WTC Collapse - A Question of Fairness.

Originally posted by Lumos
-It was a controlled demolition
-Non-uniform fires somehow managed to weaken the entire loadbearing structure uniformly and simultaneously, causing symmetrical collapse

The first one is simple and straightforward, the second makes wild, unneeded

There is still one other possibility:

Due to unique design features related to the transfer trusses used in this building, the failure of a single column or truss from the physical damage and resulting fires caused a disproportionate collapse of the entire structure. In other words, it was a poor design.

The first one is simple and straightforward

Not really, since preparation of a occupied building with multiple tenants for demolition is anything but simple and straightforward.

Griff, that was The Onion. I'm not saying they're far off, though

Intelligent Design is symptomatic of paramount incuriosity. Why research and explore the world around us when we can all just sit back, switch to standby, grab a Duff and accept we're just part of god's great plan.

OK. My bad. I guess the Onion is a spoof site? First I've heard of it.

On thread topic. I think one of the only things that makes me on the fence in regards to controlled demolition is what Howard said. That it would take a huge amount of time and coverup for there to be explosives in the building. But, what if both sides are correct? What if yes the buildings started to fall because of plane damage and fires, but it wasn't enough to topple the massive core columns, so they had to use thermite in a few hot (pun intended) spots?

Text
Jeez, I'm fed up with the notorious misrepresentations of Occam's Razor. It does not say "the theory with fewer assumptions is generally correct", it says "don't make more assumptions than necessary".

You talk in circles quite well. I was trying to state in general terms I didn't need the link. Simplest explanation is generally correct is another way to state it. hmmmmm, a fed up text editor and language examiner. THe old I can't add anything so I will look for a misspelling and call you out on it.

Let's have another look at WTC7: Its collapse looked extremely similar to controlled demolitions, or "implosions". To explain it, we have those two proposed theories:

-It was a controlled demolition
-Non-uniform fires somehow managed to weaken the entire loadbearing structure uniformly and simultaneously, causing symmetrical collapse

The first one is simple and straightforward, the second makes wild, unneeded assumptions. Of course the first comes with wild political consequences, but that's outside of the domain of science and therefore Occam's Razor, which in this case says: the first theory is most likely correct.

So you are so sick of Occam Razor, that you decide to singlehandedly decide to write your own theory that states " the first theory is most likely correct"? They were not un uniformed fires, they burned for over 7 hours, they evacuated the building and it collapsed. How is this outside the domain of science?

It's a philosophical and scientific fallacy that the simplist answer is usually the right one.
The right answer can only be as complicated or simple as it is.

"We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." -- Sherlock Holmes in "The Bruce-Partington Plans" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle


[edit on 25-1-2006 by Outriderdark]

From that good old philospher Sir Conan Doyle we now have the solution to the WTC collapse.

My god, I need a beer

[edit on 25-1-2006 by esdad71]

I wasn't offering a solution, nor did I say anything that would cause anyone to think I was offering a solution.
I was addressing your assertion that the simplest explaination is usually the right one.
Which isn't the same as the Occam's Razor which is
"One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything"
Necessary being the key word there.

Truth is where you find it be it a classroom, an internet forum, or a Sherlock Holmes book.

[edit on 25-1-2006 by Outriderdark]

[edit on 25-1-2006 by Outriderdark]

In this case, Ocham’s razor is best applied to the issues of Human nature.

Controlled demolition: Many, many, many people involved, all would have to have a psychopath’s disregard for human lives. Many of these people would have to be placed into positions of power in the NYFD, the police department, and various other mundane organizations. The conspirators would have to be well integrated with the general population.

OR

Terrorist attack: You only need a handful of people to be involved. Due to their religious fanaticism, these people do not move easily about in society, and they do not easily establish networks or relationships among people that do not share their beliefs.

Personally, the later is more believable to me.

The conspiracy theories are based on a vision of the world as a comic book populated with Boris Badenov wanabes.

A terrorist attack and controlled demolition aren't mutually exclusive.

But even the official story involves a complicated scheme of many players, money and years of planning and positioning. Including controlled demolition in the nine years or so of planning and positioning isn't unreasonable.
Saying it couldn't have been done is unreasonable. I personally couldn't have done it, but I don't have the money, resources and time.
And it wouldn't have taken a large number of psychopaths. Just a couple and a alot of compartmentalized and manipulated people, most of which do not know what they are involved with.

As an example (and this is pure fiction, I'm making it up for example's sake) You could be hired to run cable in the WTC and never know the cable was actually thermite charges that looked like coaxial cable. You are part of the plot but you don't even know it. You have no way of connecting simple coaxial with what happens to the WTC a year later. Have that same type of compartmentalization many times over and you have yourself a huge event carried out by a few managers.

Originally posted by esdad71
You did not actaully read how the building was designed (you have been corrected by others in the post),

Really? Show me where this occurred.

or any of the accounts I posted that state there was structural instability, the middle ofthe building buckled, and the top began to come down, THe force of 20 or so floors of a skyscraper have more than enough momentum to begin to collapse the building as occured at the WTC.

Any evidence to back this up, or are you just going to preach it like everyone else? Common sense holds that lighter 13 floors do not crush 97 heavier ones into nothing but dust and steel shards without even losing momentum.

You do see the illogic in supposing 13 light floors utterly destroying 97 heavier ones, right? So then you should try to prove that this would have been possible, but you don't. No one has. It still hits me as totally illogical, because it is, especially considering the lack of slowing in the falls.

I like how you close your case again with no evidence, what outside source???

Look up momentum and educate yourself. More importantly, THINK FOR YOURSELF. If you had any idea what I was saying, you wouldn't need a source, given that you understand momentum (or even impulse), and basic numbers, ie '13' is much less than '97', or knowing how to subtract 13 from 110. The evidence showing the WTC collapses would be possible in this regard without explosives is lacking from you guys. ;(

No one is frustrated, although I don't think you would have this bravado at a bar. Prove it then, because you keep telling me everything I state is bull#, but it is explained by professionals with no agenda.

"Professionals with no agenda" is sort of, wrong.

A) The information is sponsored by government organizations such as NIST, which would have a clear agenda here.

B) Many universities are involved, directly or indirectly, with government funding, and questioning government "research" on such issues is not something independent minds risk anymore due to negative publicity (brought to you by corporate media) and potential fund issues.

However, I wonder what BYU's Steven Jones' agenda would be with his paper. Maybe he's a member of al Qaeda.

Here, you can start with some blueprints of WTC found in Ebay,

cgi.ebay.com...

So don't start that governemt won't release it. Serach hard enough and you can find anything.

Sorry man, but for one thing, that's only one page, and for another, they're asking $1200. Ship me the cash, though, and I'll contact the owner and see how things go.

And the government WON'T release the construction drawings. Don't imply that, just because someone's alleging a single sheet of the original on ebay, that the government has released the drawings for research. Because they haven't. Still classified.

How can you explain the phone call form an employee on the 105th floor who calls to report that the floors located below him have fallen?

www.cooperativeresearch.org...

This information was never provided to the Police or FDNY. but at 9:47 AM it is telling us that the structure is failing. This was 12 minutes before the South tower collapsed.

How can you explain the numerous witness accounts of bomb detonations from within the buildings, even in the basements, such as Rodriguez's testimony?

The eyewitness accounts go both ways, man, except with fewer bolstering natural collapses.

But where is YOUR proof?

I'm about to ignore you, I think, because your requests are unreasonable. I've posted two physics problems and a logic problem regarding the bolts, in addition to pointing out the physical lack of evidence supporting progressive collapse, and all you're doing is continuing to ask for proof as if I have posted absolutely nothing. Not even trying to refute what I'm saying.

Any dupe can repeat "where's your proof?," even when it's right in their face and being baby-fed to them.

No one else here has ripped anything apart, and I don't expect you take anything or buy into anything, It is fact bud, plain and simple. You can paly your government conspriacy card, but it gets old real quick. My proof is available in a 4th grade Science book. gravity bought down the towers after structural integrity was lost.

And yet you need sources to verify what I said about momentum and the collapses not slowing down?

If it "gets old real quick," then a simple solution would be to stop posting here. If you don't want to believe the government was behind 9/11, then don't. Plain and simple. Might not be the correct view, but it really doesn't matter. You're just one drop in the bucket.

So, you can refer to expert, but I can't. How childish.

Oh, you can refer to them, but I'm wanting proof, or evidence of their claims, grounded upon actual observations and verifiable facts. Your "experts" suck when it comes to that; they parrot NIST at best.

You are stating a guy had guts to stand up for your theory? The firefighters who died on 9/11 had guts, this guy had free time. I am not trying to fool anyone, I am just restating truth, and you cannot accept it because you want conspiracy.

I said nothing of the firefighters; to question government reports takes guts, whether you think so or not. Look at the Oklahoma City Bombing and the results of conflicts of scholarly research with government reports.

And why would I want conspiracy? How would you know what I want?

I am not accusing you of repeating the same thing, I am pointing it out.

Too bad that anyone with eyes, that can read, and has read the past few posts of mine on this thread, know that your claim is a lie.

You bring nothign to hte table except to say it was NOT bought down by the planes and the ensuing fire. What was it? please for the love of god try and answer that question?

The "momentum" problem alone necessitates additional sources of energy. When you realize what that means, I think you'll get where the evidence of demolition is in that statement.

Read this article, and it shows a picture of the south tower, tilting over and then collapsing, upon itself, creating the momentum to take the rest of the building down. In this article, as the others, nowhere does it state that the steel melts, it softens.

And I have stated that the steel had to have been melted? Wtf?

While the fire would not have been hot enough to melt any of the steel, the strength of the steel drops markedly with prolonged exposure to fire, while the elastic modulus of the steel reduces (stiffness drops), increasing deflections.

Geez, didn't know that. Especially since I've been arguing that 200-300 C doesn't provide sufficient loss of strength in steel. Nope; news to me.

And once more, it isn't my job to prove that the steel was sufficiently heated, though I have no problem with pointing out your lack of evidence for it.

C'mon, where is the proof of demolitions?

C'mon, where is your reading comprehension?

You'll be on ignore now a lack of it.


PS -

The only physics law to apply is gravity.

If only Howard had said this - it would be in my signature so fast.

[edit on 25-1-2006 by bsbray11]

Knowing that kamikaze attacks using aircraft have been going on since the beginning of flight, I would like to see photographic evidence of the end results of such attacks. Has anyone have any or have access to any?

I would like to further compare damage of steel structured buildings that have been hit by missiles. Did they collapse into their footprints?

Anyone?

[edit on 25-1-2006 by XenonCodex]

Originally posted by Griff
I think one of the only things that makes me on the fence in regards to controlled demolition is what Howard said. That it would take a huge amount of time and coverup for there to be explosives in the building.

An interesting thing to note, is that around the same time the WTC had a spray-on fireproofing "upgrade" or whatever you would call it, spray-on explosives became available to the public. This isn't necessarily what was used, but the point is that the guys setting up the charges didn't have to have any idea what they were doing: cable upgrades, fireproofing upgrades, etc. etc. are actually the planting of explosives, or at least partially the planting of explosives (actual productive work could have also been done simultaneously). And no one would have thought twice. Marvin Bush was a head of the same security company that ran security for the WTC until just prior to 9/11, too, so there were definitely connections if something needed to be done. Bomb-sniffing dogs were pulled out of the buildings just days before 9/11, and admidst higher security, etc.

It would require a lot of planning and some time to rig the buildings up, obviously, but it's not like it couldn't have been done, especially by the most powerful institution on the face of the Earth, even under the noses of the common workers doing the actual work. Just some stuff to keep in mind. Really, more objective problems should totally override issues like this anyway, just because of the assumptuous nature of 'problems' like this.

But, what if both sides are correct? What if yes the buildings started to fall because of plane damage and fires, but it wasn't enough to topple the massive core columns, so they had to use thermite in a few hot (pun intended) spots?

The thermite would still have to be planted within the building.

Btw -

There isn't a closed discussion on how many/what kind of explosives were used. It's just that the general bickering prevents a good discussion of it, not to mention our lack of resources for investigation. Thermite is, of course, a likelihood. C4 and similar conventional cutting charges can still be discussed. And LabTop, who hasn't been posting recently, pointed out some signs of the detonation of 3rd/4th-generation nuclear devices (which Joe Vialls did some looking into before dying), which make use of most all of the critical mass and can of course use plutonium, and thus do not produce the same results as one would expect based on what is publically known of such explosives (ie, the primitive and sloppy uranium Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs). Aside from the huge amount of thermal energy that caused the subtle, little-noticed apperance of white clouds moving upward in a current from where the building once stood, and possibly the long-lasting heating at Ground Zero, Indira Singh has also reported medical problems of victims that are eerily similar to exposure to radiation. Hair falling out, ulcers, cancer, etc... all occurring in people who helped clean up Ground Zero or have been around the site.

It's far out there, I'll admit, but based on what Vialls has shown from the Jakarta and Bali bombings, it's fairly safe to say that the technology is at least out there, and could be brought in and set up very easily in a rented-out offices at key points in the building, over a period of years if needed.

I think something like thermite is most likely because with most other charges, you need to do alot of cutting of supports to achieve demolition. They demolish by concussion and heat. Like a big hot hammer. With that much support cutting and drilling to place your charges over a long period of time, you run the risk of some other phenomenon collampsing the structure. With that kind of demolition, you are kind of knocking something down after cutting away all its support.
But with thermite and related explosives, the charge itself melts and even vaporizes the metal. The collapse would come from a sudden loss of support and the metal itself. The demolish by incrediblt high heat like an instantaneous super hot blow-torch.
Of couse we could also be talking about a combination of charges in the building itself AND in the sub-basements and subways. (This seems to be what people heard).
None of this addresses the nuclear option, I am still researching that.


[edit on 25-1-2006 by Outriderdark]

You can find LabTop's posts on the possibility here, or at least some of them, and here are some of Joe Viall's pages to consider:

Jakarta Hotel Bombing
Bali Bombing
Bali Micro Nuke - Lack of Radiation Confuses "Experts"

And there are more on his main page. I'm not saying I've looked into his arguments and debated them with myself, because I haven't, but I notice that he compares the blasts with known explosives, with interesting results.

The idea is that the critical mass is plutonium, which gives off much less obvious radiation than uranium (only certain types of radiation), and that much more of the critical mass is detonated than with earlier bombs (such as Little Boy, of whose critical mass about 1% underwent fission). The more that undergoes fission, the less there is to find with meters, especially with plutonium. The result is a blast that is too large to be pinned on any other explosives available to terrorists, and allegedly too large to be the result of any stack of any sort of conventional explosives into the given area (whether it be a truck bed, drain, etc. etc.). An immense amount of heat is still released (and subsequent air flow, and typical cotton-white clouds), and victims suffer severe burns, and are apparently subject to hair falling out, ulcers and cancer, as Indira Singh points out of those exposed to Ground Zero.

Just stuff to consider.

bsbray,
You still won't answer the simple question of where is the proof of controlled demolition? I don't care if you are tired of me asking the question, I am just still looking for an answer.

For some reason you are still trying to insult me and question my intelligence, and I wouldl ike to ask you to back off and keep this business. You wouldn't make it personal if you weren't behind a computer.

I don't expect you to buy the 1300 pice of art on Ebay, but you said there was no way to find it so I took it upon myself to see how easy it would be. If you are such a conspriacy theorist, why don't you and some of the other people in this thread that agree with you get a set of blueprints and see how it was built.
by the way, the government can't refuse the plans to the WTC, but the NY Port Authority can. Here is how you get a set of blueprints to the WTC

"The lead investigator in the case, Gene Corley of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said the Port Authority refused to hand over blueprints for the twin towers - crucial for evaluating the wreckage - until he signed a waiver saying his team would not use the plans in a lawsuit against the agency." ("WTC Probe Ills Bared", Paul H.B. Shin, Mar 3, 2002)
The Port Authority says to have provided the blueprints for federal investigators "within a week".

www.greatgridlock.net...

Contact the NY Port Authrotiy and ask for a copy of the blueprints.Sign the waiver and I am sure there is a cost, but it should not matter since you are so sure that controlled dmeolitions bought it down. It should be worth it at any price.

The Port Authority says to have provided the blueprints for federal investigators "within a week".

Hmm...interesting that they were provided to 'federal' investigators. But, I'm in the middle of contacting the Port Authority (once again) to see if I can obtain them. Being a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, I shouldn't have too much of a problem obtaining them. Should I? We'll see.

edit: p.s. I've been reading in ASCE about the drawings. One thing I've found is there are thousands of drawings for the towers. Yes, that's plural..thousands. Yikes. I figured it was a large amount but thousands.

[edit on 26-1-2006 by Griff]

That doesn’t surprise me in the least. The funny thing is, I just spen a couple of hours clearing out some old drawing sets that were cluttering up the office. Even a simple project like the construction of an addition to an existing school can have around 3-500 sheets.

The problem with buildings like the WTC, original blueprints are usually in poor shape. The blueprinting process is not all that archival. In addition, they will be mixed up, sheets will be missing, torn, etc. Finally there is a difference between bid drawings and “as built” drawings.

In cases like WTC 7, you also need to look at the extensive structural renovations that were done to the building after it was built.

Tell me about it Howard. I did a re-roofing project for a government archiving building. The warehouse was 7 football fields long (700 yards). The only thing that saved me some time was that the equipment on roofs rarely changes (on the same roof, not roof to roof, they differ by many degrees), so one detail for a gooseneck vent will be the same throughout. I believe that project consisted of around 50 pages. And that's just for a re-roofing.

BTW, I'm not going to say what the government building was but let's just say that the running joke was that that is where the 'ark' from 'raiders of the lost ark' was housed. Also, I learned a lot about lightweight concrete on that job. Just because it's lightweight doesn't neccessarily mean that the strength is decreased.

Yes, I'm aware that as-builts are more accurate than design drawings, also don't forget about specs, I can just imagine how many volumes of specs there are for the WTC. Things will start to become very much easier since the advent of AutoCAD and similar programs though. Also, I just found out that they can now take a scan of a drawing and make it into a working drawing file for AutoCAD. Will make my life soooo much easier.

[edit on 26-1-2006 by Griff]

Originally posted by Griff
Also, I just found out that they can now take a scan of a drawing and make it into a working drawing file for AutoCAD. Will make my life soooo much easier.

[edit on 26-1-2006 by Griff]

Sliding off the topic here:

Are you talking about using a TIFF as a background, or a tracing program?

I've done both. Using a tracing program is ok, if the original drawing is in good shape and relatively clean and simple. otherwise, you spend just as much time cleaning it up and adjusting the lines.


BTW, did anyone catch the bit about WTC 7 on "Engineering Disasters" on the History Channel?

I'm not sure how they do it, but it is definately not using a tiff as background image and tracing. I've done that and the tiff gets way too distorted when you try to scale it up to actual. I think it's a new program. If you want to research it more go to servicepointusa.com . I'll look into it and let ya know.

Way off topic..sorry, but they can also take 3D drawings and use one of those 3D printers to make a scaled replica of the design. Like how they made the throat bone of the raptors in the 3rd Jurasic Park movie. Really cool when you see it first hand.

edit: I hope I'm allowed to post that website. If not, please remove. It's not another conspiracy site or anything so I think it's ok.

[edit on 26-1-2006 by Griff]