WTC Challenge

Originally posted by ANOK
"Thermite contains its own supply of oxygen, and does not require any external source (such as air). Consequently, it cannot be smothered and may ignite in any environment (it will burn merrily underwater, for example), given sufficient initial heat."

en.wikipedia.org...

I'm no expert on this for sure and I just saw this for the first time today, but worth considering, no?

[edit on 26/7/2005 by ANOK]

Good observation and certainly something to keep in mind.

Hi to bsbray, billybob and all - yes, even you whiteboy420 !

It's good to see that there's still a lively discussion of the WTC collapse (and in a sense it is all a single collapse) these days, and growing exposure in places like Tarpley's book. For a long time I posted on the DU 9-11 forum, but gave up about two years ago after watching it get pushed to the third sub-basement and run by mods openly sympathetic to the debunkers. Guess you have to be squeaky clean to wear the "Democratic" label!

For those who haven't seen them, here is some of my earlier summary stuff:

plaguepuppy.net...

st12.startlogic.com...

www.plaguepuppy.net...

st12.startlogic.com...

Homepage:
home.comcast.net...

Originally posted by HowardRoark
There are underground coal fires that have burned for decades. One that was recently extinguished in China burned for over 100 years.

Oh c'mon howwie you can't compare steel to coal.
Coal is a combustable source of energy, steel is not.

"Before coal openly burns, an unnoticed process of oxidation takes place. In this process oxygen from the air reacts with the carbon of the coal and carbondioxide is generated. This is an exothermic reaction, where heat will be released."

www.coalfire.caf.dlr.de...

Does steel do that...

Originally posted by HowardRoark
2000 degrees Fahrenheit equals 1093 degrees Celsius. This is well within the temperature range of a typical structure fire, not just one involving jet fuel.

Well just as I expected you didn't look at the site I linked did you?
So for the link clicking challenged...

"In perfect conditions the maximum temperature that can be reached by hydrocarbons like jet-fuel, burning in air is 1520° F (825° C). When the WTC buildings collapsed the buried fires would have been deprived of oxygen and their temperatures would have significantly decreased.
It is implausible that the hot spots found many days after the collapses could have resulted from fires ignited by hydrocarbons due to the high temperatures recorded. There were no infernos in either of the twin towers before their collapses, so what caused the hot spots deep in the wreckage of these buildings?"

So again how did rubble from the collapse stay at around 2000F for days?

These comments have been discussed before. Suffice to say that I believe that they are anecdotal and unverifiable.

Howwie you come across like you're some kind of expert on this, but from your posts on this subject it's pretty obvious you are not. You just pick stuff from the official government version reports and report it as fact, without even considering any other possibilities. If you can't find an answer in your NIST report or whatever you just ignore the question.
So the fact that "you believe" is totally irrelevant.

It is known that a molten materials, most likely aluminum was present in the buildings as a result of the fires.

Why do you keep bringing up aluminium?
It is a FACT molten steel was found at the base of the WTC buildings...

"Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., told AFP that he saw pools of "literally molten steel" at the World Trade Center."

Do you think he would confuse molten aluminium with steel?
Have you ever seen molten aluminium howweird?

uscrisis.lege.net...

FYI, eutectic reactions w ere confirmed with metallurgical analysis of WTC steel.

So?

Well since the collapse of WTC 2 occurred at 9:59, a minute before 10:00 am, I’m not really sure what is being described here. It is clear that the time line is off. If they were looking at the base of the building, how do you know that the collapse had not already started?

Huh? According to the CNN timeline....

"10:05 a.m.: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses, plummeting into the streets below. A massive cloud of dust and debris forms and slowly drifts away from the building."

archives.cnn.com...

Maybe your watch is slow?

The rest of your garbage isn't even worth my time to comment on...

Originally posted by ANOK

Well since the collapse of WTC 2 occurred at 9:59, a minute before 10:00 am, I’m not really sure what is being described here. It is clear that the time line is off. If they were looking at the base of the building, how do you know that the collapse had not already started?

Huh? According to the CNN timeline....

"10:05 a.m.: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses, plummeting into the streets below. A massive cloud of dust and debris forms and slowly drifts away from the building."

archives.cnn.com...

Just to keep everything fair, I mentioned 9:59 which I got from the following site...

Timeline

==============
9:59 a.m.: South Tower of WTC Collapses

The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses. It was hit by Flight 175 at 9:03 A.M., 57 minutes earlier. [Washington Post, 9/12/01; MSNBC, 9/22/01; Associated Press, 8/19/02 (B); ABC News, 9/11/02; New York Times, 9/12/01 (B); USA Today, 12/20/01]
==============

It has links to the Washington Post, MSNBC, etc.; all the ones in brackets. Funny, it doesn't use CNN.

Shaking before collapse - With audioWarning, some viewers may find this video disturbing

What causes the camera to shake, and notice the piece of debris falling off the building AT the same time of the shaking. This also coincides with the seismic data.

And this one,

CBS
Towards the end the reporter in New York reported being about a block away from the WTC towers base and hearing explosions going off every 15 minutes or so.

Also notice how when Dan rather asks what building seven was the video cuts back to studio. Is this just bad video editing or was he interrupted?

~Peace ~

Originally posted by Hunting Veritas

What causes the camera to shake, and notice the piece of debris falling off the building AT the same time of the shaking.

I watched that video a few times. The camera shaking would have happened several seconds after any blast. What I find disturbing is that it looks like someone jumped after the alleged blast which happens to be about the time the shock wave hits the camera.

That's just how it appeared to me. I don't know for certain.

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by HowardRoark
There are underground coal fires that have burned for decades. One that was recently extinguished in China burned for over 100 years.

Oh c'mon howwie you can't compare steel to coal.
Coal is a combustable source of energy, steel is not.

"Before coal openly burns, an unnoticed process of oxidation takes place. In this process oxygen from the air reacts with the carbon of the coal and carbondioxide is generated. This is an exothermic reaction, where heat will be released."

www.coalfire.caf.dlr.de...

Does steel do that...

No, I am not comparing coal to steel, I am comparing coal to the fuel load that was present in the building when it collapsed. Namely paper, plastic, and other combustables, including fuel oil, hydraulic fluids, etc present in the building systems. These didn't just go away when the building colapsed.

Originally posted by ANOK
Huh? According to the CNN timeline....

"10:05 a.m.: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses, plummeting into the streets below. A massive cloud of dust and debris forms and slowly drifts away from the building."

archives.cnn.com...

Maybe your watch is slow?

The rest of your garbage isn't even worth my time to comment on...

Well my timeline came from the NIST report which established the times by comparing tapes of video feeds, digital data from cameras, etc. But that just reinforces my point. If there is that discrepancy in the times, then there is no way to verify that that report was before or after the collapse started.

Ah, I had practice and had to leave in the middle of posting earlier.

The temperature of a common candle flame has been reported to range from 1670 degrees K (2546.33 degree Fahrenheit) to 1930 K (3014.33 degree Fahrenheit)

Candle flames are not comparable to office fires. Candles were designed to burn efficiently and work completely differently. The same goes for magnesium firestarters, fireworks, dynamite, etc., etc., just in case you were planning to use those later.

Exactly, the steel failed long before the melting temperature was reached.

We're aware of this claim. There's no evidence enugh columns were heated to high enough temperatures. Take into account weight redistribution and over-engineering and you have even more of a problem with this idea.

I was right, you didn’t read it or you don’t understand it, because that is a very poor summary of the collapse mechanism.

The bit about the falling slab of concrete is their explanation as to what set off the collapses, right? And it has absolutely no evidence in favor of it, right? Right. And yet you accuse us of conjecture.

Both collapse sequences started when the damaged floor slabs inside the buildings began to sag, causing the exterior walls of the buildings to bow inwards by up to 10 inches. Pulling the walls inward caused them to loose much of their structural strength, regardless of what temperature they were at. Once these walls were pulled inward this much, global collapse was only a matter of time.

That's a handy theory for the debunkers; I'll admit that. But on top of being totally unreproduceable scientifically, no matter how hard scientists try to reproduce it, it doesn't explain many features of the collapses either. For example, it does not explain why the towers fell straight down, because as soon as the theoretically intact top portions of the buildings hit the collapsed region, they would be jarred and fall off the side of the building into (very large) pieces.

Your theory holds that as soon as the top part of the building hit, theoretically still intact, it continued perfectly vertically and symmetrically, which should not have happened (at least it would be improbable to an extreme). Also, as I said, no one has been able to reproduce this effect in any lab tests so far. The only times we've seen this type of collapse were during the WTC collapses, and the Oklahoma City Bombing. No other instances ever in our history have such collapses ever taken place, and they are not reproduceable, meaning they are not scientifically verified.

Nor does the theory explain the rapid rates of collapse, the total and complete pulverization of all the concrete in the buildings, the lateral ejection of debris, or the demolition squibs, and it does not compromise the fact that the fires were too weak to cause any of this to happen in the first place. So it's back to the drawing board for you and NIST.

The New WTC Challenge!

The 9/11 Research Site has a challenge in regards to this. They're challenging anyone, scientists, engineers, average Joes, to recreate the WTC/Oklahoma City collapses, whether it's out of "straws, toothpicks, cards, dominoes, mud, vegetables, pancakes, etc." No one has been able to do it so far, and no one can apparently explain why it will not work, no matter how hard they try, or what materials they use.

I suspect it's because the odds of a perfectly symmetrical collapse resulting from structural damage is slim and none. And not only did it happen at the WTC on 9/11, it happened three times.

Here's their challenge, if anyone's up for it: 911research.wtc7.net...

There was evidence of this bowing before the collapses of both towers.

There is evidence of the towers bowing after the collapses had started. There is no evidence of them bowing beforehand.

There was also clear evidence that interior floor slabs fell.

Post it.

[edit on 26-7-2005 by bsbray11]

Well my timeline came from the NIST report which established the times by comparing tapes of video feeds, digital data from cameras, etc. But that just reinforces my point. If there is that discrepancy in the times, then there is no way to verify that that report was before or after the collapse started.

There have been many different variations of a 9/11 timeline. Government officials gave an early timeline, citing no attempted interceptions, followed by a NORAD timeline, followed by a 9/11 Commission timeline. They were all different. I wouldn't be surprised if NIST's was different as well.

See here: 911research.wtc7.net...

So to sum up...

We are all in agreement there is some discrepancy in the timeline...

NIST gives an earlier time than the press, fine. Could be part of the cover up, we don't know, but anyway it seems to contradict most other accounts I can find.

Or as this might suggest, 9:59 was when the first signs of a collapse began, and 10:05 was when the collapse actually occurred??

"Suddenly, the unthinkable happens at 9:59 AM. No one thought this would happen. Reality has set in. Two World Trade Center or the South Tower begins to snap above where the airplane had impacted. The outer core of the monolith has given way. The raging fire inside the South Tower melts the steel and severely weakens the behemoth. The stress is extraordinarily unbearable and the monolith begins to collapse."

(N.e. Before anyone gets all excited I don't agree with this statements conclusions, just used it to make my point about the timeline.)

www.angelfire.com...

But anyway I still believe this comment stands seeing as there is such a discrepancy in the time. Maybe the Colonels' watch was fast?
I'm sure not everybody claiming the time were using the same clock?

Maybe it was actually a few seconds after 9:98 not 10:00...Who cares it's two minutes. You find the weakest argument to discredit someones statement howwieeee....

"A few seconds after 10:00 am", former Colonel Donn De Grand Pre notes, "we see a great white cloud of smoke and dust rising from the base of the [South] tower. The anchor gal on Fox 5 News video exclaims 'There is an explosion at the base of the building… white smoke from the bottom… something happened at the base of the building… then, another explosion! Another building in the WTC complex …'" [Barbarians Inside the Gates: Book Two: The Viper's Venom: p 50]

FYI Thermite creates a white smoke when it burns.



[edit on 26/7/2005 by ANOK]

The slow-smoldering debris may have something to do with thermite, but after looking more into it, I don't think thermite was actually used to bring the buildings down. That it has its own supply of oxygen and could burn indefinitely in theory, provided there's enough of it, might indicate some usage at the WTC complex, but I don't really know why they would use it at the moment.

Damn, maybe we should set up a research project to find out what really brought those buildings down.

Here are two videos showing thermite burning. If you watch them, you'll notice how slowly it eats through a microwave (first video). Given that, I don't think it would explain the near-instantaneous blow-out of the steel columns. Those towers came down nearly at the rate of free-fall. It is possible that more than one type of material was used at the WTC complex, though.

Thermite Video 1
Thermite Video 2

Hey Howard and CatHerder and Co.,

Feast your eyes on the squib that occureth before collapseth! (And pardon my horrible Old English.)

www.mirrors.org... _Center/wtc/legions/DSC00003.jpg

What's that? The building shows no signs of even starting to collapse yet?

Wow. Sort of puts a damper on the air pressure theory.

Edit: Made into a format-friendly URL.

Btw, the squib is coming from the South Tower on the right side of the pic.

Second Edit:

Here's the image cropped with a few simple paint additions.



Ah, yes, and a big thanks to Misfit for finding this image.

[edit on 26-7-2005 by bsbray11]

[edit on 26-7-2005 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by white4life420
I want to say to HowardRoark:

The fact that you are defensive about this topic is understandable. It's a pretty sensitive subject. I did want you to just answer this question:

I think it's pretty much understood, that it takes a lot of different forces at once to collapse -- let alone implode -- a skyscraper. Would I say it's possible that a collapse by these buildings could happen from being hit by a plane? Yes.

However, what are the odds that three separate buildings, with three separate instances, would all completely implode in one day from fire?

The coincidence must at least be huge right? We are talking about certain support beams being taken out, jet fuel pooling in the right spots to weaken the supports equally, immensly hot burning fires, and a pretty uniform collapse. (not once, but twice... and one more time without the plane in building 7).

What do you suppose the odds are? Seriously.

[edit on 26-7-2005 by white4life420]

Hey that's cool man, thanks. I realize the question was tough to answer, but that doesn't mean you have to shy away.

Honestly, if the idea is so questionable, that a computer program has to be constructed to simulate the events to make sure that it is, then certain events must take place to (probably in a certain order and with a certain uniformity), then it's already a stretch.

Then take that stretch, then figure out the probability of it happening 3 times.

And hey, if you want to use a lottery type forumula, you could certainly consider Tower 7 to be the power ball.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Feast your eyes on the squib that occureth before collapseth! (And pardon my horrible Old English.)

Ok, let me try...

To squib...or not to squib...that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the trusses and compressed air of outrageous pancake theories,
Or to take arms against a sea of lies,
And by opposing end them? That they should die, and we sleepeth no more.



[edit on 2005-7-27 by wecomeinpeace]

Niice, WCIP.

I uploaded some of the pics I've used in this thread to a free account I have with an FTP site, but unfortunately my gig of bandwidth has been eaten up for this month.

So here's a repost of the image since I've had to delete it and my avatar from my FTP account, heh:



[edit on 27-7-2005 by bsbray11]

1093 degrees Celsius.

Well correct me if im wrong but the absolute maximum temperature a hydrocarbon fire can reach is 825 Celcius?

Originally posted by white4life420
However, what are the odds that three separate buildings, with three separate instances, would all completely implode in one day from fire?

Sorry, I missed your post.


Anyway, I think that you are convienently leaving out the fact that all three buildings suffered severe structural damage. Two as the result of being hit by large heavy airplanes at high speed, the third as a result of being hit by falling debris from the collapse of WTC 1.

Originally posted by HowardRoark

Originally posted by white4life420
However, what are the odds that three separate buildings, with three separate instances, would all completely implode in one day from fire?

Sorry, I missed your post.

Anyway, I think that you are convienently leaving out the fact that all three buildings suffered severe structural damage. Two as the result of being hit by large heavy airplanes at high speed, the third as a result of being hit by falling debris from the collapse of WTC 1.

WTC1&2 didn't taka any "severe" damage, have you seen this: koti.mbnet.fi...

WTC 1 & 2 were designed to withstand several airplane crashes.

And how do you know how much WTC 7 took damage? It's over 100 meters from WTC 1 to WTC 7.

[edit on 27-7-2005 by msdos464]