The Uniqueness of the WTC7 Collapse

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I find that possibility to be unlikely in the extreme. Yes a failure occurred in the pent house, from there we don't know what happened to the interior of the building, we then see an absolutely perfect pattern of symmetrical collapse.

I believe you are suggesting exactly what my question implies, and that that suggesting is wildly unlikely. Although I hate it when people put words into my mouth so I guess I should refrain from doing the same. But its hard to understand how your not suggesting exactly that, given that you've repeated the NIST scenario"


The collapse of the penthouse did not cause the failure of the exterior columns. The collapse of the penthouse was due to the failure of an interior column beneath the penthouse. The penthouse collapse is just an indication of what is going on inside the building. The interior is collapsing. When it's largely collapsed, then the exterior lacks lateral support. It stays in one piece for a (relative) long time as it's pretty strong. But eventually it collapses, bucking at the bottom. Like with my can crush a failure in on part rapidly progresses to the entire structure and global collapse is inevitable. The existing damage to the exterior actually makes this more symmetrical than otherwise, as the base of the exterior is already weak so gives way quicker.
 
Actually Mick the floor components of a high rise adds significantly to lateral resistance. Which is why I agreed with you that buckling would be evident "if" those interior supports were magically removed and if all other influences ( like wind ) were "not" removed.

Yet we see no buckling in the video record.
 
Sentence one, we do not know when or how the interior collapsed, therefor making assumptions of what occurred does not add to our conversation.
Sentence two, we do not know when or how the east half of the interior collapsed
Sentence three "it" whats "it" what fell mostly to the north, is there any field map of exactly what "it" is and how "it" fell. Without that map, we cannot understand exactly what fell where. Yes some pieces didn't remain atop the debris pile, what pieces those are and what forces left them shifted from the predominant direction of the fall evident in the video record is unknown due to the failure to map the debris field.

Damage to buildings adjacent to bldg 7 would require the same analytical process to understand as would damage to any of the other buildings, that analytical process IE mapping the debris field was not undertaken.

Do you have any pictures of these structures undamaged previous to the collapse of building 7. Even if you do, and you certainly might, I see no evidence thus far in the photographic record of the building not having fallen ( OK I'm going to qualify this one ) "substantially" into its own footprint. A feet that would require it falling through the path of most resistance.

Oh and in a typical building demolition assumed the size and shape of the debris pile has a lot to do with just how they want to bring it down. Its not unheard of for a large building to have components literally fall off the debris pile as its settling into its footprint. Thus we have pieces that regularly "escape" the fall zone.


I think you are getting a little caught up in details here. So let's for the sake of argument say the building fell straight down into its own footprint, neither north nor south at all, and hit no other buildings. Because that does not really change the basic point - that he collapse looks like the interior collapsed first, then the (stiffer, stronger) exterior collapse as if the base buckled.

We can see the interior collapsed first because of the order of the fall of the penthouses and the broken windows.
 
Actually Mick the floor components of a high rise adds significantly to lateral resistance.


Not so much in this one. Not all high-rises are the same. Yes the exterior still requires the "floor components" for stability. But the point is that the interior connections had much less resistance to lateral forces than the exterior connections. So the interior collapse progressed a long way before spreading to the exterior.
 
The collapse of the penthouse did not cause the failure of the exterior columns. The collapse of the penthouse was due to the failure of an interior column beneath the penthouse. The penthouse collapse is just an indication of what is going on inside the building. The interior is collapsing. When it's largely collapsed, then the exterior lacks lateral support. It stays in one piece for a (relative) long time as it's pretty strong. But eventually it collapses, bucking at the bottom. Like with my can crush a failure in on part rapidly progresses to the entire structure and global collapse is inevitable. The existing damage to the exterior actually makes this more symmetrical than otherwise, as the base of the exterior is already weak so gives way quicker.

Sentence 1 we don't know that

Sentence 2, your assuming the collapse of the pent house is due to some structural failure beneath it, the pent house could have collapsed for a number of different reasons

sentence 3 I'd be inclined to agree

sentence 4 we don't know that, do you have any video or other substantial evidence to support this claim ?

Sentence 5 actually you had to help that can with a push on its side right about mid way ;-)

Sentence 6 having built one assumption on another you have now presented an unverifiable hypothesis that just happens to mimic exactly the NIST report.

so I'd be compelled to ask again



So are you suggesting that the Asymmetrical failure of the pent house, somehow translated symmetrically to the exact base of each and every column in the precise pattern required to initiate the perfect collapse ?
 
I think you are getting a little caught up in details here. So let's for the sake of argument say the building fell straight down into its own footprint, neither north nor south at all, and hit no other buildings. Because that does not really change the basic point - that he collapse looks like the interior collapsed first, then the (stiffer, stronger) exterior collapse as if the base buckled.

We can see the interior collapsed first because of the order of the fall of the penthouses and the broken windows.

no you can see the penthouse collapse but do not know what is happening inside the building. This is critical in understanding what exactly happened. We have no evidence other than the assumption that "if" the penthouse is collapsing that there must be some structural failure beneath it. and then we are again asked to assume that that structural failure somehow translates into the basement of the building. Or something like that. Its just a few to many assumptions for my taste.

What I see is the penthouse disappearing behind the roof parapet wall and then the building develop an absolutely perfect "kink" which requires an amazing about of symmetry in the progression of vertical column collapse. I then see six points, all four corners and the two ends of the kink all fall at almost the exact same free fall speed accelerating as it goes. Whats really telling is that straight lines exist continually between those six points throughout the entire collapse sequence. Or at least as much of it as I've observed in all available video footage.

Assuming what went on inside the building is just that, an assumption, add enough of those together and you could say Micky and Minny mouse where throwing a wild party that just got a little out of hand. ;-)


Lets just stick to what we do know and leave the assumptions out of it, or at least thats how I'd prefer to approach the issue. A polite factual based discussion will me most enjoyable, but I'm kinda funny on conjecture and assumptions
 
Not so much in this one. Not all high-rises are the same. Yes the exterior still requires the "floor components" for stability. But the point is that the interior connections had much less resistance to lateral forces than the exterior connections. So the interior collapse progressed a long way before spreading to the exterior.

you could certainly be right about this one, but thats where we run into the sticky little issue of there being no blueprints available
 
no you can see the penthouse collapse but do not know what is happening inside the building. This is critical in understanding what exactly happened. We have no evidence other than the assumption that "if" the penthouse is collapsing that there must be some structural failure beneath it. and then we are again asked to assume that that structural failure somehow translates into the basement of the building. Or something like that. Its just a few to many assumptions for my taste.

What I see is the penthouse disappearing behind the roof parapet wall and then the building develop an absolutely perfect "kink" which requires an amazing about of symmetry in the progression of vertical column collapse. I then see six points, all four corners and the two ends of the kink all fall at almost the exact same free fall speed accelerating as it goes. Whats really telling is that straight lines exist continually between those six points throughout the entire collapse sequence. Or at least as much of it as I've observed in all available video footage.

You don't see daylight appearing on the top couple of floors, after the penthouse falls through them and windows breaking for several floors underneath?

Lets just stick to what we do know and leave the assumptions out of it, or at least thats how I'd prefer to approach the issue. A polite factual based discussion will me most enjoyable, but I'm kinda funny on conjecture and assumptions


Sure, but what I'm doing here is presenting what seems to be a plausible hypothesis that fits the observed facts. If the interior collapsed first, then the exterior buckled near the base, then that fits what you see. So you then need to answer where my hypothesis does NOT fit the facts.

Have you read NCSTAR 1-9? At least load it up and just click on the "next page" button all the way through to get a sense of the comprehensive nature of the report. The majority of which deals with observable evidence, and only getting into the simulation for the more precise explanation (which you can ignore if you like).

https://www.metabunk.org/files/NCSTAR_1-9_WTC7_unlocked.pdf
 
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4. Free-Fall acceleration thru path of greatest resistance.

False. As long as the resistance provided by the building is less than load of the falling structure, then the path of least resistance is always straight down. The initial interior collapse (ignored by AE911) was at far less than free-fall acceleration. The initial fall of the exterior was also at less than free fall, as was the last half. There were a few seconds at near free-fall during the exterior collapse. But that is to be expected from a very tall structure with very little lateral support. The exterior columns had buckled near the base, and once buckled would offer only a tiny fraction of their initial resistance. The building exterior crushed itself not unlike a soda can being crushed.

sentence 1, wrong, if there is so much as one ounce f resistance left in what had been a supporting structure then barring all other forces the path of least resistance is a sum of the energy required to deflect the mass falling and the amount of gravitational resistance left in the supporting column. This is why they need to "drop" a building onto itself rather than just knock out a few supports. Its the difference between it falling over and falling in.

Sentence 2 a wild assumption unsupported by any verifiable evidence

sentence 3 I've seen numerous analysis that show free fall speed and acceleration of all four corners of bldg 7. This directly refutes this statement. I'd be open to other analysis but baring that and baring any explanation as to how all four corners let go at the exact same time. I'd have to call BS on sentence 3
 
I didn't see any daylight on the top couple floors, but I'd expect there to be an atmospheric pressure change in the immediate vicinity of any type of collapse which would likely if temporarily deform the windows in the area, thus altering the reflective properties of the light returning from the window surface. I have a patent on glass, or at least a particular type of glass, so I'm pretty well aware of how it deforms.

If you have any video evidence of this daylight, I'd be happy to check it out.

I'm pretty funny on the NIST explanation and I've looked at it from a number of different angles, my take is that if they really wanted to understand exactly what happened they would have mapped the fall pattern evident in the debris field. They very specifically didn't. In the end you can pretty much dream up just about anything at this point, but its likelihood of occurring might just be infinitesimally small.

I'll grant you any day that the penthouse fell asymmetrically, and that the shorter end of the penthouse structure experienced a progressive collapse, I'll even grant you that this progressive collapse looks more involved that if the penthouse had simply fallen onto the roof behind the parapet wall. But anyone who's taken a materials class ended up pinning a bunch of straws together and seeing how many you could remove before their design structure fails. You can take out a whole lot of structure before you get to failure. The interesting thing is, I don't remember a single failure every in any materials class resulting in a vertical collapse, I'd never even seen it until I went to my first controlled demolition.
 
It would need to be self supporting until it collapsed. Once it has started to collapse it is no longer self supporting.

I'd like to know according to this theory why the penthouse seems to collapse down into the building and then the windows break and then the building comes down. If it was a progressive collapse due to fires in the base or on the side of that building then why wouldn't a collapse begin where the fires were and thus the windows would break there and then the penthouse could be observed to collapse down into the building... followed by the facade of the building at free fall speeds after everything hypothetically collapsed inside?

Mostly hypothetical, I guess... given the great job that NIST did in general of running a simulation of an investigation and interacting with critics. If they're actually correct, then they could have spared us a lot of trouble by doing a little less simulating and a little more investigating. After all, they would or should have known that WTC 7 was going to "look like" some type of controlled demolition to the public even if it didn't sound like it. (I wonder if they knew about that aspect of it, thus their report?)
 
I'd replace explain with postulate. Without there being a map of the fall pattern of the debris pile, there's no telling exactly what happened. Which brings us again to why this very simple process wasn't undertaken at the time the debris pile was dismantled and shipped off to china, if I remember right.

I'd question if the temps of an office fire could weaken steel sufficiently to cause a symmetrical global collapse. I'd particularly question if the small fires burning asymmetrically within the building combined with what asymmetrical damage can be seen in the video evidence could have translated into a collapse that initiates at the pent house and progresses, miraculously IMHO into a beautifully symmetrical collapse of the entire structure, at what the video evidence shows as free fall speed. Directly into its own footprint, baring a few possible exceptions that may or may not have fallen off the debris pile.
 
I didn't see any daylight on the top couple floors, but I'd expect there to be an atmospheric pressure change in the immediate vicinity of any type of collapse which would likely if temporarily deform the windows in the area, thus altering the reflective properties of the light returning from the window surface. I have a patent on glass, or at least a particular type of glass, so I'm pretty well aware of how it deforms.

The upper left windows appear to show daylight through them after the penthouse has collapsed.
If you have any video evidence of this daylight, I'd be happy to check it out.
Watch this in HD, full screen, several times. Note the light does not change as the building starts to fall, which indicates it's not simply the windows distorted a bit.


I'm pretty funny on the NIST explanation and I've looked at it from a number of different angles, my take is that if they really wanted to understand exactly what happened they would have mapped the fall pattern evident in the debris field. They very specifically didn't. In the end you can pretty much dream up just about anything at this point, but its likelihood of occurring might just be infinitesimally small.

NIST wanted to to understand WHY it collapsed, so their investigation was pretty much up until the point at which is was falling towards the ground. The complexity of the situation really prevents any useful information from modelling it further. Even their super detailed simulations don't match what initially happened, so would only diverge more if continued.

I'll grant you any day that the penthouse fell asymmetrically, and that the shorter end of the penthouse structure experienced a progressive collapse, I'll even grant you that this progressive collapse looks more involved that if the penthouse had simply fallen onto the roof behind the parapet wall. But anyone who's taken a materials class ended up pinning a bunch of straws together and seeing how many you could remove before their design structure fails. You can take out a whole lot of structure before you get to failure. The interesting thing is, I don't remember a single failure every in any materials class resulting in a vertical collapse, I'd never even seen it until I went to my first controlled demolition.


Because of scale. A bunch of straws is radically different to a 400 foot high building. It's the square cube law. Strength does not scale. (video is a bit simple, but gets relevent 2 minutes in)
 
I'd like to know according to this theory why the penthouse seems to collapse down into the building and then the windows break and then the building comes down. If it was a progressive collapse due to fires in the base or on the side of that building then why wouldn't a collapse begin where the fires were and thus the windows would break there and then the penthouse could be observed to collapse down into the building... followed by the facade of the building at free fall speeds after everything hypothetically collapsed inside?


The collapse began with an interior column, far away from windows. However if you look at the video windows DO break well below the penthouse before it has fallen that far. This is because the entire vertical structure inside the building is collapsing. The strong exterior is resisting this:



 
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Your right I do see something and I might be inclined to think its either fire having been allowed fresh oxygen or daylight shining through a whole in the roof, but, I'd think more than just a few windows at the very very top would show some type of deformity or failure or unique consequence if the entire interior was collapsing. But without the blue prints we can't know just how the interior columns were connected to the exterior wall. I can assure you tho that they were and that the connection was substantial. Certainly enough IMHO to cause significant damage or deformation to that exterior wall should the interior columns be torn free, particularly in an asymmetrical pattern. I'd expect a major change in the reflective angle of numerous windows during that process.

I think I can agree that the pent house structure and at least the roof structure immediately below it were effected by the pent house collapse, however I see zero evidence of this failure translating down throughout the entire structure.
 
Boston, the link I posted has a great explanation of that. I would copy it, but the format there doesn't let me pick small sections. If I had time I might copy and edit it down, but today is my hubby's Bday so I need to bake a cake and put a roast on.
 
I think I can agree that the pent house structure and at least the roof structure immediately below it were effected by the pent house collapse, however I see zero evidence of this failure translating down throughout the entire structure.


Why do you think the building sways just before it collapses? How could it do that if the interior had not collapsed?
 
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The building didn't fall symmetrical, first the interior fell down (noticable by the penthouse), then the exterior fell, this can be seen on most videos. This is what is stated in the NIST report, this is what I think the (a)symmetrical talk is all about:

The symmetric appearance of the downward fall of WTC 7 was primarily due to the greater stiffness and strength of its exterior frame relative to the interior framing.
Content from External Source
So the symmetry is about the in/exterior, I think you are talking about the downward direction as being symmatrical.


I know a lot of situations where it is indeed better not to trust your own eyes. Just a slightly offtopic optical illusion:
http://langabi.name/blog/wp-content/images/blog/optical illusion.jpg

Do you trust your own eyes in this picture (and I don't mean by reading the text at the top :) ).
Just a slightly off topic red herring. :)
 
I don't see a particularly good reference point, and those red lines are certainly not a reference point, camera shake could easily have caused this effect, but I don't see why the building couldn't have been shaken by the collapse of the roof mechanical and penthouse, that stuff weighs a lot.
 
Wow, if you don't see the swaying, and you don't see the windows break below the penthouse as it falls, your observation is so lacking I fail to see how you have any thing of value to add.
 
I don't see a particularly good reference point, and those red lines are certainly not a reference point, camera shake could easily have caused this effect,


No other buildings in the frame move.
Hence the camera is not moving.

The red lines do not move.
Hence, the red lines are a fixed reference point.
 
I don't see why the building couldn't have been shaken by the collapse of the roof mechanical and penthouse, that stuff weighs a lot.

Shaken, yes, but not sway the entire building. The collapse of an entire vertical portion of the interior, on the other hand, could.
 
Obviously you have a problem understanding what a question mark does to a sentence.

Here's the exchange in question:

JRBids said:
I'm just asking questions, jomper. Boston said it looked like someone wanted the building to fall in a neat pile on the ground. I think the questions I asked make perfect sense. Regarding Guiliani, YOU drove the thread off topic with that one, and I see you're still flogging that dead horse. WHy don't you just MYOB and let Boston answer?​
Jomper: Excellent. So you do acknowledge, then, that WTC7 finished in a neat pile on the ground? Entirely what would be expected after a symmetrical descent, wouldn't you agree?


So where in my reply do I acknowledge that WTC7 finished in a neat pile on the ground? Your statement "So you DO acknowledge. . " indicates you read into my statement that I am saying it did collapse into a neat pile. Where do I acknowledge that?
 
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Are you really trying to say that the multiple angles of the symmetry of the collapse that we have as video evidence are in fact a kind of visual trick? Or do you think that the mere fact optical illusions exist somehow proves a point that is relevant to the collapse of a 47-storey building?


I think we're both trying to say that we don't think "symmetrical collapse" means what you think it does.
 
No other buildings in the frame move.
Hence the camera is not moving.

The red lines do not move.
Hence, the red lines are a fixed reference point.

camera shake could easily account for this movement, the red lines are floating in space with no reference and the film may or may not have been "stabilized" frame by frame.

In order to properly analyze a movement this small a reference point would have to be a building standing next to this one that we can measure the movement off of . We would then have to establish that the camera also was not moving, wind angle and speed along with a dynamic analysis of the buildings calculated resistance to dynamic environmental factors. I'll agree there does appear to be some movement, but not knowing how much, as well as the weight of the visible collapsing structure as well as what distance it fell and how it interacted with the underlying structure, compared to the lateral stability intrinsic to the design, ( blue prints again ) there is no way to establish that this movement would not be expected simply due to the pent house and other roof structures falling the distance observed in the film. IE there need be no interior collapse to explain this motion, although thats just as much of an assumption as saying there is, since, again, we don't have any blue prints to analyze or accurate measure of the forces involved.

Again you talking conjecture, Yup there does appear to be some lateral movement in the building, we don't know how much and the only verifiable source of the energy required is the movement of the roof structures IE collapse. The question becomes, is that available kinetic energy sufficient to induce this rate of oscillation/movement, whichever one it is. I'd be curious to see if thats a looped film which only mimics an oscillation or if its was just one single motion in the system

So are you suggesting that the Asymmetrical failure of the pent house, somehow translated symmetrically to the exact base of each and every column in the precise pattern required to initiate the perfect collapse ?
 
I have some fairly significant questions with the events of 9/11. I've never liked the explanations given and I've never been impressed with the investigative process that both took so long to enact and failed so completely to treat this building collapse like the mechanical failure it was.

Join the club :) It's a big one.


I'm going to ignore the towers for the time being, other than to say, asymmetrical damage is highly unlikely to lead to symmetrical failure, particularly within an asymmetrical system.
A point raised many times and usually countered with something along the lines of 'lots of unusual things happened that day'... I cant disagree with that one. Also 'it may be that the odds are against it but that can be said of winning the lottery... but people do it all the time'. Oko_O

WTC7. Also fell as nearly perfectly and symmetrically as I've ever seen a building come down. I worked my way through school as a contractor and I grew up in a family that owned and operated a major construction firm, we both erected and demolished steel framed structures regularly. My chores as a kid was sometimes to collate papers on some of the largest projects on the east coast. I won't go into a list of buildings I've worked on, but I"m very familiar with high rise construction and particularly steel framed structures.
Ah... so your not an expert then... just someone who knows a bit about stuff, much like those people at ae911 ;)

The first thing that should be noted with building 7 is that the blue prints are unavailable.
I didn't know that. Any reason given? National security or wot not?
So any special construction that may have been used is pure conjecture, and cannot be verified as far as I know. I could always be wrong on this one and if so feel free to provide the structural prints, but as of yet no one has ever coughed up the prints.
I think some experts at NIST proved it all but they won't give out any data that they used, even to designers and engineers, because there are loads of other buildings that could be demolished by someone starting a fire or something like that.

There are conflicting reports of explosions within the building, there are also conflicting reports of just how extensive the fires were in the building. Therefor I think its necessary to simply ignore that area of evidence due to its tenuous nature.
Yes I think ae911 folks took a similar stance but NIST ruled out use of explosives for some reason.
From what I can see there were minor fires that at no time encompassed more than say 25% of any one floor at a time.
I don't think anyone will challenge that now but it has been challenged in the past on this forum.
There are reports of diesel fuel in the buildings, but I see no evidence of a large fuel fed fire erupting in a manor consistent with fuel tank eruptions. So I'm inclined to ignore that evidence as well,
NIST's first report suggested there were massive fires fuelled by the diesel from the Con Ed but they retracted that, although Popular Mechanics still maintains that was the case.
also diesel fuel has a life span, it looses a significant portion of its energetic characteristics over a relatively short period of time, about 30% in 6 months if I remember. Its also an organic molecule, so it is subject to growing all kinds of contaminants over time, unless it is constantly polished and periodically treated with chemical preservatives and extenders.
That's interesting but not germaine.

I think its safe to say that the visual evidence is about the most reliable source of evidence we've got to go with. From what I can see, the fires were relatively minor, and certainly not of the character I would expect outside of the normal office building fire. Therefor I have no reason to believe the fires where in any way hotter than a normal office building fire. The fires were also extremely asymmetrical in nature, at no time were all four corners of the building alight and at no time was there any significant structural deformation evident that might lead me to believe that temperatures had reached a critical state that might be effecting the structural integrity of the building.
Totally agree.
I've yet to see a single picture of building 7 that showed any major structural damage due to falling debris from the towers plane impacts. I've seem smoke filled pictures that show a few broken windows and I've seen a small gash in one corner of the building, all other corners of the building were completely intact. I'd also estimate the total damage to the building, based on the visual evidence, to be minor, IE less than 5~10% of the whole, and asymmetrical in nature.

Agree again.

Yet the building came down, all four corners at once and at free fall speed. Oh and no, I'm not going to time it from the first window that blew out, nor am I going to time it from the symmetrical collapse of the pent house, which disappeared from view previous to the measurable area of building displaying free fall symmetrical collapse.
You and I and a billion others may well view it that way, but you get the slightest deviation, even by a few inches and debunkers will argue til the cows come home that it wasn't 'symmetrical'. Similarly, you get a few seconds above 'freefall' and "it wasn't free fall". And yet again, you get the odd speck of dust or a girder outside of the footprint and "it didn't collapse in it's own footprint". But debunkers really don't like to get into semantics.

Barring all opinion based evidence as well as conflicting eye witness accounts, and instead going with only film and still picture data, I don't see how it couldn't have been manufactured collapse. Asymmetrical damage does not yield symmetrical results.

I'm all ears and I'm open to altering my opinion, however, other than some extremely tenuous eye witness accounts, some of which may have a vested interest in not offending the departments which they depend for there lively hood, there is little to no evidence that the buildings symmetrical reaction to minor asymmetrical fires was not a manufactured event.

IE
someone wanted that building in a nice neat pile on the ground.
Agreed again.


I'd also point out that any of the collapses that day could have been easily reconstructed by merely recording the fall pattern of the structural members. Something that would have been done and has been done in virtually all major transportation disasters and something that is commonly done in bridge collapses. Every single piece of steel in that frame is coded and even a cursory look at the prints will show exactly where it was in the building. Recording the pattern of collapse is about the easiest and least time consuming element of demolition, its also the kinda study companies who do explosive demolitions conduct regularly so as to minimize the amount of explosives used. There is zero excuse for carting all the debris off without making this kinda study, as the pieces are cut away from the wreckage, guaranteed the guy with the torch had more than enough time to notice the field marks on the beams.
I didn't know about the markings being so specific but that is a great point.
Shame they sent the steel off to China... they certainly missed a great investigative opportunity there didn't they.


I'm inclined to think either the level of incompetence was so desperately high that no one thought to conduct such a study or that someone didn't want to conduct such a study. Given the resistance field investigators met when trying to access the sight, I'm far more inclined to believe the latter than the former.

In a nut shell I've yet to hear a rational explanation as to how bldg 7 could have possible fell in the manor it did under the circumstances evident in the film record.

Conjecture but I totally agree.

I'm not really a conspiracy nut but having worked my way through college in this exact field, I'm really not impressed with the party line on this one.
Don't worry, you're on your way... disagreeing with 'the experts' is a sure sign. :)

Occams razor in this case is leaning towards something very very fishy.

I think it is herrings... red ones.
 
Wow, if you don't see the swaying, and you don't see the windows break below the penthouse as it falls, your observation is so lacking I fail to see how you have any thing of value to add.
I think it is pareidolia or maybe just that you want to see it so you can say 'see it moved and a window broke so it cannot be a symmetrical collapse'.

Did you notice the owls fly out the windows?
 
In order to properly analyze a movement this small a reference point would have to be a building standing next to this one that we can measure the movement off of . We would then have to establish that the camera also was not moving, wind angle and speed along with a dynamic analysis of the buildings calculated resistance to dynamic environmental factors. I'll agree there does appear to be some movement, but not knowing how much, as well as the weight of the visible collapsing structure as well as what distance it fell, compared to the lateral stability intrinsic to the design, ( blue prints again ) there is no way to establish that this movement would not be expected simply due to the pent house and other roof structures falling the distance observed in the film. IE there need be no interior collapse to explain this motion, although thats just as much of an assumption as saying there is, since, again, we don't have any blue prints to analyze.

We've already established that the camera is not moving, as no other buildings in the frame move.
Again you talking conjecture, Yup there does appear to be some lateral movement in the building, we don't know how much and the only verifiable source of the energy required is the movement of the roof structures IE collapse. The question becomes, is that available kinetic energy sufficient to induce this rate of oscillation/movement, whichever one it is. I'd be curious to see if thats a looped film which only mimics an oscillation or if its was just one single motion in the system
Look at the video (attached), ping-pong it.

And if you are genuinely interested, read the analysis in NCSTAR 1-9. Section 5.7. Pages 261 to 288.
https://www.metabunk.org/files/NCSTAR_1-9_WTC7_unlocked.pdf

So are you suggesting that the Asymmetrical failure of the pent house, somehow translated symmetrically to the exact base of each and every column in the precise pattern required to initiate the perfect collapse ?

No, obviously not. As I've already explained, the collapse of the penthouse is just a symptom of the internal collapse, and not the cause of anything. And there is no "precise pattern", or a "perfect collapse". The exterior of the building just needs to fail somewhere low, and then the exterior of the building will fall down. It will lean only until all columns have failed, then progress straight down.
 

Attachments

  • WTC 7 Collapse Full.mp4
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I would like to point folks to the links I posted that discussed the McKormick Place fire in Chicago and a theater fire in Penn.

This link is to an interesting discussion (I haven't finished it yet), but in the first part, they mention that fire services are not trained in how buildings collapse in fires and that engineers and architects are not trained in how fire will impact a building.

http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-050406-105306/unrestricted/rnacewicz.pdf
 
We've already established that the camera is not moving, as no other buildings in the frame move.

When did that happen ? I see a film that may or may not be looping, and so may or may not show oscillation as opposed to one single sway. I do not accept arbitrary lines placed in the frame with no references to stability, size or distance. I would accept another building in the films as there are lots available to measure off of rather than just one that is frankly the worst available example.

We would need to establish where the camera was along with the wind conditions that day at that altitude as well as know the natural frequency of the building it may have been atop in whatever wind conditions existed. We'd then need to have a reference point between the two, subject and camera as well as understand the same characteristics of both those buildings as well.

Imagine trying to take some film between two boats on the ocean and arguing that one is swaying, its basically what I'm hearing in this line of reasoning.

Where was the camera ? what was the wind speed ? how stable was where the camera was in that wind speed. Answer those questions again, twice for both the building observed and the building being used as a reference. Its nearly impossible to accurately say if or how much the building may have moved or been swaying.

If you've provided this information somewhere, feel free to point it out. There's only one link I haven't hit yet so maybe thats it.

Look at the video (attached), ping-pong it.

And if you are genuinely interested, read the analysis in NCSTAR 1-9. Section 5.7. Pages 261 to 288.
https://www.metabunk.org/files/NCSTAR_1-9_WTC7_unlocked.pdf



No, obviously not. As I've already explained, the collapse of the penthouse is just a symptom of the internal collapse, and not the cause of anything. And there is no "precise pattern", or a "perfect collapse". The exterior of the building just needs to fail somewhere low, and then the exterior of the building will fall down. It will lean only until all columns have failed, then progress straight down.

but we don't know there was an internal collapse, that's just what NIST postulates happened, even though the probability of asymmetrical fires and asymmetrical damage leading to a symmetrical failure is nigh on impossible.

I'm not sure how anyone could look at that collapse and not see the symmetry involved, all four corners and the two points making up the kink all fall at the same rate, same time, with there being structural cohesion between them. Its a classic induced collapse.

Here's a building that just failed somewhere low



it doesn't mean the failure instantly progresses throughout the foundation of the structure, somewhere down low would result in an asymmetrical failure just like what is seen in this high rise building
 
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I would like to point folks to the links I posted that discussed the McKormick Place fire in Chicago and a theater fire in Penn.

This link is to an interesting discussion (I haven't finished it yet), but in the first part, they mention that fire services are not trained in how buildings collapse in fires and that engineers and architects are not trained in how fire will impact a building.

http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-050406-105306/unrestricted/rnacewicz.pdf
Yes very interesting. There is no mention of WTC's other than in the Bibliography right at the end.

Page 87
 
The point of that is the failure of steel at the temperature of a normal fire.

I posted some links earlier on the McCormick fire and one that was in Penn. It seems that when there is a problem with water to fight the fire, that steel will fail.
 
I'll grant you any day that fire will weaken steel, but I'll also point out that when weakened steel doesn't fracture, it bends, particularly when placed under load. Vertical columns tend to move inward towards the fire, depending on there load characteristics, same with horizontal beams, they also tend to react by bending towards the point of heat. On the other hand, how much heat does it take to cause a catastrophic failure to every column, simultaneously, particularly when that heat is not applied uniformly ?

I'd also reiterate that asymmetrical weakening of the steal, is not likely to result in a global symmetrical collapse exactly synonymous with what I'd see in a controlled demolition where the vertical columns have a section removed mechanically from the base to release the kinetic energy necessary to sustain a collapse into itself and overcome "itself" being the path of greatest resistance. IE fall in instead of over.
 
Tell me that whopping huge PDF I'm reading makes some mention of the movement in the building we were discussing, cause I'm ten pages in and so far, nada, just driveling on about the asymmetrical nature of the office fire.
 
but we don't know there was an internal collapse, that's just what NIST postulates happened, even though the probability of asymmetrical fires and asymmetrical damage leading to a symmetrical failure is nigh on impossible.

I'm not sure how anyone could look at that collapse and not see the symmetry involved, all four corners and the two points making up the kink all fall at the same rate, same time, with there being structural cohesion between them. Its a classic induced collapse.

Here's a building that just failed somewhere low



it doesn't mean the failure instantly progresses throughout the foundation of the structure, somewhere down low would result in an asymmetrical failure just like what is seen in this high rise building

That is not a high rise building but a flour factory the demolition of which went wrong.

http://www.geo.tv/8-2-2009/46942.htm

It also is constructed of concrete.

NIST looked at it (videos from the south as well as the north) and concluded it was not symmetrical.
 
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Tell me that whopping huge PDF I'm reading makes some mention of the movement in the building we were discussing, cause I'm ten pages in and so far, nada, just driveling on about the asymmetrical nature of the office fire.

Don't dismiss the report if you won't read it.
 
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