Debunk this 9/11 conspiracy fact and I quit ATS - WTC7: perpetual motion scam and the easy physics

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Outlawstar
So has anyone actually debunked the freefall arguement.................no, I think this really is valid evidence for a re-investigation!

The "freefall argument" is hardly evidence. Rather a proposition designed to sway those who cannot fathom complex events or even recognize what constitutes evidence. As usual, this thread is typified by the usual suspects and their thoughts: those who attempt to digest highly complex systemic structure failures by examining one or two data points, and then attempt to minimize all the elements involved in order to replace them with their own theories. The typical nonsense has once again emerged in this thread: that the buildings fell from small fires, that the planes did insignificant damage, that "freefall speed" indicates everything, that the laws of physics can't work if we are to believe the "official story", that all we have to do is "follow the money", etc. etc. These kinds of tricks from anti-establishment, armchair investigators with a Phd in Youtube may work on the simpletons who have not the foundation to recognize neither scientific nonsense or even a simple distraction trick, but even the most mildly rational and objective person should be able to easily avoid the transparency of such chicanery. However, in and era in which people can hardly make change for a dollar or wire a lamp, even a marginally clever conspiracy theorist can snooker the average Joe with such sleight of hand and blinded-by-science techniques. They often sway otherwise intelligent people with a sheer preponderance of this nonsense. In the end, it's not science, not evidence and to the truly discerning, not believable in any sense of the word.

That was well written misdirection. i commend your skills, but unfortunately you didnt answer the question. you just gave a long winded description of what you THINK constitutes a typical 911 truether (what ever the hell that is). First you pigeon hole someone into a category, in this instance a "truether" or whatever the latest tag name is and then you address the entire group as one. Its easier to target a flag or a group or a foundation. But its a lot harder to target 1 in a million.

regardless your points have nothing to do with the actual evens that took place. stay on topic and answer the questions with REAL answers instead of giving you opinions on who you think the people asking the questions are. you say the free fall argument is a proposition put forward by those that cannot grasp complex events. well what are they? illuminate us oh wise one. dont just make comments about how dumb the rest of us are point out exactly how and why wtc 7 fell into its own footprint WITHOUT CONTROLLED DEMOLITION. you could be the hero that ends the debate once and for all. your genius will be hailed as unprecedented and they will hold ticker tape parades in your honor.

stick to the facts and leave the creative writing for the romance novels.

Originally posted by NIcon
Until such a time as a document from that period that references the 180 mph study comes to light, as we have for the 600 mph study, I'm not sure why anyone would take the word of an old man rather than a document from that time period. Period.

I did some more digging And Robertson was, in fact, the one that made that claim:

Sept 3-7, 2001—just before 9/11

“The Boeing 707 was the largest in use when the towers were designed. [Leslie] Robertson conducted a study in late 1964, to calculate the effect of a 707 weighing 263,000 pounds and traveling at 180 mph crashing into one of the towers. [Robertson] concluded that the tower would remain standing. However, no official report of his study has ever surfaced publicly.”

Source = Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 138-139, 366

But this "analysis" by Robertson has never turned up. Robertson wasn't even the lead engineer, so it doesn't matter how many times Robertson changes his story. We have many other facts that prove him wrong.

Originally posted by _BoneZ_

Originally posted by Alfie1
The only reason you call him incompetent or lying is because what he says does not accord with your conspiracy theories.

Here's the statement made by Leslie Robertson:

"We had designed the project for the impact of the largest airplane of its time, the Boeing 707, that is, to take this jet airplane, run it into the building, destroy a lot of structure and still have it stand up."

Now here's the part where I'm talking about when Robertson says this:

"With the 707, to the best of my knowledge, the fuel load was not considered in the design. Indeed, I don't know how it could have been considered."

He doesn't know how it could have been considered? If you design buildings to withstand impacts of airplanes, but don't consider the fuel they're carrying, you're incompetent. There's no other explanation for it.

But thank goodness he wasn't the lead engineer. John Skilling and his firm (who recruited Robertson after the project was started) was the lead engineer and said that the fuel was considered:

"Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed, ... The building structure would still be there."

So far as I can see, your John Skilling quote about dumping the fuel and horrendous fire comes solely from an interview with the Seattle Times after the earlier WTC bombing. I can find no other reference by him to fuel and fire.

It might be thought he had in mind the 3 page 1964 document which does mention impact by a 707 but there is no mention in that of fuel and fire and no indication how this conclusion was arrived at.

In fact NIST reported in 2005 that they were "unable to locate any evidence to indicate consideration of the extent of impact induced structural damage or the size of the fire that could be created by thousands of gallons of jet fuel ".

So, basically, you seem happy to libel an extremely distinguished engineer on the basis of a John Skilling press interview years after WTC was constructed. Here is a brief ASCE article about him when he was awarded the 2003 Outstanding Projects and Leaders award for lifetime contributions in design :-

www.asce.org...

I say again, you don't like Mr Robertson because he doesn't say what you want to hear in connection with your conspiracy theories.

reply to post by _BoneZ_

I think what most likely happened was FEMA either read that passage or talked with Mr. Robertson themselves and put that in their report. But then NIST started their investigation and actually found a document that refuted his claim, and rather than approach him for clarification, and so as not to offend "one of the most distinguished engineers" by questioning his memory," they just referenced the FEMA report.

I see in the link you provided that Mr. Robertson claimed in 2006 that his account was still correct. All I have to say is that the burden of proof is on Mr. Robertson to show further evidence that he is correct and the document that was actually found is wrong.

Originally posted by Alfie1
I say again, you don't like Mr Robertson because he doesn't say what you want to hear in connection with your conspiracy theories.

Actually, he did say "what I wanted to hear" back in the day before he started contradicting himself and changing his story. I posted that contradiction link above, which you obviously didn't look at yet.

It's not that I "don't like him", it's the fact that he said the buildings were designed to withstand impacts from planes, but he didn't consider the fuel load and resulting fires.

Either way, you don't design a building to withstand impacts from planes without taking the fuel that those planes carry into account. That is incompetence, plain and simple.





[edit on 6-3-2010 by _BoneZ_]

Originally posted by _BoneZ_
Either way, you don't design a building to withstand impacts from planes without taking the fuel that those planes carry into account. That is incompetence, plain and simple.
[edit on 6-3-2010 by _BoneZ_]

Especially if, as NIST states in their Draft report NCSTAR 1-1, "However, since the collision of a B-25 bomber into the Empire State Building in 1945, designers of high-rise buildings have become aware of the potential of the crash of aircrafts into buildings."

I'm sure "designers of high-rise buildings" were/are also aware that the crash into the Empire State Building had started a fire. "Duh... nope we never did think of that."

Originally posted by JIMC5499

Originally posted by _BoneZ_
I do not believe in blind faith, nor do I believe that three buildings collapsed totally and completely on 9/11 by anything related to fires, unless you want to rewrite the laws of physics for the day of 9/11 only.

The impact of 2 large jet aircraft moving at a relativly high speed might have had a little something to do with it. Unless of course you believe that they were holograms?

Yeah, because a plane hit WTC7 loaded with jet fuel and damaged the core columns and...oh wait.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
The "freefall argument" is hardly evidence. Rather a proposition designed to sway those who cannot fathom complex events or even recognize what constitutes evidence.

I find this hilarious considering a simple rhetorical argument went way over your head on page 1 of this thread. You actually believed we were saying the building violated laws of physics. Which again, is completely failing to understand a very basic and simple rhetorical statement. And now you are accusing us of not being able to comprehend complex events.

I've had physics. I know what conservation of energy means. I know a building can't free-fall through itself and still be doing any kind of work whatsoever. It's a fact of physics. Period. End of debate. Unless you are trying to rewrite the conservation of energy law, or really do believe that there was an anomalous violation of physics that day. I believe neither.

reply to post by Alfie1


Robertson's firm wasn't the one that did the analysis of a 707 hitting a tower at 600 mph. John Skillings' was. That's why Robertson doesn't remember, because his firm DIDN'T DO THAT STUDY and there was more than 1 engineering team working on the towers, even more than 1 firm of structural engineers.

Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by Alfie1

 

Robertson's firm wasn't the one that did the analysis of a 707 hitting a tower at 600 mph. John Skillings' was. That's why Robertson doesn't remember, because his firm DIDN'T DO THAT STUDY and there was more than 1 engineering team working on the towers, even more than 1 firm of structural engineers.

Can you please link me to John Skilling's anaysis ? NIST obviously haven't seen it.

reply to post by Alfie1

Neither has NIST seen the Robertson calculations of a 180mph crash. NIST does seem to think the 600 mph calculations were done when they state on page 4 of NCSTAR 1-2 "While the documents from the PANYNJ indicated that aircraft impact WAS considered in the design." (emphasis mine)

NIST does state rightly there is contention over just how the resulting fires were dealt with. According to page 5 of the same document, one view says they considered all the fuel dumping into the building and causing a large fire. The other view says they may have not considered it at all. These two views are footnoted so as we can see who NIST is referencing making the respective claims.

The first view that a large fire being considered is accredited in the footnote to J. Skilling.

The second view that the fires were not considered is accredited to L.E. Robertson.

Now seeing as no document has surfaced that refutes J. Skilling's account, but we have a document that refutes Robertson's account of his 180 mph claim, which view of the fire calculations should we give more credibility to?

I think that we should give more credibility to the person's account that has NOT been refuted by a document that's in evidence.

You may think we should give more credibility to the person who's account HAS been refuted by a document in evidence. If so, could you explain why?

reply to post by MysterE

If you want to find the distance covered by a free falling object use this formula. d=.5*g*t^2 So in this case d=.5*9.8*(2.2)^2 d=23.72m

We know that the building fell in about 6.5 seconds. Why not simply solve for t and calculate the time it would take a metal sphere to fall from 47 floors.

s or distance would be 47 floors at 9' each floor would come out to 423 ft.

g would be 32 ft/sec squared instead of 9.8 as we are using feet in the equation.

So take the square root of..... distance/ .5 g = the time it would take for free fall.

I get 4.841 seconds.

The building took about 1.7 seconds longer than an object with no resistance. Basically what you would expect in a planned implosion asthe remaining structure had to crush through itself.

reply to post by Doctor Smith


Doctor, a heck of a lot of stuff was going on INSIDE the building, in the seconds before you begin to see the initial large movement, which would be the penthouse.

Consistent with this theory, news footage shows cracking and bowing of the building's east wall immediately before the collapse, which began at the penthouse floors. In video of the collapse, taken from the north by CBS News and other news media, the first visible sign of collapse is movement in the east penthouse 8.2 seconds before the north wall began to collapse, which took at least another 7 seconds.

The working hypothesis, released in the June 2004 progress report and reiterated in a June 2007 status update, was that an initial failure in a critical column occurred below the 13th floor, caused by damage from fire and/or debris from the collapse of the two main towers. The collapse progressed vertically up to the east mechanical penthouse. The interior structure was unable to handle the redistributed load, resulting in horizontal progression of the failure across lower floors, particularly the 5th to 7th floors. This resulted in "a disproportionate collapse of the entire structure."

en.wikipedia.org...

Now, a certain cadre' of ATS members out in the blogosphere keep stomping their boots on my neck because I wrote something that was not perfectly and precisely exact once, regarding that pesky penthouse. Actually, it is not really a cadre' --- more like just one --- but anyway, my point is that bridge is well behind me now.

I never paid much attention to WTC 7 before, but the many new threads popping up on it got me interested.

I look at it logically, and when you remove all of the hyperbole and exaggeration from theh 'conspiracy' websites (where most of the disinformation comes from) then its collapse seems completely reasonable, with all facts in hand, not just the selected bits the 'conspiracy-minded' folks want you to see.

The claim of "free-fall" is one of the most misleading....once the internal structure was compromised, and as we can't see the events inside, once that was nearly gone, of COURSE the rest would fall due to gravity, at the speeds due to gravity.









[edit on 7 March 2010 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by NIcon


NIcon there seems to be general agreement that John Skilling and Leslie Robertson considered the impact of a Boeing 707 before ground was even broken for WTC construction.

Unfortunately, the only surviving document consists of 3 pages from 1964 and there are no calculations or analysis.

You point out that there is a discrepancy in that the document refers to an impact at 600 mph while Mr Robertson talks of 180 mph.
However, there is also a discrepancy with Mr Skilling in that he told the Seattle Times some thirty years later that consideration had been given to dumping of fuel and fire but the document doesn't mention that.

So, there is discrepancy on both sides and, unfortunately, Mr Skilling is dead.

The facts are sparse but I am inclined to go with Mr Robertson for two reasons :

1) A plane trying to land and flying at 180 mph seems to me to be a much more plausible scenario for 1964. I would have thought that very low level over Manhattan at 600 mph would have seemed outlandish in 1964.

2) Mr Robertson has said that he does not know how the effects of fuel and fire could have been calculated in 1964.

However, if anyone has any more information on the 1964 document or can come up with experienced structural engineers who can say it was possible to calculate the effects of fuel and fire in 1964 I would be interested to hear it.

reply to post by Doctor Smith

....distance would be 47 floors at 9' each floor would come out to 423 ft.

You still have time to edit.

The building was 610 feet (186 m) tall,

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by bsbray11
reply to post by Alfie1

 

Robertson's firm wasn't the one that did the analysis of a 707 hitting a tower at 600 mph. John Skillings' was. That's why Robertson doesn't remember, because his firm DIDN'T DO THAT STUDY and there was more than 1 engineering team working on the towers, even more than 1 firm of structural engineers.

I know! lol Robertson didn't even have a firm back then. Skilling's firm recruited Robertson for the project. Skilling and his firm were the lead engineers.

reply to post by weedwhacker

You still have time to edit. The building was 610 feet (186 m) tall,

I hope they aren't counting the antenna at the top or something.

You're really helping the Truthers case. Now the equation works out to 6.174 seconds for a block of lead to fall the same distance. I guess each story is an average of 12.98 feet.

So since the building fell in about 6.5 seconds it took .326 seconds more than the block of lead with no resistance.

Originally posted by Alfie1
Unfortunately, the only surviving document consists of 3 pages from 1964 and there are no calculations or analysis.

There was an analysis. That's why the 3-page document mentions one. The analysis that the 3-page document refers to is the structural analysis carried out by the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson. The preliminary calculations alone cover 1200 pages and involve over 100 detailed drawings.

Find this structural analysis and you'll find the gold mine as to why the buildings should still be standing today if it weren't for explosives bringing them down.

reply to post by Doctor Smith

You're really helping the Truthers case.

No, I am not. Trying to cut through the hyperbole and nonsense, I am.

The 'truthers' wind themselves up into a frenzy, with ever-increasing mendacity at each turn.

It's a bit like a bunch of women at the beauty salon telling gossip...gets juicier and juicier with each re-telling.

(Sorry, that was sexist...but there WAS a time when it was true...)


BTW, regarding the fall time...did you bother to read the links I provided???

You see, you cannot judge the entire collapse sequence, time-wise, based solely on the exterior CBS video footage. (Because that's the one most people seem to use).

BUT, to keep this conspiracy hoax going strong, those who perpetuate it like to obscure real facts.



[edit on 7 March 2010 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by _BoneZ_


BoneZ we both know the analysis doesn't exist anymore. The question is did it consider the effect of fuel and fire ? Leslie Robertson says it didn't because it wasn't possible.

You obviously won't accept that so can you provide any evidence that it was possible to make such a calculation in 1964 ?