Why there were NO BOMBS planted at the WTC. (Second Revision)

[benburch]

Welcome to my essay "Why there were NO BOMBS planted at the WTC. (Second Revision)"

This has been revised based on criticism of my initial estimates of the mass of each tower, but
the conclusions still work as the forces involved are so titanic.

I believe that WTC towers 1, 2 and 7 fell because towers 1 and 2 were hit by airliners on 9/11,
and that there were no explosives planted in any of those buildings.

I know this is a radical statement, and is going to take some explaining, so please bear with me.

The first thing you need to understand is Gravitational Potential Energy.

As you raise a mass against gravity, you expend energy. This energy is not lost as heat, but
gets stored in the item raised in the form of gravitational potential energy. If you allow the
mass to fall, you get back this energy first in the form of velocity and then, at the point of
impact with the ground, as mechanical energy that will attempt to deform and heat the body and
deform and heat the ground it strikes. The exception is a fully elastic collision, when both the
body and the ground are strong enough to resist this deformation, and the body bounces.


The Mass of the structure of each #1 and #2 WTC is given at approximately 250000 tons by NIST.
(I have seen other estimates that are higher, but we will go with NIST.)

This is one-half Billion (500,000,000) Pounds of mass.

The weight of the contents is considered to be included in the above.

This is roughly 225,000,000 kilograms.

The Height of each tower is 411 meters.

Now, only a small amount of the mass is at the very top, and mass can be assumed to roughly be distributed
equally throughout, so for calculating the gravitational potential energy, we will use half of this
height, 205 meters.

The formula is;

PE-subG in joules = weight * G (9.8 m/s/s) * height.

For 225 million kilograms, and 205 meters, this is 452,025,000,000 Joules.

Big number! Four Hundred and Fifty Billion Joules.

Now a one ton of TNT yields roughly 4,000,000,000 Joules of energy.

So the mass of one tower of the WTC falling was the equivalent of 113 tons of high explosive going off.

In the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Timothy McVey had a five ton
Ryder truck he loaded with an explosive with considerably less explosive force than TNT.

The energy liberated by the fall of each tower in the WTC was the equivalent of 23 such trucks filled with
TNT.

And two of them fell.

Two hundred-ton bombs went off in Manhattan on 9/11!

This is sufficient to explain why, once they started to fall, they kept falling, and why they also
destroyed Building 7 and why the debris in the pit were so very hot initially.

No "planted" explosives or other fictional conspiracy devices are required whatsoever.

Building 7 was hit by high velocity ejecta from the two collapse events, and also by two pulses of
superheated air laden with debris; In effect two synthetic pyroclastic pulses, by analogy with the
remarkably similar effect that occurs in some volcanic eruptions. This is sufficient to have
damaged building #7 so badly that it later fell.

In comparison with the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which was destroyed by an event that
had the equivalent of 2 tons of TNT going off nearby, building 7 was destroyed by two events
at least 50 times as large.

Now, what started the collapse of each tower?

When the aircraft hit each building, they did considerable damage to the load-bearing walls on the
exterior of the building, and their fuel burned along with the contents of the structure (a
considerable source of fuel) and eventually weakened the entire structure enough to partially fail,
and to sag just a bit. Didn't have to be much... An inch or two. But that movement was of the
entire top-weight of the building above the fire floors. And once that mass started moving, it
had considerable inertia due to giving back its gravitational potential energy. Being the highest
part of the building, it of course has the highest proportion of this energy which we dealt with
in an averaged manner, above. No wholesale melting of steel beams is required here, just enough
weakening to cause a slump that then takes on a life of its own.

Now, had the floors this sagging mass fell onto been at their full strength, they might have been able
to "catch" it, but they were weakened by the fire, and so they continued to deform, as the solid
top mass continued to fall and continued to trade gravitational potential energy for velocity and
work done deforming the structure below. And as this work of deformation was completed, the
now-liberated mass of each floor joined the top-weight in its destructive fall.

Now, people have wondered why it fell straight down like it did, or nearly so; The simple answer
is that it could fall no other way. The force vector for gravity is straight down, and I have
shown that there is sufficient energy here to overwhelm and twisting moment that the materials
of the building could have exerted, at least after the first few floors were consumed.

Also note that the air within the tower was compressed, and like air compressed in a bicycle pump,
heated up. In fact it was a rush of superheated air that roared out of the bottom of each tower,
and powered the synthetic pyroclastic pulse I spoke of. This air was hot enough to set materials
alight, and possibly enough to melt glass and some steels.

Criticism has been raised that falling bodies are limited in their velocity by air resistance, but that
is a faulty analysis of this system as it is not a body falling freely through the air, and the energies
involved easily overcome any compressibility factors.

Now, at the bottom of this plunge was the basements of the WTC. In that pit all of the remaining
energy of the fall, plus the remaining fuel of the airliners (mostly spent) plus the fuel from the
building's auxiliary generators, plus gasoline from the parking decks, all of that energy and fuel
went into deforming the materials that fell into the pit, heating many of them to the melting point,
and providing a slow-burning, or coked, fire that was insulated by tons of powdered material and by
the earth itself such that there were pools of molten and nearly molten metal weeks later.

I first worked out this concept of what a building collapse would mean when considering what the
failure of Chicago's Sears Tower would mean in event of a major earthquake on the New Madrid fault,
but it applies equally to this calamity.

[trotsky]

1. Excellent post.

Well thought out and reasoned analysis, with accurate information and scientific facts.

Good job. :thumbsup:

[theSaiGirl]

100. re: "Trotsky" - and the controlled demolition of the WTC

Ice-pick this fool in the head.
He won't suffer any net loss in mental capacity.
He's already clueless.

Check out these mainstream network broadcast videos, showing the controlled demolition of WTC7:
http://www.wtc7.net/videos.html

Then look at the explosive squibbs emitted during the near free-fall collapse of the Towers:
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/

Here is the now-famous analysis of the controlled demolitions by BYU physics professor Steven Jones:
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

[progressoid]

2. All yer fancy book lernin don't mean nothin.

I said it before and Ill say it again...Them numbers and figures and whatnot caint deny one simple fact. George W Bush is a crimanal mastermind.

Now if you dont mind I goin to sit under my pyramid and finish my Kevin Trudeau book.

[BeFree]

3. Nice try

But no one's gonna buy it. Watch the videos...I dare ya.

[benburch]

9. Already have.

You cannot make this into a controlled demolition just by wanting, hoping, wishing to make it so.

It was an event caused by aircraft hitting these buildings. (Which I believe that this government knew was going to happen and allowed.)

[BeFree]

21. The videos

...show explosions well below the entry holes. They show the top of one buildings toppling sideways. Besides your conjecture is so full of holes that it isn't even worth revisiting. Have a nice day.

[sabbat hunter]

35. WTC 2

leaned a bit sideways due to where it was it.

does anyone here think the * is competant enough for this to be all their idea?

what we have is the most incompetant administration ever. whatever they put their hands on they screw up (not finding OBL, war in iraq, the Dubai port deal, the budget)

[Twist_U_Up]

71. stupid like a fox

[leesa]

4. The physicists don't seem to agree.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

14. WOW...all of them???

:sarcasm:

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. Some physicists say...

;-)

[Atman]

23. I'm not a physicist...

...but I know what matters!

(ba-doom)

Sorry. Ya' so seldom get the opportunity to use classic material like that! :rofl:

[ProdigalJunkMail]

26. just damn...

I spit out my coffee...time for a fresh cup...

sP :-)

[benburch]

37. As an amateur physicist myself...

I don't suppose I matter, then, eh?

Pardon me while I go hide my light under this bushel and pretend that I can't analyze this event for myself.

[Twist_U_Up]

72. keyword "amateur"

[mirandapriestly]

104. heh heh, you got THAT right

I hate it when people copy formulas off of some web site then come on here like they're some kind of physics expert. They think posters will be intimidated and not be able to see right through it.

[formercia]

5. What McVeigh used at OKC for explosive

was more than Ammonium Nitrate. It had an added ingredient that increased the power considerably. The energy factor was about 1.4 times that of TNT. This doesn't affect your argument much but it is a fact to take into consideration.

[benburch]

15. Nope. Not more that TNT.

I've looked at the descriptions of that bomb. And it did not go off properly. He only got about half of the effect he was after, or it would have fallen completely.

[formercia]

25. that would be .7 in that case.

It's true that big bombs are difficult to prime properly. Funny, the insurgents in Iraq have it down pat.

[soothsayer]

6. So why did tower 7 fall?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

10. er...care to read the whole thing?

"Building 7 was hit by high velocity ejecta from the two collapse events, and also by two pulses of
superheated air laden with debris; In effect two synthetic pyroclastic pulses, by analogy with the
remarkably similar effect that occurs in some volcanic eruptions. This is sufficient to have
damaged building #7 so badly that it later fell. "

sP

[FormerDittoHead]

32. Weren't the 'pulses' hundreds of feet above?

Your logic is circular.

The shockwave was enough to bring the building down because the building went down.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

45. no they weren't

and please define for me 'circular logic' and where you see that in my post. Not your words...mine.

The pulses that the OP mentions would have been the pulses created by the structure of a 500,000,000lbs structure crashing to the ground. That shockwave (rather the two of them) and the heat generated by the collapse is what damaged #7 (a building in very close proximity).

sP

[papau]

69. The existence of the forces you mention are not at issue - but who did

the heat generation calc and what held the heat or moved the heat to #7.

Likewise deformation would use up much of the energy - who did the shockwave calc?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

76. the OP did all these calcs to the best of my knowledge

[Cookie wookie]

105. Fell?

Interesting "fall". Yes, that must be it, and only a real physicist could figure it out: all those "pyroclastic" blasts made it huff and puff and blow itself straight down.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

7. how dare you

interject science and logic into a discussion that so many people love to fuel with pure emotion and irrationality? You must be one of those people that believe that there are scientific explanations for why the sun comes up and why hot things burn you...I know to read your post from this point forward with a healthy dose of skepticism :-)

subjectProdigal

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. The sun comes up as a result of a Rovian plot

as every right-thinking DUer knows. It is meant as a distraction from the evil of the BFEE, making people think that everything is fine a "sunny" (notice the typical Rovian "framing"), while the BFEE practices its evil in the shadows produced by said sunshine. I mean, please! You think something like "science" would explain that? All the scientists are in on it with the BFEE, and the ones who aren't are microbiologists who've died in large numbers since 9/11, in another Rovian plot, of course...

;-)

[MadisonProgressive]

20. There is a lot of science and logic that proves that it must have

been explosives that brought down the buidings. I've read it all and I believe it.

[BushOut06]

38. Proves it MUST have been? Or COULD have been?

Big difference. I'm sure there's plenty of science that can prove that explosives could have brought down the towers. But does that mean that is the ONLY explanation? I think the problem is many people want to discard any information that doesn't fit in with their expectations.

[benburch]

39. But have you validated the calculations?

A pretty word picture does not equal an analysis of the situation.

I think I demonstrate sufficient gravitational energy to more than account for the destruction observed.

Would I *like* to think we could find an Evil Plot that would bring down Bush and PNAC? Sure. You betcha. But it just didn't go down that way.

What really happened was bad enough;

Bush Let It Happen Through Depraved Indifference.

[benburch]

34. I know... What balls, eh? nt

[malaise]

8. So explain the other building that collapsed n/t

[ProdigalJunkMail]

11. please see post #10 n/t

[Atman]

12. Thank you

Guaranteed to break the ice at parties!

Seriesly, excellent post, obviously well thought-out and researched. Your equations could be total hokum for all I know about math concepts, but you presented the data in such a way that it is accessible even to more pedestrian analysts like myself.

K&R

[Twist_U_Up]

73. here is a much better analysis

http://www.thepowerhour.com/911_analysis/laws-of-physics.htm

<snip>
Using jet fuel to melt steel is an amazing discovery, really. It is also amazing that until now, no one had been able to get it to work, and that proves the terrorists were not stupid people. Ironworkers fool with acetylene torches, bottled oxygen, electric arcs from generators, electric furnaces, and other elaborate tricks, but what did these brilliant terrorists use? Jet fuel, costing maybe 80 cents a gallon on the open market.

Let us consider: One plane full of jet fuel hit the north tower at 8:45 a.m., and the fuel fire burned for a while with bright flames and black smoke. We can see pictures of white smoke and flames shooting from the windows.

Then by 9:03 a.m. (which time was marked by the second plane's collision with the south tower), the flame was mostly gone and only black smoke continued to pour from the building. To my simple mind, that would indicate that the first fire had died down, but something was still burning inefficiently, leaving soot (carbon) in the smoke. A fire with sooty smoke is either low temperature or starved for oxygen -- or both.
( http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/fires1-2.html ).

But by 10:29 a.m., the fire in north tower had accomplished the feat that I find so amazing: It melted the steel supports in the building, causing a chain reaction within the structure that brought the building to the ground.

And with less fuel to feed the fire, the south tower collapsed only 47 minutes after the plane collision, again with complete destruction. This is only half the time it took to destroy the north tower.

I try not to think about that. I try not to think about a petroleum fire burning for 104 minutes, just getting hotter and hotter until it reached 1538 degrees Celsius (2800 Fahrenheit) and melted the steel (steel is about 99% iron; for melting points of iron and steel, see http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Fe/heat.html ,
http://www.weldtechnology.com/rwintroduction.html
or: http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/rwintroduction.html )

I try not to wonder how the fire reached temperatures that only bottled oxygen or forced air can produce.

And I try not to think about all the steel that was in that building -- 200,000 tons of it (for WTC statistics, see http://www.infoplease.com/spot/wtc1.html
or: http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/wtc1.html ).

I try to forget that heating steel is like pouring syrup onto a plate: you can't get it to stack up. The heat just flows out to the colder parts of the steel, cooling off the part you are trying to warm up. If you pour it on hard enough and fast enough, you can get the syrup to stack up a little bit. And with very high heat brought on very fast, you can heat up one part of a steel object, but the heat will quickly spread out and the hot part will cool off soon after you stop.

Am I to believe that the fire burned for 104 minutes in the north tower, gradually heating the 200,000 tons of steel supports like a blacksmith's forge, with the heat flowing throughout the skeleton of the tower? If the collapse was due to heated steel, the experts should be able to tell us how many thousands of tons of steel were heated to melting temperature in 104 minutes and how much fuel would be required to produce that much heat. Can a single Boeing 767 carry that much fuel?

Thankfully, I found this note on the BBC web page ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1540000/1540044.stm
or: http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/BBCNews ): "Fire reaches 800 C -- hot enough to melt steel floor supports."

That is one of the things I warned you about: In the 20th Century, steel melted at 1535 degrees Celsius (2795 F), (see http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/fe.html ), but in the 21st Century, it melts at 800 degrees C (1472 F).

This might be explained as a reporter's mistake -- 800 to 900 C is the temperature for forging wrought iron. As soft as wrought iron is, of course, it would never be used for structural steel in a landmark skyscraper. (Descriptions of cast iron, wrought iron, steel, and relevant temperatures discussed at
http://www.metrum.org/measures/castiron.htm
or: http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/castiron.htm .)

But then lower down, the BBC page repeats the 800 C number in bold, and the article emphasizes that the information comes from Chris Wise, "Structural Engineer." Would this professional individual permit himself to be misquoted in a global publication?

Eduardo Kausel, an M.I.T. professor of civil and environmental engineering, spoke as follows to a panel of Boston area civil and structural engineers: "I believe that the intense heat softened or melted the structural elements -- floor trusses and columns -- so that they became like chewing gum, and that was enough to trigger the collapse." Kausel is apparently satisfied that a kerosene fire could melt steel -- though he does not venture a specific temperature for the fire
( http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/sciam ).

I feel it coming on again -- that horrible cynicism that causes me to doubt the word of the major anchor-persons. Please just think of this essay as a plea for help, and do NOT let it interfere with your own righteous faith. The collapse of America's faith in its leaders must not become another casualty on America's skyline.

In my diseased mind, I think of the floors of each tower like a stack of LP (33-1/3 RPM) records, except that the floors were square instead of circular. They were stacked around a central spindle that consisted of multiple steel columns interspersed with dozens of elevator shafts (see http://www.skyscraper.org/tallest/t_wtc.htm , http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm , and http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildings/World_Trade_Center.html ).




Images cached from BBC page ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1540000/1540044.stm
or: http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/BBCNews ) and HERA report by G. Charles Clifton
( http://www.hera.org.nz/PDF%20Files/World%20Trade%20Centre.pdf
or: http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/clifton.pdf ). Items indicated in Clifton image (right): 13. Exterior columns; 17. Interior columns; 20. Usable office space
BBC News Image (left) is misleading:
A "beam" is always horizontal, "columns" are vertical. The vertical steel supports in the core were columns.
The central columns occupied about 25% of the floor area, not 10% as is shown on the left.
The central columns were not encased in a single block of concrete, but interspersed with elevator shafts




Typical floor plan of WTC tower (from
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm )
The outside shape of the towers was almost square, but the inner core was more rectangular. Pictures from the early phases of construction photos show how the rectangular inner cores were oriented in the finished buildings ( http://www.GreatBuildings.com/cgi-bin/gbi.cgi/World_Trade_Center_Images.html/cid_wtc_mya_WTC_const.4.gbi ). Note that the north tower core was aligned east-west, and the south tower core was aligned north-south.

This drawing shows the two WTC towers (black) and the paths of the attacking aircraft (red). Within the profile of each tower, the shape of the central core is shown by the green rectangle. WTC buildings 1 through 6 are numbered, WTC 7, north of 6, is not shown.

With the central core bearing the weight of the building, the platters were tied together and stabilized by another set of steel columns at the outside rim, closely spaced and completely surrounding the structure. This resulting structure was so stable that the top of the towers swayed only three feet in a high wind. The architects called it a "tube-within-a-tube design."

The TV experts told us that the joints between the floors and central columns melted (or the floor trusses, or the central columns, or the exterior columns, depending on the expert) and this caused the floor to collapse and fall onto the one below. This overloaded the lower floor, and the two of them fell onto the floor below, and so on like dominos (see http://news-info.wustl.edu/News/nrindex00/harmon.html
or: http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/harmon ).

Back in the early 1970s when the World Trade Towers were built, the WTC was the tallest building that had ever been built in the history of the world. If we consider the architectural engineers, suppliers, builders, and city inspectors on the job, we can imagine they would be very careful to overbuild every aspect. If one bolt was calculated to serve, you can bet that three or four were used. If there was any doubt about the quality of a girder or steel beam, you can be sure it was rejected. After all, any failures would attract the attention of half the civilized world, and no corporation wants a reputation for that kind of stupidity -- particularly if there are casualties.

I do not know the exact specifications for the WTC, but I know in many trades (and some I've worked), a structural member must be physically capable of three times the maximum load that will ever be required of it (BreakingStrength = 3 x WorkingStrength).


According to Engineering and Technical Handbook by McNeese and Hoag, Prentice Hall, 3rd printing, September 1959: page 47 (Table) Safety Factors of Various Materials, the mandatory safety factor for structural steel is 600%. That is, a steel structure may be rated for a load of only one sixth the actual theoretical limit.

Given that none of those floors was holding a grand piano sale or an elephant convention that day, it is unlikely that any of them were loaded to the maximum. Thus, any of the floors should have been capable of supporting more than its own weight plus the two floors above it. I suspect the WTC was engineered for safer margins than the average railroad bridge, and the actual load on each floor was less than 1/6 the BreakingStrength. The platters were constructed of webs of steel trusses. Radial trusses ran from the perimeter of the floor to the central columns, and concentric rings of trusses connected the radial trusses, forming a pattern like a spider web (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1540000/images/
or: ). Where the radial trusses connected with the central columns, I imagine the joints looked like the big bolted flanges where girders meet on a bridge -- inches thick bolts tying the beams into the columns.

In order to weaken those joints, a fire would have to heat the bolts or the flanges to the point where the bolts fell apart or tore through the steel. But here is another thing that gives me problems -- all the joints between the platter and the central columns would have to be heated at the same rate in order to collapse at the same time -- and at the same rate as the joints with the outer columns on all sides -- else one side of the platter would fall, damaging the floor below and making obvious distortions in the skin of the building, or throwing the top of the tower off balance and to one side.

But there were no irregularities in the fall of those buildings. They fell almost as perfectly as a deck of cards in the hands of a magician doing an aerial shuffle.




Images cached from PsyOpNews:
The Splitsecond Error

This is particularly worrisome since the first plane struck one side of the north tower, causing (you would think) a weakening on that side where the exterior columns were struck, and a more intense fire on that side than on the other side. And the second plane struck near the corner of the south tower at an angle that caused much of the fuel to spew out the windows on the adjacent side
(see ).

Yet the south tower also collapsed in perfect symmetry, spewing dust in all directions like a Fourth of July sparkler burning to the ground
( ).

This symmetry of descent is even more remarkable in the south tower because in the first moments of the collapse, the top 20 floors of the south tower tilted over to the south (
or: ).



Whatever irregularities caused the top of the tower to tilt, subsequent pictures show the tower falling mostly within its own footprint. There are no reports of this cube of concrete and steel from the upper floors (measuring 200 ft. wide, 200 ft. deep, and 250 ft high) falling a 1000 feet onto the buildings below.

Implosion expert Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. of Phoenix, MD, was also misled by the picture. Having observed the collapses on television news, Loizeaux said the 1,362-ft-tall south tower failed much as one would fell a tree
( http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/USYDENR ).

I have recently seen a videotape rerun of the south tower falling. In that take, the upper floors descend as a complete unit, tilted over as shown on the BBC page, sliding down behind the intervening buildings like a piece of stage scenery.

That scene is the most puzzling of all. Since the upper floors were not collapsed (the connection between the center columns and the platters were intact), this assembly would present itself to the lower floors as a block of platters WITHOUT a central hole. How then would a platter without a hole slide down the spindle with the other platters? Where would the central columns go if they could not penetrate the upper floors as the platters fell?

If the fire melted the floor joints so that the collapse began from the 60th floor downward, the upper floors would be left hanging in the air, supported only by the central columns. This situation would soon become unstable and the top 30 floors would topple over (to use Loizeaux's image) much like felling the top 600 ft. from a 1,300 ft. tree.

This model would also hold for the north tower. According to Chris Wise's "domino" doctrine, the collapse began only at the floor with the fire, not at the penthouse. How was it that the upper floors simply disappeared instead of crashing to the earth as a block of thousands of tons of concrete and steel?

In trying to reconstruct and understand this event, we need to know whether the scenes we are watching are edited or simply shown raw as they were recorded.

But let us return our attention to the fire. Liquid fuel does not burn hot for long. Liquid fuel evaporates (or boils) as it burns, and the vapor burns as it boils off. If the ambient temperature passes the boiling point of the fuel and oxygen is plentiful, the process builds to an explosion that consumes the fuel.

Jet fuel (refined kerosene) boils at temperatures above 160 degrees Celsius (350 F) and the vapor flashes into flame at 41 degrees Celsius (106 F). In an environment of 1500 degrees F, jet fuel spread thinly on walls, floor, and ceiling would boil off very quickly. If there were sufficient oxygen, it would burn; otherwise it would disperse out the open windows and flame when it met oxygen in the open air -- as was likely happening in the pictures that showed flames shooting from the windows. Some New Yorkers miles distant claimed they smelled the fuel, which would indicate fuel vapors were escaping without being burned.

Note that jet fuel burning outside the building would heat the outside columns, but would not heat the central load-bearing columns significantly. Following this reasoning, the jet fuel fire does not adequately explain the failure of the central columns.

Whether the fuel burned gradually at a temperature below the boiling point of jet fuel (360 C), or burned rapidly above the boiling point of jet fuel, in neither case would an office building full of spilled jet fuel sustain a fire at 815 degrees C (1500 F) long enough to melt 200,000 tons of steel. And certainly, the carpets, wallpaper, filing cabinets, occasional desks -- nothing else in that office was present in sufficient quantity to produce that temperature.

The WTC was not a lumber yard or a chemical plant. What was burning?

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. That might be the "science" and "physics" of it,

but did you take into account the evil of the BFEE? I don't see "BFEE" anywhere in your whole formula:
PE-subG in joules = weight * G (9.8 m/s/s) * height. And can you have a formula without "BFEE" and its intrinsic evil? Harumph, a "sheeple" formula maybe, based on that there "science" and "physics," but not a real honest to goodness BFEE EVIL formula, which should be the only one we need! Harumph! Harumph! :sarcasm:

:rofl:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

22. I think I just wet myself. n/t

[benburch]

31. Oh yes...

47 grams of concentrated Evil is sufficient to cause a rent in the space-time continuum!

http://www.gomarky.com.nyud.net:8090/blogger/bloggerImg/weatheredfull.jpg

[bdot]

16. What is this all relating to?

I mean what is this trying to debate? Did someone recently say there were bombs in other buildings?

[mirandapriestly]

108. Actually, it was being reported the first day...

then mysteriously went away, of course the witnesses had no "formulas".

[papau]

17. Similiar to a class problem I had 50 years ago - the answer then was to

model each point source (you define your point sources) and check vectors and time line everything - and the result was very "approximate"!! :-)

Today we have computer models that do this for you - or you can build your model in something like the Mathcad program.

I have not heard of a model that is able to account for building 7 - and 1 and 2 require heat transfer that seems larger than is available.

But as a student that lived on "partial credit" - I am known to have been wrong - so my universe of reading and my memory of WTC models may be wrong.

The official investigation came up with enough heat transfer to take care of 1 and 2 as in make it at least possible - but I forget how they did that feat.

In any case - good luck on working this one out!

:-)

[AZCat]

89. Nonlinearity is a bitch, unfortunately.

Heat transfer in particular can make these sort of models freak out. Radiation exchange between two surfaces depends on the difference between the fourth powers of the absolute temperatures of the surfaces, and that screws with the "linearization" that is used to predict behavior of a model in a simulation.

There are methods used to get around the problem of nonlinearity (small changes can make a big difference) like the Monte Carlo Method, but they require a great deal of computational time.

[petgoat]

94. Radiation Exchange? Do you honestly think that was a

meaningful heat transfer vector?

[AndyA]

18. I worked for a developer for many years

Your theory sounds good, but it wouldn't work like that. The owner of Building #7 is on video saying that building was pulled. How that was accomplished in just a few hours...well, you tell me.

It takes weeks to determine where to set explosives, and how strong they need to be, and how much time between blasts, and which goes first, etc.

Those buildings did not collapse, they were pulled. The World Trade Center towers were designed to withstand an airliner impact, and the heat of jet fuel is not hot enough to melt steel. Those buildings were very, very, very well built. They should not have collapsed.

You need to rethink your theory, buildings do not come down in this manner unless they are pulled. Period.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

28. Yup, that's what demolitions experts do.

They "pull" buildings down. With ropes. Attached to donkeys.

[jim3775]

30. "heat of jet fuel is not hot enough to melt steel"

I really hate this theory as it goes against all logic. There were other things burning too, not to mention the incredible amount of air getting to the fire because of the giant hole in the middle of the tall building.

They only way this theory would make sense was if 9/11 consisted of a steel structure dipped in a pool of jet fuel which was set on fire. See, no logic there.

[AndyA]

85. WTC fires were not hot

After the initial flash, the smoke coming from the buildings was thick and black - producing soot, which means oxygen starved. These were not hot fires at all, the black smoke was so thick it was choking out the fires, robbing them of oxygen to burn. The jet fuel flash burned off in a few minutes, and what was left to burn were the desks, paper, carpeting, etc. None of which burn hot enough to melt steel.

Other steel buildings have burned for hours and hours, with much larger sections of the building involved, without collapsing.

Those buildings did not melt, the steel did not fragment, that does not happen. There were very few pieces of large, twisted metal.

The only explanation was the buildings were pulled.

Look at the videos of them coming down. It's too clean, too fast, too uniform. Compare that to other structural collapses. It just doesn't happen that way, unless demolition by explosives is involved.

[sabbat hunter]

40. flaws in your theory

1) why would silverstein say on an open frequency "pull it" and mean demolish it. i also doubt that silverstein even knew that pull it also meant blow it up. i think meant pull out the firefighters before they get hurt. implosion takes weeks, including taking out 90% of the support by hand. when that is done the building also has to be emptied of most of their interior structure so the building is basically a shell when it comes down. a implosion really just takes down the shell but most of the demolision is still done by hand

2) the steel does not have to melt initially. the temp jet fuel burns at is sufficient to weaken it so it can no longer support the weights it was designed to. that plus the addition weight they were taking on after the planes destroyed many of the columns was enough to cause them to fail.

3) the WTC was designed to withstand a 707 jetliner crash. a 757 is a heavier plane, flew faster and carried more fuel.

[oblivious]

61. What's the point of comparing a 707 and 757 when 767s hit the WTC?

A 767 is slower than a 707, not much heavier and has only slightly more fuel capacity.

[benburch]

63. I don't think it could have stood the "design" failure 707, either.

I believe that architects are only now learning how such structures fail.

This building was not strong enough in key ways.

[Junkdrawer]

27. Not saying that bombs were planted, but your 113 tons of TNT number...

is only accurate at the 1st floor of each tower, e.g. 113 tons of TNT did not initiate the event.
Nor does it explain why "any twisting moment" wouldn't have sent the floors above the impact crashing into neighboring structures.

I'm sorry, but it does appear to me that two highly-unlikely-but-not-impossible events took place.

[Jose Diablo]

29. Yada yada yada

What about the molten iron in the rubble, you going to say the metal melted because it was falling to the ground?

Besides that, you are offering up for consumption a theory that belongs in the 9/11 basement were we can discuss this horseshit theory in depth. The truth is, all this you have presented has been discussed at length, and has been tossed aside as crap.

See ya in the basement.

[BushOut06]

33. Don't come on here with your scientific mumbo-jumbo

It's just so much easier to don the tin hats and accept that this was a professional demolition job.

:tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

[trotsky]

41. Oh, yes.

With explosives planted on every floor (a few semi-trucks worth snuck in in their lunchboxes), and support beams structurally pre-weakened (just like they have to do for every controlled demolition). They did it over the weekend. If anyone asked, they just said they were fixing a leak.

[Zynx]

36. Now all that science, logic, and reason is nice, but......

Did you take into account the Rovian conspiracy? ;-)

[HughBeaumont]

42. MIHOP doesn't mean you have to believe CD/Pentagate.

This is what naysayers don't seem to be getting. Not ALL of us completely buy into the CD/Pentagate theories, but that alone doesn't necessarily mean we DON'T believe in MIHOP. I still firmly and honestly believe that this bunch of criminals (and I'm not talking about JUST Al Quaeda, folks) had a hand in all of this. It's empirically impossible for me to solely blame this on incompetence; I don't give a SHIT what anyone says, THEY KNEW and they made it happen on purpose because they LET it happen on purpose.

Simply following the timelines and events before the attacks, the illegality past associates of this cabal were involved in throughout history, the mainstream reports out of the Arab community prior to the attacks, PNAC's damning mission statements, ruling out the possibility of NORAD and the FAA bellyflopping ON THAT DAY ONLY; reading carefully all of what is espoused in The Terror Timeline (which doesn't at ALL go into CD), I mean how the HELL can anyone seriously rule out that Cheney, Rummy the Dummy, Condosleeza and the rest of these liars are perfectly innocent? These bastards who have lied to us throughout their entire term, have lied and gotten away with more criminal acts and are responsible for more civilian and soldier deaths than any phantom greybeard on dialysis could hope to pull off and use a bought and paid for media to sell and defend their acts? How the HELL can people seriously look me in the eye, look the 9/11 families who have lost loved ones in the eyes and tell me with a completely straight face that these assholes are innocent of ANY wrongdoing?

You can sit there and think your government is this unit who's still civil, who still values the needs of Americans and who believes in doing the right thing, but don't shit on the rest of us and call us retards and all other kinds of ad hominems for believing MIHOP.

A few thousand dead Americans means shiz-NIT to these dickheads. They'll nuke an American city if it meant exploiting the populace and making more crony money, and don't think for one SECOND that they won't. And really, how would you know any better and what would any of us do about it? They got the media, the corporations and the guns on their side.

I'm just saying to not believe the Bewsh administration and their cabal had ANYthing to do with 9/11, COME on. You're smarter than this, people.

ben, you once said that "we're dealing with evil not seen since Hitler". Do you truly belive that?

[i miss america]

83. Beautifully stated and I echo your sentiments exactly!!!

:yourock:

[earth mom]

98. I agree-great post!

And I'll stick my neck out and add that given every lie and deception that the BFEE has pulled the past 5 years, I don't understand how any one who wants to know the truth about 9/11 and nothing but-would believe even for a minute that a such an evil deed as 9/11 would be executed-LIHOP or MIHOP-without a plan to get rid of any and all evidence. Which means that a controlled demolition was absolutely necessary to cover tracks aka evidence.

Plus...I don't need any so called science that's twisted around like a pretzel to prove anything other than the obvious proof I have using my own two eyes that those buildings came down just like the controlled demos they do in Vegas and elsewhere.

[Kevin Fenton]

43. Well, that's better, but...

I don't see the point of working out the number of joules that would be generated by dropping the whole tower 205 meters.

The questions that really need to be addressed are:
(1) Were the impact and fires enough to make the first floor collapse?
A: I really, really doubt it. To work this out we need reliable estimates of the safety factor and the damage (inside and out). The perimeter damage is easy, the core and floor damage is really hard, if not impossible;
(2) Was the mass of the falling section (approximately 31780 tons in WTC 1 and 65,830 tons in WTC 2) great enough to initiate a pancake-like collapse?
A: I have no idea.
(3) Even if the mass of the falling section was theoretically enough, would it be applied to the first floor as a block and would the upper section continue to fall as a block making a pancake-type collapse possible?
A: I really, really doubt it. Why would it continue to be applied as a block?

Even if all three answers were "yes", then this would only prove that a pancake-type collapse was possible, not that it actually happened.

[benburch]

44. The whole floor does not need to collapse!

All that is needed is a slump, not a complete failure.

[Kevin Fenton]

48. I don't quite understand

I assume you are referring to my point (1). Could you be a little bit more specific please? Surely, your argument must be that a slump would lead to a complete failure?

btw, NIST also claims the floor trusses bowed inwards and they have pictures they claim show bowing on the east side of the South Tower and the south side of the North Tower.

On edit: Just one hypothetical question: if somebody did put explosives in the WTC, where would they have put them?

[benburch]

52. Yes, a small slump leads to a catastrophic failure.

Where would I put a bomb if I were going to?

Just where the bombers in 1993 did. In the parking garage. Had that bomb been a bit more effective, that tower would have fallen then.

[Kevin Fenton]

54. 1993 Bombing

How big do you think the slump needs to be and why do you think it would lead to a catastrophic failure?

Re: where would you put explosives. If the 1993 bombers had been successful, one tower would have toppled onto the other (at least that's what they thought - I'm not so sure). Where would you put them if you wanted to cause as little damage as possible?

[benburch]

56. I think a 1 or 2 inch slump is sufficient.

Because in that slump the entire top mass falls one or two inches and acquires considerable momentum that the structure below it tries to halt. This causes additional failures, more slump, and it is a chain reaction.

Cause as LITTLE damage as possible? Why would I plant a bomb at all to do that? I'm not sure I am getting you.

[Kevin Fenton]

57. 1 or 2 inches?

I think you've hit a problem here, because NIST says that the maximum bowing (the south wall of the North Tower, I can't remember what the maximum bowing of the east wall of the South Tower was off hand) was 55 inches before it collapsed. If a perimeter column bowed in 55 inches, then the sagging of the floor trusses inside the towers must have been well over an inch or two.

Note: I'm not sure at all about the interpretation of these photos by NIST.

Yes, as little damage as possible. The two theories put forward by us Cters are:
(1) It was a false flag operation designed to give the government to wage permanent war on oil-rich countries, but they didn't want to kill too many people, so the towers went straight down; or
(2) The towers were rigged after the 1993 bombing - in the event of a more successful repeat, the towers could be demolished quickly without toppling onto each other or the rest of lower Manhattan. When the planes hit the explosives were used to prevent them falling and doing more damage, possibly after the planes had triggered some of the explosives (this is what all the basement blast talk is about).
I am very firmly in camp (2).

[benburch]

58. Well over is good!

I need ONLY 1 or 2 inches to make this failure mode work. Anything more than this is gravy.

[Kevin Fenton]

59. But the towers swayed in the wind

Much more than 1 or 2 inches and I don't think you have shown the initial collapse would have led to pancaking yet.

Besides, there's lots of evidence of controlled demolition:

We can even see "squibs" (marked by the red arrow) coming from the South Tower well in advance of the collapse.

[benburch]

60. Swaying does not equal falling.

At no time in the life of the towers as integrated buildings does the mass of a large number of floors slump down into the mass of the floors below.

Every tall building on the planet is a like bomb waiting to go off. Like a bomb, it can be triggered by a force MUCH smaller than itself. As we continue to build tall buildings, we will continue to create danger in the form of gravitational potential energy storehouses.

That picture did not display, but I think I have seen it. Have you ever seen materials failing under compressive deformation in a hydraulic press?

[Kevin Fenton]

81. Plenty of buildings slump an inch or two...

... in fires, but they don't pancake. The WTC would have slumped an inch or two in a major office fire, are you saying a major office fire wouldn't have knocked the building over?

Take another look at the picture - try clicking on it.

[papau]

68. The time frame from the "sudden" 2 inch drop is what? - and why is it able

to pancake rather fall to the side?


I grant you that while the steel will not melt quickly or totally, it could met enough to bend - but at what speed - with what force on it? And what is "it" in the "what force on it" - do we assume columns are destroyed in the plane crash and somehow the force is transferred to the remaining columns equally?

Has this ever been modeled - I am not into 9/11 theory - and no doubt the answers to the above are well known to folks in this forum -

but could someone do a WTC for dummies cheat sheet on the math?

[benburch]

55. Oh, and, note how SMALL a bomb that was! nt

[JackRiddler]

78. ridiculous

A "slump" would cause collapse on the side of the slump. The floor is not some kind of miraculous single-plate structure that can only fall as a complete unit; where vertical support is removed, it will "slump" at that point. Therefore, if the collapse is not total across the floor (within the first fraction of time), you won't get a pancake effect. Columns that did not "slump" would not pancake, at least not initially, though they might follow in a chain reaction. But this is not what we saw, especially in the North Tower with a smooth cascade from the impact zone and all the way down.

Now as for the rest...

The praise and sarcastic asides are plentiful from those who have cast their lot in with the official conspiracy theory, but your paper seems rather superfluous given the 1,000 page NIST report, two years in the making, so why do you bother? Oh, I forget, because they don't actually address anything past collapse initiation. Oh yeah, they also have found reason to continue delaying a report on WTC 7 for another year (now due in Nov. 2006). Fancy that. You'd think it was so easy to explain, reading your treatment.

I like how you take the official story of OKC at face value, by the way, and then use the amount of explosive supposedly planted by McVeigh as a valid measuring stick. Ever hear of the USAF Col. and explosives expert Benton Partin? Hm.

But if we do accept that, it seems it only required a few tons of explosive to do in the WTC, too; something that workers in maintenance uniform with security clearance could transport within a few hours, in a 110-story building full of offices where maintenance work is constantly done and hardly raises suspicion among the other workers. Interesting.

Now google this:

ENERGY TRANSFER IN THE WTC COLLAPSE
By
F. R. Greening

As a professional he does what you're trying to do, but in a far more impressive fashion: devises an accounting of potential energy and its conversion to kinetic that (dependent on certain assumptions) accounts for the energy required to a) cause floor by floor collapse within the time observed while also b) grind up concrete to create those pyroclastic flows, c) release a portion of the energy as heat. At least he doesn't fail to notice b, as you seem to do.

The problem with his account, and yours, is in the circular initial assumption: the potential energy should have been sufficient if fully released to cause a progressive total collapse; therefore it must have been the cause of the collapse once initiated, because there was a collapse. (Besides, this is the "simpler explanation" and bombs are unthinkable.) Certainly there's no doubt that the potential energy was released, and that amount of energy may have been sufficient (if delivered for example in the form of pure energy or a bomb, interesting that you use that as a metaphor), but that's a handy thing to know for a start, and hardly rules out additional inputs or closes the case.

Both approaches simply refuse to look at the many video records of the events: instantaneous full-floor collapse; explosive ejecta at 45 degrees above the horizontal; massive squibs appearing far below the furthest progress of the crash wave at regular intervals, perfectly centered. Both leave out the molten metal pools.

No theoretical model of how the potential energy should have been sufficient for a theoretical collapse can substitute for empirical observation of what actually happens, or analysis of the subsequent forensic evidence.

Naturally neither sees anything suspicious in the rapid disposal of the evidence from the Staten Island landfill, straight to Asian scrappers.

Why did NIST have to revise its initial collapse model twice to finally get one severe enough to initiate collapse? Why didn't they run it past that point, to simulate the full collapse, but simply leave it as "gee, then gravity does its work..." Why did the real-world testing of NIST's model by UL fail to produce the desired collapse result?

How big and dense were those pyroclastic clouds and how much energy was required to grind up the concrete and create those clouds? How much of the concrete was converted to dust? If you're not considering that question, you're ignoring where a large part of the energy empirically went, and the need to measure that and see if the potential energy was sufficient to cause the clouds with enough left for the collapse.

As for your rendering of WTC 7, really quite the joke. NIST maps out no damage from ejecta to any main frame component of the building (this was a more conventional design, the outer walls were not load bearing).

There was no superheated blast wave. Consider all the people who were engulfed by the clouds immediately and directly at the base of the towers, and who survived (basically, everyone who wasn't inside or was not hit by something did survive!) None report that the cloud was "superheated," and obviously if it was they wouldn't be around to say so. WTC 7 was 200 feet away from the nearest tower and sorry, some blast of hot air even at 150 degrees F (which also didn't happen) still doesn't qualify as superheating.

Whereas look at the tape and you see an inward implosion with charateristic kink of a demolition job. You see squibs running up, not down the W side. What bad luck, that this spontaneous collapse due to random damage looked exactly like a demolition.

[papau]

80. :-)

:-)

[mirandapriestly]

109. double :)

someone who knows what they're talking about doesn't need "formulas" although I'm sure you could do those , too, if you had to.:)

[Greyhound]

46. Hate to interject into this mutual admiration and ridicule fest

but this would be a "D" paper at best and I've never been known as a tough grader. This is, however, an excellent exercise in why we need to drastically increase our effective funding of the educational system. It as a partial analysis of picked data, the same kind of "science" that shrubCo. uses to justify their stand on global warming (it doesn't exist), NCLB (bad test scores? just teach them the test), economic theory (the wealthy are what drives our economy), etc.
You seem to have put some time into this, so why not address all of the questions raised in the "Loose Change" video? There are too many inconsistencies and inaccuracies. The melting temperature of the steel supposedly used in the construction of the towers, The mysterious flashes below, opposite, and just prior to the impact point. The just plain wrong parts "recovered" from the pentagon. the shut down of parts of the buildings in the weeks preceding the attack.
I'm not convinced one way or the other, but again, the official story isn't complete and is shrouded in too much "security". I would not be surprised if there were perfectly reasonable explanations for these factors, but I haven't heard them yet. :shrug:

[benburch]

47. You cannot critique the conclusions...

so you resort to argumentum ad hominem?

Nice.

:sarcasm:

[Greyhound]

49. I certainly can critique the conclusions, and just might when I get back

and have the time. As I stated, you have not addressed several issues that have been raised, and the assumptions you made in your calculations have just pulled out of thin air. Again, a "D" from me, an "I" from Dr. Zarlengo.
L8R

[benburch]

51. Until you do.

You are just slinging mud.

[Twist_U_Up]

74. DING DING DING ....Hammer meet Nail....... Great Post

:hi:

[GrpCaptMandrake]

50. This is rather far afield from the OP

but it strikes me that a wholly evil and malevolent administration that can pull off 9/11 with no help won't have much trouble squashing and pacifying Iraq . . . or cleaning up after a hurricane . . . or managing an economy.

The Great-Big-Honkin-Bush-Did-It Theory fails not for want of motive or opportunity. It fails for want of the simple competence to get the job done.

I, for one, am much more troubled by an administration so hopelessly incompetent as to miss the big ol' signs it was coming, or so venally evil as to know it was coming and ignore it.

The G-B-H-B-D-I Theory is elegant in its ability to present an enemy we can never get at and can scream to the high heavens over, thereby marginalizing every other complaint we have about the Busheviks.

The negligence theory, however, is bone-chilling in its horror. A negligent administration that can't stop 19 arabs with boxcutters can't stop levees from breaching, either. Oh. Wait. I forgot. The levees were a controlled demolition, too.

Jesus help us, for we will not help ourselves.

[benburch]

53. I think you have identified the issue admirably. nt

[papau]

70. LOL - you do have an excellent point! :-)

:-)

[rman]

95. "with no help"? the "administration" is huge, it includes govt agencies

Not to mention involvement of Suadi financing.
Wtf do you mean "with no help"?

[dchill]

99. Have you ever considered...

that whatever this administration lacks in competence is easily made up for by the equal incompetence of the general public, and the willing cooperation of the corporate press? The truth IS out there, it's just played down as "conspiracy theory," which is a term that is more ridiculed as each moment passes by. By the "mainstream press" - a term that moment by moment comes more to refer to "Karl Rove Press Release".

I don't know about the levees, but I believe that willful ignorance before the fact is tantamount to "controlled demolition." And when ANYONE can prove that 19 Arabs with boxcutters did anything on "September The 11th", I'll eat my hat.

[mirandapriestly]

110. you are assuming

they WANT to "pacify Iraq, manage the economy, and quash hurricanes". Why would a wholly evil Bush administration want to do any of those things?

[reprehensor]

62. Re: OKC

"In the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Timothy McVey had a five ton Ryder truck he loaded with an explosive with considerably less explosive force than TNT."

Ben, perhaps you are not aware of this analysis by Brigadier Gen. USAF (Ret.) Benton K. Partin.

In it he argues that the ANFO bomb detonated by McVeigh was too far away from the Murrah Building to produce the effect it seems to have, and that explosives must have been applied to the support columns to produce the desired effect.

Bomb Damage Analysis Of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

Here is a letter he wrote to Trent Lott when the report was first drafted;

Dear Sen. Lott:

The attached report contains conclusive proof that the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was not caused solely by the truck bomb. Evidence shows that the massive destruction was primarily the result of four demolition charges placed at critical structural points at the third floor level.

Weapons Experience: I do not offer such an analytical conclusion lightly. I have spent 25 years in research, design, development, test and management of weapons development. This included: handson work at the Ballistic Research Laboratories; Commander of the Air Force Armament Technology Laboratory, and ultimately management responsibility for almost every nonnuclear weapon device in the Air Force (at the Air Force System command, Air Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) levels). I was also the first chairman of the OSD joint service Air Munitions Requirements and Development Committee. (A more detailed resume appears at Tab 1.)

Observations in Oklahoma City: To verify earlier analysis, I visited Oklahoma City during the last week of June. There I had the opportunity to view hundreds of photographs taken throughout the cleanup operation as the layers of debris were cleared away. The photos present irrefutable evidence that at least four demolition charges were set off at four critical columns of the reinforced concrete structure at the floor level of the third floor.

Conclusion: Based on my experience in weapons development and bomb damage analysis, and on my review of all evidence available, I can say, with a high level of confidence, that the damage pattern on the reinforced concrete superstructure could not possibly have been attained from the single truck bomb. The total incompatibility of this pattern of destruction with a single truck bomb lies in the simple, incontrovertible fact that some of the columns collapsed that should not have collapsed if the damage were caused solely by a truck bomb, and, conversely, some of the columns were left standing that should have collapsed if the damage had been caused solely by the truck bomb.

It is my hope and request that, as a Member of Congress, you will support a Congressional investigation to determine the true initiators of this bombing, which could not have occurred the way in which it has been portrayed as having happened. Further, it is requested that you defer action and reserve judgment on socalled antiterrorism legislation that has serious civil liberties implications, and which would not be passed except for the Oklahoma City bombing until the causes of the Oklahoma City disaster are determined by independent investigators.

Both the Federal Building in Oklahoma and the Trade Center in New York (See New York Times, October 28, 1993, p. A1) show evidence of a counterterrorism sting gone wrong.

No government law enforcement agency should be permitted to demolish, smash and bury evidence of a counterterrorism sting operation, sabotage or terrorist attack without a thorough examination by an independent, technically competent agency.

If an aircraft crashed because of a bomb, or a counterterrorism sting or an FAA Controller error, the FAA would not be permitted to gather and bury the evidence. The National Transportation Safety Board would have been called in to conduct an investigation and where possible every piece of debris would have been collected and arrayed to determine cause of failure.

To remove all ambiguity with respect to the use of supplementary demolition charges, the FBI should be required to release the high quality surveillance color TV camera tape of the Murrah building bombing on April 19, 1995.

It is my observation that the effort required to bomb the A. P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City pales in comparison with the effort to cover up evidence in Oklahoma and the media's withholding of vital information from the American people.

-----------------------------------

Here is an article that covers the milieu fairly well, witnesses who spoke of a "secondary explosion" at the OKC site, and multiple news reports of unexploded bombs recovered from the OKC site.

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id2461/pg1/index.html

Disinformation: What might be the most intriguing information you put out in your Final Report is that the most preeminent experts on explosives--people like Sam Cohen and General Partin--have said an ANFO truck bomb could not have possibly done the damage to the Murrah Building. You've said that the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee tried very hard to find an expert or authority who would say that an ANFO bomb could have done the damage, but you weren't able to, right?

Charles Key: That's true. Yes. We couldn't find anybody who would put their name, put their opinion in writing, that an ANFO truck bomb could have done this. If somebody wants to claim that it could have been done, then they need to put in writing, show how it could work, and give examples of that. And nobody I know of has been able to do that. Not even the witnesses the government used in the trial could do it. They didn't do it.

------------------------------------

There are two "9/11" DVDs which feature the actual footage from local TV in Oklahoma City; multiple televised reports, "there were other bombs", one report says that one of the recovered unexploded bombs was "very sophisticated."

The DVDs are Eric Hufschmid's "Painful Questions" and Dave Von Kleist's "In Plane Sight".

Both of these DVDs have come under criticism for various reasons, but the OKC footage alone is worth having them for reference.

I don't believe that an ANFO bomb did all that damage alone.

[benburch]

64. You want my honest opinion?

Such theories about OKC are EVEN MORE nutty than the similar ones about WTC.

This is the sort of stuff that lets the Right Wingers laugh at us... And for this, they SHOULD.

[Jose Diablo]

66. As they say

'Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one'.

Anyway, I'm glad your opinion about how the WTC collapsed is down here is the basement, were it belongs.

At least now we can say, your opinion is just that, an opinion not based on facts, but based on what you want to believe rather than the observed facts on the matter.

Have a nice day.
:)

[benburch]

67. And the horse you rode in on. nt

[papau]

79. Ben - are there calcs or models that support your theory?

The existence of the forces you mention are not at issue - but who did the heat generation calc and what held the heat or moved the heat to #7.

Likewise deformation would use up much of the energy - who did the shockwave calc?

Likewise the speed of the 2 inch drop that begins the pancake effect was calculated by whom?

Likewise the distribution of forces that resulted after the plane entered the building and before it pancaked was what -the reason the melt/weakening of the steel did not cause a fall to the side was what (this last one could have a dozen good answers - but I am curious as to which the calculations then used).?

thanks

[Twist_U_Up]

75. hahaha dats a good one,I know where he found his info.........

[Jose Diablo]

65. As you said

"I don't believe that an ANFO bomb did all that damage alone."

I wonder if the stingers the BATF was storing on the first floor in the room behind the nursery added to the 2 tons of ANFO.

[spooked911]

77. WRONG

This is an extremely simple-minded and superficial analysis, try taking some engineering courses

[hack89]

82. Compared to your sophisticated analysis

In all your posts you have yet to demonstrate anything more than superficial analysis of internet video - can you show a single post of yours that contains original thought and calculations?

[benburch]

84. Worked in engineering for 30 years.

And as I was responsible for critical nuclear safety systems, you'd better hope i know what I'm doing.

[mirandapriestly]

106. lots of people are engineers

doesn't make them experts..

[dchill]

86. Your THEORY is FULL OF HOLES! (Second Revision)

"...the conclusions still work..." Not. Your formula appears to be for a hermetically sealed universe where one could theoretically pick up and drop BOTH twin towers at the same instant, (from a height of ~205 meters) with all that accumulated and accelerated mass hitting the bedrock at once. In point of fact, the towers gradually crumbled to the ground ONE AT A TIME.

"Also note that the air within the tower was compressed, and like air compressed in a bicycle pump, heated up." Noted. That would actually diminish the accumulation of downward force.

Admit it - the force of the falling floors was mostly absorbed by the sequential collapse of each successive floor as each tower fell. It wasn't even additive, let alone instantaneous. The towers became their own shock absorbers. There simply was no 225,000,000-kilogram pile-driver at work here.

WTC7 collapsed because the charges had been installed, and evidence of that needed to be destroyed. I'm no physicist, but then who is around here? Your "solution" to the collapses is simplistic and fundamentally flawed. Sorry.

[dailykoff]

87. This is basically pancakes

and progressive pancaking is basically horseshit, as has been repeatedly demonstrated:

"Now, had the floors this sagging mass fell onto been at their full strength, they might have been able to "catch" it, but they were weakened by the fire, and so they continued to deform, as the solid top mass continued to fall and continued to trade gravitational potential energy for velocity and work done deforming the structure below. "

But that isn't how the towers were built. The floor diaphragms were hung from the cores, so whether they held or failed was irrelevant to the integrity of the structures.

And that's just one potted whopper. :crazy:

[IChing]

88. Bull shit

It was done by the 9-11 commission and you proved it again


The debris on lack of evidence that fell on building 7 proved , NONE


you r right it was the moslems

[Christophera]

90. VIDEO: Firefighters Discussing Detonations In Firehouse

This should end the controversy. These emergency professionals describe "detonations". Demoltion, not bombs is certain.

http://letsroll911.org/discussion_in_firehouse.mp

[libertypirate]

92. Most people don't have the guts to challenge themselves

on this.

He is parroting the official fairy tale.... Must be nice to be able to avoid what will prove you wrong and set you free.

[Christophera]

91. deleted

delete

[Harald Ragnarsson]

93. What is the point of this?

You trust this man implicitly and call those of us who doubt his word nuts and loons?

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States


About the Commission | Report | Hearings | Staff Statements | Press | Archive | For Families

Philip D. Zelikow Philip D. Zelikow
Executive Director

Philip Zelikow is the executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, better known as the "9/11 Commission." He is also the director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs and White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia. After serving in government with the Navy, the State Department, and the National Security Council, he taught at Harvard before assuming his present post in Virginia to direct the nation's largest research center on the American presidency. He was a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and served as executive director of the National Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former Presidents Carter and Ford, as well as the executive director of the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. Zelikow's books include The Kennedy Tapes (with Ernest May), Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (with Condoleezza Rice), and the rewritten Essence of Decision (with Graham Allison). Zelikow has also been the director of the Aspen Strategy Group, a policy program of the Aspen Institute.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_zelikow.htm

Libby to BenBurch: The Aspens are turning

[mirandapriestly]

107. Their first choice was Kissinger, I suppose he would

have agreed with him, too.;)

[rman]

96. repeat, repeat, repeat

i can play that game.


Potential energy is not released explosivly in natural collapse.

One floor just falling onto another does not have the same effect as demo charges going off to cause that collapse. It doesn't nearly produce that the same amount of heat.

Moreover, "pancake collapse" does not explain free-fall speed of WTC collapses.
Steel and concrete does not fall through steel and concrete at the same speed as it does through air.

[Harald Ragnarsson]

97. No need to get out the graphing calculator, IMO

TO drop the way they did, the floors would have had to "pancake" at a rate of 8 floors per second. The idea this weight was so great to cause that is ridiclous on its' face, and especially so when you can clearly see the vast amount of these "floors" were turning to dust as they fell. 8 floors per second in a natural "pancake" collapse, I'll believe that about the same time I start believing that George W Bush is a "good Christian man".

[Snivi Yllom]

101. you almost got it right

you cant compare the WTC and OKC. Two different animals size wize, performance wise and design wise structurally. Totally different structural systems, one was steel based, one concrete based.

asides from that


you do have one understands right. there is no other way the building could have fell other than straight down.

To understand the WTC collapse, you have to understand the structure. The WTC towers were tubeswith an inner structural core. The outer tube was designed to resist windloads. The decking spanning between the outer tube and inner core was to support floor loads AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, provide horizontal bracing to keep the perimter tube from bending and collapsing under their own weight. The decks were lightweight bar joist trusses with a composite stee/concrete deck. The inner core served to carry gravity loads. Rather than imagine the building as a pure tube with a stick running through it, it's more like a bamboo stalk.

Now, The WTC towers failed in the following manners.

-WTC towers were impacted by airplanes causing massive damage to perimeter columns, interior floordecks and interior core columns. Instantly, loads are transferred around the damaged perimeter, stresses are transferred within the center core. In areas were the steel decking has been destroyed, the perimeter tube is now unbraced.

-fires begin to damage and weaken the floor decking and trusses as well as weaken perimeter tubes subject to fire. The trusses are anchored in a simple shelf angle with anchor bolts. As the fire heats up uncontrolled due to combustion of typical office contents, the floor joists sage and flooring begins to pull away from the tube. This causes additional stress on the perimeter tubes.

-the final collapse mechanism is a combination of collapsing floor decks adding additional weight to already overstressed floor decks below. These decks are also causing additional stresses on the perimeter tubes. At areas of collapsed floor decks, the perimeter tubes are now sagging, and indeed prior to collapse, these bending was documented.

-once the collapse begins floor decks collapse to the levels below, adding their combined weight and moomentum as a force. the decks below are simply not engineered to handle such loads. As they collapse, there is now nothing to laterally brace the perimeter tubes and we see them literally peel away from the building,during the collaspe.

-the center core is literally ripped downwards as the weight of falling material simultaneously collapses core beams and pulls downwards attached floor decks.

- the core does in fact stand for a few secinds after the collapse. When the second tower collapses, part of the core clearly stands for a few seconds. However, w/o the horizontal bracing of the floor decks and the subsequent damage from the collapse, eventually this unstable structure also collapses.

[reprehensor]

102. DanR's critique...

This is posted over at the Randi Rhodes Message Board;

I very much appreciate what Ben Burch does with his White Rose Society website and the audio archives of Randi, Mike Malloy and others, so I'm glad that most of this thread has remained a civil discourse. :)

However, Ben, there are some serious flaws in your essay.

I will pick up on a few of them shortly, but first I'd like you to read Jim Hoffman's analysis of the energies involved in the WTC 1 and 2 collapses, both the sources and the sinks. A partial quote:

Continued here;
http://forums.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?showtopic=80163&view=findpost&p=771137

[myzenthing]

103. WTC 7 still doesn't add up...

Building 7 was hit by high velocity ejecta from the two collapse events, and also by two pulses of
superheated air laden with debris; In effect two synthetic pyroclastic pulses, by analogy with the
remarkably similar effect that occurs in some volcanic eruptions. This is sufficient to have
damaged building #7 so badly that it later fell.

Okay, but this still doesn't explain:
1. Why it took almost seven full hours after the collapse of the North Tower before WTC 7 collapsed (WTC 7 collapsed at approximately 5:20 PM EST).
2. Why WTC 7 collapsed in such a precisely vertical fashion.
3. Why WTC 7 collapsed at almost the rate of free fall.
4. Why WTC 7 collapsed neatly into a pile of rubble in it's own footprint.
5. Why none of the other building in the WTC vicinity, some of which were closer to the towers and suffered greater collateral damage, remained standing.

[Make7]

111. I never knew that a 'No Bomb' had even been developed.

Given the half-life for most isotopes of No, this is truly an impressive achievement.

Your title states that "there were No bombs planted at the WTC", but your post neglected to give any background as to the discovery and method of using No explosives. I was unable to locate any information on the internet about any such devices. (Although I am planning to do a more extensive search this weekend.)

:) Make7