Would the WTC Twin Towers have collapsed from fire alone, without plane impact?

Nearly 15 years of online debate. And I had to start from zero base - I saw the Twin Towers collapses on TV news on the day - the callous military engineer in me stored it away as a novel method of demolishing a tower. It was 2007 before I even heard of the Conspiracy Theories about CD. Then a colleague asked for my professional opinion about the CD of WTC. And I laughed before I realised he was serious. My first meeting with a 9/11 CT tho I had prior experience dealing with the CT mindset in the context of environmental and public health scenarios.

It took me about 4 years overall - part-time on-line discussion - before I was 95% confident about the Twin Towers. About 2011-12 tho I've refined some of my explanations given multiple opportunities to explain over ensuing years.

So most of this is recycling as far as the real topic of WTC is involved. And I have no interest in chasing the false analogies and text book engineering issues being paraded as derails.

I totally respect that. But at least you could help out in pointing out the relevant threads for each "derail analogy" or "piece of evidence" if/when they come up in the event they've been discussed at length before.
 
I"m tempted to read this thread through, list the "seperate thread" issues raised - most of whach have my offer to discuss and explain. I prefer to NOT follow off topic derails or evasions.

It may turn out to be as "easy" a task as the identification of every piece of WTC 7 steel at the giant WTC scrapyard.
 
It may turn out to be as "easy" a task as the identification of every piece of WTC 7 steel at the giant WTC scrapyard.
If we take care with their taxonomic relationship - probably no more than half a dozen. So much confusion results from taking "bits" out of context. >> I'll leave it there before I go into a meta-process "rant" about argument structures.
 
Sorry, I hadn't been following your debate with @Henkka in detail (I just liked those questions). I had to search to find it, but, yes, this is good:

This is where a load path diagram would really useful. Those chords seem awfully critical. More critical than I would have thought any engineer would have made them. But I guess it's possible. It's not obvious to me, anyway.
The truss bottom flanges were double angles sandwiching the diagonal web bars. Of course the bottom chord is critical to performance of a beam (truss). You have no beam action without a bottom chord.
 
In that case please start another thread and demonstrate what part of "Steel samples were removed from the site before the NIST investigation began. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, debris was removed rapidly from the site to aid in recovery efforts and to facilitate emergency responders' efforts to work around the site. Once it was removed from the scene, the steel from WTC 7 could not be clearly identified.... The steel for WTC 1 and WTC 2 contained distinguishing characteristics that enabled it to be identified once removed from the site during recovery efforts. However, the same was not true for the WTC 7 steel." is a big sinister lie?

You think investigators should hamper rescue efforts and risk more lives being lost?

And please also demonstrate how the NIST models based on the rest of the more than sufficient body of evidence is unfounded? But on another thread, please!
I never said any part of it was a "sinister lie"... I'm saying that an investigation on such a historically anomalous collapse including no physical evidence is absurd, and makes their results sketchy at best. If all the evidence was destroyed before the NIST investigation got started, that's not even NIST's fault. It would be the fault of whoever was responsible for removing the steel in such an unorganized way. It's basically like a detective collecting evidence from a crime scene, but doing it in such an unorganized and jumbled manner, that he later can't remember which piece of evidence was from where on the scene exactly. This would render all that evidence inadmissible in court, and the detective should be fired. But even if almost all WTC 7 steel was rendered unidentifiable by the removal process, we know for a fact that there was a steel sample, as per the FEMA report. As for why NIST didn't ask to look at this sample, I can't say. It is unfortunate though, as FEMA calls for a "detailed study" into the samples in the last page of the report. Afaik, no such "detailed study" has ever been done by anyone.
 
I totally respect that. But at least you could help out in pointing out the relevant threads for each "derail analogy" or "piece of evidence" if/when they come up in the event they've been discussed at length before.
Ooops. Missed that. A good idea and I never thought of it.

I have another bit of a problem - being in Time Zone Kilo -UTC +10 (Eastern Australia) I miss the spurts of US-centered activity.
 
I'm tempted to read this thread through, list the "separate thread" issues raised - most of which have my offer to discuss and explain. I prefer to NOT follow off-topic derails or evasions. And IMNSHO the actual OP question was answered as fully as we can expect within the first few posts. (8 I think!!)
I did actually do a quick read of this thread from the beginning just now. While it's safe to say the original topic is kind of dead as nobody has talked about it for like 10+ pages, I do think there were some interesting points and discussions... Probably the most interesting was the idea of using explosives to replicate the damage the plane and fires did, and make the building collapse that way. Oystein's suggestion that 75 pounds of explosives could collapse the towers was particularly eye-popping for me.
 
I never said any part of it was a "sinister lie"... I'm saying that an investigation on such a historically anomalous collapse including no physical evidence is absurd, and makes their results sketchy at best. If all the evidence was destroyed before the NIST investigation got started, that's not even NIST's fault. It would be the fault of whoever was responsible for removing the steel in such an unorganized way. It's basically like a detective collecting evidence from a crime scene, but doing it in such an unorganized and jumbled manner, that he later can't remember which piece of evidence was from where on the scene exactly. This would render all that evidence inadmissible in court, and the detective should be fired. But even if almost all WTC 7 steel was rendered unidentifiable by the removal process, we know for a fact that there was a steel sample, as per the FEMA report. As for why NIST didn't ask to look at this sample, I can't say. It is unfortunate though, as FEMA calls for a "detailed study" into the samples in the last page of the report. Afaik, no such "detailed study" has ever been done by anyone.
The building collapse explanations were done with minimal hard evidence. But they were done with consideration to the structural designs, (and performance traits of structural materials) and settled (fire/material) science of how building systems/materials/assemblies perform under stress.
In fact an engineer DO model outcomes for various "stress" conditions to the structure... using engineering formulae. They "model" a structure when they design it for normal conditions.... And these designs all include "factors of safety" of residual strength. It is settled engineering that a high rise concrete slab floor could only carry 3 or 4 (whatever the actual load).... and if the floor sees more than this it will fail.
Axial load redistribution through horizontal elements is well understood. When a column fails its load is redistributed to other axial members... which of course have residual capacity. However when / if the load exceeds residual capacity... that column will fail... its loads are redistributed and the structure is left with less capacity but the same loads. No mystery about this process.
The core (axial structures) were subject to a process of weakening caused by excessive (out of spec heat condition). The degradation of axial strength was likely related to loss of bracing.... minor lateral displacement of end condition leading to buckling... Over time the load was being supported by fewer and fewer columns.. and eventually too few with too little capacity. This was the moment of core failure. (twin towers)
7WTC's failure progress laterally vial lateral structures (trusses) girders undermining the floor system. The floor collapsed inside the shell and the collapse debris undermined the shell which collapsed like a hollow tube.
 
I do think there were some interesting points and discussions...
But nobody including you and @Thomas B is sufficiently interested to OP a thread. I OPed this one to allow focussed on-topic discussion and you derailed it onto "magic" and "imagination" within the first few posts.
Probably the most interesting was the idea of using explosives to replicate the damage the plane and fires did, and make the building collapse that way.
I don't think that was proposed by anyone. What Post number? How do you use explosives to replicate a cascading failure of columns driven by heating and load redistribution? "Heating" has an analogue effect. "Explosives" are binary.
Oystein's suggestion that 75 pounds of explosives could collapse the towers was particularly eye-popping for me.
But whether true or not it has no relevance to the actual collapses. Nuclear Explosives or Energy Beams from space should also be "eye-popping" But some of us prefer reasoned discussion of what did happen free of all the bad analogies and off-topic evasive derailing.
 
I never said any part of it was a "sinister lie"... I'm saying that an investigation on such a historically anomalous collapse including no physical evidence is absurd, and makes their results sketchy at best.

Not if there are:

(1) Very valid reasons for the great difficulty to (a) initially access the WTC 7 steel for investigation in the midst of rescue efforts and later to (b) identify it at the giant scrapyard with the exception of the large, evidently impacted or heat-damaged WTC Twin Tower pieces which were the priority samples to analyze;

(2) Numerous other reliable records (evidence) to validate the hypothesis;

(3) Agreements on every side of the argument that the temperatures didn't reach so high as to majorly weaken the steel in order for the collapse to occur -- and for the WTC 7 steel beam physical examination, by extension, to be crucially relevant to validate the overall hypothesis.

That you do not find the NIST explanations plausible looks, to me (no disrespect intended), like an arrogant presumption of having (a) more insight, (b) more integrity and/or (c) more scientific competence than the NIST granting you the credibility (in your own mind) to denounce their explanations as inadequate, suspect and/or incompetent. Maybe you do. But we've yet to see it. Those of us who try to be neutral observers (while not experts) and have to study both the NIST's word and compare it to yours (or that of other CTers we've read), the NIST's accounts remain far more convincing on the first and third counts, and at least equal to yours on the second (hard to tell as an outsider who has less integrity, you or NIST, but I've seen no reasons to seriously doubt either). Despite the fact that they're far from perfect as repeatedly pointed out by @econ41.

If all the evidence was destroyed before the NIST investigation got started, that's not even NIST's fault. It would be the fault of whoever was responsible for removing the steel in such an unorganized way.

The immediate aftermath of the collapses was an emergency relief situation where a lot of the large pieces of debris had to be quickly removed out of the way to douse fires as well as for the first responders to gain access to the scene in order to save the lives of potentially trapped people. That's the right and responsible thing to do and there's nothing even remotely suspect about it. Human lives come first. Science and investigations come later. Except in the mind of a conspiracy theorist or a well-meaning autistic observer obsessed with 'things' whilst blind to the 'human' aspect of the whole 9/11 equation.

Granted, oftenimes CTers seem like a hybrid of the two, but on balance, many debunkers are also seemingly on the spectrum which would account for their geeky knack for going very deep and very technical within a very narrow scope of inquiry whilst not always seeing the forest from the trees.

But even if almost all WTC 7 steel was rendered unidentifiable by the removal process, we know for a fact that there was a steel sample, as per the FEMA report. As for why NIST didn't ask to look at this sample, I can't say. It is unfortunate though, as FEMA calls for a "detailed study" into the samples in the last page of the report. Afaik, no such "detailed study" has ever been done by anyone.

I already responded to this argument earlier. No need to repeat it in roughly the same way (while ignoring my response) and continue to derail the thread.
 
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But whether true or not it has no relevance to the actual collapses. Nuclear Explosives or Energy Beams from space should also be "eye-popping" But some of us prefer reasoned discussion of what did happen free of all the bad analogies and off-topic evasive derailing.
They would be eye-popping for completely different reasons, though. I can understand that a nuclear bomb in the basement would conceivably make the building collapse. What was eye-popping to me about the 75 pounds thing, is how these massive towers could be felled by such a tiny amount of explosives.
 
I never said any part of it was a "sinister lie"... I'm saying that an investigation on such a historically anomalous collapse including no physical evidence is absurd, and makes their results sketchy at best.

You're implying it's all a "sinister lie". Read your quote below, especially the parts I highlighted in red. What else are people supposed to think
Well, my overall goal in creating an account here was just to discuss the WTC collapses. Obviously I'm coming from a point of view where I'm pretty skeptical of the official explanations. It's a rabbit hole I started going down maybe like a year ago, and I found the arguments made by people like David Chandler pretty persuasive. I've gotten into discussion about this before with people on Reddit, but the problem there is that whoever I got into an argument with was usually not that informed about the topic. It felt like people would just type "wtc conspiracy debunked" into Google and copy whatever they found back at me. So I thought creating an account here would be interesting, to see what people would say about some stuff I had been thinking about, like the topic of this thread of how high the plane could've hit and still caused a total collapse. The consensus here seems to be yes, the plane could have hit even higher, with the minimum to cause a total collapse being six floors. Like I'm sorry, but I find that pretty unbelievable... That such a thin slice of the building could reduce the 100+ floors below into a pile of rubble. Combined with other anomalies like the unprecedented collapse of WTC 7, I still find the entirety of the 9/11 event to be suspicious in the extreme. I do agree though that some of these conversations are just going around in circles.

The evidence for explosives/thermite is almost nonexistent, but you prefer to believe that over fire and/or plane impacts? Mostly because your eye test of the collapses looks like controlled demolition?

You keep getting people's answers to the OP, but continue to not believe them because you believe some part of their argument contradicts their answer. Or you think there's some hidden meaning. That's why this thread keeps derailing into other topics.
 
There are so many good reasons to accept the "official" explanation of heat causing the initial structural failure(s). That lead to a collapse of floors which developed into the unstoppable pancake collapse seen in all three towers. Columns lost lateral support and could not stand without the floor braving them.

The "evidence" for CD is not there.
 
The evidence for explosives/thermite is almost nonexistent
Well, that might have something to do with the fact that they didn't even look:
29. Did the NIST investigation look for evidence of the WTC towers being brought down by controlled demolition? Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues?

NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.


The responses to previous questions demonstrate why NIST concluded that there were no explosives or controlled demolition involved in the collapses of the WTC towers.

As for thermite (a mixture of powdered or granular aluminum metal and powdered iron oxide that burns at extremely high temperatures when ignited), it burns slowly relative to explosive materials and would require several minutes in contact with a massive steel section to heat it to a temperature that would result in substantial weakening. Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially). Therefore, while a thermite reaction can cut through large steel columns, many thousands of pounds of thermite would need to have been placed inconspicuously ahead of time, remotely ignited, and somehow held in direct contact with the surface of hundreds of massive structural components to weaken the building. This makes it an unlikely substance for achieving a controlled demolition.

Analysis of the WTC steel for the elements in thermite/thermate would not necessarily have been conclusive. The metal compounds also would have been present in the construction materials making up the WTC towers, and sulfur is present in the gypsum wallboard that was prevalent in the interior partitions.
21. Why didn't the investigators look at actual steel samples from WTC 7?

Steel samples were removed from the site before the NIST investigation began. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, debris was removed rapidly from the site to aid in recovery efforts and to facilitate emergency responders' efforts to work around the site. Once it was removed from the scene, the steel from WTC 7 could not be clearly identified. Unlike the pieces of steel from WTC 1 and WTC 2, which were painted red and contained distinguishing markings, WTC 7 steel did not contain such identifying characteristics.

By the way, they don't say it explicitly, but I believe the last part of the answer to question #29 is the only reference NIST makes to the steel samples examined in FEMA Appendix C. Basically, the entire mystery with those samples is where the sulfur in them came from, which caused the steel to erode. The idea that it might've been from gypsum wallboard was suggested in a BBC documentary, but of course, literally nobody has ever done an experiment where they replicated this effect of gypsum wallboard turning steel into Swiss cheese.
 
I think we should boycott WTC7 as well. At this point I am going to restart discussion of the actual topic where we left off.



Why do you think the question of whether thebtube could stand in it's own is important?
@Thomas B can no longer answer in this thread.
I have another bit of a problem - being in Time Zone Kilo -UTC +10 (Eastern Australia) I miss the spurts of US-centered activity
That's a boon, not a problem.
Probably the most interesting was the idea of using explosives to replicate the damage the plane and fires did, and make the building collapse that way. Oystein's suggestion that 75 pounds of explosives could collapse the towers was particularly eye-popping for me.
We were very clear that the 75 pounds would not "replicate the damage",
and that it would have been impossible to place it undetected in the many locations it would be needed.
 
We were very clear that the 75 pounds would not "replicate the damage",
Well, okay, but it would collapse the tower. This is how Oystein put it:
So absolutely YES, it absolutely DOES make sense to me that 75 pounds of explosives, smartly placed, suffice to make such a tower collapse.
One wonders if designers like Skilling realized how critical those trusses were. Similarly, one could wonder if the designer of WTC 7 realized that the entire building could be destroyed if a terrorist blew up column 79.
 
Well, that might have something to do with the fact that they didn't even look:
Why would they? We all saw planes and/or fires. All causing structural damage. YOU find it suspicious that they didn't look for explosives because you think the collapses looked similar to demolition and then being spurred on by people who think the same way.

By the way, they don't say it explicitly, but I believe the last part of the answer to question #29 is the only reference NIST makes to the steel samples examined in FEMA Appendix C. Basically, the entire mystery with those samples is where the sulfur in them came from, which caused the steel to erode. The idea that it might've been from gypsum wallboard was suggested in a BBC documentary, but of course, literally nobody has ever done an experiment where they replicated this effect of gypsum wallboard turning steel into Swiss cheese.
So what? It still doesn't prove or add even legitimacy to the buildings being demolished with explosives/thermite. The lack of (according to you) tests or calculations for proving that fire/plane impacts caused the collapses, doesn't make a case or prove demolition of some sort.

It hard to answer questions similar to the OP when you don't try and understand or learn what people are telling you. As I said, people have answered the OP, but you want to spin off on some irrelevant tangent based on some obscure interpretation cherry picked from their post. This thread will never come to any semblance of a conclusion because of all the reasons I just stated.
 
Why would they? We all saw planes and/or fires. All causing structural damage. YOU find it suspicious that they didn't look for explosives because you think the collapses looked similar to demolition and then being spurred on by people who think the same way.
It is pretty strange to not look for explosive residues after a terrorist attack on a building that has been bombed before, yes. "Explosives" doesn't even immediately imply some sort of highly technically advanced demolition of the building. It could just be that Al-Qaeda also snuck car bombs into the basement, like it was done in 1993. That could explain why so many people thought they witnessed an explosion. But no, better not check at all.
 
One wonders if designers like Skilling realized how critical those trusses were. Similarly, one could wonder if the designer of WTC 7 realized that the entire building could be destroyed if a terrorist blew up column 79.
Who exactly wonders this? I only know of truthers who think like this.

How would an engineer come to know this? Can you explain?
 
Well, that might have something to do with the fact that they didn't even look:

Partial excerpt from NIST that you quote:
The responses to previous questions demonstrate why NIST concluded that there were no explosives or controlled demolition involved in the collapses of the WTC towers.

Why did you not include any answers from these "previous questions"? Such as:
28. Why didn't NIST consider a "controlled demolition" hypothesis with matching computer modeling and explanation like it did for the "pancake theory" hypothesis?
NIST conducted an extremely thorough three-year investigation that included consideration of a number of hypotheses for the collapses of the WTC towers.

Some 200 technical experts—including about 85 career NIST experts and 125 leading experts from the private sector and academia—reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1,000 people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, performed laboratory tests, and created sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they began to collapse.

Based on its comprehensive investigation, NIST concluded that the WTC towers collapsed according to the scenario detailed in the response to Question 11.

NIST's findings do not support the "pancake theory" of collapse, which is premised on a progressive failure of the floor systems in the WTC towers (the composite floor system—that connected the core columns and the perimeter columns—consisted of a grid of steel "trusses" integrated with a concrete slab; see diagram). Instead, the NIST investigation showed conclusively that the failure of the inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse and that the occurrence of this inward bowing required the sagging floors to remain connected to the columns and pull the columns inwards. Thus, the floors did not fail progressively to cause a pancaking phenomenon.


Diagram of the Composite WTC Floor System
NIST's findings also do not support the "controlled demolition" theory since there is conclusive evidence that:

  • the collapse was initiated in the impact and fire floors of the WTC towers and nowhere else, and;
  • the time it took for the collapse to initiate (56 minutes for WTC 2 and 102 minutes for WTC 1) was dictated by (1) the extent of damage caused by the aircraft impact, and (2) the time it took for the fires to reach critical locations and weaken the structure to the point that the towers could not resist the tremendous energy released by the downward movement of the massive top section of the building at and above the fire and impact floors.
Video evidence also showed unambiguously that the collapse progressed from the top to the bottom, and there was no evidence (collected by NIST or by the New York City Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department, or the Fire Department of New York) of any blast or explosions in the region below the impact and fire floors as the top building sections (including and above the 98th floor in WTC 1 and the 82nd floor in WTC 2) began their downward movement upon collapse initiation.

In summary, NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives. NIST also did not find any evidence that missiles were fired at or hit the towers. Instead, photographs and videos from several angles clearly show that the collapse initiated at the fire and impact floors and that the collapse progressed from the initiating floors downward until the dust clouds obscured the view.
 
It hard to answer questions similar to the OP when you don't try and understand or learn what people are telling you. As I said, people have answered the OP, but you want to spin off on some irrelevant tangent based on some obscure interpretation cherry picked from their post. This thread will never come to any semblance of a conclusion because of all the reasons I just stated.

Not seeing the evident (planes, impacts and fires causing collapses) as evident, but in fact as absurd and ridiculous is a fascinating, albeit annoying, psychological phenomenon. Obviously we know this phenomenon also by the appellation "rabbit hole". Once deep inside, it's entirely useless to try to 'shake up' the person out of the hole in impatient annoyance (which has for years been my MO after a few rounds of patient dialogue). No amount of peeved hollering of the obvious (for us) is going to make them see the obvious.

It's not a rational state. It's an emotional state masquerading as rational to the person under its sway, while coming across as highly irrational to others.

Once a person is lost in an imaginary world (due to whatever emotional payoff it produces) with a whole community of peers and faux experts to give it psychological credence, that imaginary world starts to become very real to them.

As a result, reality itself becomes sketchy and suspect.

There's no coming out of the hole unless the person is willing to let go of whatever emotional payoff they seek from it. If they're addicted to that payoff, nothing will work. Least of all rational arguments.
 
Not seeing the evident (planes, impacts and fires causing collapses) as evident, but in fact as absurd and ridiculous is a fascinating, albeit annoying, psychological phenomenon.
When you go to a magic show, do you think the magician actually saws the woman in half?
 
It's not a rational state. It's an emotional state masquerading as rational to the person under its sway, while coming across as highly irrational to others.

Once a person is lost in an imaginary world (due to whatever emotional payoff it produces) with a whole community of peers and faux experts to give it psychological credence, that imaginary world starts to become very real to them.

As a result, reality itself becomes sketchy and suspect.
Your words but that is exactly my position. I fully respect the main thrust of Mick West's "rabbit hole" explanation BUT my own focus in these discussions originated (2007) as a desire to help those who wanted to learn and were simply ignorant. Such naive laypersons were a large proportion of the "Truth Movement" at that time. At the time they adopted the name "truthers" as an honourable self-description. The apparent proportion of psychologically obsessed conspiracy theorists has increased over the years as the naive but ignorant lay-persons learned reality and ceased activity. (And quite a few naive engineers - they can be harder to persuade because they think they know it all but many have never progressed beyond rote application of textbook material. And forensic assessment of WTC collapses is a couple of grades more complex than they have ever met in real life.)
There's no coming out of the hole unless the person is willing to let go of whatever emotional payoff they seek from it. If they're addicted to that payoff, nothing will work. Least of all rational arguments.
And my own "obsession" remains with explaining for those who are amenable to learning. NOT on digging people out of rabbit burrows. Tho' I comprehend their issues are about the psychology of belief more than limited technical understanding. No amount of reasoned technical argument will shift those who are deep down a rabbit warren.
 
I might try to follow @LilWabbit's suggestion at Post #601
But at least you could help out in pointing out the relevant threads for each "derail analogy" or "piece of evidence" if/when they come up in the event they've been discussed at length before.
I'll take step #1 by pointing out a side trail or derail which could benefit from discussion in a separate thread. Here is one example:
I'm saying that an investigation on such a historically anomalous collapse including no physical evidence is absurd, and makes their results sketchy at best. If all the evidence was destroyed before the NIST investigation got started, ....
That is a blatant untruth. Several mendacious bits of deception actually. The reference is to NIST's assertion that they did not test for chemical residues. Which "testing" is only part of identifying the type of explosives used. So a lie by partial truth. Because there were no explosives used there were no samples needing testing. (And frame that the other way around before @Henkka claims I'm using a circular argument. ;)) (It isn't but I won't derail to prove it here. ;) ) And part of a far more significant deception by partial truth. Testing of steel for use of explosives (or for the level of heat experienced) is a minor part of assessing whether or not there was CD. And testing for CD is similarly only part of the full picture.

Draft OP Topic Title: "Failure to Perform Confirmatory Testing For Explosives is an irrelevant, insignificant detail given the massive amount of other evidence available" << Needs a bit of work on the wording.
 
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When you go to a magic show, do you think the magician actually saws the woman in half?
I was going to ask if you thought 9/11 was a magic show, but LilWabbit beat me to it.

What relevancy does this question have with planes and fires on 9/11?
 
Is 'magic show' what you think 9/11 was? I find that disrespectful to the victims and to all who watched it unfold live.
Sigh... If you thought it through for a moment, you would have understood what I was getting at, rather than instantly jumping to accusations.

Like if you go on Youtube to watch videos of card tricks, it seems evident that David Blaine can actually read minds, or perform real magic. But really, we know he can't read minds. There's some kind of trick, some inexplicably elaborate setup he does to make it appear as if he knows what card someone is thinking of, and then pull that specific card from his ear or whatever.

The point is that what seems "evident" is an incredibly poor way to figure out what's actually true. If you find my example of magic tricks offensive (Which I doubt you really did, but it was a cheap shot to take at me), the same applies to things like flat earth and heliocentrism. It seems evident that the Earth is flat and stationary, and that the sun revolves around us. These "evident" truths can only be dispelled by careful examination, like looking at how ships "sink" into the horizon, or measuring shadows cast by sticks. In the same way, it seems evident that the top blocks of the WTC towers fell and destroyed what's below. But if a careful measurement shows there is no necessary deceleration on impact, then it can't be so.
 
Sigh... If you thought it through for a moment, you would have understood what I was getting at, rather than instantly jumping to accusations.

Like if you go on Youtube to watch videos of card tricks, it seems evident that David Blaine can actually read minds, or perform real magic. But really, we know he can't read minds. There's some kind of trick, some inexplicably elaborate setup he does to make it appear as if he knows what card someone is thinking of, and then pull that specific card from his ear or whatever.

The point is that what seems "evident" is an incredibly poor way to figure out what's actually true. If you find my example of magic tricks offensive (Which I doubt you really did, but it was a cheap shot to take at me), the same applies to things like flat earth and heliocentrism. It seems evident that the Earth is flat and stationary, and that the sun revolves around us. These "evident" truths can only be dispelled by careful examination, like looking at how ships "sink" into the horizon, or measuring shadows cast by sticks. In the same way, it seems evident that the top blocks of the WTC towers fell and destroyed what's below. But if a careful measurement shows there is no necessary deceleration on impact, then it can't be so.

Your above argument encapsulated which pretty much applies to all truthers:

If it looks like a duck and quacks like one, it's probably a rubber duck. Why? Because a rational person should never accept the evident explanation.

P.S. It seems I understood your magic trick analogy perfectly well and the more you elaborate it, the more disrespectful it becomes. No, it's not a personal shot at you. You're not bad, just lost.
 
....., it seems evident that the top blocks of the WTC towers fell and destroyed what's below.
They did.
But if a careful measurement shows there is no necessary deceleration on impact, then it can't be so.
Hogwash. You are falling for false explanations.

AND the real explanation has been put to you.

AND you ignore the explanation.

And, following the @LilWabbit Post #601 suggestion, it is a topic for another thread.

"Why both D Chandler and T Szamboti are wrong to expect a sudden jolt or significant deceleration"

AND the reason - yet again - in one sentence - "Because the Top Block did not drop to impact on the lower tower with columns in alignment"

AND I've already posted a pretty picture that is a large part of the necessary proof. Look and THINK:
ArrowedROOSD.jpg


Both Chandler and Szamboti expected the line of the perimeter - the yellow arrows - to hit its other part. Clearly it wasn't going anywhere near where the "Jolt" (Szamboti) OR "deceleration" (Chandler) would come from.
 
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Your above argument encapsulated which pretty much applies to all truthers:

If it looks like a duck and quacks like one, it's probably a rubber duck.

they don't think it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. they think it looks like controlled demolition and sounds like controlled demolition.
 
they don't think it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. they think it looks like controlled demolition and sounds like controlled demolition.
Because it does - they do - all three towers do look superficially or to lay person eyes - like CD.
 
Because it does - they do - all three towers do look superficially or to lay person eyes - like CD.
I don't agree, I don't think the Twin Towers look like CDs. They look like a plane hit, and then the top block fell to destroy everything below it. WTC 7 looks superficially like CD.

Before this discussion drifts further into meta discussion about the psychology of it all, I would have liked someone to justify this:

It is pretty strange to not look for explosive residues after a terrorist attack on a building that has been bombed before, yes. "Explosives" doesn't even immediately imply some sort of highly technically advanced demolition of the building. It could just be that Al-Qaeda also snuck car bombs into the basement, like it was done in 1993. That could explain why so many people thought they witnessed an explosion. But no, better not check at all.
 
I don't agree, I don't think the Twin Towers look like CDs. They look like a plane hit, and then the top block fell to destroy everything below it. WTC 7 looks superficially like CD.
Read what I said. "all three towers do look superficially or to lay person eyes - like CD". I neither referred to you NOR made a global claim.
Before this discussion drifts further into meta discussion about the psychology of it all, I would have liked someone to justify this:
Are you suggesting that you wouldn't confirm use of explosives AFTER a bomb attack?????

And, once more, you quote the lie: "But no, better not check at all." All relevant "checks" for explosives needed in the WTC 9/11 scenario were performed. And we have already said "take it to an appropriate thread".
 
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One wonders if designers like Skilling realized how critical those trusses were.
Obviously.

Takeaway: don't give terrorists with a couple hundred igniters and 75 pounds of explosives a week in your building, they might not leave it standing
 
. It seems evident that the Earth is flat and stationary, and that the sun revolves around us.
The first is false, this is not evident at all.
The second is technically true.

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." —George Orwell, 1984
 
I don't agree, I don't think the Twin Towers look like CDs. They look like a plane hit, and then the top block fell to destroy everything below it. WTC 7 looks superficially like CD.
i was going to say that too.

Before this discussion drifts further into meta discussion about the psychology of it all, I would have liked someone to justify this:
It is pretty strange to not look for explosive residues after a terrorist attack on a building that has been bombed before, yes. "Explosives" doesn't even immediately imply some sort of highly technically advanced demolition of the building. It could just be that Al-Qaeda also snuck car bombs into the basement, like it was done in 1993. That could explain why so many people thought they witnessed an explosion. But no, better not check at all.
justify why a basement that had been bombed before might have explosives residue?
 
what?! i know its off topic, but im gonna need an explanation for that one, if you don't mind.
Article:
Here, for example, is this statement as written in Forbes by professor Richard Muller at the University of California, Berkeley. It opens as follows: "According to the general theory of relativity, the Sun does orbit the Earth. And the Earth orbits the Sun." I invite you to read the rest of it; it's not long.

What's his point? In Einstein's theory of gravity ("general relativity"), time and three-dimensional space combine together to form a four-dimensional shape, called "space-time", which is complex and curved. And in general relativity, you can choose whatever coordinates you want on this space-time.

So you are perfectly free to choose a set of coordinates, according to this point of view, in which the Earth is at the center of the solar system. In these coordinates, the Earth does not move, and the Sun goes round the Earth. The heliocentric picture of the planets and the Sun merely represents the simplest choice of coordinates; but there's nothing wrong with choosing something else, as you like.

Article:
General relativity allows the use of any coordinate system. Pick a system in which the center of the Earth is fixed; indeed, it can be a system in which the Earth is not even rotating about its axis. Then you can derive all the equations of motion in this system. In this system, the Sun is moving, not the Earth.

Of course, that is a very ponderous approach, and although the equations will work, in principle, they will be very awkward and tricky. So scientists never use them.

So it is not wrong to say that the Sun orbits the Earth. It just leads to much more complicated equations that give you no good intuition for the behavior of gravity.
 
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justify why a basement that had been bombed before might have explosives residue?
No, justify why NIST wouldn't test for explosive residue in the steel when it seems totally plausible from both recent history and eyewitness accounts that Al-Qaeda may have used bombs in addition to planes to attack the towers on 9/11.
 
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