The 9/11 Forum

Ahoy!

Long story short: I'm quite sure I found the "mistake" in the papers by Bazant, Zhou, Verdure and Greening so I wrote them an open letter: http://www.dugarun.de/blog/?p=956

About myself: I've been in and out of work for the past 10 years and all my jobs had to do with carrying and throwing stuff around, stacking and piling things, repairing, building and destroying. So, although I'm a layman, my "science" is based on observation, and I have never observed anything crush under its own weight, and I've done my share of building and breaking.

So, ever since 9/11 I've been very sceptical about the collapse of the Twin Towers, which I regarded as stacks. Complicated and well-done stacks, but stacks. But with all those theories around of space-based laser weapons, extraterrestrials and controlled demolitions (some even claimed that one plane at high speed crashing into it would suffice), I soon decided to take care of other fields of interest, hoping that soon truth would find its way.

On September 11th, 2011, of course the debate about 9/11 reignited in one of my favourite forums and as some people were posting some really far-off theories, I got dragged into one of those discussions again, and I stumbled over psikeyhackrs Youtube channel and finally somebody could explain what I was thinking the whole time and I tried to explain to the others, which, of course, was just as successful as teaching a cat to bring the newspaper.

There were, however, some engineers among the folks on the forums who helped me a lot to understand the theory behind architecture and physics in general, and even though some of them opposed CT and CD, they assisted me with thought experiments and literature. Those formulae looked complex, but some of them in their simpler forms I remembered from High School and the rest seemed quite logical to me, too. I got curious again and finally did my math. My approach was to calculate the force the upper block exerted on the rest of the structure for thirty years (58*10^6kg*9.81m/s²). Then I calculated the "friction force", if you will, based on the time it took the roof to get to the ground, and it was just 332 MN. 110 Stories resisted no more than 58% of that which one single story was able to support for three decades.

I made a few experiments of all sorts to understand what's going on and soon I found out that I would have to be very inventive if I wanted to build something that folds into itself upon impact. I was feeling like Archimedes in the bathtub. Finally, I could be 100% sure that 9/11 was pre-planned! Gravity-driven collapse WAS possible, but only with a real complex mechanism. But who would build a skycraper like that?

When I presented my findings on my blog, a friend whom I respect a lot altough (or because) he's very sceptical about conspiracy theories showed me Bazants paper from 2007. I knew these, but they always scared me off because they looked so complex, although I remembered finding the explanations to contain very manipulative language here and there.

This time I thought: why not give it a try and look what he had to do to bring the building just in time? With my high school physics' knowledge updated, I went through all the equations and found that Dr. Bazant simply "forgot" one step in his iterations: to substract the energy that went into the buckling of the first floor from the kinetic energy available to crush the next floor. In other words: he was "hiding" the very energy that conspiracy theorists claim was needed to bring them down!

I compared to the explanations of Dr. Greening and Dave Thomas and again I felt like Champoillon deciphering the Rosetta stone. They all were hiding energy inside the system, hence, "inside job".

I found heiwas $1M challenge to support my intuition about how those towers should have behaved. Why would anyone expect the towers to come down all the way? What by now seems to be the most logical thing in the world, is hard to duplicate. I haven't been watching the collapse videos for a long time, but last weekend I did again. Did the people in the street or the reporters expect the structure to crush itself? They couldn't believe it! Even after two planes crashed and it was obvious that this was a terrorist attack and not an accident, STILL emotions were like "OMFG!"

Calling the collapse an "accident" and the result of botched-up or slipshod (are those the words?) architecture would mean to belittle the ingeniuity of the perpetrators of 9/11. Bad architecture leads to toppling and tilting, not a 110-story-structure eating itself up, disappearing into the 6 basement floors and spreading the rest all over Manhattan in the form of a dust blanket.

To me as a layman, it was a cruel magic trick like the ones shown in "The Prestige", an "Inception", so to say, and nothing ever was closer to the truth than "The Matrix".

I'm looking forward to your comments and criticism

Welcome, Akareyon.

Akareyon and I have been discussing this subject on another forum. We just got complimented on keeping it nice instead of letting the debate sink into the usual epithets! Around here, we definitely try to keep things civil, and hopefully that will be the case now.

Akareyon, I'm going to take the opportunity to approach the discussion differently here. Rather than start with the technical arguments, it may be instructive to show what you're "hitching your wagon to" in this topic.

Both psikeyhackr and Heiwa were members here until I kicked them to the curb. To say they were not well received is an understatement - people (especially me) were quite annoyed at the incessant spamming of the same things, no matter the subject of whatever thread they were in. Not to mention, the Heiwa $1M challenge was met - almost instantly - and no prize money was paid!

It would take a while to explain how things got to the ugly stage they did but, if you're interested, you can search both of their posting histories to see what the arguments were and how they were received. In a nutshell, Heiwa trotted out his axiom in the face of all arguments, and psikeyhackr castigated everyone for being idiots because they refused to accept that "the potential energy of the towers was ZERO" (direct quote - search to see how many times it was claimed).

You'll find that Bazant gets quite a bit of criticism here, but those two were beyond the pale, derailing discussion after discussion with the same pseudoscientific spam. I really do suggest you follow the old discussions with them to get a flavor of the arguments and insight into the individuals themselves.

As far as psikeyhackr's paper and loops model, I explain (starting at the top of the page) here why his model could be predicted to arrest and why it is fundamentally dissimilar to the towers and is therefore not applicable. I can link you to a dozen instances at Rational Skepticism where psikeyhackr has been unequivocally shown wrong but has never had the integrity to admit it. Heck, here's one where psikeyhackr repeatedly accuses me of schoolboy errors, and I turn right around and show the errors are his - including being unable to multiply three numbers together. His response? Did he admit he was wrong? No, he disappeared for a month and then came back spamming the same stuff as if nothing had ever happened.

To get a sense of how credible Heiwa is, read here how he stubbornly claims a video of the Rabobank demolition in Netherlands is a "fake" "Hollywood" "CGI" video. It was his only defense at being shown dead wrong.

Neither of these guys are even honest, let alone scientifically credible. To be blunt, not an ounce of integrity or scientific acumen. They hook a lot of people in to their side with easily apprehended jingoistic mantras but, when cornered, they invariably run.

Akareyon wrote:This time I thought: why not give it a try and look what he had to do to bring the building just in time? With my high school physics' knowledge updated, I went through all the equations and found that Dr. Bazant simply "forgot" one step in his iterations: to substract the energy that went into the buckling of the first floor from the kinetic energy available to crush the next floor. In other words: he was "hiding" the very energy that conspiracy theorists claim was needed to bring them down!

This is the technical point which needs focus. We'll go over the model as much as necessary to get to the bottom of the issue. In the meantime, though, I can assure you Greening did not miss the dissipated energy. An independent corroboration via physics engine simulation is here. Even though the methods are entirely different, and I have no control over the amount of energy dissipated in the simulation, the results come out essentially identical. It is a fully independent verification.

As for Dave Thomas, the extent to which he is right or wrong I do not care. He is, IMO, an attention seeking hack in this subject. His analyses are primitive at best, and unworthy of the attention given by his adoring debunker fans.

OWE, thanks alot again for the warm welcome. I feel just as proud as you do about the compliment we received in the other forum.

I did not know I was hitching to any other wagon than that of Archimedes, Galileo and Newton! And although I have studied a few threads here during my research, I must have overlooked the part where you, psikeyhackr and heiwa got so angry at each other that it resulted in their banning.

Although our first encounter might have felt a little rough in the beginning, I really enjoyed our discussion and was very impressed by your style and courtesy (for example, your understanding that I might mix stuff up because I'm a layman and no native speaker). It is better to have a good enemy than a bad friend.

I was simply referring to their explanations so you all know where I'm coming from (in the forum I mentioned first I repeatedly said that I'm trying to prove that Lord Voldemort shot the Towers down with the Death Star to reset the Matrix to keep them from attacking my point of view instead of my math and experiments); that's also why I mentioned that I'm just a working man and made no secret about what my take is on "the day that changed the world". Isn't Sokrates reported as saying "I know that I know not"? I'm not an expert, but I have made a few experiences. And I have experienced what it means to stand corrected, and although it may take me a bit sometimes to learn certain lessons, my ego is strong enough to survive when I have to admit that I've been wrong.

With that said, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on my musings regarding left-out steps in the iterative process and of course your model of the phenomenon we have witnessed more than ten years ago (whatever we call it)... : )

Akareyon wrote:It is better to have a good enemy than a bad friend.

I like that.

Still, we are definitely not enemies in this arena. It's natural to have skepticism about these models and their results. Even Bazant said the collapses were a surprise to structural engineers around the world. But then he goes on to say total collapse is expected and inevitable on the basis of what he calls simple principles. Well, which is it? Inquiring minds want to know. Debunkers do not seem to accept that it is natural such questions, and others, should arise.

It's probably good to mention again that the tower collapses and Bazant's analysis are two entirely different things. If it were shown that Bazant were egregiously in error, there would still be the open question of whether there is a natural mechanism to explain the collapses and Bazant simply missed it, or if there is a discrepancy which can only be resolved with artificial assistance. To the extent that Bazant has been shown not to capture the actual mechanism and dynamics of the collapses, it can be argued that there's already a question of relevance.

It was not really blockhead mechanics. One of the ongoing efforts in this forum is to characterize what actually happened and then try to see what mechanism(s) may be applicable to the real collapses. As such, you probably will find no rabid defense of Bazant here, nor will you find anyone who argues from the position that "Bazant says X, Y and Z, so therefore the collapses must be natural."

All the same, there is a contingent of regulars who accept the notion that, once the top got moving, it was all over. This leaves open the possibility that the initiation could be assisted artificially - requiring minimal incendiaries or explosives.

Personally, I lean towards all natural, but I'm also keenly aware at this point that I probably could not distinguish between a natural initiation and artificial. My beliefs, I freely admit, are just faith-based. Just because I believe assistance wasn't necessary doesn't mean it wasn't used. Unlike so many, I am not incredulous at the idea the US government would do such a thing - not at all, in fact I think there are a whole shitload of sociopathic cretins who would jump at the chance...

...if they were good enough to pull it off.

Also, unlike so many, I do not confuse my inability to elucidate a means by which assistance could be surreptitiously introduced with proof that it couldn't happen. There are people who are far more clever at this sort of thing than I, and I think I'm a tad more clever than most of the buffoons on the internet who believe that, if they can't conceive of it, it can't be done.

All this to say - if we get into heated discussions about the correctness of Bazant, that's just academic squabble. As long as the subject is Bazant, the subject is NOT the actual tower collapses.

OWE, that is a great foundation to build a model on.

And I really feel somewhat relieved that I'm not alone in the world with the question how on earth this phenomenon could be called "natural", "inevitable", "classic", and even "the most optimistic model" (what's a pessimistic model then?), and why experts and officials insist that all criticism could only come from laymen, outsiders, conspiracy theorists and other maniacs and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Therefor, I will also put my assumptions and prejudice aside and keep my mind open to the possibility that indeed some sort of "self destruct" feature was built into the towers by pure accident, simply because it would be an important finding and could avert similar tragedies in the future. From what I've read, many high rise buildings around the world have picked up some of the lessons learned from building the Twin Towers, so a similar catastrophic event could happen anytime again, either as an accident or because now everybody knows where the weak spot in a system is.

To figure that out, however, I must confess that I as a layman would be only of little help and will gladly leave research and studies in this matter to honest scientists and experts instead of disturbing and decelerating them with annoying accusations, misunderstandings and questions; hoping they will shed more light on what happened than Professor Bazant did.

Basically, our dispute already ends here ("shortly and painlessly", as we say in my mother's tongue), if I have understood correctly that I spread no falsehood when I proclaim that a) the WTC crumblification (sorry, couldn't resist) is yet another (VERY!) odd synchronicity of 9/11, b) yet more authorities have misused their credibility to hush down inquiries with flawed analysis instead of bringing light into the matter, c) the media assisted in this cover-up as well instead of doing their job, d) it's not the people who ask questions who are insane, but an Orwellian system that tries to keep them down; because these are the hypotheses where I originally started from, and from here I could leave in peace and wish you all the best with your further research - whatever the results may be - and get back on my tracks, richer with experience, knowledge and a tale to tell, supported to keep up critical though open-minded thinking, and strengthened in my belief that in a not too distant future, when we have learned how to communicate and to share knowledge, nobody will feel the need anymore to crash a plane into a building.

I am sure you understand that this is not to shrink from controversy, but to spare us needless discussion over who's right and who's wrong so you and I can concentrate on the things that really matter.

Where I am still seriously mistaken, please correct me (this invitation goes out to all other members of the 9/11 Forum as well!).

Thank you for the lesson, OneWhiteEye!

Akareyon raises and interesting aspect to 911 which I believe ties into one of Tom's main points... very few if any of the people who advanced explanations of what happened to the towers were basing their theories on the actual observations, but rather a filtered hollywood conception of the event. The media is pretty well known for turning everything into a *reality show*.. . and receive the news usually ONLY from *official spokespersons*... Our reality is very much *produced* for us by the *media*.

911 was also immediately packaged and sold as casus belli for war with two nations and the war on terrorism which amounted to a ramping up of fear and the national secuurity state and a closing down of civil liberties. The results were so dramatic that what caused them became of little interest... and so anyone who tried to make sense was just not a team player.

The fact is that the twins were a very unusual structural design which should have raised some eyebrows and questions... could these buildings have something about their design which might have contributed to their coming down as they did? I don't recall any such discussions... and they were treated as just bigger and stronger than any old steel high rise...

Really now.. isn't treating these structures as two blocks idiotic? How reductionist absurd can one get? And this was by some *smart* folks. So it's no wonder that the sheeple just fell in line in a most predictable fashion.

Perhaps the coverup was to hide the revolutionary design's flaws which led to the collapse and had they been two empire state buildings they'd still be standing with some massive damage from the planes... but still standing and not a pile of rubble in 15 seconds. Did you see any discussions about that?

Why not go there? Well even if it was those bad guys with box cutters who did it... the designers may have likely been their best friends and that would make them share some serious liability... the negligence kind.

Food for thought.

Akareyon wrote:the most optimistic model

Welcome

Thought I'd have a stab at explaining this in terms even I can understand...

The Bazant model simply asks "how much energy is required to fail each and every column all the way down ?".

It's relatively simple to work out how much energy we have "available"...potential energy of whatever we have "up top", or kinetic energy of the same once it's moving downwards.

If you choose HOW to fail each column, making sure you choose the way that requires MOST energy...

...it's reasonable to say that you've modelled the scenario most optimistic to survival (as you could fail the column with less energy by any other method you can think of)...

...and add up all that energy for each column section, all the way down...

...and if it's less than the potential energy you have available...

...then (ignoring for now how you got it going in the first place)...

...once it's going, it's reasonable to say you can understand how it might not stop until you get to the ground.

Therefor, I will also put my assumptions and prejudice aside and keep my mind open to the possibility that indeed some sort of "self destruct" feature was built into the towers by pure accident, simply because it would be an important finding and could avert similar tragedies in the future.

Would you be comfortable with "design flaw" or "vulnerability" ?

Quite why there have been no law suits about the design is, as intimated by SO above, food for thought.

From what I've read, many high rise buildings around the world have picked up some of the lessons learned from building the Twin Towers, so a similar catastrophic event could happen anytime again, either as an accident or because now everybody knows where the weak spot in a system is.

I'd suggest WTC 1 & 2 were, because of their "unique" design, probably the two buildings in existance most vulnerable to such self-sustaining destruction after "the top section" began to descend. But it does take quite a while to get a clear picture of the construction of the towers in the minds eye. It's quite shocking how "little" energy is required to make an entire open plan floor outside the core break from all of its connections and fall onto the one below. It's quite a big number, but compared to how much energy you'd need to "collapse" all the vertical columns (core and perimeter) it's weedy.

Anyway, did I make any sense out of "optimistic" ?

Thank you too for the welcome!

I have read some of the threads OWE referred me to and now I see which level of understanding of physics I'd have to reach before I can join debates in this forum.

As I said, my expectations aren't that high at all anymore so my definition of "optimism" is that the madness we're living in at the moment is only temporary, and that truth, love, peace, freedom, science and logic will prevail over fear, hate, war, lies and superstitous belief in dodgy interpretations of the laws of nature and observable facts : )

OneWhiteEye wrote:To get a sense of how credible Heiwa is, read here how he stubbornly claims a video of the Rabobank demolition in Netherlands is a "fake" "Hollywood" "CGI" video. It was his only defense at being shown dead wrong.

Neither of these guys are even honest, let alone scientifically credible. To be blunt, not an ounce of integrity or scientific acumen. They hook a lot of people in to their side with easily apprehended jingoistic mantras but, when cornered, they invariably run.

Well, I've been near the building, and I know the new one, I'd been reading about it in the news, of course, this was no case of video fakery but a demolition accident; the building had been prepped for demolition (not with explosives, just stripping) by wrecking ball, and the building was 'touched inappropriately' by the wrecking ball at some point, causing a cascade. The reason collapse progressed in a domino-like fashion is because the building was completely gutted. It was poised to collapse anyway.

To call this "CGI" or "video fakery" is the pinnacle of dishonest stupidity and a telltale signal that a person like Heiwa should simply be ignored completely rather than engaged with even fleeting attention. I've also experienced people inside AE911Truth, like Chris Sarns, iirc, claiming that the Delft engineering faculty collapse was a covert controlled demolition, rather than admit that it could partially collapse. It was a sad moment. (I gave HQ footage of that collapse to Chandler)

Frankly, NIST's deceptive attitude at times haunts me as much as the knowledge that some of these people (AE911Truth members) are responsible for designing steel structures scares me.

Not many of them are designing steel structures. Robert McCoy is an architect with them who does design high rises... but there is always an engineer who is responsible to make their designs stand. McCoy has not studied the WTC carefully as far as I can tell, but he's smart enough to understand how the structural design was a issue.

Yes. Take your time. I am.