This is a question that can only be asked by someone who knows absolutely nothing whatsoever about steel.
Hot steel loses its strength long before it melts. I remember visiting one factory where they made forklift forks - which are pretty much just long peices of steel, pretty thick, bent at a 90-degree angle. They bend them simply by heating the center using electricity. 600-700 degrees was more than hot enough to weaken the steel where it could be bent in a small press; at that point standard 1044 steel has lost more than half its strength.
There is, by the way, nothing special about the steel used in buildings. It’s almost all standard grade steel.
What is the evidence for this bombing? When the towers began to collapse many cameras pointed up, not down to the areas were a bomb or bombs would most likely be located.
In the documentary 9/11, made by the french camera men, the sound they were escaping is clearly the one of a collapse, not from bombs, the “bombs” were conspicuously absent in the lower levels of the building were the firemen and the cameramen were located.
No, because that would have required Al Quaeda having complete access to the buildings infrastructure. Vaguely possible, but highly unlikely. Unless they had a lot of Muslim janitors working there.
“They” knew there was going to be planes hitting the towers, but were worried that 2 holes in the buildings and several hundred deaths, would not have anywhere near the impact two toppling landmarks would. And so, a little extra work was involved.
The only persons who could profit from this act would be someone who didn’t care who won the following repercussions, someone involved in the military or the arms trade, for example.
To the limited extent you had a point, you just disproved it. Anyway there is a common saying that you should never attribute to malice what can better be explained by stupidity. There were a ton of failures by the CIA, FBI an other intelligence agencies before September 11th. A conspiracy is much harder to believe from where I sit.
Because before those giant concrete sheets hit the ground, they’re hitting the other giant concrete sheets that are directly below them. You drop a several hundred ton concrete slab onto another several hundred ton concrete slab, both slabs are going to break up. They won’t pulverize - not instantly, but they’ll shatter and produce a lot of dust, and then they’ll drop onto the next concrete slab, which will also shatter and produce a lot of dust. You repeat this process for, say, thirty floors, and you’ve got a shit load of concrete dust before you’ve come anywhere close to the ground. And that’s not counting the dust created by tons of drywall that’s being crushed into powder between each pair of those concrete slabs. There’s absolutely nothing weird or unexpected about the huge clouds of dust billowing out of the WTC as it collapsed - that’s exactly what you should expect to see when a fully furnished office building suffers a catastrophic failure.
In point of fact, it’s been pretty thoroughly disproven. Jones is a crank, who has no idea what he’s talking about.
And why should they be? What other active crime scenes are private citizens allowed to waltz in and conduct their own investigations? This isn’t Scooby Doo. They’re not going to let a plucky band of kids and their talking dog wander around ground zero, potentially contaminating the evidence, just because they smell a mystery.
And on what would you base this expectation, given that nothing Jones has said to date holds water?
The investigation was performed by literally thousands of people, from different governmental departments. Many of them were not direct government employees, but contracted for the job because of their particular expertise. Is it your contention that all of these people were in on the conspiracy?
Yes, and that’s done after the building has been emptied of all furniture, and all the drywall, wiring, and other fixtures have been removed. When they drop a building through controlled demolition, they’re doing it to an empty shell. And it still produces a hell of a lot of dust. So imagine how much more dust will be produced by an office building that’s still in full operation. Oh, wait, you don’t have to imagine it: you’ve already linked to the pictures of it.
And it’s been explained to you at least four times, now. Is your question answered yet?
this is a great point. it was my understanding that thermite reactions release a great deal of energy, but i will admit i don’t know how to connect the pulverized concrete with a series of thermite reactions necessarily.
i have already admitted in the thread that Jones and colleagues, (there are other scientists that have done similar studies since “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?”) should not be expect there theories to go unrevised. Of all the things we do know or think we know about 911, i’m sure there are parts of the puzzle that are missing as of right now (but this goes back to fair access to the evidence, independent investigation, etc. the idea being that if the brightest scientific minds were allowed to investigate this event, they would be able to explain every detail)
About as stupid as we look now, for letting all the intelligence slip by us that Al Queda was planning to fly planes into the buildings while we watched?
Thermite produces a great deal of heat (and molten iron as a byproduct), but it’s not even remotely an explosive. Pretty much useless for demolition. It’s actually more commonly used to weld things together than cut them apart.
Illiterate blacksmiths knew this thousands of years before the industrial revolution - how can someone, interested in the topic, with the whole internet at their disposal, remain ignorant?
If all they wanted to do was stir up national outrage to justify a war, there’s a much easier way to do it than an impossibly convoluted plot involving wiring the busiest office building in the world with explosives, then flying hijacked airplanes into them, and then co-ordinating thousands of investigators, engineers, and architects into creating an unbreakable conspiracy of silence about what they find in the ruins. Instead, just plant, oh, say, ten bombs in kindergartens around the country. Detonate them all at once, then sit back and let the images of dead children being pulled out of the rubble drive the country into a rabid fervor of violent revenge. You don’t need nearly as large a team, your plot is much less likely to be uncovered too soon, you’ll get even more public outrage, and you don’t have to cripple the financial and military hearts of your country on the eve of the war you’ve engineered. Or, if you’re really banking on the national monument angle, go after the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Mt. Rushmore. Do it in the middle of tourist season to make sure you get the biggest bodycount. In terms of pure sentimentality, a bunch of bankers in a pair of giant shoe boxes isn’t that great a target.
“They” didn’t need to plot these attacks, they just capitalised on them. The perfect poker hand was meant to have had the White House too, but some pesky passengers saw the card up the sleeve. [/devil’s advocate continued]
The whole essence of science is supposed to be repeatabilty, isn’t it, so if the twin towers events cannot be replicated, how can anything said about them be truly scientific? Nothing like that has ever happened before, and hopefully will never happen again. So the events are just a stand-alone anomaly, with a range of theories that can apply, some more than others. If none of the theories seriously investigate the idea of not a controlled demolition, but a gravity initiated demolition(ie. One that requires a lot less materials.), then a full scientific enquiry has not been undertaken.
My point in saying this is not to try and propagate ignorance, but just to consider if there is anything we are overlooking simply because it is too painful to pick at the wound. There may be some who would argue that I am doing exactly that, but that would seem to be overreacting to me.
You don’t need to replicate the entire event perfectly. You can replicate individual aspects of it under controlled circumstances, and then extrapolate them to the whole. For example, can jet fuel fires heat steel to the point it loses its temper and bends? You can test that in a laboratory pretty easily - which has been done. We know that planes hit the towers, and that planes are full of jet fuel, and that the steel girders were holding up a lot of weight. Add those factors together, and it is unsurprising that the tower collapsed. We can also look at similar events. Other steel-frame buildings have caught fire and collapsed. What did we find in the rubble of those buildings? How does that compare to the rubble found in the WTC? If we find the same things in both cases, then odds are good that the same causes apply in both cases.
What is a “gravity initiated demolition,” and how does it differ from a controlled demolition?
I’ve yet to see anyone rebut a 9/11 conspiracy with, “This is too uncomfortable to talk about.” Generally, I see people addressing the claims head on, and tearing them apart.
But then the owner of WTC couldn’t have cashed out his insurance policy. Maybe justifying aggression in the middle east wasn’t the only reason. Its all just friends taking care of friends. The insurance policy was the first trip to the bank. Then came the halliburton contracts. It all worked out.
look, I am outsmarted in this thread. i haven’t done enough research, and all those arguing their side have demonstrated a better understanding of physics itself, and of historical reality of the events of 911. but… I’m not really convinced. you may have made the better argument FWIW, but it you didn’t win me over.
so I am going to address the points that I have been asked that I can remember offhand. I am not going to post any links, i am just going to repeat from memory the arguing points that have been instilled into me. and before I get out of here for dinner, I will leave the board with a simple question.
Steel doesn’t have to melt, it is weakened beyond structural stability at 1800 degrees If the steel really did bend or fail halfway up the tower, the building would collapse, but wouldn’t more of the steel beams stay together? Why did only 10 stories or so remain standing after the dust cleared? The steel frame collapsed, but wouldn’t the beams hold themselves together in all areas what weren’t directly touching heat? (the area around the plane’s impact). I would expect to find beams intact above and below its point of failure. Where is the 40 story steel beam that could be erected as monument?
what do you make of reports of pools of molten steel that were found up to five weeks after sept. 11? it seems like something did melt the steel anyway. A government agency of geology took geothermic pictures that showed an unexplainable heat source at the foot of the towers.
the conspiracy is so big that it could never be organized without a whistleblower, were all the investigators in on the theory? Well, if you were for the CIA and sometime in June you put a suitcase in a specific room of WTC, you are not exactly “in on the conspiracy.” It make have taken literally thousands of people to execute, but no-one knows where to draw the line between conspirators and those following orders (so don’t take this point for granted)
as for the investigators, it does not follow that they were all in one the conspiracy. even though many experts were part of the teams that investigated WTC collapse, still these experts were following orders as well and there is no saying that any single area of expertise will be crucial enough to uncover the truth. everyone in the investigation had a task. unless somebody found a note from cheney that said, “fuck NYC, long live rock n roll”, i doubt any single person is going to break the whole case
and there is a question about who was allowed to investigate. clearly the FBI. FEMA? we know it wasn’t a tornado. and from wikipedia:
how reassuring. yeah, i’ll believe whatever they say
if it was a controlled demolition, how come there were no bombs? why weren’t there bombs at lower levels? why didn’t the firemen report explosions it was, there were, there were, and they did. I already said that I am not going to post links in this post, and the topic of the thread is wreckage of WTC. I have seen news reports standing near the towers stop their reports and look back at the building where you can clearly hear there was an explosion before the collapse. I have seen documents that said that the radio communication with firemen in the upper levels of the towers indicated many explosions and injuriesbefore the collapse. I have also seen interviews with the sub-basement janitor who had worked his job for many years who felt and heard explosions and that is why he got the fuck outta there. So one side or the other here is spouting mis-truths and hearsay. And do not think there won’t be a thread coming just on the anecdotal or witness accounts evidence, which by the way appeal to my rational mind much more than any of this physics nonsense.
I was going to leave you with one question. do you those of you that are arguing here against me believe that there is a rouge force in international politics (and power)? There is in my town for example. actually a huge drug-war going on here between san diego and tijuana. some of the most powerful people involved in the drug trade are in the government itself and are exploiting their positions of power to advance their drug-trade careers. some are working outside the government completely (and against it too). there is crime at every level of politics. do you think that in international politics, everyone is playing by the rules? i wager that there has been enough disappearing CIA money over the years to build a tight-knit network of criminal power, and with their influence they have been become capable of, for instance, destroying the WTC. like i said, cashing in the insurance was just the first trip to the bank. i’m sure this organization’s point of view is that when bush and cheney actually became president and vp, it was the culmination of the greatest opportunity of their lives, to
take money
keep themselves entrenched in power So, Is there a dark government, or an underworld mafia element that “owns” and controls much of US government? so entrenched in US government that they can control the elements around them that would otherwise bring them to justice? if bush/cheney weren’t working for themselves, what other explanation can you give for fucking over the country so royally?
It’s COMPLETELY different! In the latter, specialists selectively weaken a structure, set charges at scientifically-determined locations, then explode the charges. In the former excess gravitons from a miniature black hole created in the supercollider the Illuminati built in the NY subway system below the WTC caused the building to collapse. The resulting wormhole was just a little one and couldn’t go clear across the galaxy, so the wreckage ended up in China.
Jesus, this board is supposed to be filled with the smartest people on Earth, but nobody here understands basic SCIENCE! :rolleyes:
I’ll let others tackle the other questions, but These I have addressed, before.
Steel is quite as capable of breaking as any other material. First, it is not some super substance from the comic books. Look at any car wreck and you will find lots of broken steel. (If you find a car too small, look at a shipwreck.) Then there is the point that there were no “40 story steel beam[s].” Any length of steel that extended for 40 (or 110) stories was actually a series of shorter beams riveted and welded together. Dropping any of them from a height of several hundred feet or having thousands of tons of other steel beams, concrete, and other building materials fall on them guaranteed that there would be few long pieces–and none longer than forty or fifty feet.
As to “pools of molten steel,” there were none and the reports of such can be traced back to exactly four people, none of whom had any experience of what molten steel actually looked like and two of whom were making hyperbolic references to things they had heard that they had not even seen. What was actually described by witnesses (and then mistakenly reported by others), was “red hot” steel bars. Just as one can keep a fire going for many hours longer by banking the embers to keep the consumption of fuel to a minimum while providing insulation for that fuel, keeping the fuel hot, longer, so steel beams surrounded by burning debris behaved as a banked fire, keeping the steel red hot for a long time. (Note that it was described as “red hot.” Molten steel is not red hot, it is an incandescent glowing green or yellow. Steel has to cool down from a molten state to actually become red.)