Australia is facing a controversy that is all too familiar to Americans. Fundamentalists in state schools are teaching children that humans and dinosaurs lived together and Noah brought dinosaur eggs on to the Ark.
Children are also taught that Adam and Eve were not eaten by dinosaurs “because they were under a protective spell.”
This is consistent with Palintology — the new science advanced by Sarah Palin — which insists that man and dinosaur must have co-existed despite carbon dating and simple logic.
Source: News
I just though I’d link to a page about WTC7 while we wait for Bob’s sure to be scintillating reply to my latest post. This is a quote from the NIST report from the page:
Also, be sure to check out the video from NIST near the bottom of the page. I especially liked the part where they mentioned that the smallest explosive charge which would sever column 79 would make a sound of 120dB to 130dB half a mile away…
Bob,
Since I doubt that you will admit that building 7’s collapse was the result of fire and a design flaw, maybe you could explain to us why the computer model NIST made was wrong in determining that WTC7 collapsed due to fire.
Buckeye,
I would, but I’ve misplaced my Gitmo ID card. Besides, Bob would probably just say he’s a patsy anyway…
Bob and Slarti
Why don’t you guys just ask Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mechanical engineer who planned the attack, whether he just used planes or if he also planted explosives in the basement. He’s still at Guantanamo. Surely he’d answer a simple question like this one considering all the other questions he’s been asked.
Beg pardon – continue.
very cool! Bravo!
Buddha,
Water, Solids and Gases tend to sometimes occupy the same space. lol. I have served my purpose today…..
Blouise and Elaine,
Objects that live to be of service tend to be of service.
Buddha,
Thanks for posting the “Unified Field Theory.”
Now we should write the “Un-unified Field Theory” starring such luminaries as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck…and religions that close their members minds to scientific discoveries and theories.
Buddha Is Laughing,
Perfecto Mundo, my man!
Unified Field Theory
In the beginning there was Aristotle,
And objects at rest tended to remain at rest,
And objects in motion tended to come to rest,
And soon everything was at rest,
And God saw that it was boring.
Then God created Newton,
And objects at rest tended to remain at rest,
But objects in motion tended to remain in motion,
And energy was conserved and momentum was conserved and matter was conserved,
And God saw that it was conservative.
Then God created Einstein,
And everything was relative,
And fast things became short,
and straight things became curved,
And the universe was filled with inertial frames,
And God saw that it was relatively general,
but some of it was especially relative.
Then God created Bohr,
And there was the Principle,
And the Principle was Quantum,
And all things were quantified,
But some things were still relative,
And God saw that it was confusing.
Then God was going to create Ferguson,
And Ferguson would have unified,
And he would have fielded a theory,
And all would have been one,
But it was the seventh day,
And God rested,
And objects at rest tend to remain at rest.
— Tim Joseph (Originally appeared in The New York Times, 6 April 1978, page A21.)
Bob,Esq. posted on August 23, 2010 at 8:31 pm:
First, there was no straw-man. You criticized the Harrit paper as if you read it when you clearly did not. End of story.
I criticized Dr. Jones pretty heavily (and stand by it), but I don’t recall criticizing Harrit, et al. specifically except when I was mistaken as to which paper you were referring to. In any case, the criticism that I’ve leveled against the paper since reading it is more than sufficient to show that the paper is lacking. I don’t think that anyone has been confused by my criticism, but if they were then I could summarize my position by saying that I think that Dr. Jones is a poor scientist with a record of dubious ethical standards, poor methodology, and a penchant for greatly overstated conclusions and that the Harrit, et al. paper is shoddy science which, after undergoing a dubious peer review process, was published in a vanity journal resulting in the editor’s resignation on the grounds that the paper was inappropriate for the journal.
I have no idea what you mean by [YOU CALL HIM ‘DR. JONES’!], it’s simply a waste of bandwith.
Just quoting movies Bob… (and noticing that while you have frequently referred to Dr. Greening as ‘Greening’, this is the first time you’ve referred to Dr. Jones without the honorific). I thought you liked quoting movies. If you’re still confused, Dr. Jones was the one who wanted to know who the ‘top men’ studying the ark of the covenant were.
In Re: “Exactly what assertions by Dr. Jones do you think are validated by the Harrit paper?” I don’t know; maybe it has something to do with
And according to Dr. Greening it matches the chemical signature of ash from municipal incinerators.
I said: “So Professor Pileni resigned because of something to do with Professor Jones? That’s your story and you’re sticking with it? Show me.
Slarti: Here’s my source…
As usual, a dead end. No mention of the Harrit paper or Prof. Pileni. Actually no mention of ANYTHING. You’d be crucified for that if you were arguing before an appellate court.
In one of the other links I posted Dr. Harrit explains that Dr. Pileni didn’t say anything about the quality of their paper and Dr. Peleni explains that she resigned because she felt that the paper was inappropriate for the journal and she speculates that it may have had a political motive. What exactly do you think I’m misrepresenting here?
Slarti: “I have referred to the kinetic energy of impact as raising the temperature by about 20°C and haven’t in any way implied that it could have been responsible for melting steel (other than to make it very slightly easier for something else to melt steel). I think it’s about time you found something new to whine about.”
I stand by my objection; your example is completely inappropriate as it lulls the casual reader into believing there’s some sort of equivalence between the impactor and the molten metal observed in the footprints of all three buildings. You’re just as intellectually dishonest for making the association as Bush was in associating Saddam Hussein with 9/11.
I’ve repeatedly documented your intellectual dishonesty (for instance, here). This is yet another attempt to smear me for your sins – Karl Rove would be proud. For the record, I don’t think that molten metal in the footprints of the buildings is all that surprising nor do I think that explosives or incendiaries are likely candidates for sustained heat in the rubble. Since neither you, Dr. Jones, nor Dr. Harrit have come up with a scenario in which massive amounts of undetectable explosives were used to do things like pulverize concrete and eject dust (in addition to demolishing the building with the help of magic incendiaries which could remain painted on vertical columns while lit) with enough left over undetonated or unignited to supply heat to the rubble for months when ignited by some unknown mechanism and my theory says that the observed heat in the rubble was expected and unremarkable, I’m not that concerned that people reading this are thinking ‘hmm… I didn’t think all that much of Slarti’s dissection of Bob’s unsupported claim that explosives caused the molten metal in the rubble pile but his comments about impactors were cool so he must be right.’ I guess I just have more faith in the intelligence of the people reading this than you do.
Paraphrasing Lincoln: “What the 1500 or so posts on the 9/11 thread demonstrate is that a mathematician has attempted to account for the [molten metal at ground zero] using energy without associating [mechanics or how such energy was DIRECTED to create said molten metal].
Slarti: I have explained the processes by which work converted energy from one form to another in the collapse. Kinetic energy is converted to thermal energy by the mechanism of internal friction (either by bending or impact). If what I’ve said about energy is so ridiculous, then what does it say about you that you’ve never been able to find a single source to contradict what I’ve said? Put up or shut up.”
NOTHING OF WHAT YOU SAID ACCOUNTS FOR THE MOLTEN METAL AT GROUND ZERO! Neither metal falling to earth nor one or two bends of a beam is capable of generating sufficient heat to create those pools of molten metal at the footprints! To imply they did is sheer intellectual dishonesty.
First off, please enlighten us as to what the maximum amount of heat that can be generated by bending a beam is (here I thought that the energy involved was equal to the product of the size of the force doing the bending and the distance over which it acts – silly me…). Secondly, I believe that if there were pools of molten metal in the rubble pile, then it is nearly certain that they were aluminum or some other metal rather than steel. The only viable mechanism for producing molten steel in large quantities that I’ve seen is energy in the form of shockwaves from the floors being sheared off being transmitted down the core columns. If you can think of a way to keep a pool of steel molten (for weeks or months) with thermite, please enlighten the rest of us…
Slarti: “All skyscrapers contain enough GPE to undergo gravitational collapse given an initiating event – otherwise controlled demolition would be impossible. “
Yet you ignore this ‘initiating event’ in your natural collapse theory.
Gee, what do I think the ‘initiating event’ was? Could it be… Satan? No… Oh, I know! Jetliners slamming into the buildings and lighting them on fire! Just because the buildings didn’t fall down immediately doesn’t mean that they weren’t mortally wounded by the crashes – if the fires could have been fought the buildings probably would have lasted longer, but given the extent of the damage and the fires it was inevitable that the structure would fail.
The reason CD works is that it removes all forces holding up the building simultaneously.
You don’t remove ‘all forces holding up the building simultaneously’ in CD, you remove enough supports so that the building can no longer support its weight and it undergoes a progressive collapse (in the specific manner it was designed to). Once some portion of the building can’t support the load bearing on it, the building will start to collapse and fall through the height of one story – if the falling portion of the building is sufficiently massive then the collapse will be self-sustaining.
Your theory holds that all steel buildings are simply collapses waiting to happen; as if they were structured in an inverted manner, more fragile structures holding up the stronger. This is why the transfer of momentum model you propose is f’n ridiculous.
Now you’re going to question my use of conservation of momentum? Does the inane ignorance of physics ever stop? What exactly do you think happens in a gravitational collapse?
Here’s what I think happens if all of the columns on one floor of the WTC are instantly removed (a scenario more conducive to building survival than what really happened):
The upper block of the building falls through the distance of one floor, converting GPE into KE until the bottom floor of the upper block impacts the top floor of the lower block. This impact converts some of the KE into TE (heat in the pulverized concrete). Assuming the two floors stay together, the remaining KE is shared between the two floors, now moving at a velocity determined by the conservation of their momentum. The columns above and below the impact immediately begin dissipating KE (converting it into TE via internal friction) by compression. The columns above the impact compress to slow the floors above them and simultaneously begin to transmit force (load) to the columns below. The columns below the impact must dissipate all of the kinetic energy of the two impact floors and then deal with the increasing dynamic load from the upper block until all of the kinetic energy has been converted to thermal energy in order for the building to survive. If any floor fails, the process is repeated on the next floor with additional kinetic energy.
Given that the damage to the WTC spanned several floors, this process would be able to collapse several weakened floors and gain unstoppable momentum before it was required to crush an intact floor. The idea that the WTC could arrest a global failure in the impact zone shows a profound ignorance of physics and a lack of comprehension of the forces involved. Here’s something for you to ponder: Why can I describe how I believe the collapse happened in detail, while you flail around stating things awkwardly and misusing jargon?
Slarti: The enormous amount of energy dissipated in the WTC collapse …
I’ve told you why that reasoning is specious; energy dissipated does not necessitate sufficient force applied to destroy the pristine structure of the building that had been holding up the remainder of the tower for thirty years.
Once again you mangle the jargon. Work must be done to dissipate energy. Mechanical work is the result of a force acting over a distance. I’ve repeatedly explained the physics, provided references to support my arguments, and shown your reasoning to be specious. In order for the building to survive all of the kinetic energy of the upper block must be dissipated by the columns (i.e. the kinetic energy must be converted into thermal energy via the internal friction from the compression of the columns) – even for a short drop this is a lot of energy. There is a big difference between the lower portion of the building supporting the upper block’s weight and it being hit with a moving upper block. Like the difference between setting a bowling ball on a plate and dropping a bowling ball on a plate.
Slarti: in addition to fires and other chemical reactions both before and after the collapse certainly made this particular rubble pile much hotter than the norm, but it doesn’t require any sort of incendiary to have happened (and I don’t believe that explosives could have don’t the job at all). Fire alone could have been responsible for enough heat to generate a liquid eutectic mixture including steel.”
You have nothing to substantiate that claim and you know it.
I’m claiming that fires in the rubble could have reached 700°C which is totally reasonable and you know it.
Slarti: “The fact that bending a piece of metal generates heat is clearly relevant to this discussion.”
No it’s not, because the heat from bending metal requires more bends than would occur in a collapse and never EVER generate ANY form of heat nearing that required to melt iron.
What do you think happens when a steel beam is snapped in two? When a large enough force bears on a small enough region that region is going to get hot. The only question is how hot can it get before it fails. This certainly isn’t going to produce large amounts of molten steel, but it could certainly result in some very hot steel which could then start fires or catalyze other chemical reactions (how hot would it have to be for Lane’s process to occur?)
Slarti: In any case, Harrit, et al. didn’t live up to their burden to give scientific evidence of the non-fungibility of their evidence of thermitic materials.
Ipse dixet. More horseshit.
You don’t understand how science works at all, do you? Harrit, et al. was not an attempt to prove something in a court of law, it was an attempt to make a scientific case for a hypothesis. By the rules of science they did a piss poor job of it. I’ve detailed why the paper didn’t make a strong scientific case and given examples of criticism that it left itself open to thereby. Implying that I’m asserting Harrit, et al’s lack of scientific rigor without any supporting evidence is just flat-out lying.
Slarti: Once again, they only showed that their samples MAY have been thermitic in nature. Until they do more than that, non-fungibility is just another unsupported claim.
The material was nano-engineered you evidence maven!
Prove it. Harrit, et al. didn’t.
Slarti: “if the supports at the base of the building were cut, it would have collapse bottom-up like a controlled demolition (or WTC7)”
So WTC 7 was a controlled demolition with pools of molten at its footprint but the Towers were not?
WTC7 was a bottom-up collapse just as most controlled demolitions are bottom-up collapses.
You’re a fucking riot; you know that? Just how the hell am I supposed to take you seriously?
Well, it would help if you stopped making straw men out of all of my arguments.
Slarti: “An ‘excited utterance’ might be admissible testimony when someone makes a confession, “
Wrong on so many levels. That would be a declaration against interest and it need not be a ‘confession’; just another one of the 36 exceptions to the hearsay rule. But thanks for playing anyway.
So you’re saying that an excited utterance that is a confession isn’t admissible testimony? In any case, it’s just another transparent effort to try and shift the context of the discussion from science to law (I understand you must feel very uncomfortable trying to argue the science given how poorly you understand much of it). To use an analogy to the legal system, you’re like a cop saying that because you found what you think is a bullet hole in the wall that the victim was shot to death after the medical examiner has determined that the cause of death is the stab would to the chest and that furthermore there are no bullet wounds. So please don’t tell me the 36 exceptions to the hearsay rule and don’t try to tell me what constitutes scientific evidence, because you clearly have no idea.
Slarti: “but [the testimony of people near ground zero as to what they heard] doesn’t make for expert scientific opinions.”
But it does form the factual basis from which scientific opinions can be made.
If you’re saying that it’s evidence of loud noises associated with the collapse, sure, but if your saying that it’s any sort of evidence for explosive devices then you, like Dr. Jones, are making claims that you can’t support.
Bob,Esq. posted on August 23, 2010 at 8:24 pm:
I said: What’s the correlation you’re attempting to draw between ignition temp in the absence of an inert atmosphere and the fact that the material reacted the way it did?
Slarti: Many materials will ignite in air, relatively few are energetic in its absence.
Doesn’t address the underlying implicit question; how many are capable of creating molten elemental iron spheres upon ignition?
This is a good question. Dr. Jones and Dr. Harrit should have answered this as evidence for (or against) their hypothesis. They didn’t. As I understand it, these spheres aren’t solid iron – they contain iron and are produced by many different sources (according to the multiple spectra found by Dr. Jones). Dr. Greening suggested half a dozen alternate sources of microspheres in the rubble – the volume expected from each of these sources, their signatures and a comparison to what was found in Dr. Jones’ WTC dust seems to me like something Harrit, et al. should have done before publishing the paper.
Slarti: Also, I believe that it would have been significant to show if the power per mass v. temperature profile changed in the absence of oxygen.
And why would that be determinative?
The only thing that can ever be proved by the scientific method is that you are wrong. Doing the test in the absence of oxygen would have ruled out many potential sources of the chips as well as determining what portion of the reactions observed involved oxygen from the air or it would have falsified the thermitic hypothesis. The authors were either avoiding showing a result that would invalidate their thesis or they were demonstrating an extremely weak scientific methodology. Which is it?
Slarti: I get the idea (possibly mistaken) from your posts that you believe these energetic chips give off an unusually large amount of energy so let’s look into that
Let’s not; because that’s not what I believe. The specific energy of the chips was not determinative; rather it was one leg forming the table, so to speak.
As I said above, falsifying evidence is the only determinative evidence in science. And what I’m pointing out is that you’ve got a huge tabletop wit pathetic legs that can’t support it.
I said: How does the fact that the material ignited at 430 °C in air, in lieu of an inert atmosphere, bear any relevance on the nature in which burned? If the material ignited at 900 °C and reacted less vigorously it would still exhibit the properties of commercial thermite. So what are you saying?
Slarti: As I said, many things combust in the neighborhood of 430°C in the presence of oxygen – the test showed a curve similar to a thermite curve – why wasn’t there a curve for a chip of the paint used on the WTC steel (or anything else) for comparison?
Again, the focus is on ignition temp and ‘THE NATURE IN WHICH IT BURNED’ as in creating spheres of molten elemental iron. In what universe do we expect paint to burn like that? And to so much as hypothesize that the building may have contained paint capable of burning so hot and igniting at a temp so low, you’d be at a loss to explain why the fire of Feb 13, 1975 didn’t ignite said paint and take out the entire building without a goddamned plane. [You really like the false equivalencies, don’t you?]
In science, we don’t just assume our expectations are true, we test them. Do you know what sources produce the residue Dr. Jones found? (In his 2008 paper) This is what Dr. Greening had to say about it:
And another leg of your table proves unable to support its weight…
Slarti: This isn’t just something that would be nice – it’s something that is necessary to support the claim made by the paper. There is no way to evaluate the quality of the match between the two curves without something else for comparison.
No, you failed to show how said comparison would be possible and how said comparison would be determinative. When the chips created molten spheres of elemental iron when ignited, air or no air, we’re dealing with a ‘hot item’ that not only bears a physical resemblance to thermite, but a chemical signature akin to that of thermite as well. In a word, not many substances are capable of creating molten spheres of elemental iron upon ignition, and when the chemical signature is nearly identical to one of the usual suspects, that’s quite a finger print match; so to speak.
Dr. Greening seems to think that your ‘fingerprint’ is from fly ash… Since Harrit, et al. don’t have a sample of super-thermite residue to check this fingerprint against nor do they present the fingerprints from incinerator effluvia (fly ash) or any other possible source, I’m wondering how you know that this is undoubtably the chemical signature of thermite. One more leg that can’t handle its load…
I said: What type of paint, when ignited, is capable of creating molten spheres of iron?
Slarti: Iron microspheres are created by many different things.
Like what; plasma? Jet fuel? Rather than me restate the obvious: “The spherical shape of the microspheres is caused by surface tension acting on tiny molten droplets. This is the only mechanism by which the spherical shape can be explained. Therefore, these microspheres are proof that molten iron was produced in the process that caused the demise of the WTC towers, a remarkable fact that does not fit the official story.” -J. Lobdill, 2007
Link please. What is the evidence that ‘this is the only mechanism by which the spherical shape can be explained’? Or to we just have to take it on faith based on your personal experience as a chemist? Dr. Greening, at least, seems to think differently.
Two years later, in the dust of the WTC, we find “the gun” responsible for those molten spheres of elemental iron:
And your response is a generic “it could be lots of things.” Seriously?
Do you honestly think that the similarity of the spheroids to the fly ash produced by municipal incinerators (or fires in the building and rubble pile) isn’t relevant. Or that we don’t need to consider the residue from, say, burning computers? It is the responsibility of the proponents of a theory to rule out other possible explanations (or at least show that they are less likely) and Harrit, et al. don’t.
Slarti: I don’t know what created the spheres, but Dr. Jones’ work on microspheres as evidence for thermite has been pretty well debunked.
In light of everything above? And when you close your eyes do you say “you can’t see me” as well? And not for nothing, but shifting from “Iron microspheres are created by many different things” to “I don’t know what created the spheres” is clearly indicative of some shady reasoning.
Gee, if I say that microspheres containing iron are created by many different things (or, to be clear, if Dr. Greening and others assert that they are created by many different things based on Dr. Jones’ data) and I then say that I don’t know what created them, I’m using shady reasoning? It seems to me that if there are many possible sources for a given effect then, logically, you can’t determine the source of the effect without further evidence, but I guess your version of logic doesn’t require any evidence that you don’t feel like cherry-picking.
Slarti: “I would take it to mean that MEK reacts with elemental aluminum – implying that the absence of such a reaction makes it unlikely that the sample contained it.”
I said: That’s what you would take it to mean, but that’s not what he said. His sentence about elemental aluminum was meaningless. And your comment is not supported by the XED analysis.
Slarti: The writer was not a native English speaker – I gave my interpretation of the quote, if you think you have a better interpretation, let’s hear it.
Again, I said your comment is NOT SUPPORTED BY THE XED ANALYSIS. Accordingly, even if he said what you think he said, he too would have said something that was not supported by the XED analysis.
How would the XED analysis differ if the aluminum were part of a compound? I don’t believe it would (it certainly isn’t clear in the paper) – it seems like you are asking an either/or question when there are 3 possible answers… And this is what I think the writer’s point was.
Slarti: “Because being energetic in the absence of oxygen is one of the more unique properties of thermitic materials.”
And the creation of molten spheres of elemental iron upon ignition is not unique why?
Because there are apparently many other things that create iron-rich microspheres as shown by Dr. Jones’ own data (there are many different signatures in the microspheres found in his samples). Properties shared by many other sources are not unique.
Slarti: “they demonstrated that a property of the chips is similar to a property of super-thermite. They didn’t demonstrate that the property was unique to super-thermite (something that they could have done by merely using an inert atmosphere). Once again, finding something that was energetic under the circumstances of their test would not have been difficult (in fact, a chip of wood would produce three times as much energy as thermite).”
That’s not what the paper said; it did not rely on simply one characteristic as you imply. There were several characteristics that aligned in the direction of the conclusion. And show me a wood chip or lump of peat that’s capable of creating molten spheres of iron when ignited.
Several characteristics made a vague shrug that might have been in the direction of the conclusion is more like it. As is typical of papers associated with Dr. Jones, this paper makes claims that it comes nowhere near making a solid scientific case for.
Slarti: I wouldn’t make a claim about how the corrosion-proofing paint on the steel reacts unless I had some kind of information to back it up,”
I replied: Then why do you represent it as strongly as Byron? You’re confessing to throwing up a red herring here. [No, I was repeating what others had suggested as a possible source. I don’t know if it is a viable source, but given Dr. Jones’ reputation I wont give him the benefit of the doubt – he’s got to rule it out.]
Slarti: “It was suggested by multiple people as a possible source of Dr. Jones and Dr. Harrit’s red chips and was apparently painted on all of the structural steel in the WTC. Not eliminating such a source (or any other, except for some unspecified ‘paint’) is a huge, glaring oversight in the paper.
Once again, in what universe would the building department approve of a ‘rust proofing paint’ that when ignited heats to temperatures capable of melting iron?! In what universe can we NOT assume that the architects, engineers and inspectors acted rationally in creating the building? Asking to rule out the ridiculous is in fact ridiculous in itself.
As I’ve pointed out, every leg of this table is shaky at best and given Dr. Jones’ record, I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt over his critics and I don’t think that the scientific community is either. If the case is as much of a slam dunk as you seem to think, then Harrit, et al. could have made this paper bulletproof – why didn’t they?
Slarti: “Again, this is another flaw in the paper – the themitic materials are only of significance if they were used in demolition charges.”
I’m sorry, but the foregoing implies we should expect to find thermitic materials in steel buildings that “simply collapsed” as a result of fire, for the first time in human history and three times in one day. Yeah, you know, nano-thermite is everywhere.
No, I’m saying if there was thermite there that didn’t effect the collapse or have a role in causing it (maybe someone was storing it for a friend ;-)) then it would be irrelevant to the discussion of controlled demolition. Harrit, et al. are implicitly arguing that not only were thermitic materials present, but that they were used for controlled demolition purposes. Two buildings (the first buildings in human history to be hit with loaded Boeing 767s which touched off fires over large areas of several floors which were never fought) had their damaged steel frames weakened sufficiently by fires that a progressive failure initiated a global collapse. Do you honestly think that the damage to the Twin Towers on 9/11 can reasonably be compared to any building fire before or since? That’s just stupid. As for WTC7, the building had an unusual design which included a flaw (column 79) which caused it to succumb to fires on multiple floors that were not fought for several hours.
I should note that it turns out that while the damage to WTC7 affected the manner it which it collapsed, it apparently did not cause it to collapse. In fact, it was shown by computer modeling that the building would fail if a single section of column 79 were removed (a column which almost certainly failed due to weakening by fire).
The following is a comment by Dr. Greening:
I would note that this comment was made AFTER the publication of Harrit, et al. and apparently Dr. Jones seems open to the possibility that the nanothermite was just from fuses! This illustrates why the failure to produce a complete theory of the collapse is such a deficiency of the thermitic crowd – because it’s impossible to come up with such a theory! The amount of chips in the dust indicate tons of nanothermite according to Dr. Harrit (in the danish interview linked above), but according to Dr. Greening the form they found couldn’t compromise the columns so Dr. Jones allows that they may have been only fuses (tons of fuses, eh?) to ignite other explosives which begs the question: what sort of high-tech hush-a-boom explosives were able to sever the columns without any of the sounds or flashes typical of controlled demolition explosions while leaving behind no steel that was identifiable as having been explosively cut to the demolition experts who worked on the cleanup and no residue detected by the bomb-sniffing dogs that were on scene in the first couple of days to help find survivors. If each of your theories is tested to see if it can explain ALL of the evidence, I don’t think that you will find one that can even come close.
Slarti: “What do you believe should have happened once a global failure (failure across a cross-section of the building) had occurred?”
Not only is your falling block scenario built backwards from the premise that it was a natural collapse, but you simply assume that the other 2/3 of the building that wasn’t even tepid from the fire just joined in the ‘global failure’ out of sheer sympathy. Asymmetrical damage does not precipitate symmetrical collapse. And to say it happened three times in one day is just comical.
A global failure clearly occurred – the only disagreement is about how that failure which led to a gravitational collapse occurred (via controlled demolition or the weakening of damaged structure by fire). To think that any skyscraper that has ever been built (or likely ever will be built) can possibly resist a gravitational collapse is not just comical, but downright hilarious.
BTW, if you removed the 9/11 labels and simply presented the bare ‘Bazant theory of building collapse (of another building)’ to scientific community, it would be ridiculed.
I highly doubt it. It was published in a respected journal with a quality peer review process and, more importantly, I’ve read it and believe that the science is sound. But if you can find those glaring holes which Bazant, et al., the referees at ASME, and I all missed, please point them out.
Slarti: “Can you find any scientist (who isn’t already a truther and preferably in a pertinent field) who says that they did?”
Important features of the research have been independently corroborated by Mark Basile in New Hampshire and by physicist Frédéric Henry-Couannier in France
Yes, and the dad in ‘A Christmas Story’ won a major award and top men are working on the ark of the covenant. Could you provide links, please.
And not for nothing, but you’ve yet to find me a competent scientist who has come out and do more than opine that they didn’t.
The burden of proof was on them – had the scientific community considered the results significant I would have expected someone to attempt to confirm the results by now… Oh, I’m sorry, your ‘top men’ won a ‘major award’ for ‘important features’ corroborating this work.
Here is a post from a thread regarding Harrit, et al. on a forum. The thread was started by Dr. Greening to discuss the paper. The post is an email to the authors of the paper by Dr. Greening:
Dr. Greening’s quote is an accurate description of your arguments here as well. The thread that this comes from is on the closest thing I’ve seen to a neutral 9/11 forum and includes extensive technical criticism from Dr. Greening and others as well as several e-mail exchanges between Dr. Greening and Jones, et al. (meaning the research group that Jones heads – which presumably consists of the 9 authors of Harrit, et al.). You were wondering about what Dr. Greening thought of this paper – well, here it is.
I don’t pretend to be able to evaluate the scientific arguments being made by Dr. Greening, but this seems to be substantial criticism to me. There is also a post on the JREF forum by Sunstealer who claims that the EDS spectra in Harrit, et al. are identical to that of Kaolinite with Gypsum. I don’t know whether or not this claim has merit, but it looks reasonable enough to me – and it illustrates how the authors left themselves open to criticism by not ruling out other possibilities.
As the blog’s motto says: Res ipsa loquitur. In my opinion, Harrit, et al. speaks poorly.
LK,
You are most welcome. I just wish had been good news.
Jack Horkheimer! Oh no! I would see him doing astronomy spots at around 2:00am on the local PBS station, he was the last thing on before the station signed off. He always had something interesting to enthusiastically say. Thanks for the update.
Will do.
Buddha: “Was their uniformity in size of Fe spherules found in the samples? Or is this unknown?”
The iron microspheres created by the red/gray chips matched many of those found in the WTC dust.
While I can’t recall any discussion of size, I do recall that some of the spheres were hollow because of sulfur gas.
Could you check your email in a few minutes?
there, pardon my abuse of the language
Bob,
I’m not getting back on the merry-go-round, so to speak, but I have a question.
Was their uniformity in size of Fe spherules found in the samples? Or is this unknown?
First, there was no straw-man. You criticized the Harrit paper as if you read it when you clearly did not. End of story.
I have no idea what you mean by [YOU CALL HIM ‘DR. JONES’!], it’s simply a waste of bandwith.
In Re: “Exactly what assertions by Dr. Jones do you think are validated by the Harrit paper?” I don’t know; maybe it has something to do with
“The spheroids produced by the DSC tests and by the flame test have an XEDS signature (Al, Fe, O, Si, C) which is depleted in carbon and aluminum relative to the original red material. This chemical signature strikingly matches the chemical signature of the spheroids produced by igniting commercial thermite, and also matches the signatures of many of the microspheres found in the WTC dust.”
I said: “So Professor Pileni resigned because of something to do with Professor Jones? That’s your story and you’re sticking with it? Show me.
Slarti: Here’s my source…
As usual, a dead end. No mention of the Harrit paper or Prof. Pileni. Actually no mention of ANYTHING. You’d be crucified for that if you were arguing before an appellate court.
Slarti: “I have referred to the kinetic energy of impact as raising the temperature by about 20°C and haven’t in any way implied that it could have been responsible for melting steel (other than to make it very slightly easier for something else to melt steel). I think it’s about time you found something new to whine about.”
I stand by my objection; your example is completely inappropriate as it lulls the casual reader into believing there’s some sort of equivalence between the impactor and the molten metal observed in the footprints of all three buildings. You’re just as intellectually dishonest for making the association as Bush was in associating Saddam Hussein with 9/11.
Paraphrasing Lincoln: “What the 1500 or so posts on the 9/11 thread demonstrate is that a mathematician has attempted to account for the [molten metal at ground zero] using energy without associating [mechanics or how such energy was DIRECTED to create said molten metal].
Slarti: I have explained the processes by which work converted energy from one form to another in the collapse. Kinetic energy is converted to thermal energy by the mechanism of internal friction (either by bending or impact). If what I’ve said about energy is so ridiculous, then what does it say about you that you’ve never been able to find a single source to contradict what I’ve said? Put up or shut up.”
NOTHING OF WHAT YOU SAID ACCOUNTS FOR THE MOLTEN METAL AT GROUND ZERO! Neither metal falling to earth nor one or two bends of a beam is capable of generating sufficient heat to create those pools of molten metal at the footprints! To imply they did is sheer intellectual dishonesty.
Slarti: “All skyscrapers contain enough GPE to undergo gravitational collapse given an initiating event – otherwise controlled demolition would be impossible. “
Yet you ignore this ‘initiating event’ in your natural collapse theory. The reason CD works is that it removes all forces holding up the building simultaneously. Your theory holds that all steel buildings are simply collapses waiting to happen; as if they were structured in an inverted manner, more fragile structures holding up the stronger. This is why the transfer of momentum model you propose is f’n ridiculous.
Slarti: The enormous amount of energy dissipated in the WTC collapse …
I’ve told you why that reasoning is specious; energy dissipated does not necessitate sufficient force applied to destroy the pristine structure of the building that had been holding up the remainder of the tower for thirty years.
Slarti: in addition to fires and other chemical reactions both before and after the collapse certainly made this particular rubble pile much hotter than the norm, but it doesn’t require any sort of incendiary to have happened (and I don’t believe that explosives could have don’t the job at all). Fire alone could have been responsible for enough heat to generate a liquid eutectic mixture including steel.”
You have nothing to substantiate that claim and you know it.
Slarti: “The fact that bending a piece of metal generates heat is clearly relevant to this discussion.”
No it’s not, because the heat from bending metal requires more bends than would occur in a collapse and never EVER generate ANY form of heat nearing that required to melt iron.
Slarti: Your writing isn’t very clear then,
My writing was as perfectly clear; on par with “Evidence for Dummies.”
Slarti: but a sample of DNA is unique to the person it’s taken from (mod twins).
Non responsive crap.
Slarti: In any case, Harrit, et al. didn’t live up to their burden to give scientific evidence of the non-fungibility of their evidence of thermitic materials.
Ipse dixet. More horseshit.
Slarti: Once again, they only showed that their samples MAY have been thermitic in nature. Until they do more than that, non-fungibility is just another unsupported claim.
The material was nano-engineered you evidence maven!
Slarti: “Classy. Again, you should try to write more clearly.”
Actually, your attempt to ‘diddle’ with my premises is on par with mental masturbation; so the comment is appropriate.
Slarti: “if the supports at the base of the building were cut, it would have collapse bottom-up like a controlled demolition (or WTC7)”
So WTC 7 was a controlled demolition with pools of molten at its footprint but the Towers were not? You’re a fucking riot; you know that? Just how the hell am I supposed to take you seriously?
Slarti: “An ‘excited utterance’ might be admissible testimony when someone makes a confession, “
Wrong on so many levels. That would be a declaration against interest and it need not be a ‘confession’; just another one of the 36 exceptions to the hearsay rule. But thanks for playing anyway.
Slarti: “but it doesn’t make for expert scientific opinions.”
But it does form the factual basis from which scientific opinions can be made.
I said: What’s the correlation you’re attempting to draw between ignition temp in the absence of an inert atmosphere and the fact that the material reacted the way it did?
Slarti: Many materials will ignite in air, relatively few are energetic in its absence.
Doesn’t address the underlying implicit question; how many are capable of creating molten elemental iron spheres upon ignition?
Slarti: Also, I believe that it would have been significant to show if the power per mass v. temperature profile changed in the absence of oxygen.
And why would that be determinative?
Slarti: I get the idea (possibly mistaken) from your posts that you believe these energetic chips give off an unusually large amount of energy so let’s look into that
Let’s not; because that’s not what I believe. The specific energy of the chips was not determinative; rather it was one leg forming the table, so to speak.
I said: How does the fact that the material ignited at 430 °C in air, in lieu of an inert atmosphere, bear any relevance on the nature in which burned? If the material ignited at 900 °C and reacted less vigorously it would still exhibit the properties of commercial thermite. So what are you saying?
Slarti: As I said, many things combust in the neighborhood of 430°C in the presence of oxygen – the test showed a curve similar to a thermite curve – why wasn’t there a curve for a chip of the paint used on the WTC steel (or anything else) for comparison?
Again, the focus is on ignition temp and ‘THE NATURE IN WHICH IT BURNED’ as in creating spheres of molten elemental iron. In what universe do we expect paint to burn like that? And to so much as hypothesize that the building may have contained paint capable of burning so hot and igniting at a temp so low, you’d be at a loss to explain why the fire of Feb 13, 1975 didn’t ignite said paint and take out the entire building without a goddamned plane.
Slarti: This isn’t just something that would be nice – it’s something that is necessary to support the claim made by the paper. There is no way to evaluate the quality of the match between the two curves without something else for comparison.
No, you failed to show how said comparison would be possible and how said comparison would be determinative. When the chips created molten spheres of elemental iron when ignited, air or no air, we’re dealing with a ‘hot item’ that not only bears a physical resemblance to thermite, but a chemical signature akin to that of thermite as well. In a word, not many substances are capable of creating molten spheres of elemental iron upon ignition, and when the chemical signature is nearly identical to one of the usual suspects, that’s quite a finger print match; so to speak.
I said: What type of paint, when ignited, is capable of creating molten spheres of iron?
Slarti: Iron microspheres are created by many different things.
Like what; plasma? Jet fuel? Rather than me restate the obvious: “The spherical shape of the microspheres is caused by surface tension acting on tiny molten droplets. This is the only mechanism by which the spherical shape can be explained. Therefore, these microspheres are proof that molten iron was produced in the process that caused the demise of the WTC towers, a remarkable fact that does not fit the official story.” -J. Lobdill, 2007
Two years later, in the dust of the WTC, we find “the gun” responsible for those molten spheres of elemental iron:
“The spheroids produced by the DSC tests and by the flame test have an XEDS signature (Al, Fe, O, Si, C) which is depleted in carbon and aluminum relative to the original red material. This chemical signature strikingly matches the chemical signature of the spheroids produced by igniting commercial thermite, and also matches the signatures of many of the microspheres found in the WTC dust.”
And your response is a generic “it could be lots of things.” Seriously?
Slarti: I don’t know what created the spheres, but Dr. Jones’ work on microspheres as evidence for thermite has been pretty well debunked.
In light of everything above? And when you close your eyes do you say “you can’t see me” as well? And not for nothing, but shifting from “Iron microspheres are created by many different things” to “I don’t know what created the spheres” is clearly indicative of some shady reasoning.
Slarti: “I would take it to mean that MEK reacts with elemental aluminum – implying that the absence of such a reaction makes it unlikely that the sample contained it.”
I said: That’s what you would take it to mean, but that’s not what he said. His sentence about elemental aluminum was meaningless. And your comment is not supported by the XED analysis.
Slarti: The writer was not a native English speaker – I gave my interpretation of the quote, if you think you have a better interpretation, let’s hear it.
Again, I said your comment is NOT SUPPORTED BY THE XED ANALYSIS. Accordingly, even if he said what you think he said, he too would have said something that was not supported by the XED analysis.
Slarti: “Because being energetic in the absence of oxygen is one of the more unique properties of thermitic materials.”
And the creation of molten spheres of elemental iron upon ignition is not unique why?
Slarti: “they demonstrated that a property of the chips is similar to a property of super-thermite. They didn’t demonstrate that the property was unique to super-thermite (something that they could have done by merely using an inert atmosphere). Once again, finding something that was energetic under the circumstances of their test would not have been difficult (in fact, a chip of wood would produce three times as much energy as thermite).”
That’s not what the paper said; it did not rely on simply one characteristic as you imply. There were several characteristics that aligned in the direction of the conclusion. And show me a wood chip or lump of peat that’s capable of creating molten spheres of iron when ignited.
Slarti: I wouldn’t make a claim about how the corrosion-proofing paint on the steel reacts unless I had some kind of information to back it up,”
I replied: Then why do you represent it as strongly as Byron? You’re confessing to throwing up a red herring here.
Slarti: “It was suggested by multiple people as a possible source of Dr. Jones and Dr. Harrit’s red chips and was apparently painted on all of the structural steel in the WTC. Not eliminating such a source (or any other, except for some unspecified ‘paint’) is a huge, glaring oversight in the paper.
Once again, in what universe would the building department approve of a ‘rust proofing paint’ that when ignited heats to temperatures capable of melting iron?! In what universe can we NOT assume that the architects, engineers and inspectors acted rationally in creating the building? Asking to rule out the ridiculous is in fact ridiculous in itself.
Slarti: “Again, this is another flaw in the paper – the themitic materials are only of significance if they were used in demolition charges.”
I’m sorry, but the foregoing implies we should expect to find thermitic materials in steel buildings that “simply collapsed” as a result of fire, for the first time in human history and three times in one day. Yeah, you know, nano-thermite is everywhere.
Slarti: “What do you believe should have happened once a global failure (failure across a cross-section of the building) had occurred?”
Not only is your falling block scenario built backwards from the premise that it was a natural collapse, but you simply assume that the other 2/3 of the building that wasn’t even tepid from the fire just joined in the ‘global failure’ out of sheer sympathy. Asymmetrical damage does not precipitate symmetrical collapse. And to say it happened three times in one day is just comical.
BTW, if you removed the 9/11 labels and simply presented the bare ‘Bazant theory of building collapse (of another building)’ to scientific community, it would be ridiculed. .
Slarti: “Can you find any scientist (who isn’t already a truther and preferably in a pertinent field) who says that they did?”
Important features of the research have been independently corroborated by Mark Basile in New Hampshire and by physicist Frédéric Henry-Couannier in France
And not for nothing, but you’ve yet to find me a competent scientist who has come out and do more than opine that they didn’t.
Had a great weekend, thank you.
Have some catching up to do; will get to posts later.
“The Star Gazer Jack Horkheimer passed away Friday at age 72. ”
oh no! now that is a bummer….too many good souls leaving the earth lately….
🙁