9/11 conspiracy theory . . or: is Physics misunderstood?

[minsx]

So, I don't pay much attention to conspiracy theorists, because . . . I think they are silly. But this arguement published in my student newspaper seemed compelling to me, particularly because it was based on scientific theory and observation, knowledge of the physics involved, etc.

I don't think this is they only theorist that has published regarding this problem - the evidence of an internal detonation. But the evidence is thorough and his paper was peer-reviewed by other Physicists, so I know his method and evidence is sound.

Linkie: http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html
(research paper)

Linkie: http://www.newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/57437
(publication in the student newspaper about it)

Basic Gist: the redunancy inherent in the building is such that the planes could not have brought it down. The evidence of molten iron and "squibs" are characteristic of detonation. The path of destruction (straight down) is also indicative of careful detonation.

I was also amused to read:
"Larry Silverstein, WTC leaseholder, insured the buildings against terrorist attack for billions of dollars less than two months before Sept. 11, Jones says."

If my husband died within months of my insuring his life, I would bet the insurance company would investigate me.

[Zapper]

I'm just about to read the links, but first thought that hit me is that the engines were full of fuel and if one of them didn't explode immediately on impact, it would have exploded seconds later inside the building. Might that not act like an internal explosion?
EDIT: Didn't realise it was WTC 7, although the point remains valid I think for the antenna of the North Tower. The fuel would be near the centre of the building, burning a lot hotter than the building itself.

Second edit:

Have read enough now to realise I shouldn't post in such haste. I'll punish myself by eating too many biscuits and making myself feel slightly ill.

[Deacon]

Sigh. Once again, kooks coming out of the woodwork to talk about things they don't know as well as they think they do, beginning to see evidence where none exists, to see irrefutable evidence based on...what they think the probability is? Ugh.

[Shyknight]

There seems to be enough evidence that a controlled detonation might have happened. Then again all we have to go on is the opinions of 'experts' on both sides. If there's nothing conclusive, people will just laugh it off.

But then, that's exactly what the conspirators want.

[Seraphim]

careful detonation.

Anything that moves fast enough will detonate when it collides with something.

And don't you think some care would be put into the attacks? Maybe the terrorists would fly with care? I'm not saying that there were no conspiracies regarding the attacks. But I don't believe there was a bomb involved.

[D-Mac]

Some of this stuff really stinks:

-------Thermodynamoron

The second law of thermodynamics "implies" that it is unlikely the building would fall as it did. The second law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law ... modynamics) applies to thermodynamics, specifically processes in termodynamics. (Such as epanding gas doing work to a piston.) It also has applications in astrophysics, and is sometimes informally used to describe teenagers' rooms. I think the way this author is using it is bullshit, and I say that as a 5th year mechanical engineering student.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics implies that the likelihood of complete and symmetrical collapse due to random fires as in the “official” theory is small, since asymmetrical failure is so much more likely. On the other hand, a major goal of controlled demolition using explosives is the complete and symmetrical collapse of buildings.

This is the first mention of the second law. The second law would state the WTC will not spontaneously un-fall down and stop there. This 2nd law is a recurring theme in the paper, as is the author's repeated bungling of it. Newton would be offended.

-------Fake physics! Well, wrong physics.

We observe that approximately 34 upper floors begin to rotate as a block, to the south and east. They begin to topple over, as favored by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The torque due to gravity on this block is enormous, as is its angular momentum. But then – and this I’m still puzzling over – this block turned mostly to powder in mid-air! How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives? Remarkable, amazing – and demanding scrutiny since the US government-funded reports failed to analyze this phenomenon. But, of course, the Final NIST 9-11 report “does not actually include the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached.” (NIST, 2005, p. 80, fn. 1; emphasis added.)

After the rotation due to the second law of buildings-fall-downamics, he cites high gravity moments, and lots of angular momentum. We're doing ok here. The contraption seems to disintegrate in midair, and how could that go missed? The author is making an egregious assumption here: That buildings are rigid bodies. The author is probably thinking of block towers he built as a kid, towers which fall down as a single piece when upset. In real life, a building is much more fragile. The famous example of this is chimney demolition. Here's a good pic of a solid brick chimney snapping in two places under inertial loading only:



So, the WTC probably disintegrated because it was torn apart as it fell. Maybe due to its high gravity torque. Maybe a modulus or two were involved as well. The point is, this guy isn't a civil engineer. He is doing what movies frequently do, where a few important sounding terms get thrown around, and the rest gels over as readers are seduced by the possibility of a conspiracy.

-------This transitions into the next point. (This next quote also comes directly after the last quote:)

Indeed, if we seek the truth of the matter, we must NOT ignore the data to be observed during the actual collapses of the towers, as the NIST team admits they did. But why did they do such a non-scientific procedure as to ignore highly-relevant data? The business smacks of political constraints on what was supposed to be an “open and thorough” investigation. (See Mooney, 2005.)

The reason nobody knows about the collapse data is that it is hard as hell to get into a building's behavior as it collapses. (It's also really damn expensive.) There are just far too many variables. You can work for years and years to pin down everything, but the end result is sort of like that movie about a big ship. In the end, it sinks.

Now that we have come to this obvious conclusion, I must confront one more glaring offense:

-------occam's moderatley sharp machete.

It is highly unlikely that jet fuel was present to generate such explosions especially on lower floors, and long after the planes hit the buildings. Dr. Shyam Sunder, Lead Investigator for NIST stated: "The jet fuel probably burned out in less than 10 minutes.” (Field, 2005) On the other hand, pre-positioned explosives provide a plausible and simple explanation for the observations, satisfying Occam’s razor (Jones, 2005). Thus, it cannot be said that “no evidence” can be found for the use of explosives. This serious matter needs to be treated as a plausible scientific hypothesis and thoroughly investigated.

Our author wants us to choose between two scenarios:

a.) An airplane crash caused an explosion caused a fire caused a complicated multiple failure which resulted in the building falling down perfectly

OR,

b.) Explosive "squibs" were used to detonate support members in the building, which resulted in the building falling down perfectly.

Well, here's D-mac's guide to Occam's Razor:

a.) An insanely complex plot involving a precision demolition company (who would probably need to drill holes in the cement reinforcements in the WTC and stuff dynamite into them WHILE PEOPLE WERE WORKING IN THE BUILDING, mind you!) a secret CIA base, 4 airplanes, most of the US government, and everyone involved in the WTC cleanup was hatched and executed which resulted in the building falling down perfectly.

OR,

b.) An airplane crashed into the damn building and it fell down.

There may be plausible material here, but the autor hides it well. THere sounded like there might be a few debatable points here, but the author just doesn't make a credible argument with me. This is espicially true considering he tries to digest this problem with bad physics.

Posted Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:21 am:

In response to my two ninjas...

THe explosion the author was referring to could be all the windows blowing out when the building started to fall. Not because of pressure or explosion, but because the sills would flex as the thing starts to move. It's really hard to tell by the video, because the glass breakage and a "squib" explosion would happen around the same time relative to building collapse.

The fact the author only considers a pressure surge from an explosion (from the plane or otherwise) sort of shows off his technical background.

No, the only thing this guy had going for him is that he convinces the engineering professors he was right. Problem is, we don't know who saw the thing, how they felt, and if they might have just been trying to shut the guy up.

[minsx]

Deacon, did you even READ the links? Or did you just look and decide it wasn't worth your time and that this guy was a crackpot? Thanks for playing.

D-Mac, thank you for reading and responding. I was hoping for some sort of intelligent conversation. Keep in mind that this guy didn't just convince some students and a few engineering professors that another look was needed; this paper also passed Peer-Review, which means that other Physics professors around the country agreed that his theory was plausible and the evidence was sound.

I am amused that you would claim that a physics professor doesn't have a firm grasp on Physics. Then again, there are lots of people with degrees whom I wouldn't agree with, so I can't say much there.

I was personally interested in the fact that in NO Models or Simulations would the towers have come down from the plane crashes alone. Study of the structures and materials showed repeatedly that there was just no possibility of it. Only when they manipulated the 'simulation data' beyond reason were they able to show the tower collapsing as a result of the plane strike. I saw the like a few times in my undergrad labs: it's called "Data Massaging" and it's BS when it comes to Actual Results or the Real World.

Not saying whether I agree or disagree, I was just hoping for something other than: "I bet He wears tinfoil hats!!!111"

[Deacon]

Wow. I arrive at different conclusions, so I must not have read the links and watched the videos and listened to the dude suggest that it was actually all perpetrated by building managers to kill thousands of people. Just because you're a physics professor does not mean you're capable of analyzing civil engineering and demolition topics any more than being a pediatrist means you can handle brain surgery. And yeah, I have to admit, after hearing his mention of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, I pretty much shut it off.

Posted Tue Nov 15, 2005 6:03 pm:

PS in case you didn't notice, he's basically throwing stuff out there and demanding that people disprove it. Notice that he did not actually state a hypothesis and then bother proving it. He just said, "I don't understand why this happened the way it did. I don't study structural engineering, and nobody who does thinks it's any big deal, but for some reason it doesn't sit right with me." To his credit (though not much), he does toss that in there as a disclaimer in the story that he's just saying that there may be something fishy, just enough to warrant millions of taxpayer dollars spent in investigations. That drives me nuts. It does really annoy me when people toss shit out there and demand that others debunk it rather than them having to prove it true. And his ideas of "probability" are misguided as well. I have neither the technical expertise, the time, nor the ganas to assemble a post like D-Mac's, though I'm glad he did.

Note that the story did not actually describe how thoroughly "peer-reviewed" his paper was nor what kind of people were his "peers" in this case.

[Seraphim]

Study of the structures and materials showed repeatedly that there was just no possibility of it.

Really? There's no chance a plane hitting a building could seriously fuck it up? No chance at all? I think there would be some. Seems that getting hit by a plane would hurt like a bitch.

Did these simulations actually take everything into account, or did they assume the buildings were constructed perfectly and had no wear and tear? Did it take into account the fact that a buildings structure gets weaker with time? Did it take into account all the weight of the furniture and humans inside? Weather conditions? Contents of the plane? Another nearby flaming building? That last one alone seems important to me. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't both buildings get hit before the first one completely collapsed? No matter how strong the twin towers are a planes going to send some rubble flying if only from the top. Couldn't that rubble hit the other one, closer to the base and contribute to the overall damage? Wouldn't the shockwave caused by the second crash have negatively affected the first?

There's more to a collision like this than Object A hits Object B. At least it seems to me like there would be.

[Deacon]

Seraphim, did you even bother to READ the articles? Why can't you contribute intelligent discussion? How about something better than "I bet He wears tinfoil hats!!!111" Thanks for playing.

[Seraphim]

"The observed “partly evaporated” steel members is particularly upsetting to the official theory, since fires involving paper, office materials, even diesel fuel, cannot generate temperatures anywhere near the 5,000+ oF needed to “evaporate” steel."

Ohh, oohh, I spotted a mistake. All that + a Plane made of METAL hitting other METAL can though. The friction that occours with the metal itself when it's bent generates a LOT of heat. If you bend the prong on a fork back and forth it will get hot enough to burn someone. Fire+explosion+thousands of tons of metal being bent all over the place+lots of friction could easily result in metal hot enough to become extremely malleable. Perhaps even evaporate.

I'd like to hear from a mettalurgist, or chemist, or whatever proffessional deals with this sittuation directly however.

[Martin Blank]

Aircraft are made of a lot of aluminum and titanium, both of which actually can burn if they reach a high enough temperature. I'm not sure if this happened in the attacks, but it would certainly have assisted the warping of any steel structural members.

[adciv]

Quick googling:
Lists ignition temperature of aluminum:
http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemical ... g_alu.html
All are under 5,000F

Titanium:
Finely divided titanium in the form of dust clouds or layers does not ignite spontaneously (differing in this respect from zirconium, plutonium, and certain other metals). Ignition temperatures of titanium dust clouds in air range from 332 to 588 degrees C (630 to 1,090 degrees F), and of titanium dust layers from 382 to 510 degrees C (720 to 950 degrees F). Titanium dust can be ignited in atmospheres of carbon dioxide or nitrogen. Titanium surfaces that have been treated with nitric acid, particularly with red fuming nitric acid containing 10 to 20% nitrogen tetroxide, become pyrophoric and may be explosive.
http://www.eh.doe.gov/techstds/standard ... 1081c.html

[peter-griffin]

the floors were constructed with lightweight steel/aluminum trusses. these fail relatively easily under high-heat conditions. also, when the planes hit, some (but certainly not all) of the jet fuel ignited. if it were to pool in an area, it could've defintely set off an explosion when the residual pressure in the building climbed due to heat. there were still very intense fires burning as late as october 20th. this indicates a pretty obvious scenario - an office building is full of combustible materials! if smoke from the fires was allowed to build in the elevator shafts, or any other relatively enclosed area, and the heat and continuous combustion provided sufficient pressure, a phenomenon known as a "flashover" could've occured. in a flash over, the thermal balance in an area has reached a point where heat, even at the lowest levels, is soaring well above 800 degrees farenheit, typically reaching 1200 degrees in just a 10 foot tall enclosure. with these incredible temperatures, the very smoke generated by the fire - which contains materials of incomplete combustion - will ignite almost instantly over a huge area. this could certainly be considered an explosion.

[minsx]

[quote="Deacon";p="562229"]Sigh. Once again, kooks coming out of the woodwork to talk about things they don't know as well as they think they do, beginning to see evidence where none exists, to see irrefutable evidence based on...what they think the probability is? Ugh.[/quote]

I suppose that I assumed that you hadn't actually read the links, because as you can see, your post had no intelligent analysis of the issues presented.

I think that was a valid conclusion.

Thank you for rectifying that.