An angle of the WTC collapse I'd never seen

Great Debates
761

I really have a hard time seeing this happening with any kind of sizeable building. A skyscraper just isn’t built that way. I’ve seen some unusual collapses where a relatively short and very rigid structure has the bottom undermined somehow (like a sinkhole under a short concrete silo) and you get a relatively intact building tipping over, but I just can’t imagine an earthquake (or wind, which can be one of the major limiting load cases during tall building design) causing the kind of failure that you are describing. You’ll get local failures all over the place as the structure deforms - it’s not like whipping a yardstick around.

Ivan, I agree with you that this analogy is pretty lacking. Good enough?

762

Wait, so are for or against Randi?

763

This guy posts on there and would be very surprised to learn he’s a “skeptic”. He’s a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice and a member of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

764

I saw the plane that hit the Pentagon, myself…no third party hearsay, no “my brother’s lawn service guy’s housekeeper” ME. I was on US 1 in Alexandria Virginia almost to Crystal City less than a half mile from the Pentagon and I saw it fly over me. Being a pilot myself, I was kind of disturbed that it was pretty low and not lined up right for Reagan…

For the record, I didn’t see it actually hit the building, but I didn’t see any bombs, military jets or flying monkeys with cruise missiles either and quite frankly the mere idea that people seem to think I should have is insulting.

765

The trick to using analogies is that the thing you’re using as the model has to have properties analogous to the thing you’re analogizing where such properties are relevent to the point under discussion. In the case of the spaghetti, I merely required a material that was somewhat sturdy and flexible, yet would snap if sufficient forces were applied - and where the sturdiness of the material was resonably equal across its entire length. This then makes it reasonable to demonstrate that the princible of levers work on wobbling things too - when the mass is at the end of a long lever it applies more force in the viscinity of the pivot than a shorter lever would - such as the shorter lever formed by the distance between the 10th floor of an 11th story building and its top, as compared to the distance between the top of that building and the ground floor.

Which is to say, in your flimsy and pathetic attempt to disparage my example, you are denying that lever forces are universal. Congratulations!

And the reason that truther analogies and models are disparaged is because they universally suck ass and completely fail to have relevent analogous properties to the things they purport to model, which is why they manage to behave the way the Truthers want despite the fact that the real buildings didn’t. The disparagement of truther ‘models’ is in no way because models in general are considered inappropriate by scientisty types - scientists use models all the time.

Yet, some skyscrapers have toppled over like trees - truthers like to show pictures of them to prove that buildings never collapse straight down except by controlled demolition. If not by my explanation, what toppled those buildings?

766

I’ve watched the video and I’m pretty stunned with the amount of information that is revealed. Beyond the obvious points regarding how a building hit by a plane should collapse vs the way this building did collapse, here is something else I noticed:

Direction/Shape of Smoke/Dust Cloud

  1. A good portion of this cloud is coming towards the viewer.
  2. Typically this type of cloud (the type created when a WTC building is struck by a 747 and subsequently collapses) is pushed away from an area of high pressure or density due to objects
  3. Because the cloud is traveling from the street level, it indicates that area of the street contained numerous objects (i.e. cars)
  4. This implies the light was red at that intersection
  5. Why would the light be red right at this moment? What are the chances of that?

I’m sure by now the light bulb has gone on and you can see the immediate implications of how a red light right at this particular moment casts serious doubt on the “official” version.

767

Nope, sorry, kid, that’s just Satan, laughing with delight.

768

Yet, some skyscrapers have toppled over like trees - truthers like to show pictures of them to prove that buildings never collapse straight down except by controlled demolition. If not by my explanation, what toppled those buildings?
[/QUOTE]

I’d have to see those examples and read about what actually took place. I’m not saying it’s impossible to take a big building and make it tip, I’ve seen that, but “big” and “skyscraper” are pretty far apart, and I don’t recall hearing about such an incident being caused by the building swaying back and forth like a whip before it just toppled over relatively intact.

769

Went on a quick google looking for such buildings and found this. No pictues, but an in depth explanation of how earthquakes can collapse buildings, including toppling them.

Downside is their explanation doesn’t quite match mine, enough so to render me completely wrong (clearly I needed a longer peice of spaghetti, so as to get resonance waves set up in it). Oh well. It does validate the idea that otherwise-stable buildings can tip clean over in earquakes, though.

770

Question for experienced fire fighters:

At 1:01 on this video, there is a line of window on one floor (presumably) with red and yellow flames. Then, a flash of blue and white flames spurt out of the first window to the right of this line, and flames appear behind the windows of the floor below.

You can hear someone in the vicinity - who must be some fire professional - shout just after this. These windows on the floor below appear to still have glass in them.

I know that blue flames are hotter than red, and … that’s about all. Intuitively the events feel right, but I have no idea what might have happened.

Is there a professional around that can explain, or even theorize, for me?

(Finished page 12; I’m almost there.)

771

Unfortunately he doesn’t provide any examples. I did a little googling and couldn’t find much for “tall building toppling” aside from a rather infamous series of photos regarding a poorly built apartment building in Shanghai (and it wasn’t a skyscraper by any stretch of the imagination). You can find a lot of examples of things like grain silos and blocky 5-story concrete structures being toppled (generally due to something dramatic happening right at the foundation) but I didn’t see anything about really tall buildings coming down intact.

As far as photos posted on a CT site I’d take any claims about them with a pretty massive grain of salt; I’ve never met one of those folks who actually had any relevant education or work experience in the fields that they make Firm Statements Of Fact upon, so I’d want to see the actual facts and details behind any pictures as they may well bear little resemblance to what the person posting them claims.

772

They’re unlikely to have deliberately faked the photos, though - most CTers are sincere in their own strange way.

The only pictures of toppled buildings I’ve seen were part of a seminar by one Steve Jones, who I recall had two such pictures. He reported that they had fallen during earthquakes, and said where they took place, but I don’t remember the locations. Sorry.

773

I didn’t mean that any such photos were faked, just that a CT might post a photo and then extrapolate all kinds of bizarre stuff from it.

One example that’s come up several times in these threads is a photo of a lump of concrete with some rebar sticking out. The CT folks claim it’s a lump of steel (or perhaps aluminum) that melted, then hardened, the rebar sticking out the side “proving” it. It’s nonsense on multiple levels, but that’s the kind of thing I mean - real photo, possibly wrong description, wildly incorrect conclusions drawn from it.

774

Ah, guys, I am trying to get detailed specifics on the fallacies of the Truther argument, and I have to say, you are not helping me here.

Allow me to explain; I don’t need arguments based solely on logic; I want some specific scientific numbers that some of the posters here have implied they might know.

Me, I got a bachelor’s in a science, but not physics, some time ago, and know jack about explosions. So, while I think I can formulate some questions more clearly than your basic Suspicious Person, I just don’t have the numbers for some answers.

Lute, with respect, are you a shill for the conspiracy theorists? I am looking for details to address the Unknown Powerful Explosive theory, and you bring up TNT? You just assume wiring is required? You will not accept that an explosive (such as, for example, thermite) might leave residue indistinguishable from the building residue? (All barium aside).

No, Lute, you are just saying that it is impossible because it is impossible.

Okay, but wireless signals are possible - maybe there could be a receiver on the building that could transmit to the interior charges - kind of a mini cell tower? Or - probably easier - several triggerers; wouldn’t it be easier to recruiter 8 people to press a button that 20 to fly to certain death?

So, I’m putting wireless triggers into the ‘Possible but difficult category’.

[Reply also for Vanguard]
The point I want to address is that dropping a building safely, into a relatively small zone, might take MORE explosives.

Like I said, I don’t know this stuff. If you use shaped explosive to direct the force of the blast inward, do you need more total explosive?

I am not disagreeing with your point, but it is not the point I want to address.

Would anyone concoct a plan that involve flying airplanes with the largest available fuel load at the start of their flights into a building pre-wired with explosives to be denoted after the planes hit?

I am trying to work through ‘That doesn’t make any sense’ to get to ‘No, it’s probably not possible’.

The meat of the explosive theory, to me, is “Does or could an explosive exist that could have caused the observed effect without the planes?” (Leaving the sound of the blast out of the equation.)

We are in GD; that means we are supposed to have facts as well as logic, and I was hoping for a few hard numbers.

BTW, there are those other than Ivan who are not strictly honest in their arguments here.

  1. People being glued to their tv sets. Ivan raised that point in reference to the Pentagon crash, but someone refuted it by references to the WTC crashed. What people were doing at the time of the WTC crashes would/might not be the same as at the time of the Pentagon crash.

  2. Lurking v. post view counts v. posts. There is no quantifiable correlation; some people will click in and click out in less than a second; some people will click to view every new post and never post themselves; some people will read 16 pages and 10 days of post in three clicks, and post three times.

There have been lots of little incidence like these that one notices when going through all the posts at once. Cut it out. You’re not here to score points, you’re here to fight ignorance. Don’t cheat, or, worse, get sloppy.

775

No. They’d go with either explosives or the planes, not both. Evidence reveals they obviously went with the planes.

One way of demonstrating that something is not possible is by pointing out that it doesn’t make any sense.

776

Thermite isn’t an explosive.

777

I assumed that he was joking with the TNT numbers.

Now, let me say this: I dismiss any theory that is based off the towers being brought down by pre-planted explosives. For the billionth time:

Fact: airliners full of fuel struck both towers.

Fact: raging fires burned, with accounts of flames initially making it to the tower lobbies via the elevator shafts.

Fact: collapse of the towers (both of them!) can be seen occurring in the general location of the plane impact areas.

Fact: it is impossible that pre-planted explosives could have withstood the initial inferno.

Fact: the quantity of explosives rules out placement without witness (yes, that is a fact).

Anyone who honesty believes, or even has an ounce of belief that pre-planted explosives brought down the towers is not worthy of continued debate. Why?

Because the argument hinges on disregard to common sense. In fact, it is my opinion that anyone making the pre-planted explosive argument lacks all common sense, or does not really believe it and only holds that view in order to get a rise out of others.

It is pretty sad that people can dismiss accounts, accounts visually witnessed by many and instead latch onto theories that are utterly absurd in their complexity and lack of sense, yet some people can believe to the point of martyrdom some stories in a book (that they themselves probably never read) and that lack even a shred of the eye witness accounts as the events of 9/11.

778

j66, if I read your questions right you’re asking whether it is possible that there’s some kind of explosive that would bring down a building the size of WTC1/2, without leaving blast damage visible to any of the people who were crawling all over the debris afterwards, and without making any noise (you can’t just leave that out - explosives make a lot of noise!), and without involving a massive prep effort that the thousands of people who worked in that building all the time would notice. I may be leaving out a couple of other details here as well.

I am not an explosives expert but as I understand it, blast effects are readily identifiable by anyone who’s done that kind of work. There is zero evidence of such effects.

Explosives do leave chemical traces all over the place, again readily identifiable by the people who do that type of investigating. Again, zero evidence of such stuff. Note, btw, that thermite is not an explosive - it’s an incendiary. It burns really hot but it doesn’t blow up (so shattering columns with it will be a little challenging).

Explosives make a big bang - the way they destroy things is by producing very large volumes of gas very rapidly and the resulting wave front shatters material. That same wave front is also the same kind of pressure wave that we call “sound”. I don’t know if there’s any way around that.

Prep work vs. amount of explosives used - professional demolition crews are trying to use the smallest amount of explosives possible to do the job. It saves them money, it’s a lot safer, it’s quieter, you have a lower risk of accidentally injuring, killing or destroying people/things nearby, and ideally it lets you have a much neater result - instead of turning the building into shrapnel and blowing it all over the countryside, you cut the minimum number of key structural elements, in the right order, so that gravity does most of the work and it comes down in as small a pile as possible. I watched a large hospital get demo’d years ago and IIRC they said that they used a few hundred pounds of explosives, but this required a huge amount of prep work - go in and remove as much support as possible without the building becoming unsafe, drill columns and insert charges into them so the blast is tamped by the column itself, etc. Major construction work, basically.

If you don’t want to do all that work you’re going to need a lot more explosives - go ahead and fill the bottom couple of floors with charges and then light it off. Logistically simpler to do but everyone and his grandma will see you hauling containers of stuff in there, and the blast will be stupendous (because so much of it is wasted as you didn’t have the chance to prep the building), so the sights and sounds will be quite obvious.

Regarding shaped charges - lets you use less explosive to shatter a particular target by focusing the blast in a particular direction.

Detonation - I don’t see why you couldn’t use wireless signals to fire your detonators, I’m sure that it’s doable, but you’d have to work around issues of interference and whatnot that have been noted. Given that professional demolition companies don’t seem to be using it would indicate that it doesn’t work as well on some level - they need safety (not going off accidentally) and reliability (everything goes off exactly when triggered and not any other time).

And this kind of shows you how these things go - someone proposes a theory for what “could have happened”, but then it turns out that there is just no evidence for it, so they start inventing more and more complicated explanations to deal with the lack of evidence. It always seems to come down to “OK, so there’s a new type of explosive that nobody has ever heard of. It leaves no chemical trace, no blast effects, makes no sound, it’s so powerful that a small group of people can place it totally unnoticed to bring down two of the largest buildings on earth, using detonators that also leave no trace and which are triggered using some kind of invisible setup that will also not be damaged when a speeding jet full of fuel smashes through the building.” It’s the invisible pink dragon from Carl Sagan’s “A Candle In The Dark” again.

No evidence that any of this did happen, or even that it’s vaguely possible, and the plot is just ludicrously overcomplicated.

779

Absolutely. You could have brought down both WTC towers by using explosives to cut random structural members until the same sort of asymmetrical collapse began.

The problem with this hypothesis, however, is that the collapse clearly began with the floors that were already on fire from the plane crash. So if explosives were used to bring down the buildings, they must have been magical explosives that were planted exactly in the spot where the planes hit, that didn’t go off prematurely, and that weren’t destroyed or disabled by the blaze.

And once the collapse began with the floors that had been burning, you don’t need explosives to finish the job. The impact of the top of the building dropping onto the floors below was more than enough the bring the whole thing down.

780

Well, aside from the fact that the issue of directed charge is moot, since the buildings didn’t collapse into their own footprints (WTC1’s debris critically damaged WTC7 which was across the street to the north of WTC1, and WTC7’s debris significantly damaged Fiterman Hall, which itself was across the street to the north of WTC7), I’d guess that the quantity of explosives doesn’t really matter. If you wanted a precision demolition, what you need most of all is access to every part of the superstructure, to place the explosives (and the miles of cable you’d need, since I doubt the wireless approach would be useful) in a number of locations. How this might be accomplished while the various WTC buildings were full of workers blithely going about their duties is unclear, and “unclear” is being kind.