Science still failing: NIST physics tells us resistance is only mental?

If the NIST's findings are so blatantly unscientific, how is that most of the papers that support the NIST claim have scientific evidence in the shape of mathematical equations, seismic data, empricial observations, etc. while the papers that criticise the NIST findings or claim to have evidence of a false flag operation do not contain very much scientific evidence in comparison?

Fidel wrote:

But a lot of NIST's "empirical data" and "observations" is additional assumption too wild to be believed.

Please provide evidence to supprt this assertion. Empirical observations such as seismic data recordings would be hard to define as wild assumptions.

Fidel wrote:

The law is on the side of 1200+ A&E's for 9/11 truth. NIST must produce a reasonable explanation for the collapse of WTC buildings 1,2 and 7. They are obligated by law to do the work and make their findings public knowledge.

They already have done so. In fact, you provided a link to the findings yourself.

Fidel wrote:

And 1200+ independent architects, engineers, and scientists are within their rights to scour, probe and to scrutinize the evidence outside the influence of US government and its minders. That's the way it's supposed to work in a democracy. But the USSA is not a democracy - it's a vicious empire that hides the truth and tramples democracy under the auspices of "national security", which means whatever in hell they want it to mean. Whistle blowers are blowing their whistles on US shadow government corruption and madness and continuing today.

If this were true, the NIST would not have released its findings, and the methodology by which they came to those findings. Yet they did, and the 1200 architects and engineers have had a chance to look at them and object. Just like the far higher number of architects and engineers who have also had a chance to look at it and not object.

Quote:

Only a handful of architects and engineers question the NIST Report, but they have never come up with an alternative. Although at first blush it may seem impressive that these people don't believe the NIST Report, remember that there are 123,000 members of ASCE(American Society of Civil Engineers) who do not question the NIST Report. There are also 80,000 members of AIA(American Institute of Architects) who do not question the NIST Report.

http://911-engineers.blogspot.com/

Fidel wrote:

[url=http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19750]Unusual Trading in Stock Options Prior to 9/11: Government Destroyed Documents Regarding Pre-9/11 Put Options[/url]

Quote:

[A]ccording to NBC news:
[list][*] Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based upon the testimony of people who were tortured
[*]At least four of the people whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report have claimed that they told interrogators information as a way to stop being "tortured."
[*]One of the Commission's main sources of information was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ
[*]The 9/11 Commission itself doubted the accuracy of the torture confessions, and yet kept their doubts to themselves[/list]

In crazy, crazy George II they trusted. Many still do.

None of this relates to the collapse times of the involved buildings. I hope you don't mind if I do not respond to this in this thread. If another thread is started with this as the subject matter, i wold be more than happy to join the discussion.

Fidel wrote:

But what if tigers have been known to frequent downtown Taranto? [url=http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Gladio_CIAHits.html](See tigers and sword play in Taranto)[/url]

Now you, as an intelligent person, suddenly realize that your own hypothesis is not all that absurd. If you happen to be orchestrating violence against the public and selling protection as a solution, then it's just a sting operation. It's an old racket.

I have no idea how your link is, in any way,  a response to my post about magic rocks.

Fidel wrote:

Okay, WTC-7 collapsed in under 7 seconds.

From the wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center#Collapse) :

Quote:

At 5:20:33 p.m. EDT on September 11, 2001, 7 World Trade Center started to collapse, with the crumble of the east mechanical penthouse, while at 5:21:10 p.m. EDT the entire building collapsed completely.

The wiki article gives us a time of thirty-seven seconds.

Fidel wrote:

The very slip-shod 9/11 Commission Report didn't even mention it.

Did the report not mention the collapse or the time it took?

Fidel wrote:

Both NIST and the 9/11 Commission have refused to debate the issue with any independent scientists. Why do you think this is?

I am not sure that your claim of refusing to discuss the issue with independent scientists and engineers is accurate.

From the same wiki article:

Quote:

In response to FEMA's concerns, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was authorized to lead an investigation into the structural failure and collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers and 7 World Trade Center. The investigation, led by Dr S. Shyam Sunder, drew not only upon in-house technical expertise, but also upon the knowledge of several outside private institutions, including the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (SEI/ASCE), the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY).

Please note the various non-governmental associations that have been involved in the study.

Fidel wrote:

And before scientists on US Gov't payroll backed off their pancaking theory, they inisisted that there was enough kinetic energy to overwhelm WTC floors as the upper blocks descended downward. But independent science on the matter has shown that kinetic energy of the descending upper block could have:

 a) been consumed in the pulverizing of concrete floor, or
 b) kinetic energy of the descending UB released into and caused the massive steel columns to fail

But not both a and b.

If this is true about the amount of kinetic energy (KE), it does not really matter, as structural failure on any floor would have been accomplished if only one of these two things had happened. So if a) happened on some of the floors and b) occurred on the others, the collapses would still have happened. Both a and b need not have happened.

Fidel wrote:

They were a little fuzzy on how collapses were initiated in the first place and have since had to basically ignore established Newtonian laws of physics in explaining away what actually happened during collapse, as well as ignoring more than 1200 independent architects and engineers demanding a transparent and thorough investigation all these years later.

Can you please show how their findings violated or ignored Newtonian laws of physics? Thank you in advance.

Fidel wrote:

And I imagine one of the reasons why the 1200 A&Es plus physicists and aerospace engineers have openly disagreed with the 9/11 Commission whitewash is because they have no fear of retribution from the government. Their pensions and jobs and possible promotions or firings were never a factor in deciding to blow the whistle on a slip-shod, crazy George Bush government coverup of 9/11.

The vast majority of engineers and architects would also not have the same fear of retribution. Why don't they also question the government report?

You keep mentioning the 1200 building professionals who disagree. The number of people who believe something is not indicative of the veracity of that belief. Most Canadians accept capitalism. That does not mean that it is a valid belief.

However, if it were, you would then be faced with the difficult position that more engineers and architects support the NIST explanation, or at least have not spoken out against it.

Fidel wrote:

Pants-of-dog wrote:

If this is true about the amount of kinetic energy (KE), it does not really matter, as structural failure on any floor would have been accomplished if only one of these two things had happened. So if a) happened on some of the floors and b) occurred on the others, the collapses would still have happened. Both a and b need not have happened.

Oh yes it does matter. The law is on the side of the 1200+ and growing independent architects and engineers for 9/11 truth. NIST has certain obligations to investigate and provide detailed report on what caused the initial collapse. They haven't provided that so far.

See [url=http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/trumpman/CoreAnalysisFinal.htm]Trumpm... and [url=http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/dustvolume/index.html]Hoffman[/url] on energy requirements for collapse initiation.

Your post does not discuss, in any way, the fact that collpase would have occurred if only a or b happened.

NIST has provided, and is continuing to provide, detailed reports. As I have previously mentioned, you have linked to them yourself.

Perhaps you could quote some of the relevant text from those two links, as I am uncertain as to what data you would like me to focus on. Thank you.

Fidel wrote:

If you read the material pointed out to you, you'd know there wasn't enough kinetic energy to do either. And this is in addition to David Griscom's critique of Manuel Garcia's proof by intimidation, which you still have not provided anything to the contrary. You and NIST are way behind on your homework. Get busy.

The links you gave me do not show what you claim they do. The first (Trumpman) is very hard to follow, and I do not see where (s)he makes the claim that there was not enough kinetic energy to do either a or b. The second link (Hoffman) does not discuss kinetic energy at all.

I have alreay discussed Griscom's and Garcia's different works. Is there something specific you would like me to clarify or repeat?

Fidel wrote:

Although they might not use the word kinetic, they mention motion of falling masses and descending upper block in relation to energy a number of times - Trumpman somewhere over a dozen times. Perhaps you should look up kinetic energy first before jumping to conclusions.

Please reread my post. I said that Trumpman mentions kinetic energy (KE) several times, but that his or her layout is so hard to follow, it is difficult to see how (s)he comes to his or her conclusions. Hoffman doesn't even use the term "kinetic energy" which is odd for a physicist or engineer. But it is understandable as Hoffman's poorly written paper does not even discuss collapse times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

Fidel, question: what do you mean by 'energy sink'? I am familiar with that term from energy return on energy investment, but the way you're using it makes it sound like a property of a system. So...it is like intensive or extensive...or what?

The columns did not fail, in the sense of being crushed, they fell over when their lateral supports broke.  Very little energy is required to push a column over. 

Assuming the accuracy of those numbers (i'd be mildly surprised if they were within 10%) The amount of concrete crushed would be almost all instead of all.  Nobody looked that closely at the site, you would have to sieve all the concrete to confirm it turned to dust.

jrootham wrote:

The columns did not fail, in the sense of being crushed, they fell over when their lateral supports broke.  Very little energy is required to push a column over. 

Assuming the accuracy of those numbers (i'd be mildly surprised if they were within 10%) The amount of concrete crushed would be almost all instead of all.  Nobody looked that closely at the site, you would have to sieve all the concrete to confirm it turned to dust.

What? They didn't "crack"?? jrootham, why does your story keep changing?

My story hasn't changed.  The cracking I was referring to earlier was with respect to the horizontal members.

Besides, as I described earlier, cracking is how solids break.  All solids, steel and glass too.

the thoughtful skeptic - a breed of which I certainly consider myself to be, as I believe nothing of importance emanating from government or media these days, or even academia for that matter, which is a very sad commentary on our society (that is not to say some things they say may not be true - I just put everything through my own credibility filter, then check questionable things from some alternative sources, including opinion from various sides of any issue who might have something interesting to say, and come to some tentative conclusions awaiting further input one way or another - ) - anyway, the thoughtful skeptic does not, I think, attempt to negotiate between claims of the falling speed of objects in freefall and decide on the credibility of the competing claims by whoever makes the most appealing arguement - I think it more likely that the path of the thoughtful skeptic is more like this:

This picture -

and this one

- and then this one a few minutes later -

- and says 'No friggin way".

All the talk we have seen since this great crime, all the arguments by the Popular Mechanics gang and their followers about the meltiing point of steel and the falling speed of bricks etc etc etc has been specifically undertaken with the object of getting people away from this most obvious of paths. IMO.

Fidel wrote:

Well I think you're both cracked. An' I'm stickin' by Trumpman, and Hoffman's extensive analyses,

And as I said, one of them is incomprehensible, while the other is irrelevant to the discussion of collapse times.

Fidel wrote:

and those of 1200+ architects and engineers who've looked at it and concluded the official conspiracy theories are cracked.Oh and then there are growing numbers of aerospace engineers, and doctors, and lawyers, and firefighters, and pilots for 9/11 Truth demanding a real investigation.

This is called Argumentum ad populum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

I have already explained how this is faulty reasoning in previous posts. You may reread those or read the wiki article to which I have linked if you require further information.

Fidel wrote:

[url=http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/TheMissingJolt7.pdf]The Missing Jolt:A Simple Refutation of the NIST-Bazant Collapse Hypothesis[/url](pdf)

I must admit that this is one refutation of Bazant's wild collapse theory I have not read. There are several that Jas has pointed us to.

The central hypothesis of the Missing Jolt is that if Bazant were correct, we should see a jolt in the rate of collpase at  the moment that the rigid block of upper storeys impacts the rigid block of lower storey, and since we see no jolt, Bazant must be wrong.

The trouble with the Missing jolt is that the author assumes that the jolt would last longer than half a second (this assumption can be inferred from the fact that the author's graph indicating rate of fall uses half-second increments along the time axis), which is not reasonable considering the fact that impact itself occurs much more quickly. If the impact occurred in less than half a second, it would not shpw up on the authors graph, even if the jolt were there.

The second erroneous assumption made by the author is that the lower block of storeys was perfectly rigid at the moment of impact. While most of the structure in the lower block of storeys would have been perfectly intact and rigid, the very top floor that would have been impacted in the Missing Jolt was not necessarily perfectly rigid. This is because it was probably already damaged and under strain. If it was not already deforming at that time, it would have very likely deformed more than the perfectly intact structure below. Any such deformation would then have reduced the size and duration of any jolt, missing or otherwise.

Please note that the Missing Jolt does not discuss concrete pulverisation.

siamdave wrote:

 

....

 

- and then this one a few minutes later -

 

 

 

- and says 'No friggin way".

...

This photo clearly shows columns falling at free fall speeds. You can see them in the picture. Note how they are below the debris cloud, which is itself below the upper block of storeys.

If everything was falling at free fall speeds, the upper block would have fallen at the same rate as the columns, and they would be at the same height in the picture.

So all of those who are claiming that the upper block of storeys fell at free fall speeds, you now have clear evidence that this is not the case.

Of course, you could choose to ignore this evidence.

Fidel wrote:

This scenario was refuted by someone, I'm almost sure. Can't remember who it was from the many excellent truth articles you posted, Jas. In this scenario, we can forget about any of the design safety features of the steel structure meant to withstand hurricane winds, passenger planes, and all kinds of horizontal and other forces. We are to believe that all of the massive bolts designed for architectural strength both held long enough for the walls to come down... but then they all snapped like twigs at the moment the buildings fell into themselves. They held and then failed simultaneously and instantaneously under varying loads and exposures to temperature. I think one scientist estimated the odds of that happening to be about one in one-trillion - far worse odds than winning the 6-49 jackpot. Someone wants us to believe in a 9/11 collapse fairy. And I just can't believe in the 9/11 fairy no matter how hard I close my eyes and wish on lucky stars.

It's like William of Ockham had an evol twin brother in the next town, Wild Billy of Smokingham, or something. NIST and their non-truther groupees have scrambled looking for truth in wild assumptions while totally ignoring the evidence and eye witness testimonies of first responders. They run away from the simplest explanation requiring no leaps of faith to be believed, which is that cutter charges were used. The original investigators admitted that they didn't even consider it.

Are you aware of what a strawman fallacy is?

A strawman fallacy is when you attack an argument of your own making rather than the argument the other person is actually presenting.

The hypothesis of gravitational collapse put forward by Bazant and NIST does not claim that all the massive bolts (whatever they are) all held up and then all snapped at the exact same time.

By the way, a column's lateral resistance does not directly help its vertical resistance to loads. this is because the lateral loads are resisted mostly by the columns ability to resist bending moment stresses, while the vertical load is resisted by the columns compressive strength. Are you familiar with the difference between bending moment stress and compression, or would you like me to explain them?

Fidel wrote:

Explain them? You're the one who took us to task on Trumpman/Hoffman's description of energy requirements for collapse, and saying that those sources were too difficult to understand. I summarized for you, and then you quickly pointed us to Bufo Adada Bazant's essay, which is already refuted in the same peer reviewed professional journal by several A&E's for 9/11 truth.

I said the first was difficult to understand because of its poor layout. Not because it was too difficult to understand. The second one is irrelevant as I have already mentioned several times.

The summary you made for me concerning the energy requirements for pulverisation of concrete was shown to be wrong. Moreover, the numbers you give in your summary (that apparently came from FEMA) are not shown anywhere on Trumpman's web page, or on Hoffman's irrelevant page, for that matter. You also did not show how you came up with those numbers. Bazant, on the other hand, clearly shows (s)he calculated those numbers

Moreover, you have yet to show how Bazant is wrong in any way. Claimng that someone else refuted his or her work is not the same as actually refuting it.

The rest of your post does not discuss the science of the WTC collapses, so I hope you do not mind if I do not address it, as I would not wish toderail this thread. If you wish to discuss these other subjects in another thread, i would be more than happy to discuss them with you then.

Fidel wrote:

James Gourley has a critique of Bazant and Green's paper and published by [url=http://ascelibrary.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=JENMDT&Volume=134&Issue=10#DI... that points out several blunders in Bazant's crazy collapse theory. I don't think NIST even supports Bazant and Green, they're theories are so wild. Apparently some of the first of Bazant and Green's papers on collapse theory submitted to JEM were rejected due to Gourley's criticisms.

[url=http://911blogger.com/node/9154]DR. BAZANT - NIST's 911 FALL GUY[/url] by Gordon Ross, ME

I believe it's your turn. Point out where Bazant is right and Gourley is wrong.

Here is the first verifiable claim that Gourley makes about Bazant's work:

Quote:

Dressed up a little to remove the obvious shortcoming that it talked of the columns reaching temps of 800 C the paper could be presented in NIST's final report in place of what should have been there - a comprehensive examination of all of the evidence which could be gleaned from the collapse and the debris field. When it all comes on top NIST can stand back and point at Dr. Bazant as the reason for their failure to study the collapse. It was he after all who assured them that collapse was inevitable.

Now, let us look at what Bazant actually said (page 2 of 25 in the PDF):

Quote:

By annealing studies of column pieces collected after the collapse,
NIST (2005, NIST 1-3C Sec. E.5, p. xlvi) documents that steel temperatures reached at
least 600 degrees C. At that temperature, the yield strength of the structural steel used gets reduced
to 15% of the cold strength (and at 300 degrees C to 80%) (NIST 2005).

600 degrees celsius (about 1100 degrees farenheit) is the temperature of an average house fire:

Quote:

When the damage is severe, countless precious belongings are lost, depriving the owners of a portion of their lives. However in many cases, there are a select few items that withstand the inferno. The average house fire burns at a temperature of about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, which isn’t hot enough to destroy most metals and earthly-made substances. And if an item is well-placed and small in size, its chances of survival increase drastically.

So, Gourley is wrong when he accuses bazant of using a temperature that is higher than what the data suggests. Not only does Bazant's number come from evidence found on site, but it also coincides with a reasonable figure in terms of typical fire temperatures.

Now, I can not reasonably be expected to show how all of Gourley's claims are incorrect, but if the very first claim happens to be incorrect, that does not bode well for any of his other claims, does it?

Fidel wrote:

You've been reading Ross' critique of Bazant on 9/11 blogger.

You are correct. Thank you for pointing out my error.

Fidel wrote:

[url=http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/D25%20WTC%20... is Gourley's discussion[/url](begins on p. 915 of this copy of JEM, a pdf) of Bazant's bizarro crush-down, crush-up theory. Bazante's crush down-up inferno violates Newton's third law of motion until the supposed crush-up phase begins.

This is a misapplication of Newton's third law, as far as I can tell. The law applies to external forces acting between different bodies in a closed system. It can be used to analyse sturctures by assuming that in equilibrium all forces cancel each other out. Since the building was evidently not in equilibrium, i.e. it was falling down, the system was not closed, as it were, and was moving towards equilibrium, i.e. a state where the forces cancel each other out such that no net force is applied to the system.

Think about it this way. A brick is falling down through the air. According to Newton's laws, the brick is pushing down on the air below it with a force F, and the air is therefore pushing it with an equivalent force (in magnitude but opposite in vector) -F. Does the brick stop falling?

If you don't like the analogy of cinder blocks, you can try another one: coffee tables, say. Metal-framed coffee tables with concrete or marble tops. Long ones, Ones that, to be analogous to the Twin Towers, have center supports. If you drop a stack of 30 of these onto a stack of 70, would the standing stack of coffee tables be pulverized to the ground? Would they even collapse?

what would be, jrootham?

jas wrote:

Pants, try this thought experiment:

You have ten concrete cinder blocks stacked on top of each other. You drop one cinder block the height of one cinder block onto the stack of ten (or nine, if you like). Does the stack get pulverized by the top block? You can use different numbers if you like: 3 cinderblocks on top of seven, to be generous. Does the standing stack of cinder blocks get crushed to the floor?

Okay, drop it from a height of 8 inches, which is the approximate height of a concrete masonry unit. Probably nothing will happen. Now drop it from two feet. The top block might get scratched up, but no serious damage. Now drop it from 100 feet. Chances are most of the bricks get broken. From this thought experiment we can see that the height of the fall is one factor.

Now, let us use glass blocks instead of concrete ones. I think we can say with some certainty that we won't have to drop the top block from quite as high to break all of the lower bricks. From this thought experiment, we can see that the material is another factor.

Now, let us go back to the concrete blocks. This time, stack 78 on top of each other. Drop 19 blocks onto them from a distance equal to 6 blocks. This will make more of a mess, so we can see that the number of blocks on top and on the bottom is yet another factor.

Now, let up make two piles of blocks, one in a large square and another in a smaller square completely contained by the larger square. Like the perimeter columns of the WTC and the core. Drop squares of blocks on top of the other squares. If you are increibly lucky and manage to land the upper two squares on the top of the lower squares, you can hope that the whole thing won't collapse too much, but if it tilts at all, the squares won't line up and the blocks will fall. From this we can tell that the relative geometry of the upper and lower blocks is a factor.

Now, take a pile of glass and metal coffee tables, 105 tables high, in a square completely enclosing another square. Put flammable contents between the separate tables, smash the 6 levels of tables above the 78th "storey" by driving a small vehicle in there with a full gas tank, light the flammable stuff in this area on fire, wait an hour or so, and see how many of the tables are still standing.

Fidel wrote:

In fact, Frank Greening said that Newton's Law doesn't apply to falling buildings. They're telling you to ignore Newton's third law of motion in order to explain their bizarre collapse-down-up conspiracy theory.

....

Try hitting a nail with a hammer. What happens? It slows down. When you hit a billiard ball with the cueball, it slows down. Whenever two objects collide, they slow down even if broken into smaller pieces. That's Newton's third law of motion. It's Bazant versus Newton. It's why Gourley's paper was plonked down beside Bazant's in a peer reviewed engineering journal. It wouldn't be there if Gourley and Bazant's peers didn't think it had merit. And apparently Bazant and Greening took notice enough to make a number of revisions. There's only one way to settle disputes like this.

Well, Newton's Third law is applied differently to the case of a falling builiding than it is when it is applied to a static building.

For the purposes of simplifying the discussion, let us use a thought experiment. In this experiment, we place one brick on the ground, and then another brick on top. This is a very simple structure. The weight of the top brick is transferred to the weight of the bottom brick, and then to the ground.

Newton's 3rd law tells us that the top brick is pushing downwards with a force (F) equal to the mass of the brick times the acceleration due to gravity. The bottom brick must pe pushing against the top brick with a force -F. Now, the bottom brick must be pushing against the ground with aforce equal to 2F (the weight of both the top and bottom brick) and Newton's third law dictates that the ground is pushing the bottom brick with force of -2F. All the forces cancel out, and the system, as well as the constituent parts of the system, is at rest.

Now, let us take out the bottom brick. The top brick would then be falling towards the earth. In this case, the Earth is pulling on the brick with a force F. The brick, of course, is pulling on the Earth with a force of -F. Both the brick and the earth get pulled towarsd each other due to these two forces. In this case, we see that the 3rd law is satisifed in that there are equal and opposite reactions, but for the brick itself, there is a net force acting on it causing it to accelerate downwards.

Fidel wrote:

 

But Frank Greening, a co-author on the Bazant paper you pointed us to, clearly said that Newton's third law, which is universal in our realm of existence, [u]does not apply to falling buildings.[/u]

 

Quote:

"Newton's 3rd Law applies to bouncing billiard balls, [color=red]not[/color] the interiors of [color=red]collapsing buildings[/color] ........" - Frank Greening

...

You mean like [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syzKBBB_THE&feature=player_embedded#!]thi...

That seems to be a small snippet from a longer dialogue that can be read here:

http://the911forum.freeforums.org/newton-s-3rd-law-and-the-collapse-of-w...

From what I am reading, the problem with Chandler's (or Legge's if you prefer) criticism of Bazant (or Greening, if you prefer) is the misapplication of rigid body mechanics to defrrming structures. If the upper and lower blocks of undamaged stories were perfectly rigid, like billiard balls in physics examples, then yes, the building may not have collapsed. But as we can see from any video, the upper and lower blocks were not rigid structures but were instead deformable structures.

In terms of looking at deformable structures, it is better to look at it from a point of view of conservation of momentum (Newton's third law of motion, the law of reciprocal actions, which dictates that the forces acting between systems are equal in magnitude, but opposite in sign, is due to the conservation of momentum.), as this lets us look at it in terms of kinetic energy.

Since, as we already know, the kinetic energy of the collapse was absorbed into such "energy sinks" as the pulverisation of concrete, we can see how the energy of the system was conserved, and therefore Newton's 3rd law is not broken.

That's not an accurate description of what the NIST report said.

The point of impact was the floor.  The floor was not designed to to carry 3 to 5 times the weight of the upper stories.

Fidel wrote:

But Bazant and Greening's model insists on a rigid upper block falling down at 0.64g onto the lower structures designed to carry 3 to 5 times the weight of the upper block.

So when can we expect to read your new theory in JEM?

Bazant's work does not quite call for an essentially rigid block falling on top of another block that collpases as the rigid block falls. Bazant is simply treating it as something similar for the purposes of simplfying the mathematics, as afr as I can tell.

There is a certain logic to this, as the hat truss would have given the falling upper block more rigidity than the rest of the buildings. It is important to note that the mass and the velocity of the upper block (and therefore the kinetic energy) of the block stays the same even if it deformed.

The ka-ka oozing out of pants' submissions here is a bit too much to deal with all at once - an effective tactic of his, I'm sure - but I hope to address some of it shortly. I think. If I don't have socks to sort, or something.

Pants-of-Dog: of all the posters I've seen on babble, I think you are the one most deserving of the flame warrior title "philosopher": http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/philosopher.htm

Michael Nenonen wrote:

Pants-of-Dog: of all the posters I've seen on babble, I think you are the one most deserving of the flame warrior title "philosopher": http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/philosopher.htm

 

Haha! I lked the bit about the ponderous and lengthy cogitations. I will try to be especially verbose if we ever debate.