9/11 Collapse Theory Discussion III

Pants-of-dog wrote:

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.

The ratios you use here are not analogous. And you don't seem to get back to a true analogy in the rest of this post.

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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.

How many blocks and from how high? You don't bother saying.

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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.

How much of a mess? The 78 blocks are not pulverized. This is the closest you come to a true analogy, and your theory is show to not work. What is the point of your example?

Your other examples make no sense.

jas wrote:

Your house of cards, or house of concrete slabs (for all it matters) example is not an example of anything crushing through anything else. You are talking about things toppling. Please find a true example.

But the WTC towers were not a case of everything being crushed. Remember that there was mass being ejected laterally from the towers during collapse. A large part of this mass being ejected was the perimeter columns, and they were not crushed. They toppled out of the building, for the most part.

jas wrote:

The other thing I would ask is, are you questioning the "crushing down" effect that is claimed by Bazant?

I think it would be more correct to say that I am questioning your incorrect interpretation of Bazant. I do not believe that Bazant claims that every part of the building was entirely "crushed".

jas wrote:

...

The ratios you use here are not analogous. And you don't seem to get back to a true analogy in the rest of this post.

...

How many blocks and from how high? You don't bother saying.

...

How much of a mess? The 78 blocks are not pulverized. This is the closest you come to a true analogy, and your theory is show to not work. What is the point of your example?

Your other examples make no sense.

It is more of an illustration of the various factors that would affect whether or not there would be a global collapse occuring from gravity alone. The only example that even remotely resembles the WTC towers would be the final one.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

jas wrote:

Your house of cards, or house of concrete slabs (for all it matters) example is not an example of anything crushing through anything else. You are talking about things toppling. Please find a true example.

But the WTC towers were not a case of everything being crushed. Remember that there was mass being ejected laterally from the towers during collapse. A large part of this mass being ejected was the perimeter columns, and they were not crushed. They toppled out of the building, for the most part.

You yourself cited his discussion of the mass shedding factor. What does he say? And, if you don't agree with my interpretation, what then does he mean by "crush-down, crush-up"?

jas wrote:

You yourself cited his discussion of the mass shedding factor. What does he say? And, if you don't agree with my interpretation, what then does he mean by "crush-down, crush-up"?

Bazant calculates the probable amount of mass ejected by putting in different percentages of mass ejected and then solving the calculations to see the results. He then kept those percentages that agreed most with video and seismic evidence. This range was in between 10% and 30%.

Bazant is not discussing actual crushing of the structure. Part of it is crushed, part of it is toppled, part of it is buckled, and a part of it is pulverised. The phrase "crush-up, crush-down" is simply a shorthand over-simplification.

writer wrote:

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For example, Writer suggests that you can drop a small rock on a bigger rock and the rock below will break. Do you think this is true?

This isn't what I wrote. I said nothing of size. As far as I know, the towers were rectangular, with each floor matching the square foot of the one above. And a huge section of the top floors together pancaked down each single floor below the point of impact. I'm not a mathmetician or physicist, it's true. But that is what I see when I watch the collapse. 

A tip: I am not swayed when you insult me or misrepresent what I write.

Writer, that's not really a fair things to say, is it? I asked for an example of a smaller something crushing through a larger something. That was the example you provided. If you weren't talking about a smaller rock hitting a larger rock, then your example isn't correct, is it? Is it my fault your example wasn't correct?

And the floors didn't pancake. NIST denies that pancaking occurred, and there is no visual evidence of pancaked floors at ground zero. They were pulverized. We have had to repeat this fact throughout these threads and its gets tiring arguing with people who don't take the time to understand  what the official collapse theory is.

jas wrote:

Pants-of-dog wrote:

From what I understand, fires did spread from floor to floor in at least one of the towers. I do not know if the actual elevators were on fire.

Really, pants? In one of the threads you were insisting that no fires escaped the impact zone. Then I pointed out to you that the upper blocks did indeed experience fire on many different floors. Then you insisted that no fires occurred below the impact zone.

Are you changing your story again?

Yes. My beliefs about the collapse will change as I encounter new evidence.

That is how science works.

Are you saying that your story has never changed?

Pants-of-dog wrote:

jas wrote:

The fireproofing being removed is something that NIST guessed at. The columns were designed to absorb 2000% of their live loads. NIST estimates a variance of between 20% and 35% of load bearing on the remaining columns, with some of the load lessening in some areas, some increasing. Pant's picture over-exaggerates in a gross fashion.

You should provide evidence for your claims. Here is mine:

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20IV%20Aircraft%20Impact.pdf

Please quote the relevant text.

jas wrote:

So what evidence are you citing regarding fires below below the impact zone?

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Several of the large express passenger elevators, which service the sky lobbies, plunged to the main lobby level. At least one of those falling elevators was accompanied by a huge fireball that burst into the lobby and concourse levels. Only four people are known to have survived in the south tower express elevators.

http://sites.google.com/site/911stories/wtcelevatorshafts

The technical terms are not my strength. So pancake is the wronge term, perhaps.

What I mean is I see several floors above the impact. I see many more below the impact. I see the area around the impact give way. I see all those floors above come down in the space that gives way, hitting the first whole floor below impact, and then the next and then the next and then the next.

When I look at the drawing you keep posting, I see something that seems to argue about the impossibility of the whole above the point of impact maintaining momentum through the lower parts of the buildings in equivalent segments. Watching the videos, I don't see all of the x# of floors above destrowing at the same instant exactly the same # of floors below. I see x# of floors above impact going through the collapsed space onto one floor, the next floor, the next floor, the next floor, each floor then adding to the mass coming down. Below the points of impact, I see windows being blown out and paper, lighter debris coming out as the air is pushed out from above.

That is what I see. I have not read the NIST report, nor would I be able to make any sense of it.

jas wrote:

Pants-of-dog wrote:

jas wrote:

The fireproofing being removed is something that NIST guessed at. The columns were designed to absorb 2000% of their live loads. NIST estimates a variance of between 20% and 35% of load bearing on the remaining columns, with some of the load lessening in some areas, some increasing. Pant's picture over-exaggerates in a gross fashion.

You should provide evidence for your claims. Here is mine:

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20IV%20Aircraft%20Impact.pdf

Please quote the relevant text.

I'm sorry, I must have missed your link to your evidence. Can you please post it again?

As for my evidence...

The discussion on damge from impact begins on page 15/34, with a nice summary on page 23.

The discussion on fire and stress begins on page 24.

jas wrote:

Just to sum up this most recent flurry of posts. Pants has not provided an example of anything on the earth's surface that can crush through something the same as but larger than itself through gravity. He is now moving the goalposts, saying that Bazant "really doesn't mean" crushing, that that's just a convenient term he uses.

Yes. Everyone should ignore my claim that if you built a house of cards, but with ceramic tiles, you could easily collapse the larger porion with a smaller portion, and even get some crushing in the mix.

And jas, you would be gravely disappointed to actually read Maugham's "Of Human Bondage". You see a title is not always a perfect summary of the entire contents of the work.

The stats I quote are from Kevin Ryan in his video presentation "A New Standard for Deception". Kevin Ryan was a manager and lab director for Underwriters Laboratories, who certified the WTC steel. You can find Jim Hoffman's summary of this presentation which has the figures I cite in text.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Yes. Everyone should ignore my claim that if you built a house of cards, but with ceramic tiles, you could easily collapse the larger porion with a smaller portion, and even get some crushing in the mix.

Where would you get vertical crushing down through mass of equal density near the rate of free fall in this example? Your example provides a very unclear picture.

If you insist on using the house of cards analogy, you will have to tape the ceramic tiles together with duct tape, say, and then produce a vertical "crushing down" from upper floor failure, because this is what  happened to both Twin Towers, so it's not a mere anomaly.

This thread is becoming impossible to open, so this is my last post.

Yesterday, I saw a real-time video of the lobby, with firefighters rushing in. I posted it in this thread. The videographer voice-over says something like, "Over to my right, there were two people on fire. I just ... didn't want to film that." While speaking, the viewer can hear blood-curdling screams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfce_C8GzdE

The jets came in, broke apart, slid through the building. The fuel, with forward momentum, also ran forward until it met the shafts, where gravity took over, and the liquid went down, perhaps while beginning to catch fire. Meantime, cables were sliced by the remnants of the plane still able to carry momentum. Elevators with cables remaining / and/or close to the ground could be caught by the fast-moving fuel.

And so the vivid scene, with firefighters rushing into the lobby and two people screaming, on fire.

Again, I'm no scientist. It just makes sense - as I'm sure other scenarios could.

jas wrote:

Fireballs don't shoot down elevator shafts through 90 storeys. NIST says the jet fuel was consumed in a large but brief kerosene fire upon impact. This looks like old previously debunked information, probably still hanging around the 'net from one of the defunct collapse theories.

But maybe you should make sure. Does NIST confirm this somewhere else in their report?

More confirmation:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-09-04-elevator-usat_x.htm

See page 21/40 of this pdf:

http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch2.pdf

And there is also this:

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Despite the massive localized damage caused by the impact, each structure remained standing. However,
as each aircraft impacted the building, jet fuel on board ignited. Part of this fuel immediately burned off
in large fireballs that erupted at the impact floors. Remaining fuel flowed across the floors and down
elevator and utility shafts, igniting intense fires throughout upper portions of the buildings.

http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixn.pdf See page 5/42

Old info, pants. NIST has revised their report several times since then.

Also how would these fireballs blow out the lobbies like a bomb while at the same time blowing out several sub-basement levels? I'm just humouring you now.

jas wrote:

The stats I quote are from Kevin Ryan in his video presentation "A New Standard for Deception". Kevin Ryan was a manager and lab director for Underwriters Laboratories, who certified the WTC steel. You can find Jim Hoffman's summary of this presentation which has the figures I cite in text.

Please quote the relevant text.

writer wrote:

I see x# of floors above impact going through the collapsed space onto one floor, the next floor, the next floor, the next floor, each floor then adding to the mass coming down.

People on both sides of the argument agree that not much can be seen of the intact buildings' collapse, as it is obscured by dust clouds. If you have a video that shows this crushing of floors by the upper block after it goes through the impact zone, please link to it. Thanks.

jas wrote:

Old info, pants. NIST has revised their report several times since then.

Please provide the latest report then.

jas wrote:

Also how would these fireballs blow out the lobbies like a bomb while at the same time blowing out several sub-basement levels? I'm just humouring you now.

The over-pressurisation of air that could be accomplished by a swiftly descending elevator (i.e. one which has had its cables cut by impact with a plane), as well as the introduction of a large superheated air mass into the elevator shaft (i.e. the fireball on impact).

jas wrote:

Pants-of-dog wrote:

Please quote the relevant text.

Why should I? You didn't quote from your MIT pdf, which is probably something from Thomas Eagar anyway.

Then you should minimally provide a link and a written summary of where I could find the information, if you wish to do this on a quid pro quo basis.

Pants-of-dog wrote:

jas wrote:

Where would you get vertical crushing down through mass of equal density near the rate of free fall in this example? Your example provides a very unclear picture.

If you insist on using the house of cards analogy, you will have to tape the ceramic tiles together with duct tape, say, and then produce a vertical "crushing down" from upper floor failure, because this is what  happened to both Twin Towers, so it's not a mere anomaly.

I have no idea what you are asking in your first paragraph.

Which is why you don't understand why your analogy is incorrect.

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Duct tape would be the worst material to use because that would make the joints the strongest part of the structure. In steel hgh rises, the connections are often the weakest part of the structure. To be more representational of the WTC, you would need some sort of joint attachment that was made of the same material as the rest of the structure.

Okay, rivet them together. They have to be fastened together somehow if you wish this to be even remotely analogous.

Just so you know, many of the steel columns found at ground zero had to be cut into transportable pieces. judy Wood's site has pictures of beams and columns which have been cut at the ends but in the middle is the intact rivet area. In most of these pieces shearing had taken place. The rivets were intact.

jas wrote:

Which is why you don't understand why your analogy is incorrect.

Then explain how my "analogy" is incorrect.

jas wrote:

Okay, rivet them together. They have to be fastened together somehow if you wish this to be even remotely analogous.

Just so you know, many of the steel columns found at ground zero had to be cut into transportable pieces. judy Wood's site has pictures of beams and columns which have been cut at the ends but in the middle is the intact rivet area. In most of these pieces shearing had taken place. The rivets were intact.

Please provide a link.