The Proof Is In The Core

Originally posted by Vushta
Thermite isn't plausible

I wouldn't go that far. I'm thinking that thermite was used to weaken the welds (the columns were too thick to have been fully severed by the time the tower came down). Then when the toppling portion kicked out the BOTTOM of the spire it hit that piece out causing the remaining spire to fall straight down. Once the remaining spire fell straight down, that force caused the rest of the weakened welds to sever, causing the spire to splinter apart and fall into itself. The welds had to have been weakened in some way and I think thermite was the culprite. Unless someone can come up with an alternative to explain why the spire was intact at one point and then fully splintered into itself at another.

Also, what I ment by saying that the implosion I saw last night looked exactly like the spire implosion was that it was severed at the base and when it hit the ground, the remaining portion imploded upon itself...just like the spire did.

Originally posted by Griff

I wouldn't go that far. I'm thinking that thermite was used to weaken the welds (the columns were too thick to have been fully severed by the time the tower came down). Then when the toppling portion kicked out the BOTTOM of the spire it hit that piece out causing the remaining spire to fall straight down. Once the remaining spire fell straight down, that force caused the rest of the weakened welds to sever, causing the spire to splinter apart and fall into itself. The welds had to have been weakened in some way and I think thermite was the culprite. Unless someone can come up with an alternative to explain why the spire was intact at one point and then fully splintered into itself at another.

Also, what I ment by saying that the implosion I saw last night looked exactly like the spire implosion was that it was severed at the base and when it hit the ground, the remaining portion imploded upon itself...just like the spire did.

That would bring into the picture another set of problems. Now we have to not only have access to the support members --which would necessitate stripping walls unnoticed--but have access to particular areas of the columns--what if the welds are between floors or otherwise inaccessible?..how do you ignite the thermite?..how do you hide the evidence? etc.

And why exactly would this be necessary? If the towers collapsed and the 'spire' remained, how would that lessen the impact of the event?

Until it can be pointed out that the column steel was more than tack welded the most believable cause would be forces naturally present in a collapse the magnitude of the collapse of the towers.

[edit on 7-7-2006 by Vushta]

Originally posted by Vushta
That would bring into the picture another set of problems. Now we have to not only have access to the support members --which would necessitate stripping walls unnoticed--but have access to particular areas of the columns--what if the welds are between floors or otherwise inaccessible?..how do you ignite the thermite?..how do you hide the evidence? etc.

In this scenerio, you don't need access to support members, just core columns. Remember that the core columns are in the core (which is not rented by individual corporations). Also, remember that all the duct work was in the core (well most). This means that a few people "working" in the core area could go unnoticed since they wouldn't be disturbing the individual renters space. Also, remember that the service elevator ran the length of the core and could be stopped at anytime to access areas. I'm not saying it would be a breeze but as far as I know, could have happened. As far as ignighting it, why not the conventional method? Or a timed release? How do you hide the evidence? How about ship it away to China for smelting?

And why exactly would this be necessary? If the towers collapsed and the 'spire' remained, how would that lessen the impact of the event?

It doesn't lessen anything but gives us a clue as to what really happened. I still don't think the forces of the collapse alone would have caused this "phenomenon"

Until it can be pointed out that the column steel was more than tack welded the most believable cause would be forces naturally present in a collapse the magnitude of the collapse of the towers.

Well, even in your quote by Dr. Eager, they were more than just tack welded (if that quote is for the core columns) they had the added strength of 4 bolts. As far as the quote is concerned, could you explain to me how a verticle collapse could shear these bolts to have no deformation of the plates and bolt holes? That's an interesting point. That would mean that something pulled vertically on either the bolt faces or the plates themselves. Since these bolts and plates had nothing to do with the floors, what caused them to shear off?

Originally posted by Vushta
If you want 'some sort of illustration' why not look at that gif you posted?
See any explosions?

Please point out the base of the spire in that GIF. Because that's obviously what failed: it fell straight down.

Still waiting for a response to this:

Btw, Vushta, even if something did strike the spire before it collapsed, it still fell from the base, not from the top. I'll leave ATS and never return if you show me something, anything that collapses straight down upon itself like the spire, just from something falling and hitting it near the top.

If you knock out ANY section from the part thats visible, the remaining structure will fall straight down. It has to do this or levitate in the air.

...then you should have no problem.

And no, it wasn't hit near the base. The animations here only show the top portion. I've seen images from a sort of perpendicular that show that it not only goes down farther (as one would expect considering that in some videos you see it over the top of other skyscrapers x.x), but widens as it goes down farther. If you saw anything hit it in that animation, you saw it hit near the top.


PS - Griff, I'm thinking it was thermite too now. Watching the columns buckle together before they fell gives a sort of clue to this. Conventional demo's would just bow out piece by piece at the base, which I don't suppose happened. There was molten steel at Ground Zero, but I can't hear any explosions in that video.

[edit on 7-7-2006 by bsbray11]

Please point out the base of the spire in that GIF. Because that's obviously what failed: it fell straight down.

Thats a straw herring



And no, it wasn't hit near the base. One point it was hit --and it may have been hit in many more--but the one place that we can SEE it was hit was well within the frame of the gif. Are you saying that what we see in that gifs lowest part is --the ground level??



No its not obvious that 'thats what failed'. Theres no way to tell from that gif how tall the remaining structure is and it doesn't matter. It fell straight down because thats what gravity does to objects that have no support.

All that would have to be knocked out for it to fall straight down would be one section of support.
I believe that some things are being implied to better fit your theory.

First what you're saying is the spire is part of core. I think it is more accurately the corner outer perimeter as pointed out in an earlier post. The structure looks nothing like the many pics available of the construction of the core. It does bear a resembalance to the formation of the outer perimeter columns though.

It has been shown that the outer perimeter columns (and possibly the core columns) were little more than tack welded as the joints strenght came from compression and bracing via the connection of the floor trusses from the perimeter to the core.
If ONE of those 30 foot? sections were to be knocked out, the rest of the structure would fall straight down.
Heres an example.

You're standing on a gallows trap door.

The only thing thats holding the door shut so you can stand on it...even jump on it ..is a piece of wood placed vertically under the trap door.

That piece of wood and you are in vertical alignment.

Someone strikes either the top or the bottom of the piecs of wood under the trap door.

The door opens immediately and guess how you fall?----straight down.

Why do you think you should fall over to the side or topple like a tree? I just don't get that.

If you think about it the ONLY difference in your position and mine is HOW the welds failed.---Thats it.--we have no other issue that would have bearing on anything.
I'm not sure you grasp this point.

You're saying the welds failed because of thermite.---but thats all you're saying---the welds failed.

I'm saying that looking at the evidence you provided in the gif and SEEING the huge chunk of steel hit the structure with such force that the whole remaining structure shutters from the impact and is then shifted over far from it natural COG and then "snaps" is a good bit of evidence as to what the likely cause of the failure was.

BUT..whether failed from thermite or failed from a physical blow, the fall would have looked the same. Don't you agree?

Watching the columns buckle together before they fell gives a sort of clue to this.

What do you mean 'buckle together'? I didn't see that at all.

Originally posted by Vushta
And no, it wasn't hit near the base. One point it was hit --and it may have been hit in many more--but the one place that we can SEE it was hit was well within the frame of the gif. Are you saying that what we see in that gifs lowest part is --the ground level??

I'm saying that what you're saying makes absolutely 0 sense, and it would only come close to making sense if something hit it at the base.

The spire fell from the base. It fell straight down, the top did not topple of fail, it fell straight down, because the base failed.

Therefore something caused the base to fail.

Something hitting the spire near the top would only cause it to topple in one direction. This is because transfer of momentum happens to work this way: hitting something near its top is not going to cause the much-thicker base to fail.

Btw -- this is all assuming something actually did fall on the spire. Considering that the spire was the section of building that remained standing after the collapse, this doesn't make a whole lot of sense in itself. And I just watched the animation again, and see absolutely nothing falling onto the spire anyway. Some pieces failed -- falling straight down upon themselves -- off to the sides.


Someone tell me if the rest of this post is worth reading. I saw some stuff about there being no vertical support and lost hope.

I skimmed and will make one more comment though:

Why do you think you should fall over to the side or topple like a tree? I just don't get that.

Because a tree has a hell of a lot more in common with the spire than someone standing on a trap door -- a device that is DESIGNED to give way and cause something to fall straight down.

And in the video I posted, you can see portions of the spire toppling like trees anyway. So watch that video and direct any further questioning on that issue to Mother Nature, or laws of physics.





[edit on 7-7-2006 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by Vushta

Why do you think you should fall over to the side or topple like a tree? I just don't get that.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Because a tree has a hell of a lot more in common with the spire than someone standing on a trap door -- a device that is DESIGNED to give way and cause something to fall straight down.

And in the video I posted, you can see portions of the spire toppling like trees anyway. So watch that video and direct any further questioning on that issue to Mother Nature, or laws of physics.

it's called 'torsion', 'leverage', 'center of gravity', vushta. it's called 'intertia', and 'force' and 'elasticity', 'plasticity', 'geometry', 'density' and common sense.

the towers were progressively thicker towards the bottom. the bottom held up the entire tower, and was capable of doing so in a hurricane. the base of the towers had tons of rebar, rooted in the bedrock, at an angle, like guy wires, which could vector sway stresses.



here's a simple experiment(which no one actually has to 'prove') which indicates what i've been saying for months. (with regards to the 'gallows' analogy)

put a pencil, and lightly between two fingers, hold it at ninety degrees, lighly touching a loaf of bread. drive your hand down on the pencil. no biggie.
now, do the experiment with a two by four. drive a pencil (end to end) through another pencil. drive the pencil through a stack of toothpicks.

in which cases does your hand feel extreme pain?
in which cases does the wood you are 'driving through', actually get driven through? the top layers of toothpicks in a stack would give, bend and break and distort, but even they would stop the pencil, and cause your hand a great deal of pain, and perhaps even a puncture wound.

Originally posted by billybob

That makes no sense.

Nice deflection of my point.

My point was that we are talking about the same thing.

You say the collapse happened because the welds failed because of thermite.

I'm saying that the welds failed because of impact.

Whether the welds failed from thermite or impact, the collapse would look the same.

What don't you understand about this?

The points you try to make to blur what happened (which is quite obvious from lookin at the gif) are just deflection.

If you can't see the strike from the falling steel beams --2 that I can see--then you should look again.

I'm not going to go into some long response with another anology of gallows or respond to pencils thru toothpicks or whatever, so help clarify this question.

How would the collapse look different if the welds failed from thermite or impact?

Because a tree has a hell of a lot more in common with the spire than someone standing on a trap door -- a device that is DESIGNED to give way and cause something to fall straight down.

Well no it doesn't.

A tree is TRUELY one piece.

The spire was made up of pieces put together.

If you can't understand my anology, try putting the pieces together again.
Hint: the DESIGN of function has nothing to do with my point.

And in the video I posted, you can see portions of the spire toppling like trees anyway.

So?

Guys, I think Vushta's last post speaks for itself, so let it go. He was addressing me anyway. It's fine.



So have any thoughts on the spire been refined, Griff? I might look a bit later for the pics showing further down the spire. I think I found them via a link from some ATS post (maybe one of LaBTops, not sure), but haven't had any luck so far. Looking back through previous threads...

Sooo...

How would the collapse look different if the welds failed from thermite or impact?

Originally posted by Vushta
Sooo...

How would the collapse look different if the welds failed from thermite or impact?

ever seen a steel mesh act 'brittle'? only under EXTREMELY HIGH VELOCITY impacts, does steel SHEAR. it will first 'try' and stretch and/or bend.
the connections may have HELD, and undergone DISTORTION, instead of being CUT.
how it would have looked different, is it may have 'folded' instead of 'shattering', and it may have 'arrested' instead of 'continued'.

even bush said 'shattered steel' right on september 11th, refering to the 'collapse'. i always thought that was such a strange modifier for what we all saw, but chalked it up to bush being a complete idiot.

glass shatters. steel buckles.

the 'point' about the pencils, is that you have something structurally weaker, on top of something that is structurally stronger(force), and many times more massive(inertia), with IDENTICAL MATERIALS used to construct them.

whatever amazingly huge potential energy the top 16 floors have(mass times gravity), the bottom portion has been holding it up for forty years, with absolutely no problem, because, once again, the tower(s) was increasingly hardier and rigid towards the bottom, and increasingly lighter and more pliable at the top. like a tree.

did you know the harp on a grand piano has twenty tons of tension on it? a piano. twenty tons. nine feet long, by forty eight inches wide.
imagine a stack of 110 grand pianos, (no legs on them and with cases made out of steel, instead of wood. tack weld the pianos together). if you drop the top 16 onto the lower 94(3, because one piano JUST DISAPPEARED, according to the FIRST ASSUMPTION of the official 'explanation',) the lower 93 grand pianos, don't just MOVE OUT OF THE WAY.

oh yeah, i forgot you have to put a huge steel spear through the middle of the pianos(to simulate the core)

now, how would you expect the steel pianos to 'collapse'. cause i think the top would just come to a dead STOP after creating a 'crumple zone' in the top piano of the bottom portion.

3 towers in one day, all collapse. the only three steel towers in HISTORY to collapse from fire. the mechanism for each is different, obviously and especially wtc7. the same day, the same insurance policy, the same owner, the same usual suspects.

Originally posted by Vushta
Sooo...


How would the collapse look different if the welds failed from thermite or impact?

Sooo...How would it look different?
I'm talking about the collapse being the cause of the welds failing.
Some say thermite..some say impact.

How would they produce ANY visual differences?

Your points about 'shear' and bending are red herrings, but I don't have time now to respond.

Wow, Vushta wanting a question answered and sticking to it, now you understand where we come from.

Originally posted by Masisoar
Wow, Vushta wanting a question answered and sticking to it, now you understand where we come from.

Good to see you back.
...and in the vein of your response.
You promised to answer a question I posted to you several days ago and may have missed your reply.

The question you said you'd answer for me was:
How were the buildings rigged for demo?

Not when..not what timeframe..none of those deflections, but HOW was it done with no one noticing?

Originally posted by Vushta
Sooo...How would it look different?
I'm talking about the collapse being the cause of the welds failing.
Some say thermite..some say impact.

How would they produce ANY visual differences?

Your points about 'shear' and bending are red herrings, but I don't have time now to respond.

they are not 'red herrings', they are 'invisible' elephants in the room.
you can try and describe the elephant with a microscopic field of view, but i prefer to view the whole.

snapping and warping are VISUALLY DIFFERENT.

the thermate was used to weaken, and explosives and gravity were used to topple.

you generally do not see the thermate reactions, although there is, even according to NIST, a highly visible 'metal fire' and a molten cascade from one corner of one building, just prior to collapse. and there is the other picture of an identical looking cacsade coming from the top of the last remaining perimeter columns, post-collapse.

do you contend that whether it be failing welds, or thermite worms, the failure would look the exact same? do molten streams spout from snapping welds?

[edit on 9-7-2006 by billybob]

For it to be welds failing, all the welds (or at least alot) would have had to have failed at the same time for it to implode like that IMO. Weakened welds through thermate would do this. My question again.

What made the bolts and plates shear instead of warping and bending out of place?

So how was all this thermite placed there anyway? I presume there has to be some sort of device used.

The only thing I've seen is a link from WCIP that describes a device that could possibly be used to cut horizontally.

The problem is, the device needed IIRC .75 pounds of thermite in a 3" x 12" casing to cut through one inch of steel plate.

So now, you guys are proposing that not only were bombs placed on every floor on almost evey column, but also that they snuck in undetected and put these giant thermite devices all over, on the exact floors that they knew would be hit, and then put these things on the spire?

What would be the point of putting thermite on the spire? Something like that would be too risky, and serves no purpose. Have any of you bothered to calculate how much thermite would be needed in this scenario?

What purpose would it serve to use so much thermite on the spire?

Wouldn't it be enough to just have the buildings collapse?

And how did the thermite devices survive the plane crashes?

It's great that you guys can point to different pictures and claim "thermite" or "bombs", but you have yet to provide a reasonable way to plant thermite on the spire, or even a reasonable purpose. Thermite and bombs are not likely answers if no one can figure out how they got into the building in the first place.



[edit on 9-7-2006 by LeftBehind]

Originally posted by billybob

Originally posted by Vushta
Sooo...How would it look different?
I'm talking about the collapse being the cause of the welds failing.
Some say thermite..some say impact.

How would they produce ANY visual differences?

Your points about 'shear' and bending are red herrings, but I don't have time now to respond.

they are not 'red herrings', they are 'invisible' elephants in the room.
you can try and describe the elephant with a microscopic field of view, but i prefer to view the whole.

snapping and warping are VISUALLY DIFFERENT.

the thermate was used to weaken, and explosives and gravity were used to topple.

you generally do not see the thermate reactions, although there is, even according to NIST, a highly visible 'metal fire' and a molten cascade from one corner of one building, just prior to collapse. and there is the other picture of an identical looking cacsade coming from the top of the last remaining perimeter columns, post-collapse.

do you contend that whether it be failing welds, or thermite worms, the failure would look the exact same? do molten streams spout from snapping welds?

[edit on 9-7-2006 by billybob]

That still makes no sense when put in context of what is even visibly evidenced.

Though in all fairness we may be talking about 2 different things.

I was responding to the collapse of the 'spire' and in your last statement you seem to be talking about the towers. Is this correct?

Originally posted by Griff
For it to be welds failing, all the welds (or at least alot) would have had to have failed at the same time for it to implode like that IMO. Weakened welds through thermate would do this. My question again.

What made the bolts and plates shear instead of warping and bending out of place?

Why would a lot of the welds have to fail at the same time?