about that anymore.

__________________
I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

In some circles, you hear almost nothing BUT discussion of WTC7. There's an unstated assumption in those discussions, too, that if they could somehow prove WTC7 was "pulled" (sic) then it would constitute some sort of proof that the entire affair was rigged-up.

__________________
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

The consensus is that it had an unusual construction and was further weakened by the fire. Some university in the UK is doing a study on it, should be out next year or something.

Of course the CTs are screaming that it was blown up.

__________________
All the woo-woos come out on the internet. Someday a real mod's gonna come down and wash all the scum off of this message board.

You can do cool stuff with thermite, like burn holes in iron or melt sand, but thermite does not make a very good explosive. If it is contained, as in a pipe bomb, it will cause an explosion when ignited. But in my experience the blast is not terribly strong. You can do a better job of blowing stuff up with much simpler products, like fertilizer or even good old black powder.

I have seen fire take down steel buildings. I spent 10 years as a volunteer firefighter and fought quite a few fires in steel frame buildings. Once they get hot enough, the girders and beams will become very soft and will no longer support themselves, let alone a building built around them.

I have not done a lot of reading on the science of the WTC collapse, but it is my understanding that most of the heat of the fires was due to the large amount of paper and other combustibles within the buildings. I believe the jet fuel burned very quickly and primarily served to ignite the rest of the material.

__________________
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. ---Cardinal Wolsey (1475-1530)

Stuff from the other two fell on it.

__________________
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. ---Cardinal Wolsey (1475-1530)

It was a B-25, "Old John Feather Merchant" based out of Sioux Falls SD. It was on a flight from MA back to SD and the pilot had ignored the weather reports and was flying in heavy fog. He was trying to get into Newark, but the field was closed due to the wx. He got clearance to land at La Guardia, but over flew that airport and headed for Newark anyway. He made it as far as the Empire State Building, and hit the 79th floor. The crash caused a heavy fire in the building and killed the aircraft crew and 10 or 11 civilians (it was a weekend, only a few people were in the building at the time).

There is an excellent out of print book on the subject, The Sky is Falling, by Arthur Weingarten. ISBN 0448144115

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...60828?v=glance

__________________
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. ---Cardinal Wolsey (1475-1530)

this is a point CTs rarely acknowlege. sure, jet fuel doesn't get hot enough to melt steel. but, add it to all the flammable material inside the building, and it will easily get hot enough to soften the steel to the point it fails under load. it's not as if the steel just plows along at the same tensile strength until BAM, melting point... ah, but tell that to a CT.

taks

__________________
goodbye richard pryor :(...

I always wondered what Doc thought when that plane hit just seven stories below him. Probably thought John Sunlight needed to hire better goons!

Nice nick, Eoanthropus. So how's the jaw feel these days?

__________________
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

LOL. Very few people recognize what my screen name is.

__________________
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. ---Cardinal Wolsey (1475-1530)