What's the best popular account of the WTC collapses?

[econ41]

For me it DOES raise four questions which are interesting and should be addressed in any report.

1. Would the same end (total collapse) come to every high rise facing the same magnitude of energy input?

I suggest better to focus on mechanisms NOT energy

2. What high rise designs allow more occupants to get out of harm's way? (we know all did in the case of 7wtc)

WTC 7 escape was the result of a decision - not design.

3. Were there features of the twin tower designs which enabled the outcome or allowed that outcome to occur more quickly and with more loss of life?
4. If the answer to 3 is yes, what should be done about existing high rises that share those features or designs yet to be built?

"more quickly and with more loss of life" compared to what?

It is noted that jumbo jet strikes are way out of spec for high rise design. But also noted is that fire seems to be the driver of all three collapses and the twin towers survived the plane strikes.

Fire was the driver. Not impact damage. BUT the scale of fires for Twin Towers was established by the impact - 3 aspects - (a) concentrated office material as fuel load - the concentration due to "BoeingDozing"; (2) Rapid start up of fires due to aviation fuel accelerant AND (c) multi story concurrent start up. WTC7 fires were worse than design because no sprinklers, unfought and still survived nearly 2 times "Fire rating" time. And I'll go out on a couple of limbs (a) IMNSHO failure of sprinklers was probably not important AND (b) I wouldn't be surprised if the intial impact damage was not significant. BUT the fires could not have happened without the plane impact to start them.

And this raises yet another question... Can fire protection be changed or increased to make high rises survive uncontrolled fires? What would that look like and cost and can these changes be retrofitted to existing buildings?

Plausible but how far to go is economically limited. High cost and limited practicality of retrofitting.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

I suggest better to focus on mechanisms NOT energy

Mechanisms are understood and for me not in dispute of changable

WTC 7 escape was the result of a decision - not design.

Egress issues concern such design matters as redundant paths, higher fire rating and stronger enclosures.

"more quickly and with more loss of life" compared to what?

I suppose actual studies to see how long it takes to move X people to safety from various places in the structure. For example NYC DOB requires applicants show egress paths and distance to emergency stairs and exits. I don't know if codes consider number of occupants trying to escape at the same time.

Fire was the driver.

Agreed

Not impact damage.

in the twins impact was the fire starter

BUT the scale of fires for Twin Towers was established by the impact - 3 aspects - (a) concentrated office material as fuel load - the concentration due to "BoeingDozing";

Scale of fires was simply the fuel load of the floors which would vary somewhat depending on use / occupancy of the floors. Boing delivered a healthy does of fuel to burn, and spread fires to building contents.

(2) Rapid start up of fires due to aviation fuel accelerant AND (c) multi story concurrent start up.

Agree

WTC7 fires were worse than design because no sprinklers, unfought and still survived nearly 2 times "Fire rating" time. And I'll go out on a couple of limbs (a) IMNSHO failure of sprinklers was probably not important

much less flammable materials... no aviation fuel in the mix. Fires appear to not have spread laterally very much... hard to tell and were not in close proximity to egress paths.
Early AM fires essentially closed the building before it was heavily occupied and there was a sub station explosion at 8:45am that was thought to be a terrorist bomb which sent people who were in the tower racing for the exits. This was BEFORE fire had spread through the tower.

AND (b) I wouldn't be surprised if the intial impact damage was not significant. BUT the fires could not have happened without the plane impact to start them.

Impact damage appears to have NOT been fatal without subsequent fires

Plausible but how far to go is economically limited. High cost and limited practicality of retrofitting.

If the retro fit were say... redundant sprinkler system??? or a wet system as opposed to a dry one? Or different fire suppression like foam? I don't know much about fire suppression systems. Adding more fire protection to steel is not practical in a retro fit.

 

[deirdre]

I am guilty of raising the issue of details in this discussion.

you're also guilty of confusing the bejeezus out of novices, which Thomas is and is the topic of this thread. or is that what the rest of your paragraph is trying to say. Your meaning there is a bit ambiguous.


maybe the book should also mention that building that collapsed in {i forget where..iraq? }, that shopping mall building. That building had total collapse and may be easier for novices to wrap their heads around. as far as how floors can handle only a certain amount of weight.

 

[deirdre]

Early AM fires essentially closed the building before it was heavily occupied and there was a sub station explosion at 8:45am that was thought to be a terrorist bomb which sent people who were in the tower racing for the exits.

people "raced" to the exists in all the buildings near the twins after they were struck by planes.

as far as this alleged explosion and early morning fire, you seem to be the only one saying that. A good example of why MBs Posting Guidelines are important. Bunk confuses the issues.

Why were there no fatalities from the collapse of WTC 7?

Several factors contributed to the outcome of no loss of life-or serious injuries-in WTC 7. The building had only half the number of occupants on a typical day-with approximately 4,000 occupants-at the times the airplanes struck the towers. Occupants had recently participated in fire drills. The occupants, alerted by the attacks on WTC 1, WTC 2, and the Pentagon, began evacuating promptly. Evacuation of the building took just over an hour, and the process was complete before the collapse of the first WTC tower (WTC 2). Emergency responders provided evacuation assistance to occupants. No emergency responders were harmed in the collapse of WTC 7 because the decision to abandon all efforts to save WTC 7 was made nearly three hours before the building fell.

https://www.nist.gov/pao/questions-and-answers-about-nist-wtc-7-investigation

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

people "raced" to the exists in all the buildings near the twins after they were struck by planes.

as far as this alleged explosion and early morning fire, you seem to be the only one saying that. A good example of why MBs Posting Guidelines are important. Bunk confuses the issues.

You might want to look into the report of Con Edison which had the sub station at the base of 7wtc go offline at the exact time of the AA11 hit 1wtc. The "evidence" of the explosion was the "blown out" egress stair which Hess and Jennings reported at they tried to exit the buildings by the stair from Emergency Management Center on flr 23. Elevators were not working... hmmm what happened to the electricity?

 

[Thomas B]

"No emergency responders were harmed in the collapse of WTC 7 because the decision to abandon all efforts to save WTC 7 was made nearly three hours before the building fell." (NIST)

I'm wary of opening a can of worms, but could those three hours of firefighting have saved WTC7? Did they know three hours in advance that the building was going to come down? And all they had to do was prevent the steel from getting too hot? They considered that a wise decision?

A great deal of valuable stuff was lost in WTC7. Keeping it standing, even if it would have to be torn down later, would surely have been "worth it". I guess maybe they thought it could come down "any second" and didn't want to risk lives avoiding that. But, really? I don't know much about how decisions like that are made. I imagine firefighters risk their lives to save "property" (homes and art and documents) all the time.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. But when they "abandonded all efforts to save" the building did they at that point know it was coming down? And if they knew that (three hours in advance), why didn't they also know why it would come down? I.e., why did it take so long to investigate the causes? In a certain sense, they would have been in a position to observe the mechanism in action.

As ever, something for the book that doesn't exist but would be nice if it did.

 

[Thomas B]

You might want to look into the report of Con Edison which had the sub station at the base of 7wtc go offline at the exact time of the AA11 hit 1wtc.

The peculiar thing about this possible weakness (I think Jeffrey has talked about the cantilevering before) is that it was maintained in the design of the new WTC7 before the cause of the collapse of the original WTC7 was determined. (Or that's how I understand it anyway.) To me, this suggests that there was someone [something] to rule this out as part of the failure mechanism even before NIST had completed its work. One more for the book.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

I'm wary of opening a can of worms, but could those three hours of firefighting have saved WTC7? Did they know three hours in advance that the building was going to come down? And all they had to do was prevent the steel from getting too hot? They considered that a wise decision?

A great deal of valuable stuff was lost in WTC7. Keeping it standing, even if it would have to be torn down later, would surely have been "worth it". I guess maybe they thought it could come down "any second" and didn't want to risk lives avoiding that. But, really? I don't know much about how decisions like that are made. I imagine firefighters risk their lives to save "property" (homes and art and documents) all the time.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. But when they "abandonded all efforts to save" the building did they at that point know it was coming down? And if they knew that (three hours in advance), why didn't they also know why it would come down? I.e., why did it take so long to investigate the causes? In a certain sense, they would have been in a position to observe the mechanism in action.

As ever, something for the book that doesn't exist but would be nice if it did.

FDNY was doing a transit survey in addition to assessment from inspectors inside the building AFTER all were evacuated. Transit survey and reports from inside indicated that the building's frame had warped/distorted. I think that was the final bit they needed to remove personnel from the area as a collapse was anticipated AND this was reported. NO not because they had set charges to demolish it. FDNY makes structure assessment for damaged buildings as part of their normal operations and do condemn some and forbid occupancy.

 

[Thomas B]

Transit survey and reports from inside indicated that the building's frame had warped/distorted.

Do you know where in the NIST report this warping is discussed and how big a role it finally played in locating the failure at C79?

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

Do you know where in the NIST report this warping is discussed and how big a role it finally played in locating the failure at C79?

I do not know. I don't even know if there were any FDNY reports of col. 79. FDNY could not enter area with out of control raging fires... Locations of fires were determined by NIST from observations of the video and pics of the outside.

 

[econ41]

you're also guilty of confusing the bejeezus out of novices, which Thomas is and is the topic of this thread. or is that what the rest of your paragraph is trying to say. Your meaning there is a bit ambiguous.

He was responding to my series of claims which I deliberately made concisely and NOT at the level of "Lay person explanations". I'll stand by my original assertions. I had already decided to NOT pursue the several "miss the point" comments and the couple of patronising "teaching grand[father] to suck eggs"

 

[econ41]

maybe the book should also mention that building that collapsed in {i forget where..iraq? }, that shopping mall building. That building had total collapse and may be easier for novices to wrap their heads around. as far as how floors can handle only a certain amount of weight.

Plasco - Iran - 19 Jan 2017.

I've been resisting the temptation to write the opening chapter of "The Book" - over recent days I have been mentally running through the scope and level - I think a "Start with big picture THEN descend to increasing depth of details" approach is a good lead in - the lay-person "novice" can dig as deep as their interest leads them. Conclude with appendices listing dozens of the common points of curiosity as per many examples raised in these recent discussions.

Keep Twin Towers separate from WTC7 AND focus on the known facts that are provable from video and other evidence in the public record. Without relying on any authority - specifically NIST. And keeping the physics concepts simple enough for a lay person to accept/agree that each building block of argument is proven.

Two examples - the level of "novice" I have in mind would be able to comprehend:
(a) that the Twin Towers collapses involved two distinct stages viz "what happened to allow the top part to start falling" and "what happened after that" and
(b) "the top block of tower started moving downwards because the columns were no longer holding it up" >> because columns were failing >> and failed in sequence >> some failing more one side therefore tilting thetop block"...

... AND BOTH of those are clear from video evidence AND should be common whether or not there was CD >> That last sentence just left "lay man language" and went to undergraduate level so I couldn't say it that way in the book.

... AND experience tells me that BOTH those simple aspects of what really happened would be denied by many debunkers - especially engineers - because I dare to express complicated engineering in lay person language -- the disagreeing comments would start with "But it is NOT that simple..." or similar...

 

[Mick West]

maybe the book should also mention that building that collapsed in {i forget where..iraq? }, that shopping mall building. That building had total collapse and may be easier for novices to wrap their heads around. as far as how floors can handle only a certain amount of weight.

Here (attached) is a chapter-sized paper on the Plasco building, written by Iranian experts. It's not exactly layman language, but it is reasonably understandable to anyone with a basic science background, and certainly to anyone who's done any digging into the WTC collapses.

This collapse was smaller, simpler, and more visible than the WTC collapses, but it's a great one to look at because AE911Truth was forced to say it was probably caused by nanothermite - as it contained so many of the type of "evidence" they used in the WTC.

@Thomas B, is this the type of thing you were looking for with the WTC?

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

@econ41.... I like the approach/outline of your concept for the book.

I would suggest that since it may not be possible to have actual video (in a book) aside from a link... or a companion CD.... you should consider simple diagrams / cartoons to demonstrate the OBSERVED movements... not easy, but as Confucius says... picture worth a thousand words.

Graphic/cartoons can be used to illustrate what heat does to steel, concrete, liquids and of course combustible materials.

Also important would be (my opinion) to explain why 1wtc and 2wtc identify differences and had similarities... that is to say.... why did the off center strike of the plane into 2wtc cause tipping and why didn't it tip right over?

How is the different length of time to collapse explained? Were the fires more or less the same scope in each tower?

give it a go!

 

[econ41]

I'm wary of opening a can of worms, but could those three hours of firefighting have saved WTC7? Did they know three hours in advance that the building was going to come down? And all they had to do was prevent the steel from getting too hot? They considered that a wise decision?

I imagine firefighters risk their lives to save "property" (homes and art and documents) all the time.

There are at least three fundamental issues involved:
1) First firefighting incident commanders always face the need to decide what they can or cannot save. Most dramatically examples in bushfire scenarios - as demonstrated in last years "Black Summer" fires across Australia and the technically similar fires which occur annually on the US West Coast. (AU and US regularly assist each other nd maintain close relations on the methods.) Hundreds of homes lost - simply because not enough resources to fight the fires. And the on the spot Emergency Commander has to make the decision as to where to draw the line. WTC 7 was the urban analogous situation.

2) Second - the specific NYC 9/11 situation - limited resources. No available water to fight the fires in WTC7 AND massive human resouirce lsses already incurred.

THEN
3) Safety. Sure "risk their lives" is good for PR and fire fighting is inherently risky. More risky tham many other activities. But safety remains #1 priority. Tho' the terminology gets misinterpreted in discusion WTC7 was "fully involved" in fire. Which means unsafe for fire fighters to gain entry. (NOT "fully engulfed" which means what it says.)

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

There are at least three fundamental issues involved:
1) First firefighting incident commanders always face the need to decide what they can or cannot save. Most dramatically examples in bushfire scenarios - as demonstrated in last years "Black Summer" fires across Australia and the technically similar fires which occur annually on the US West Coast. (AU and US regularly assist each other nd maintain close relations on the methods.) Hundreds of homes lost - simply because not enough resources to fight the fires. And the on the spot Emergency Commander has to make the decision as to where to draw the line. WTC 7 was the urban analogous situation.

2) Second - the specific NYC 9/11 situation - limited resources. No available water to fight the fires in WTC7 AND massive human resouirce lsses already incurred.

THEN
3) Safety. Sure "risk their lives" is good for PR and fire fighting is inherently risky. More risky tham many other activities. But safety remains #1 priority. Tho' the terminology gets misinterpreted in discusion WTC7 was "fully involved" in fire. Which means unsafe for fire fighters to gain entry. (NOT "fully engulfed" which means what it says.)

I don't recall and sort of report from FDNY documenting the location / boundaries/floors/ "intensity" of the fires. That certainly would be helpful when deciding or confirming where the critical failures were.
The drop of the EPH was the first tell of which column(s) fell / failed first.
With no lives left to save it made no sense to put FDNY personnel inside and around the building with a fire they could not fight.
I believe once they confirmed the building had "warped" the call came to remove all FDNY personnel.

 

[Thomas B]

@Thomas B, is this the type of thing you were looking for with the WTC?

Not really. It's a scientific paper / technical report. It would probably be mentioned in the book I'm thinking of.

 

[Mick West]

Not really. It's a scientific paper / technical report. It would probably be mentioned in the book I'm thinking of.

I'm surprised you didn't think it fulfilled anything of what you said you were looking for. What's the problem? Where did it start to lose you?

 

[Thomas B]

I believe once they confirmed the building had "warped" the call came to remove all FDNY personnel.

What I'm curious about is what the FDNY thought was going to happen after they "abandoned" the building. Especially since the building was warping. Presumably there was some discussion: Did the conversation go like this:

"If we don't put out these fires, the whole building is going to come down!"
"There's no way we're going to get it out, so it's going to come down."
"What about the buildings / people around it?"
"Oh, don't worry, it'll come more or less straight down."

That doesn't seem likely. They can't have known how catastrophic their decision not to fight the fire was. It's hard to imagine them knowingly letting a 47 story building totally collapse in the middle of a city, even under the exceptional circumstances of 9/11.

As always, I could be wrong and they were exactly that conscious about it all. Whatever their thinking, it would be great stuff for the book, and it would also clarify the physics. After all, it's their engineering intuitions that would have guided their expectations about how the building would behave with uncontrolled fires in the hours after they pulled out the crews.

 

[Thomas B]

What's the problem?

You said it at the beginning: it's not written for laypeople. It's probably correct and, yes, I'm sure I could make sense of it if I tried. But it's not the sort of thing I was talking about in the OP.

 

[Mick West]

"If we don't put out these fires, the whole building is going to come down!"
"There's no way we're going to get it out, so it's going to come down."
"What about the buildings / people around it?"
"Oh, don't worry, it'll come more or less straight down."

That doesn't seem likely. They can't have known how catastrophic their decision not to fight the fire was. It's hard to imagine them knowingly letting a 47 story building totally collapse in the middle of a city, even under the exceptional circumstances of 9/11.

You expect them to give their lives to save a building? That's not how it works.

If a building is going to collapse, and nobody is going to die, and they only have a 50/50 chance of scores of firefighters getting out alive then they will let it collapse.

 

[Mick West]

You said it at the beginning: it's not written for laypeople. It's probably correct and, yes, I'm sure I could make sense of it if I tried. But it's not the sort of thing I was talking about in the OP.

So it lost you instantly? Did you even read the first couple of sections?

 

[Thomas B]

...then they will let it collapse.

Yes, that's what I was saying. I expect they sometimes work out the risks in favor of the building and sometimes "abandon" it to the fire. But "letting" a building collapse implies understanding that (and how) it might. I'm just wondering how conscious they were of the different failure scenarios in this case, and whether the total collapse ultimately surprised them, and caused them to think, "Maybe we should have tried harder." I'm not saying they should have done anything. I'm wondering about the details of what they did, and what they thought they were doing (and "letting" happen). Also, how they processed what then did happen as a result of their decision not to fight the fire. All stuff for the book.

 

[Thomas B]

So it lost you instantly? Did you even read the first couple of sections?

No, I recognized it instantly as a scientific paper (in a scientific journal), i.e., as something different from the "popular" account I think is missing in the case of WTC.

 

[econ41]

Not really. It's a scientific paper / technical report. It would probably be mentioned in the book I'm thinking of.

Exactly. It is both a specific example of a collapse which is NOT WTC on 9/11 and it is about a grade more "serious" level of explanatory style - at least half a grade too high for your lay person audience. So it misses your target in both topic and level of writing.

It would probably follow NIST and Bazant's papers et simile as exmples of more professional explanations AFTER the "book" had set the basic scenario at lay person popular level. And - equally important - the book cannot rely on NIST or other "experts" as AUTHORITATIVE if the "book" is to be acceptable to those who form the target audience.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

What I'm curious about is what the FDNY thought was going to happen after they "abandoned" the building. Especially since the building was warping. Presumably there was some discussion: Did the conversation go like this:

"If we don't put out these fires, the whole building is going to come down!"
"There's no way we're going to get it out, so it's going to come down."
"What about the buildings / people around it?"
"Oh, don't worry, it'll come more or less straight down."

That doesn't seem likely. They can't have known how catastrophic their decision not to fight the fire was. It's hard to imagine them knowingly letting a 47 story building totally collapse in the middle of a city, even under the exceptional circumstances of 9/11.

As always, I could be wrong and they were exactly that conscious about it all. Whatever their thinking, it would be great stuff for the book, and it would also clarify the physics. After all, it's their engineering intuitions that would have guided their expectations about how the building would behave with uncontrolled fires in the hours after they pulled out the crews.

I suspect the transit survey was undertaken to see if the frame was being effected by the fires. They did not expect the steel to burn, but they do know that it does expand and does lose strength. A warped building is a sign the steel was out of spec. That was all they needed to know that it may collapse... and likely would.... if they noted a trend.

++++

If this was a "building movement" of concern... I don't know how this general warping "squares" with the col 79 explanation except that the beams and girders were believed to have expanded in length, cause the girder to move off the seat, the floor sections collapsed leaving column 79 without lateral support which then buckled from Euler forces.

What did they observe? (I don't recall)... was it starting to lean? Or bulge? Lean would imply sinking of columns or shortening (pre buckling?) Bulge would imply beam expansion pushing at the moment frame. Either would be very concerning. FDNY is familiar with damaged buildings with non performing to spec frames showing deformation. They are usually condemned and occupancy forbidden.

Here is a technical paper published in 2004 which discusses this issue.

https://global.ctbuh.org/resources/...ion-analyses-of-high-rise-steel-buildings.pdf

Note that "expansion" joints are incorporated into structure for the expected normal range of temperatures. Unfought extensive fires are out of spec and so excessive "expansion" would be expected. But what would actually happen and how much expansion would it cause the structure to go "fatal" and cause failures? It seems to have occurred on 9/11.

 

[benthamitemetric]

What I'm curious about is what the FDNY thought was going to happen after they "abandoned" the building. Especially since the building was warping. Presumably there was some discussion: Did the conversation go like this:

"If we don't put out these fires, the whole building is going to come down!"
"There's no way we're going to get it out, so it's going to come down."
"What about the buildings / people around it?"
"Oh, don't worry, it'll come more or less straight down."

That doesn't seem likely. They can't have known how catastrophic their decision not to fight the fire was. It's hard to imagine them knowingly letting a 47 story building totally collapse in the middle of a city, even under the exceptional circumstances of 9/11.

As always, I could be wrong and they were exactly that conscious about it all. Whatever their thinking, it would be great stuff for the book, and it would also clarify the physics. After all, it's their engineering intuitions that would have guided their expectations about how the building would behave with uncontrolled fires in the hours after they pulled out the crews.

There are several descriptions of this exact chain of events from different people who were directly involved in them in books I cited in the second post of this thread. Why don't you start there? Those books are all written for lay audiences. The NYTimes also has an extensive archive of interviews with people who were present at the world trade center complex during and after the attacks. You could figure all of this out for yourself very easily.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

There are several descriptions of this exact chain of events from different people who were directly involved in them in books I cited in the second post of this thread. Why don't you start there? Those books are all written for lay audiences. The NYTimes also has an extensive archive of interviews with people who were present at the world trade center complex during and after the attacks. You could figure all of this out for yourself very easily.

@Thomas B does not want to be a researchers googling and chasing after all manner of materials produced about the WTC. He is looking for a readable book aimed at non engineers which explains what happened.

Did you not understand what he started this thread for?

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

@Thomas B does not want to be a researchers googling and chasing after all manner of materials produced about the WTC. He is look for a readable book aimed at non engineers which explains what happened.

Did you not understand what he started this thread for?

What I have written about in this thread which strays from the OP was that... there is NO consensus.... despite their being "authorities" who have written on the topic. My posts tried to show WHY this is the case.

But not knowing PRECISELY is OK. All sensible explanation have to:
explain all observed movement of building parts
acknowledge observed smoke and fires
use settled mechanics, physics, fire and material science, engineering
refer to the specific structural systems, design and features of the buildings
use assumptions of the "energy" inputs as this data was not available
make assumptions as to the magnitude, location, duration and time of fires

Conclusion is that there are likely more than one way to skin the cat.

Corollary: Any "book" would have to explore all reasonable possible explanations and even discuss and discard one that are unreasonable.

 

[Mick West]

No, I recognized it instantly as a scientific paper (in a scientific journal), i.e., as something different from the "popular" account I think is missing in the case of WTC.

Try for 20 minutes pretending it's a coffee-table book and just read it. How far do you get, and why do you stop?

 

[benthamitemetric]

@Thomas B does not want to be a researchers googling and chasing after all manner of materials produced about the WTC. He is look for a readable book aimed at non engineers which explains what happened.

Did you not understand what he started this thread for?

This thread seems to a bit of something for everyone.

For you, it seems to be a platform for airing your various theories about the order of the collapses.

For Thomas, it's actually not clear what it is for, given that we established in the first page that there is no book that exists that covers all of his criteria. All he's doing now is idly speculating about things he could easily learn. Just because the information that he could easily learn isn't in his preferred format, doesn't mean it still isn't out there and easy to learn, including from sources already provided to him. So what's the point of speculating about it? I highly suspect that Thomas is just trolling Metabunk at this point.

To me, it seems like an unproductive open discussion where Thomas trolls the forum or, at best, idly speculates about things he could easily learn via the resources to which he has already been pointed while you take every opportunity to post your own speculations. And no one learns anything. Every now and then it seems worth pointing out that many of Thomas's speculations could be easily resolved.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

This thread seems to a bit of something for everyone.

For you, it seems to be a platform for airing your various theories about the order of the collapses.

For Thomas, it's actually not clear what it is for, given that we established in the first page that there is no book that exists that covers all of his criteria. All he's doing now is idly speculating about things he could easily learn. Just because the information that he could easily learn isn't in his preferred format, doesn't mean it still isn't out there and easy to learn, including from sources already provided to him. So what's the point of speculating about it? I highly suspect that Thomas is just trolling Metabunk at this point.

To me, it seems like an unproductive open discussion where Thomas trolls the forum or, at best, idly speculates about things he could easily learn via the resources to which he has already been pointed while you take every opportunity to post your own speculations. And no one learns anything. Every now and then it seems worth pointing out that many of Thomas's speculations could be easily resolved.

yes and no.
I have discussed my ideas about where the collapses initiated and the problems I have with the conventional wisdom on this and other web sites. I have learned almost everything I know about 9/11 from online reading, forums, videos and links to articles and so forth.
Most people are no longer interested in the mechanics of the collapses because it has been demonstrated that fire can destroy a steel frame (its components) when fire protection and fighting fails.

The progression and initiation has always been an "intellectual" puzzle to me like how to get from NY to SF. There are many routes which take you there.

Some people enjoy this puzzle others find it a waste of time.

 

[benthamitemetric]

yes and no.
I have discussed my ideas about where the collapses initiated and the problems I have with the conventional wisdom on this and other web sites. I have learned almost everything I know about 9/11 from online reading, forums, videos and links to articles and so forth.
Most people are no longer interested in the mechanics of the collapses because it has been demonstrated that fire can destroy a steel frame (its components) when fire protection and fighting fails.

The progression and initiation has always been an "intellectual" puzzle to me like how to get from NY to SF. There are many routes which take you there.

Some people enjoy this puzzle others find it a waste of time.

Right. I get your motivations. But, on some level, you must realize that you are just using this thread for your own purposes based on those motivations and that your posts are not getting Thomas any closer to finding that book that doesn't exist, right? So it's a bit silly for you to chastise me for not sticking closely to a topic to which neither you nor he are sticking. Every now and then it is worth tethering some of the speculations in this thread back to reality.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

YES like everyone.... I "use" the forums for my own stated purpose... for me learning and educating.
I tried to address Thomas topic by:
a)suggestion a few authors who might write his book if motivated to
b) mentioned an engineer who researched, participated in the conventional knowledge of the wtc collapses who writes and lectures about structure etc
c) explain by "rambling narrative" why there is no consensus about EXACTLY what happened.

Item C might be considered OT... but mere assertion is a hard pill to swallow.

 

[deirdre]

. He is look for a readable book aimed at non engineers which explains what happened.

in fairness he also mentioned science papers for engineering students that would be somewhat technical. Personally i think the Plasco paper Mick linked is good. I understand it for the most part. some areas i had to pause and and look at the diagrams etc, reread a paragraph once or twice.. but i have to often do that in "popular" science articles as well.

Its kinda a pain to not have the diagrams right next to the text (but they did have hyperlinks to make life easier), but as the layman target audience I admit that breaking the text up too much to add constant diagrams and photos would make the reading even harder.

The parts of Thomas book that address the actual collapse initiation and progression, I think would have to be at least that technical. Any laymen willing to dish out 20$ for a book on collapses would expect to have to expend some energy to understand it.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

in fairness he also mentioned science papers for engineering students that would be somewhat technical. Personally i think the Plasco paper Mick linked is good. I understand it for the most part. some areas i had to pause and and look at the diagrams etc, reread a paragraph once or twice.. but i have to often do that in "popular" science articles as well.

Its kinda a pain to not have the diagrams right next to the text (but they did have hyperlinks to make life easier), but as the layman target audience I admit that breaking the text up too much to add constant diagrams and photos would make the reading even harder.

The parts of Thomas book that address the actual collapse initiation and progression, I think would have to be at least that technical. Any laymen willing to dish out 20$ for a book on collapses would expect to have to expend some energy to understand it.

Your post raises some ideas about how information is communicated. I happen to be a "visual" thinker. It helps if you're an architect of similar. So for me the go to way to say something is a visual or graphic. Gifs are even better when time / change is important. And it IS in a progressive collapse.

A comic book tells a story with stills... a cartoon movie is even better... perhaps because less is left to the reader's imaginagination.

My "research" "thinking" and output was "graphics" with only some narrative. Here are some examples:

in fairness he also mentioned science papers for engineering students that would be somewhat technical. Personally i think the Plasco paper Mick linked is good. I understand it for the most part. some areas i had to pause and and look at the diagrams etc, reread a paragraph once or twice.. but i have to often do that in "popular" science articles as well.

Its kinda a pain to not have the diagrams right next to the text (but they did have hyperlinks to make life easier), but as the layman target audience I admit that breaking the text up too much to add constant diagrams and photos would make the reading even harder.

The parts of Thomas book that address the actual collapse initiation and progression, I think would have to be at least that technical. Any laymen willing to dish out 20$ for a book on collapses would expect to have to expend some energy to understand it.

 

[deirdre]

A comic book tells a story with stills... a cartoon movie is even better...

yea i was thinking an ebook would be the best because you could click a link that would bring you to a gif or short video. I do find hard copies easier for me (no idea why) with more intense subject matter. maybe because its easier to flip back and forth between the diagrams and the text without losing my place.

But every hard book copy should come with a free ebook version so we can access the gifs easily. (nobody is going to spend the time typing in http addresses... unless you have a single link like www.thomasbook.com and you can have that open while reading the hard copy book. (like those childrens books that come with the tapes, so you can hear the story as you read the story.)

I think laymen need gifs and video for sure.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

Paper books as lovely as they are and the standard for professional publishing are old school and not the best for this goal. A paper book with a companion CD is a perfect way to do this. My very young grand daughters are complete at home with any phone, tablet, lap top or PC. Young people are brought up on screens.... it's hard to tear them away from their screens!
The book can be a compilation / a group effort... which is not unseen in publishing where different authors do different chapters concerning a core subject.
Even the content/chapters can be a crowd sourced product where the "editor" assembles summaries and then commissions the chapters and their sequence and perhaps write the introduction and an epilogue is there is one.

 

[Thomas B]

on some level you must realize that ... your posts are not getting Thomas any closer to finding that book that doesn't exist, right?

I'm not sure about that.

From my point of view, all 347 posts in this thread became worth it (for the nth time) when @Jeffrey Orling mentioned Guy Nordenson.

 

[benthamitemetric]

I'm not sure about that.

I am. You could have discovered Guy Nordenson if you took 5 minutes to follow my links to the Aegis Insurance litigation expert reports, which I provided in the second post of this thread.