The 9/11 Forum

What tfk was trying to say (in a uncharacteristically muddled fashion) is the fact that the fall was observed to be sub-g indicates the presence of force opposing downward motion.

What's weird is, Tony is arguing against high peak force when considering a rubble-driven collapse, but refuses to recognize the converse when applied to jolts in descent of the upper block. His opponents are doing almost the same thing, unwittingly arguing for jolts by taking the stance that loose rubble produces the same peak force in collision as a rigid body. They're both arguing past each other, and being self-contradictory depending on which context is being argued.

Works both ways. That's why I started the Attributes of a Rubble Driven Collapse thread, because the dynamics of rubble plowing through membranes is NOT the same as a rigid driver, unless the rubble is at or near critical compaction. Everyone is so keen on citing Bazant, so I will, too. Bazant says debris which is not at critical compaction cannot bear load. The converse is that uncompacted rubble doesn't transmit force from the hind end of the debris train to the fore end, which is undergoing collision with a floor.

Therefore, scenarios like 12 floors impacting 1 simultaneously is meaningless in a rubble-driven interior collapse. How many times have you heard it - in the last month??? Then, you'll get the same people turning around and telling Tony not to expect a jolt. Really, there's a better chance of seeing a jolt in the motion of the somewhat integral remnant column/hat truss assembly than there is for a 12-floor-mass jolt from rubble onto a floor below.

Astute readers will notice or surmise the shape of the curve in the previous graph results from the choice of distribution function used in the delta functions. Step functions, etc, will look different. I chose a (sharp) bellish shape because I felt most debris would be best represented by such a curve. Even concrete chunks which impact edge-on will fracture up to a point, thus not delivering the same impulse profile as an integral rigid chunk. Concrete that has to first compress office junk before delivering significant impulse to the floor below will have a ramp up in applied force. I figured the average shape might well be bell-like, really only interested in the leading edge but, if there's any rebound, the backside of the curve will taper off similarly.

(disclaimer: the magnitude of peak force in the graph does not include accumulation of static mass on the impacted surface, which will become dominant after a time in loose collections... for a very loose collection, dynamic overload will barely precede static overload condition)

femr2 wrote:I've been sitting in the background having a good giggle at tfk suggesting his pretty damn low-order series of poly fits shows "near instantaneous" acceleration from data derived from my Dan Rather data

And the rest.

I'm inclined to post a symmetric difference "smoothed" version using adjacent samples, as tfk did when he claimed my data showed +/-60G accelerations, and quote him as "proof". I might then also quote him suggesting that piece-meal poly fits over a 1s period would be the best way to go about it. Might forget to remind that the SG method does that *at each sample*, and that care must be taken when interpreting the data...especially if you're dumb enough to think that any acceleration profile is going to show you anything like "near instantaneous"

My favourite "sitting in the background" topic is watching people let personality issues override objective and rational discussion. That is a 'third party spectator sport'. You are slowly gaining support among the reasonable brains of JREF - good work. And you are managing the tfk 'blue sky' stuff quite well.

On the personal side I must be slow on the uptake because I am only just realising how ego driven the 'big names' are in resisting any input which questions their own self assessed position of superiority.

OneWhiteEye wrote:What tfk was trying to say (in a uncharacteristically muddled fashion) is the fact that the fall was observed to be sub-g indicates the presence of force opposing downward motion.

What's weird is, Tony is arguing against high peak force when considering a rubble-driven collapse, but refuses to recognize the converse when applied to jolts in descent of the upper block. His opponents are doing almost the same thing, unwittingly arguing for jolts by taking the stance that loose rubble produces the same peak force in collision as a rigid body. They're both arguing past each other, and being self-contradictory depending on which context is being argued.

The confusion issues are quite clear (to me )
1) Tony made a statement that was true but poorly explained - to the effect that rubble doesn't transfer dynamic forces as readily as solid bodies do.
2) He was referring to an abstract model;
3) I and a couple of other 'mid level players' dropped multiple hints as to how Tony could better support his claim by being explicit about his assumptions and or 'model';
4) For whatever reason Tony took no notice;
5) Lots of people got distracted by the alligators of 'nail the truther'# and forgot about the draining of the swamp. (# AKA 'blue-skyism' rampant.)

Multpiple changes of focus from both sides>>>>confusion reigns.

The key issue being that Tony wanted to 'pour' 'rubble' (actually fine grained material in the initiating discussion - so already half transferred to real WTC 9/11 with all the problems that will (now has) cause(d).

Clearly if you are pouring something granular the dynamic effect depends on how fast you pour. And the size of the granules.

And one patronisingly impolite member over on that other forum identified the two key factors as:
1) "what should be bleeding obvious to any engineer/physicist"; AND
2) " Both 'sides' so often get confused as to how far the abstract model can be taken - often drifting too far into territory where explaining the real collapse is more benefit that misapplying abstractions."

Horses, leading thereof, unto copious quantities of water but with no success at persuading said horses to imbibe.

Being an idiot myself I fail to see how the the energy of a falling mass confined to a specific volume whether water, particles or a sold structure with (with point loads - columns) would not be destructive of what it descended upon. Clearly an integrated solid can transfer all the load to even a single point as in a descending inverted cone.... and a if a descending cone of dust were possible it not being an integrated mass would not act as one unless tightly packed.. like the dust on Szamboti's shelves for example...

What's the point here lads?

When the tops began to drop they also appear to be breaking into smaller pieces... not into dust or even sand sized particles although there was plenty of that. The vast majority was in large chunks as that how big things disintegrate... bigger chunks to smaller ones to eventually dust and smaller.. smoke???? We're talking less than four seconds of tumble... and that doesn't produce all that much dust. It's mostly heavy falling building debris. OUCH... big time.

ozeco41 wrote:I must be slow on the uptake because I am only just realising how ego driven the 'big names' are in resisting any input which questions their own self assessed position of superiority.

Nah. I doubt you're slow, but such folk talk "shite" with so much conviction, and regularly utilising bizarre "quote mining" historical re-writing of context (WDC in particular) that unless you actually invest a fairly reasonable amount of time back-tracking through multiple segments of several discussion...it's not immediately obvious why what is being said is...how would I say...distortive ? (If that's a word ) (and similar brain fog methods)

Possibly those "you had to be there" type of discussions, but given some of the (frankly) pond-life over there that are attracted to the words of some of the (supposed) "big fish" have about a 3 post memory...I end up getting bored, bored, bored

Am waiting to see tfk's new (actually very old and primitive) acceleration curve adopted as the new "defacto" (near)* INSTANTANEOUS acceleration profile. That'll be, er, humorous.

*I'm sure tfk would like to define what "near" means there.

SanderO wrote:We're talking less than four seconds of tumble... and that doesn't produce all that much dust. It's mostly heavy falling building debris. OUCH... big time.

Mostly, sure.

It's the process of abstracting and virtualising the beastie such that you end up talking about a spherical cow until they roll home and float in the tub

I'm sure some engage in it primarily to keep the (MT copyright) hamster-wheel going.

Ozeco at JREF:

I take it you are familiar with the WTC scenario - what happened with WTC1 on 9/11 - summarised as:

a) Aircraft flies into North Side, starts fires, fires not fought, initial damage plus damage from fires accumulating until;
b) Inwards bowing of South Side perimeter columns occurs quickly followed by;
c) failure of all other columns evidenced by the 'top portion' of the tower descending.

Now what occurred was a 'cascade failure' - put simply a self perpetuating sequence where one failure causes some other part to overload and fail and..the process continues. And it is inherently 'exponential' i.e. as it goes further it gets faster and faster because the more bits fail the greater the overloads transferred to other members causing them to fail in turn.

We have visual evidence for the key points and this NIST summary from NISTAR 1-6 page 304 explains it:

Buckling of South Wall and Collapse Initiation

The inward bowing of the south wall increased as the post-buckling strength of bowed columns continued to reduce. The bowed columns increased the loads on the unbuckled columns on the south wall by shear transfer through the spandrels. Consequently, instability progressed horizontally, and when it engulfed the entire south wall, it progressed along the east and west walls. Moreover, the unloading of the south wall resulted in further redistribution of gravity loads on the south wall to the east and west walls and to the thermally weakened core via the hat truss. ......

Now the highlited bits are the key four elements and they are facts of the visual record. So if anyone produces figures that suggest those facts are wrong OR FEA analyses that suggest otherwise....they have a big job of explaining to do .

So let's take those observed facts as facts. Summarised they say:
A) Perimeter columns on south face failed by buckling inwards therefore they dropped their loads onto something;
B) The obvious something being the rest of the south perimeter columns - which failed in their turn;
C) overloading the columns around the corners on the east and west sides.

Now all of that is fact from visual evidence or undeniable consequences thereto.

So I will pause there - we can go further but those two facts (1) redistribution follows spatial layout AND (2) visual evidence says all the columns failed with failure of inwards bowed south face leading to rest of south face leading around the corners to the southern most columns of the east and west faces.

And notice that we got that far without needing mathematics. (Someone may call 'foul' on that. They will be wrong but leave it till it happens. If it does. )

From this post


This post is embarrassing.

This is the essence of good-enoughism. In a state of false certainty, ones own mental projections replace the actual visual record.

People make up whatever they want to and claim their mental projections are verified within the visual record.


Beliefs are dressed up in the form of "science". False, fixed convictions replace the act of verification. Not surprisingly, a world view emerges but it is hidden from view under the cloak of "science".


David Bohm:

...the general tacit assumption in thought is that it's just telling you the way things are and that it's not doing anything - that 'you' are inside there, deciding what to do with the info. But you don't decide what to do with the info. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one which controls each one of us. Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally. This is another major feature of thought: Thought doesn't know it is doing something and then it struggles against what it is doing. It doesn't want to know that it is doing it. And thought struggles against the results, trying to avoid those unpleasant results while keeping on with that way of thinking. That is what I call "sustained incoherence".



Bohm thus proposes in his book, Thought as a System, a pervasive, systematic nature of thought:




" Now, I say that this system has a fault in it - a "systematic fault". It is not a fault here, there or here, but it is a fault that is all throughout the system. Can you picture that? It is everywhere and nowhere. You may say "I see a problem here, so I will bring my thoughts to bear on this problem". But "my" thought is part of the system. It has the same fault as the fault I'm trying to look at, or a similar fault. Thought is constantly creating problems that way and then trying to solve them. But as it tries to solve them it makes it worse because it doesn’t notice that it's creating them, and the more it thinks, the more problems it creates. (P. 18-19)"

A copy of a google groups post at this link, obtained through the JREF forum:


Posted by Cromwell:

Free fall is possibly the cornerstone of the Truth Movements argument and
David Chandler's contribution, the subject of so much rapture. I
will now explore these claims in detail and show that most of this is
bluster, huge assumption and sleight of hand. David Ray Griffin lays out
his wears very clearly. He makes three claims. The first is,

"One of the most common arguments for the controlled demolition of WTC 7 has
been on the observation that its downward acceleration approximated that of
a free-falling object."(1)

His second claim is that,

"NIST countered this argument by claiming that the time it took WTC 7, to
collapse shows that it was not falling freely." (2)

Thirdly, that under pressure from the findings of David Chandler,

"NIST has clearly reversed itself." (3)

Let us start with the first claim.

When an object falls from a given height, it falls under the influence of
gravity alone and is said to be in free fall. Now when objects fall solely
under the influence of gravity, they do so by a given amount of acceleration
which varies slightly according to where you are on the earth. This value
is approximately 9.8m/s². Now we are concerned with two types of energy -
potential and kinetic. The former is contained in all objects which are
stationary/static, the latter is contained in objects which are in motion.
The reader should note the destructive capability of kinetic as opposed to
potential energy. Returning to the observations of free fall, it should be
noted that in the case of our object, all of the potential energy here is
transformed into kinetic.

Now according to David Ray Griffin, there is a relationship between free
fall and controlled demolition and this is essential for understanding the
collapse of WTC 7. To help us in this discussion, the following are quotes
from leaders of the Truth Movement. Here is the Niels Harrit quoted
earlier,

"When you see a 47 storey building, 186 meters tall, collapse in 6.5
seconds, and you are a scientist you think 'what'?" (xiv) (4)
Now Richard gage from New Zealand TV,

"..the building number 7.descends immediately, suddenly, straight down,
symmetrically, into its own footprint, in about almost, in about 6 and half
seconds now as you're seeing, this is almost free fall acceleration." (5)

And finally Kevin Ryan

"All-right, well, Building Seven was a 47-story building that was not hit by
a plane, and yet it collapsed in 6.5 seconds - essentially free-fall speed -
and pretty much into its own footprint, and here we are six years later
still waiting for an official explanation about it."(6)

So this collapse time of 6.5 seconds is compared to the time that it would
have taken WTC 7 if it were in free fall. This is a proximately 6 seconds.
So it is concluded that the average acceleration (we will need to remember
this distinction later in the story because it becomes important) of the
building was 'almost' or 'essentially' free fall. This means that a high
level of the resisting structure must have been removed, and this could only
have been controlled demolition, or so the thinking goes. But let's start
with that 6.5 second collapse time. Where did that come from? The NIST
reports contain no such figure because it is simply not possible to
calculate it. In order to do so, two data points would be required - when
the collapse started and when it ended. But it is impossible to determine
the conclusion of the collapse, when the highest point of the structure
(relative to the collapse which the truthers are measuring) hit the ground
because the whole thing was immersed in a cloud of dust and smoke. So I ask
again, where did this 6.5 seconds of which the Truth Movement is so fond
come from? I did some research. Using Google groups, I searched 'WTC 7 and
6.5 seconds'. The earliest reference I found was August 2003. (7)

This is a reproduction of a web site (8)

A study of this sites shows that this 6.5 seconds collapse time appears
once. No explanation is provided for how it was arrived at nor even how it
was possible to calculate it. The figure appears to have been simply
plucked from the air. If someone who clings to this 6.5 second collapse can
shed some light on this, I would welcome their comments. Until then, it
goes in the box marked big fat conjecture.

So what about the claim that buildings that experience control demolition
have an average acceleration which is 'almost' or 'essentially' free fall?
Or put another way, where 'almost' or 'essentially' all the potential energy
is transformed into kinetic energy? Is this true? Try as I might, I can
not find a single piece of research cited by the Truth Movement which proves
this very important corner stone of their beliefs. Oddly David Chandler did
nothing to test this essential element of the Truther doctrine by applying
his physics tool to a video of a controlled demolition. Yet it would be
very simple. Thankfully a fellow under the nick 'Alienentity' has done
exactly that. (9)

He shows in this simple experiment that control demolition at least in this
case, does not collapse typically at free fall acceleration, that only
enough kinetic energy is released to destroy the buildings resistance.
Couple this observation with the absence of any research substantiating the
claim that 'almost' or 'essentially' all the resistance is removed in
controlled demolition; we can only conclude that it is an unproven
assumption on the part of the Truth Movement. Yet how much bluster has been
erected on this piece of speculation.

Now I have explored this white elephant, I will now consider how NIST
responded when drafting its report and David Ray Griffin's second claim,
that according to NIST, WTC 7 'was not falling freely'.

We should recall the context in which NIST under took its analysis. The
Truth Movement had been very vocal with its comparison of a fictional
collapse time of 6.5 seconds, with the buildings calculated free fall time.
In doing this they were dealing with the average acceleration. No where in
the NIST report is this scientifically unverifiable collapse time found.
This is quite correct. Instead NIST used an observable and testable
quantity from the video shot by CBS from West Street near Harrison Street,
which displayed the entire collapse. NIST shows that it was,

"interested in estimating how closely the time for WTC 7 took to fall
compared with the descent time if the building were falling freely under the
force of gravity" (10)

So NIST were in pursuit of the same calculation of average acceleration
that Gage, Harrit, Ryan and the Truth Movement had been talking about
endlessly but unlike them, in such a way that was demonstrable and
testable. This calculation was based on the

"'Position of the roofline prior to the collapse and the last position the
roofline could be observed before it was obstructed by a building in the
foreground." (11)

The descent of the north façade was measured over 18 floors. NIST
estimated that the collapse time for this period was 5.4 seconds. They then
calculated the free fall time for the same collapse at 3.9 seconds and
concluded that the average acceleration was not free fall and was in fact
40% longer. This conclusion is absolutely correct. However, David
Chandler doesn't agree,

"Its pretty clear that the whole idea there's any kind of real 5.4 second
collapse interval is a fiction. It's a crude fabrication and the 3 stage
collapse sequence is pseudo-science in the service of a ongoing cover-up"
(12)

Yet his own data submitted along with his September letter(see later), looks
suspiciously like NISTs own visualisation (13). Even though it would have
been very easy for David Chandler to apply his physics tool to the task of
disproving this claim of 5.4 second interval, he appears not to have done
so. Fortunately this discernible quantity has been independently verified.
We can thank our friend Alienentity for this (14)

Once it is agreed that what we are dealing with here is average
acceleration, Sunders remarks at the technical briefing make perfect sense.
After being asked a question by David Chandler, he responded thus,

"..The analysis showed there is a
difference in time between a free fall time-a free fall time would be an
object that has no structural
components below it. And if you look at the analysis of the video, it shows
that the time it takes for the
17-for the roof line of the video to collapse down the 17 floors that you
can actually see in the video,
below which you can't see anything in the video, is about 3.9 seconds. What
the analysis shows, and the
structural analysis shows, or the collapse analysis shows, is that same that
it took for the structural
model to come down from the roof line all the way for those 17 floors to
disappear is 5.4 seconds. It's
about 1.5 seconds, or roughly 40 percent, more time for that free fall to
happen. And that is not at all
unusual, because there was structural resistance that was provided in this
particular case. And you had a
sequence of structural failures that had to take place. Everything was not
instantaneous." (15)

On the basis of the data Sunder was using, there is absolutely nothing
wrong with his remarks. The average acceleration was slower than
gravitational acceleration and therefore there had to be resistance from the
building structure. Case closed.


Enter David Chandler and the third claim of David Ray Griffin, that NIST
reversed itself. Based on what I have said already, it becomes clear that
some sleight of hand is going on here.

I will start with Chandlers letter dated 13th September 2008 to NIST in
which he stated,

"Average acceleration is not a meaningful measurement, especially when the
acceleration it describes is not uniform. It is the instantaneous
acceleration that is relevant to Newton's second law and thus the forces at
play." (16)

So, if you want to score a goal, change the goal posts! To counterpoise an
average to an instantaneous value and use such phrases as 'contradiction'
and 'reversal' is simply math abuse. They simply answer different
questions about a given data set. One provides answers to the general or
typical, the other the exceptional and unusual.

But invoking Newton's second law of motion leaves me completely stumped, I
can not see its relevance to this question at all. However, accepting
Chandler's credentials as a physics high school teacher, I obviously bow to
his experience. But this leaves me wondering what he thought of Gage, Ryan,
Harrit and the Truth Movements use of such a measurement? Well actually
Chandler answered this question in an interview with Visibility911. Did he
scold his fellow academics for their useless calculations in the face of
Newton?

"A lot of people had said that it had come down at free fall and, or near
free fall and all these different estimates and I just took it at face value
for a long time and I just thought I was confirming the other measurements
when I started to doing the measurements myself and, one thing that was
different though was when I first did the measurement, I pretty much
duplicated what somebody else had done and I was getting like 9 meters per
second²...." (17)

So our physics teacher seemed pretty unconcerned with dear old Newton when
his buddies in the truth movement, were playing around with average
accelerations. On the contrary, Chandler came up with one of his own. But
we all know the enormous pressures that teachers are under these days.
Newton had to wait. Finally, Chandler tells us how he saw the light,

"then I realized the data didn't seem to be consistent, it was steeper if I
looked at the first part of the data and then not so steep toward the end
and so I sort of focused on the part that was coming down faster, it was
pretty much right at free fall.." (18)

Here was Chandler's Damascus moment but Newton was nowhere to be seen.
Newton's laws were not to be outdone. Surely, he would come on for the
final act? It seemed it was not to be,

"... And what I'd been doing earlier and what other people had been doing
was taking the whole thing as one data set and sort of averaging it out and
that didn't really come across in quite the same way.." (19)

Not so much a matter of principle, as presentation!!

But NIST listened to what Chandler had to say and set out to refine its
analysis and show Chandler why free fall acceleration was not typical of the
north façade collapse to the 29th floor. NIST developed its analysis and
now focused on the instantaneous acceleration. It showed that the 5.4
seconds could be broken down into three stages. It showed that
gravitational acceleration was not typical due to the first and third
stages, especially the first, which had seen the façade collapse 7ft in 1.75
seconds. This is where most of the resistance came from and accumulated the
40% greater time over all. It is true that NIST acknowledges 2.25 seconds
of gravitational acceleration for the next 100ft, but it is still only
2/5 of the collapse time to the 29th floor, still less than half way through
the collapse of the façade(20). In the third stage, NIST found the
acceleration was less than gravitational, which means the collapse of the
façade from the 29th floor to the ground could very feasibly take another 5
to six seconds, possibly more meaning the free fall would have been less
than a 1/5, very atypical of the collapse. There is nothing in this
fundamentally changes what NIST had said previously.

In conclusion, we now see that the claims made by David Ray Griffin are very
far from proven: the equation of free fall with controlled demolition is
simply an unproven assumption, with no research data to back it up; that
NIST denied that free fall was occurring in the average acceleration of the
building downward, and that resistance was typical of its descent was
correct
and finally, that David Chandler did nothing to change this position which
NIST maintained from the draft to final report.

References.

(1) David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Centre 7,
2010, Arris Books. p. 231

(2) ibid p. 231

(3) ibid p. 235

(4) ibid p. xiv
(5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2B-VQjLsj4
(6) http://911research.wtc7.net/debates/rya ... index.html
(7)
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan. ... 394a5?...=
(8) http://www.wtc7.net/videos.html
(9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8yUR-sM4lU Alienentity is a
participant at the JREF forum. Along with his co-thinkers, he has done so
much to advance science and rationality, and clear the conspiracy fog from
911. I am truly grateful.

(10) NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse
Sequence of World Trade Centre Building 7, Vol 2 p. 595
http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/ ... eports.cfm

(11) ibid p. 595

(12) Quoted in Griffin p 239

(13) NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Centre
Building 7, p 46
http://www.nist.gov/manuscript-publicat ... _id=861610

(14) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhY9c_i ... re=related

(15) http://911speakout.org/NIST_Tech_Briefi ... script.pdf

(16) P. 281 - 286
http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/ ... ents-2.pdf

(17) December 13, 2008 interview with Michael Wolsey
http://visibility911.com/blog/2008/12/1 ... 1truthorg/

(18) ibid

(19) ibid

(20) It should be noted that NIST on the basis of the video evidence and
witness testimony, determined that WTC 7 was a progressive collapse. The
disappearance of the east penthouse, retaining wall and west penthouse
before the collapse of the façade, was visual evidence of the collapse of
the core columns upon which these structures rested. What we are seeing in
the videos is the collapse of the buildings outer shell.

Geoff.

First, thanks to Cromwell for taking the time to formulate his opinions and sharing them with others.


That being said, the post serves as an excellent example of many of the concepts I have discussed in the smart idiots thread and in my "book".


Either-or false choice

First and foremost, the poster writes from within an assumed world view based firmly on an artificially narrowed false choice between 2 incorrect representations.

EITHER Griffin and Chandler OR the NIST, there being no third possibilities to consider. For example, third party independent fact checking of all claims based on a system of direct verification of all claims is not even presented as an option.

In reality, independent observation and measurement reveal that each of these parties are misrepresenting the collapse in question, but very few people will ever be able to verify this if their claims are not compared with more detailed mappings.

All arguments based within the assumption of an artificially narrowed false choice will lead to something that "looks like science".




Blockhead mechanics resurrected

I hope that from my earlier arguments on the moement of WTC1 I was able to convincingly demonstrate how childish and primitive claims of rigid block movement actually are. It seems to be some type of subconscious effort to reduce the movement of a highly complex, deforming, interconnected system into terms that are explicable in physics 101. The idea is to dumb down the reality of the physical system until it is reduced to something people can describe in terms of baby blocks.

If you look behind the surface, are not efforts to talk about some monolithic acceleration of WTC7 as a whole unit the same as this primitive tendency to return to the block? People seem to have some subconscious reflex to turn highly complex interconnected structures into some rigid, simplified geometric object in order to analyze it "scientifically".


This is observable through multiple sources. Bazant reduced his buildings to blocks. The NIST reduced early movement of WTC1 to a rigidly tilting block and completely screwed up the "tilt angle" and any concept of an "axis of rotation". Chandler did it. In the present example the concept of WTC7 acceleration is being discussed yet again in terms of some overly-generic argument appealing to some imaginary rigidity of a deforming physical structure.





The lunacy of discussing acceleration outside the context of position and mechanism

There is no such thing as an "acceleration" for WTC7 which is independent of position, deformity and mechanism. Different points on the perimeter-core lattice structure accelerate differently. To ignore this is to return to the comfort of baby blocks and rigidity.

Neither the NIST nor the Chandler arguments address the dependence of acceleration on the point being measured, global deformity or initiation mechanism. The word "acceleration" takes on a cartoonish, absurdly generic meaning within both their arguments, just as the phrase "upper block" does in BV, BL and BLGB. It is a cartoon concept, an invention of ones own mind, but the authors take it as a real physical property.







Science dumbed down and "good-enoughism"

Artificially narrowed false choice
Generic block-type approach applied to collapse initiation and progression

Only within these extremely limiting world iews do people claim to "apply science". But how can anyone "apply science" within such false mental constructs?

Answer: You can't. You get something that "looks like science".


A whole world of assumptions appear within the first sentence in the comment by Cromwell:

Free fall is possibly the cornerstone of the Truth Movements argument and
David Chandler's contribution, the subject of so much rapture. I
will now explore these claims in detail and show that most of this is
bluster, huge assumption and sleight of hand. David Ray Griffin lays out
his wears very clearly. He makes three claims.

...

Only within the assumptions is the topic of freefall addressed. WIthin the assumptions..

Truthers are defined...
Truther beliefs are defined...
Relevent and irrelevent arguments are defined...
Truther representtives are defined....
Throughout the argument no NIST claims are fact-checked independently.


Being firmly fixed within this rigid set of unquestioned assumptions, arious people then proceed to use the poor argumentation of both Griffen and Chandler as a type of mexican pinata. They hit it repeatedly with a stick, while blindfolded, until a buch of candy comes out.




It probably feels pretty good when you hear that pinata break open. In a similar way, with a similar simplicity, many people do something that "looks like science" to show how "truthers" are easily manipulated. In other words, through their argumentation they demonstrate how vulnerable they are for anyone to see while, at the same time, claiming that the "other side" (as they perceive and define it) is vulnerable.







Vulnerability and belief

Cromwell's conclusion:

In conclusion, we now see that the claims made by David Ray Griffin are very
far from proven: the equation of free fall with controlled demolition is
simply an unproven assumption, with no research data to back it up; that
NIST denied that free fall was occurring in the average acceleration of the
building downward, and that resistance was typical of its descent was
correct
and finally, that David Chandler did nothing to change this position which
NIST maintained from the draft to final report.

For the many readers that have never supported either the NIST acceleration profiles or those of David Chandler, what on earth does this conclusion have to do with you?

Anyone astute enough to check claims independently is not even worth mentioning in the conclusion. You cannot be perceived.

Griffin exists. Chandler exists. The NIST exists. But third party independent measurement and observation that contradicts both AE911T and NIST claims cannot be perceived.



................

Cromwell:

But invoking Newton's second law of motion leaves me completely stumped, I
can not see its relevance to this question at all. However, accepting
Chandler's credentials as a physics high school teacher, I obviously bow to
his experience.

Bow to the experience of a high school physics teacher?

But this leaves me wondering what he thought of Gage, Ryan,
Harrit and the Truth Movements use of such a measurement? Well actually
Chandler answered this question in an interview with Visibility911. Did he
scold his fellow academics for their useless calculations in the face of
Newton?

Without any capacity or effort to independently verify claims by either AE911T or the NIST, a strange logic based on EITHER "experts" from AE911T OR "experts" from the NIST comes to define the limits of what a person can "perceive".


Next, note how the NIST arguments are treated by the poster. In this description the poster needs to flap his arms so rigorously that, were he equipped with feathers, he could probably lift himself off the ground and take flight:

But NIST listened to what Chandler had to say and set out to refine its
analysis and show Chandler why free fall acceleration was not typical of the
north façade collapse to the 29th floor. NIST developed its analysis and
now focused on the instantaneous acceleration. It showed that the 5.4
seconds could be broken down into three stages. It showed that
gravitational acceleration was not typical due to the first and third
stages, especially the first, which had seen the façade collapse 7ft in 1.75
seconds. This is where most of the resistance came from and accumulated the
40% greater time over all. It is true that NIST acknowledges 2.25 seconds
of gravitational acceleration for the next 100ft, but it is still only
2/5 of the collapse time to the 29th floor, still less than half way through
the collapse of the façade(20). In the third stage, NIST found the
acceleration was less than gravitational, which means the collapse of the
façade from the 29th floor to the ground could very feasibly take another 5
to six seconds, possibly more meaning the free fall would have been less
than a 1/5, very atypical of the collapse. There is nothing in this
fundamentally changes what NIST had said previously.

The description serves as a confessional of how, in the eyes of the writer, the NIST could do no wrong. The description "looks like science" but it is nothing more than a heartfelt expression of the deep faith the poster has in the NIST.

This paragraph takes the form of a narrative in which the writer takes the position similar to that of a son or an older brother of the NIST, explaining how everything the NIST did was reasonable and fair. There seems to be no effort to think critically about NIST claims, no effort to examine them independently.

When helping a friend or a family member such loyalty may be admirable. When examining claims through direct effort and using critical thought such loyalty is absurd.

This is from a JREF post linked here

NIST's conclusions for the causes of the collapses of WTC1,2,7 remain correct.

To which I responded:

Thanks, BasqueArch.


This is an excellent summary of not only your beliefs, but of many other regular posters on this forum.

If one could summarize the underlying beliefs expressed in the entire history of this subforum in one sentence, this small statement is as good as it gets.

I am not teasing you by saying this. It is not easy to formulate so many years of posting in one sentence. It takes an acute observer to do this, someone who can feel the pulse underlying so many different threads and different posters.

I do not think anyone is capable of stating it better than this.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


BasqueArch stated a deep seated belief around which all the variations of opinion expressed at JREF orbit. I cannot pretend that technical discussions are possible in that environment or in any environment like that.

In cases like this, on both sides of the artificially narrowed false choice, science is only a disguise in which more ancient systems of thought and beliefs can be masked. People need the disguise of science because they would be too embarrassed to openly admit why they think the way they do.


And this is what the technical history of the WTC collapses really is. The public, the whole world, is given something wrapped in the disguise of science. The disguise takes the form of an artificially narrowed false choice between really bad and even worse.

Each "side" will have their "science" in the form of revered self-appointed "experts". Each "side" will claim that their beliefs are backed by true science.

It is precisely the imprimatur that the word "science" gives to an argument (belief) that makes this so deceitful. Deceit implies an intent to lie... and it is possible that the deception was unintended. The believers believe that they DID use a scientific process. Their sycophants DO believe that there was science used to reach conclusions... that experts are incapable of doing anything other than use settled knowledge and scientific methods in their analysis.

The arguments even come out with charts, and graphs and references to settled principles and statements that X would be impossible because the laws of thermodynamics would have had to be suspended at the WTC on 9/11. That sounds damn scientific... the person who came up with that MUST have known what they were talking about... must be a scientists... a physicists.

When one looks at the structure of the arguments made.... the evidence used in them... one can see how there is no there there. It's all smoke and mirrors... but it sounds convincing and can be believed by those who make the arguments and those who look to them for answers.

A perfect example of this is psikeyhackr, who is constantly scream where are the physicists and tries disprove a progressive collapse ergo to prove CD with a non scalable mechanical destruction model made from paper loops....and who asserts that the *spire* turned to dust... Last I checked... and I am not a physicist.. Euler who was explained why the *spire* collapsed. I guess psi missed that class.

Deception, hubris, sloppy thinking, poor observations, lack of imagination self delusion... misrepresentation and of course lack of technical knowledge all come into play. These apply at every level of the education scale from housewife Hanna.. to PhD professor Paul. And as Tom has pointed out dragged us in to an absurd dichotomy of false choices... where science is out the door.

I do not see anything changing in the foreseeable future... and it's useless to try to get either side to come to their senses. It's like the struggle between Islam and Christianity.

Ain't it?

SanderO wrote:...A perfect example of this is psikeyhackr, who is constantly scream where are the physicists and tries disprove a progressive collapse ergo to prove CD with a non scalable mechanical destruction model made from paper loops....and who asserts that....

He had me as main target for~~2 years on the RichardDawkins Forum. Nearly every post had a pseudo technically framed insult directed at me. I was the leading responder to the engineering aspects of WTC collapse - the only engineer contributing at that time. AND moderator of the subforum which imposed "conflict of interest" concerns so I did not deal with his trolling/insults myself. And the other mods rarely went near the sub-forum - too much woo and too technical the topic. I think he came here and started his wordwide web broadcasting of his single nonsense claim after he was eventually banned off Dawkins Forum. My memory may be wrong on that but he lasted very little time here or on JREF - don't know about other forums.

One sad aspect was that his first model - a physical tower which he hit by impacting weights - was a significant effort of work. BUT it seemed to show that he had the main cause of collapse attributable to oscillation following the aircraft impacts. Horizontal effects if we put it simply. As we know the primary mechanisms of Twin Towers collapses were vertical - an initiation stage followed by a global progression collapse.

psikey's obsession was with the distribution of weight of steel and concrete. Which is of little relevance if any to the actual collapse mechanisms. I spent thousands of words and hours of explanation time attempting to walk him through the physics but all to no avail. I doubt that anyone on the Internet would have given him as much time and patience.

SanderO wrote:... And as Tom has pointed out dragged us in to an absurd dichotomy of false choices... where science is out the door.

I do not see anything changing in the foreseeable future... and it's useless to try to get either side to come to their senses. It's like the struggle between Islam and Christianity.

Ain't it?

Sure. So time to ask "What is our objective?":
Is it to get the two polarised sides to agree; OR
Is it to determine and promulgate a better set of explanations?

I don't think the former is practical. And, whilst it is relatively easy to develop better explanations, I am not very interested in "promulgating" same other than to genuine honest people who need clarification of concerns or limited understandings. I have never published technical papers in the 'professional and academic' status game and will not be starting to do so. And it is many years since I met a person in the real world who was interested. Which limits the opportunities to Internet forums and this is not 2007/2008. Reality is that the number of such genuine truth seeking concerned persons coming to the Internet now as we enter 2013 is close to zero.

Ozzie,
You raise an interesting point at the end of the last post. I wouldn't even consider publishing something about 9/11. Who is the audience? What would the purpose be? As I've written before I got interested in 9/11 to look for answers on the www and the officials weren't providing them and so I ended up on the truther side and pretty much fell into the thrall of their pitch. Somehow I found myself on the board of AE911T in no time and then quickly found enormous resistance to actual study by this group of what had caused the buildings to come down. What they were about was building a case for their conclusion - explosive CD and their evidence turned out to be suspect on even not very close examination.

At first I naively thought they would clean up there act.. make some corrections and begin on various types of study in a scientific manner. Hell no. I was sent packing as a infiltrator and a disruptive force... even a disinfo agent. Fancy that! And this was from the blue ribbon truth group. What to do?

It was in early 2010 that I came to see the thing as an avalanche of material and found this forum at the same time and discovered the ROOSD acronym and the rigorous work being done here. I've only this spring tried to come up with some explanation for WTC 7 as a thought experiment. As I believe Tom has mentioned we have less to work with because it's mostly inside and we can't see inside the building.

But I've come to see the destruction as cascading progressive failures of very complex systems with multiple inputs varying over time...systems which have not as much capacity to arrest the progression of a local failure into a global one. We don't seem to ever see much of the stuff coming apart as much as the result of it coming apart... falling, flying and then in a pile on the ground. There is nothing in my education to help me figure this out.

In a few years I've come to accept the false dichotomy and that the two side will never budge or learn a thing and so the loudest voices drown out the few voices of reason.

I don't see a repeat of the event... towers dropping from plane strikes or a placed devices. I do see more of the usual BS taking away our rights and starting wars of opportunity to plunder and control. I don't see more dumb designs such as the twin towers. Leslie Robertson probably will feel like a jerk for the rest of his life and not make the same bone headed designs again. We do need to rethink the egress from burning out of control high rises... and making them less flammable to begin with. That will happen.

The MIC and their supporters, like a hammer will see every problem as a nail... and we'll get war after war unless we go too broke to wage them.... and that too is coming.

I don't think arm chair researchers can do much more than what's been done here. They're evidence and resource limited. I have no interest in publishing anything. I am not an expert.

The energy for truth will evolve into anti government / libertarian / peace activism using historical events as cartoon rallying calls. And the guilty seem to walk away scott free as always.

SanderO wrote:Ozzie,
You raise an interesting point at the end of the last post. I wouldn't even consider publishing something about 9/11. Who is the audience? What would the purpose be?...

Once again we find ourselves on similar tracks.

SanderO wrote:... I found myself on the board of AE911T....thought they would clean up there act.. . I was sent packing as a infiltrator and a disruptive force... What to do?..

I am familiar with the outline of that sad situation.

SanderO wrote:...It was in early 2010 that I ....discovered the ROOSD acronym and the rigorous work being done here. I've only this spring tried to come up with some explanation for WTC 7 as a thought experiment. As I believe Tom has mentioned we have less to work with because it's mostly inside and we can't see inside the building....

As you know I also described the ROOSD mechanism back in 2007 but without the label and I made no attempt to promulgate it outside the RichardDawkins Forum. So that is me plus Tom plus a few supporters here and a few at JREF but most of them not taking on the battle with the entrenched authorities over there. Me included - it would be a losing battle - I don't join battles unless I have sufficiently strong arguments to win. There doesn't seem to be many more supporters of "the mechanisms which really happened" - if any... So you have the false dichotomy in play on that aspect of collapse progression. Both sides still having the columns taking load and buckling. BUT - and I haven't counted it - there are increasingly numbers of JREF participants recognising ROOSD (M-T's version with the acronym label - sound marketing - not mine which never had a catchy label. ) They are still in the minority - JREF 9/11 postings are currently dominated by trolling and counter trolling - little real discussion. And IMO only one deluded but genuine truther still posting - so 9/11 discussion seems to be over. Same story here but without the massive noise barrier of trolling and counter trolling. BTW I have many times made the point about WTC7 collapses being "hidden inside". My view being that is the reason for so much focus of discussion on WTC7. Relatively speaking the Twin Tower collapses were easy to analyse and prove "No CD required?" for the global collapse phase. We will never "prove" anything for WTC7.

SanderO wrote:But I've come to see the destruction as cascading progressive failures of very complex systems with multiple inputs varying over time...systems which have not as much capacity to arrest the progression of a local failure into a global one. We don't seem to ever see much of the stuff coming apart as much as the result of it coming apart... falling, flying and then in a pile on the ground. There is nothing in my education to help me figure this out....

That is where my engineering and physics background helps. BUT so many of the "debunker' side are limited in those fields and it is well nigh impossible to get serious discussion of the relevant engineering/physics issues properly in context.

SanderO wrote:...In a few years I've come to accept the false dichotomy and that the two side will never budge or learn a thing and so the loudest voices drown out the few voices of reason.

Which is why I flagged it is a FALSE dichotomy. The two extremes of self satisfied delusion will never come to the grey area/middle ground of rational explanations. (What we used to call "truth' before the word got purloined and bastardised by friends and foes alike. )

SanderO wrote:I don't see a repeat of the event... towers dropping from plane strikes or a placed devices. I do see more of the usual BS taking away our rights and starting wars of opportunity to plunder and control.

Agreed. Which I what I most dislike about AE911Truth. There could well be scope for investigation of the socio-political aspects of decisions made surrounding and flowing from 9/11. If they are serious why premise it on "CD of WTC" which is so easily disproved? Or discredited for those who still, in 2012/3 don't accept "disproved". Gage et al do the cause no favour by prostituting the search for truth to a world tour agenda - as per your earlier comments.

SanderO wrote:I don't see more dumb designs such as the twin towers. Leslie Robertson probably will feel like a jerk for the rest of his life and not make the same bone headed designs again. We do need to rethink the egress from burning out of control high rises... and making them less flammable to begin with. That will happen...

It is already happening. The idea that regulation changes within the US jurisdiction are needed and will prevent WTC style collapses is ridiculous. The worlds professionals designing high rise buildings will have got and dealt with the lessons from 9/11 - with or without NIST. "They" certainly will not be limited to either NIST recommendations OR changes in US building codes.

SanderO wrote:...The MIC and their supporters, like a hammer will see every problem as a nail... and we'll get war after war unless we go too broke to wage them.... and that too is coming...

Together with the slipping of US from dominance of the world economy.

SanderO wrote:...I don't think arm chair researchers can do much more than what's been done here...

Not just here as in 911Forum. The technical needs revealed by WTC 9/11 will be addressed by the industry and even this forum is of near zero significance in that arena.

SanderO wrote:...They're evidence and resource limited. I have no interest in publishing anything. I am not an expert.

The energy for truth will evolve into anti government / libertarian / peace activism using historical events as cartoon rallying calls. And the guilty seem to walk away scott free as always.

I'm not sure who you mean with guilty - otherwise I agree. I may respond on the legal issues you raised in the other thread. (Ford Pinto and "product liability")

However I see that OWE has started a civil war with JREF and identified me as one of the hostages and part of the pre-planned "co-lateral damage". Playing for a loss for some reason. Lets see.