9/11 (and other) mysteries

[Sean]

A good site on all this-

http://www.serendipity.li/wtc.htm

& A watchable, free video on the controlled demolition stuff and so forth-

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501

And another on the oil motive behind it all-

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1130731388742388243

I know nothing of tall building architecture but I find the official story unpersuasive, indeed that was my intuitive response on the day in question.

The situation with the collapse of WTC7 is perhaps even more curious, never hit by aircraft but another steel frame building, of different design collapsing six hours later.

[Guido]

There were many oddities immediately after the attacks, especially from official statements and interviews, but on the other hand I am always skeptical of reading into these things as we may be reading into things too muh because we are 'looking for' a conspiracy. I am no fan of conspiracy theories - most are completely baseless.

So aside from any real or percieved weirdness regarding the attacks and reactions, I think the tsrnagest or most inexplicable is WTC7 as you mention. It is the first time in history that a steel building has fallen because of fire. It is actually physically impossible for a steel building to fall because of fire - The fact that it falls perfectly symmetrically, with the centre collapsing first, is absolutely astonishing. There was a steel building in Spain that I remember being in the news (a hotal) that burnt for 17 hours - it was absolutely gutted but it stayed standing.

That video (2nd link) was very interesting. Thanks.

[Guido]

OK that video is rather shocking. I recommend that everyone watch it.

[head-case]

OK that video is rather shocking. I recommend that everyone watch it.

Shocking that anyone could take such nonsense seriously.  The collapse of the world trade center was exhaustively analyzed by the National Bureau of Standards and Technology and the events that precipitated the collapse were described in some detail.   The explanation makes perfect physical sense, the impact destroyed the thermal foam insulation that protected the steel structure of the buildings, the intense heat from the burning of all the jet fuel weakened the steel, the steel structure gave way at the point of impact.  The portion of the building above the point of impact essentially fell like a hammer on the remaining portion of the building.  That is exactly what the video shows.

I admit, I lack the patience to watch any significant portion, sampling various places revealed utterly flawed arguments.  At one point the narrator was claiming the cell phone calls from the planes involved were fabricated because cell phones cannot connect from the planes cruising altitude of 35,000 feet.   Irrelevant, it has been established that the planes were flown at very low altitude once the hijackers had taken control.  Much of it consists of making a big deal about every little inconsistency in the paperwork generated by the government related to the event.  The rest seems be based on an inability to understand technical and scientific data and concepts.  It is embarrassing that people which such a poor understanding will take it upon themselves to generate these bizarre theories.

[Guido]

All of it can be denied and tried to be explained away by other theories. The fact is that WTC7 collapsed and it is the first steel structure to fall in the history of steel construction due to just fire. Many steel structures have burnt for several hourshave fallen down fallen down. Watch the video - ignore the rest by all means, but it is just fact that it did not fall down by fire. It's impossible. WTC7 was 300ft away and yet it was the only other building to collapse - there were other building nearby that were as close or closer and they did not fall.

[head-case]

All of it can be denied and explained away by other theories. The fact is that wtc7 collapsed and it is the first steel structure to fall in the history of steel construction due to just fire. Watch the video - ignore the rest by all means, but it is just fact that it did not fall down by fire. It's impossible. wtc7 was 300ft away and yet it was the only other building to collapse - there were other building nearby that were as close or closer and they did not fall.

You use the word "impossible" rather freely.

Typical false reasoning used on a brain-damaged web site to support this conspiracy theory:

Take a close look at the manner in which WTC 7 collapses straight down. For the building to collapse in this fashion, all of the load bearing supports would have had to fail at exactly the same time.

No it does not.  If a single structural component fails, it can more or less instantaneously increase the load borne by all of the other structural members.  This can cause these other structural members to fail more or less simultaneously.  The visible kinking of the roof before the collapse could signal such a situation.  Not that this proves anything about WTC-7.  It just proves that the author of this conspiracy lacks the intelligence to construct a logically valid argument.

If you want to see all of the conspiracies debunked by people who actually know something about what they are talking about, you can go to "popular mechanics"

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=1

[Guido]

ok I will do that. After my exams.

[Bonehelm]

Isn't it a bit late to talk about the event?

Get over it Americans, it's the past, no one could change it...keep your eyes at the front

[Sean]

head-case

The explanation makes perfect physical sense, the impact destroyed the thermal foam insulation that protected the steel structure of the buildings, the intense heat from the burning of all the jet fuel weakened the steel, the steel structure gave way at the point of impact.

There's a great deal of discussion on the site I mentioned on why this is an inadequate account of the events. One reason is that you have to heat steel to about 1500C before it changes much, especially as it just conducts heat away down its length: aviation fuel doesn't burn at these temperatures, and in the case of the second impact, most of it exploded outside the building...

[head-case]

head-case

There's a great deal of discussion on the site I mentioned on why this is an inadequate account of the events. One reason is that you have to heat steel to about 1500C before it changes much, especially as it just conducts heat away down its length: aviation fuel doesn't burn at these temperatures, and in the case of the second impact, most of it exploded outside the building...

The National Bureau of Standards of Technology metallurgy division reports that steel of the type used in the WTC will lose much of its strength at 500C.  This is why building codes require extensive thermal insulation of structural steel members.  This is the best way to address these wackos.  Look into each of their "it couldn't possibly have happened" claims and you find it rife with "facts" that just aren't so and invalid reasoning.

[head-case]

I don't get it. It was for all to see: planes flew into the building, building got on fire, building collapsed.
No matter how many theories can be constructed afterwards, telling us that it couldn't have happened. It just did.

Q

Such a prosaic lack of imagination, you'll never be a competent conspiracy theorist.   

[greg]

well, it's obvious that Ubloobideega was the real one behind all of this...

[Ubloobideega]

why u be blaming me, yo?

[Guido]

I don't get it. It was for all to see: planes flew into the building, building got on fire, building collapsed.
No matter how many theories can be constructed afterwards, telling us that it couldn't have happened. It just did.

Q

Okay, supposing we ignore the two main buildings for a second. What about WTC7 which collapsed in what looks like almost exactly the same manner as the two other planes and yet was hit by nothing. It may not have been technically the same, but it is remarkably similar. Look into the history of modern steel buildings - you will never find another single one that has collapsed due to fire. The fact that it collapsed in a way that looks absolutely identical to a controlled demolition, makes it more intriguing and puzzling. Even if we think that it couldn't possibly be a controlled demolition, we need to come up with some mechanism that would make it collapse in that manner because fire was not the reason. Obviously I don't want to believe its a conspiracy, the very thought makes me more sick than you can imagine. But given that a steel building has never fallen perfectly downwards (i.e. within its own foundations) at almost free fall velocity due to an internal fire burning for less than seven hours (let alone 27 hours), some explanation needs to be developed to adequately describe what we observed. Maybe there is a rational explanation that started only with the plain crashes into the main towers, but thus far, it still eludes us.

[Guido]

On a more positive note:



I think the new towers are very beautiful, even if it may initially seem a little ridiculous to rebuild things that have been attacked in the past...

[head-case]

Okay, supposing we ignore the two main buildings for a second. What about WTC7 which collapsed in what looks like almost exactly the same manner as the two other planes and yet was hit by nothing. It may not have been technically the same, but it is remarkably similar. Look into the history of modern steel buildings - you will never find another single one that has collapsed due to fire. The fact that it collapsed in a way that looks absolutely identical to a controlled demolition, makes it more intriguing and puzzling. Even if we think that it couldn't possibly be a controlled demolition, we need to come up with some mechanism that would make it collapse in that manner because fire was not the reason. Obviously I don't want to believe its a conspiracy, the very thought makes me more sick than you can imagine. But given that a steel building has never fallen perfectly downwards (i.e. within its own foundations) at almost free fall velocity due to an internal fire burning for less than seven hours (let alone 27 hours), some explanation needs to be developed to adequately describe what we observed. Maybe there is a rational explanation that started only with the plain crashes into the main towers, but thus far, it still eludes us.

A fire raged in the building, which contained large amounts of diesel fuel to power emergency generators for Guliani's command center (genius, put your command center on the bulls-eye).  This likely compromised the steel frame of the building.  At least 25% of one facade was torn away when WTC1 and 2 fell, also causing major structural damage.  External deformations of the building consistent with internal structural failure were observed, then it collapsed.   I fail to see what the great mystery is.

[head-case]

On a more positive note:



I think the new towers are very beautiful, even if it may initially seem a little ridiculous to rebuild things that have been attacked in the past...

Something was attacked, therefore we should not build anything in the future?  That's a recipe for greatness.

[orbital]

Also, do not forget about the damage form the collapse on the site's foundation and bedrock. I might be mistaken but the WTC complex could have been built upon the same foundation (although #7 was added later), and that foundation might have been extremely unstable to hold a 40-50 story building 

WFC, I know has an altogether different foundation so it sustained no big structural damage (actually we were back in WFC #2 building in mid-October to pick up our things).

[MishaK]

Sean, why am I not surprised that you subscribe to this nonsense?

I know nothing of tall building architecture but I find the official story unpersuasive, indeed that was my intuitive response on the day in question.

Might I suggest that the former is the reason for the latter?

I actually lived three blocks from WTC and regularly walked through the building. I was there on 9-11. Also, my wife studied architecture. BTW, the WTC has only a small concrete core around the very center of the towers, where the elevators are housed. The rest of the structure is supported by the steel colums that make up the facade. That's it. The rest is just thin floor beams between the inner core and the outer columns. You could see and understand this rather filigree structure only from close up. Walking through the base of the towers you see a large elevator lobby, four stories high, framed exactly by what I described: the elevators in the center and the facade on the outside. I always was in disbelief walking through there, imagining 100 stories sitting on top of this airy open space I was seeing. The impact of the aircraft took out a good 60-75% of the outer supporting beams on the side where each aircraft entered and another 10-30% on the side where it exited (more so in the case of the second aircraft which impacted at higher speed).

There's a great deal of discussion on the site I mentioned on why this is an inadequate account of the events. One reason is that you have to heat steel to about 1500C before it changes much, especially as it just conducts heat away down its length: aviation fuel doesn't burn at these temperatures, and in the case of the second impact, most of it exploded outside the building...

This is a common misconception, partly abetted by outragously sloppy reporting in the media. Nobody among the official investigators ever claimed that the steel had "melted". That would be patently stupid, as any 6th grade physics student should know (unfortunately most reporters these days don't even rise to that level). The heat of the fire caused vast amounts of hot air wanting to flow upwards. This buckled (in effect, bent upwards) the floor beams above the fire (steel can be bent without having to melt it completely, you know?). At some point, this bending broke the anchoring of the beams or otherwise caused them to crack (you could hear these cracks, in fact, on 9-11). For good reason, therefore, the south tower that took the stronger impact that took out more of the external supporting structure at a lower level, thus where more weight was sitting on top of the fire, collapsed first, despite having been hit second. The north tower was hit higher up, with less weight sitting on top of the fire, thus it took longer for the steel to buckle and the tower to collapse. It is beyond me why anyone has doubts about this. When I walked out of my apartment that morning and took a look at the south tower on fire, seeing the outline of the aircraft basically stamped out of the facade, my first though was literally: "this thing will collapse - I want to be at least as far away from it as it is tall." That was my first thought, because I knew how flimsy the structure was. Without those external pillars and with the fire raging inside, that building was toast.

The situation with the collapse of WTC7 is perhaps even more curious, never hit by aircraft but another steel frame building, of different design collapsing six hours later.

You do know about the uncontrolled fire therein, right?

Look, let's get this straightened out: the Bush administration has been defined by spectacular levels of incompetence, heretofore unseen in any modern government of a major democracy. What are the chances that this government could pull off the sort of stunt the conspiracy theorists allege, without any single one of the many people who would need to have been involved leaking even one small bit about the operation? Look how many leaks this administration has produced? Where are the 9-11 leaks? I can hear Occam's razor going snip-snip-snip all over these conspiracy theories.

BTW, read this, brilliantly written by an acquaintance of mine:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11818067/the_low_post_the_hopeless_stupidity_of_911_conspiracies/print

Also, his follow up to all the hate mail he received as a result:

http://www.alternet.org/story/43418/?cID=270425

[MishaK]

So aside from any real or percieved weirdness regarding the attacks and reactions, I think the tsrnagest or most inexplicable is WTC7 as you mention. It is the first time in history that a steel building has fallen because of fire. It is actually physically impossible for a steel building to fall because of fire - The fact that it falls perfectly symmetrically, with the centre collapsing first, is absolutely astonishing. There was a steel building in Spain that I remember being in the news (a hotal) that burnt for 17 hours - it was absolutely gutted but it stayed standing.

But the Spanish building only had some office furniture, carpeting and paper burning inside, right? Not hundreds of thousands of gallons of Diesel fuel, nor a considerable amount of jet fuel, nor an electrical switching station that was housed in WTC 7 (the destruction of which caused much of lower Manhattan to be without power thereafter for quite some time).