I have a nagging question but not data. Simply an observation that many assume that the twin towers came down for the same reason that building 7 did. I think this is an error in inductive reasoning. Perhaps they came down for different reasons. Hypothetically…
Question: How was the bark removed from this tree?
Could a Volvo hitting the tree head on have done this? This is not a rhetorical question. While it seems to me that bark is not removed from a tree in this manner by a head on collision, I would like to hear from other people. In spite of the tree's location, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Dutch elm disease. Here is the video clip from which this image is taken.
Cheers,
Hugh
[quote=VeganD]I have a nagging question but not data. Simply an observation that many assume that the twin towers came down for the same reason that building 7 did. I think this is an error in inductive reasoning. Perhaps they came down for different reasons. Hypothetically…
[/quote]
They may have come down for the same ultimate cause; i.e., planes flying into buildings, but they certainly did not come down for the same proximate causes. Bldg 7 came down because internal supports were cleanly and quickly broken without the building being hit by a plane. It is not clearly impossible that they could have broken for the reasons that were given by NIST, but it seems highly improbable that it could have collapsed so precisely like a well executed demolition.
The implications of the collapse of Bldg 7 being a deliberate demolition are monstrous and nearly unthinkable. Such a demolition would require planning and placement of explosives in advance of the plane attacks. Begin with motives. What would be the motive for such an act? Why would NIST cover it up? Why are no mainstream media interested in the story? Think I will check for monsters under the bed and pull the covers up over my head.
[quote=cmartenson][quote=darbikrash]
I find it troubling this the majority of the commentary is focused on conspiracy theories, which although mentioned in Kunstler’s article, is really not his point.
[/quote]
I understand your troubled experience because the implications are immense and therefore hard to emotionally digest.
However, the term you use, 'conspiracy theories', is regularly used to shut down conversations and is dismissive, and therefore I'd like to request we keep the conversation focused on data, science, and facts as much as possible.
In my case my focus was solely on matters of science. Gravity, conservation of momentum and the like. I do not consider these to be either theories or a matter of conspiracy. If we cannot agree on basic science as a legitimate avenue for discussion and inquiry then I don't know quite what to do with this site. If you have alternative scientific explanations for the observed event(s) then I am completely open-minded an curious.
To couple the science of the bldg 7 collapse to the idea of a deep state, I find them intimately linked. After all, how much 'deep state' do you think is required to get a scientifically oriented institution like NIST to cobble together and publish a report that fails to conform to basic, high school level physics?
I'm thinking 'quite a lot' is the answer.
Again, I know the topic is emotionally difficult, and probably dangerous to discuss in today's environment, and yet the science stands in the way of letting it go.
There are numerous topics across all three E's to which that prior sentence applies. How shall we approach such things around here? Head on, sideways, or not at all? So far we've been pretty delicate but perhaps the circumstances of the world call for a more direct set of declarations along the lines of the emperor has no clothes!
[/quote]
I have to concede I have little interest in re-litigating the WTC collapse. I see no value to come from this, irrespective of the engineering outcomes.
For me the simple statement “I do not trust my government” is quite sufficient to allow me to move on.
Accurate characterization of the principle failure modes of Bldg 7 does not change my position, nor should it change yours. Let us not forget it was your guest poster who brought up the topic of conspiracy theories, and did so in such a manner as to imply a lack of credibility from those who take these positions.
I agree with him.
But you seem quite invested in the idea that there are scientific (or more succinctly engineering) principles that are violated in the assignment of a catastrophic buckling failure to “a central load bearing column or support” as causation for the building collapse. I would be very surprised if there was any engineering justification to your concern.
Use science and engineering principles please, bearing in mind that I have the data for bldg 7 in terms of its construction, types of girders, and total mass in tonnage (framing elements only, I don't have any data on the furnishings and such, but assume those to be negligible for our purposes). So that's the challenge. Explain, freefall despite resistance. Or how all four corners all lost 100% of their resistance at the same time. Or how it's possible for structural steel to effectively offer zero resistance. One of those three things Remember, you have to account for the full 2.5 seconds of freefall which, starting from rest, means the building travelled in perfect free fall for a bit over 30 meters or 98 feet, which means you have to account for not one, but more than eight full stories of structural framing losing 100% of its resistance. Feel free to show your math.Full disclosure – I operate a firm that does engineering simulations, and a good bit of those are dynamic explicit loadcases that simulate failure mechanisms. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell any of the PhD mechanical engineers that come into my office at the beginning of a tricky non-linear study- start with a free body diagram and demonstrate to me, to a first order approximation- that we understand the problem and the physics that surround it. To this end we might start with a simple back-of-the-napkin calc that examines the basic physics: This simple equation governs the free fall of an object and depends on two key variables, the time domain and the drop height or fall distance. To get a quick- and accurate validation as to whether or not any key principles of physics are violated, we can plug in the height of the building and the recorded event duration (timescale) and we can determine by solving this simple equation where we are from a first principles standpoint. Please note per Newtonian physics that the mass of the building (with or without furniture makes no difference) is not relevant in calculating free fall. So, we know the height (47 stories) what, exactly, is the event duration you are using? Can you provide this? If so, we can take a first step. I looked at some videos of the collapse, and I count 5, 6 7 seconds from some angles, 8-9 or seconds from others, yet you say it is three seconds? Can you provide a valid timescale event video so we can perform a simple calculation? Upshot, any solution that shows a non-zero time descrepancy between the predicted free fall time duration and the actual recorded time duration (measured with some accuracy which should be straightforward given the vast amount of video footage) indicates- definitively- some non-zero resistance. As someone who does this for a living every day I would not want to be taking the position that the time domain will represent perfect free fall, not very likely- but hey, let’s do the math. Once we find out what the comparative numbers between predicted free fall and actual event duration are, then we set about to examine the realm of resistance that steel beams can provide given exposure to fire. We find that the material properties of structural steel of the type used in fire proofed buildings is decidedly non-linear when exposed to high heat. And not surprisingly, we find that structural steel gets quite soft when exposed to elevated heat ranges, in engineering terms we see a pronounced reduction not only in tensile strength, but more importantly, we see a dramatic drop off in tensile modulus (stiffness) as well. We can consider steel as exhibiting isotropic behavior, so we can safely interchange tensile strength and tensile modulus for compressive strength and compressive modulus. It is expected that the building collapse is primarily a combination of compressive and buckling failure. Note the graphs below for fireproof structural steel, have a look at the effective modulus of steel at elevated temperatures, it is very close to zero. Look also at the yield strength at elevated temperatures. Not a pretty picture. Material props: Source: We have another failure mode to address, that of column buckling. The NIST report mentions column buckling as a principal failure mode, so this obviously needs to be examined in some detail. Practitioners understand that buckling failures are inherently sudden and violent in their manifestation. Compressive buckling is predominantly a geometric function, e.g. it is dependent principally on the dimensional attributes of the vertical column, length of the beam by section modulus, and the mechanical stiffness of the material (elastic modulus). We have seen above that modulus is negatively impacted by heat, so this property we can expect to degrade rapidly. More on buckling failures, a vertical column in buckling failure undergoes a “snap through” or rapid, violent, lateral excursion wherein the beam deforms rapidly- and catastrophically out of plane. This can allow the load it supports to move downward, accelerating and creating cascading downstream failures as the dynamics of the load accelerating can and does impinge on other structural supports. The acceleration of an overhead load acting on lower level support beams creates an amplification of carried mass, due to the inertial contribution. The picture below shows a typical buckling failure of a large storage tank, note the snap through is evident as lateral damage, note also the asymmetric collapse pattern is caused by the feeder pipe acting as a constraining boundary condition. So for me its back to the free body diagram. I have outlined above, briefly, well documented and established engineering principles that may adequately explain the collapse. A first check would be a concise review of a time stamped video that can give us a sense as to the event duration, from which we can ascertain the degree of mechanical resistance (if any) offered by whatever remains of the supporting structure, using engineering judgment and analytical modeling tools. If you can produce such a video, I would be happy to provide feedback, in strict engineering terms, as to the overlay of these data with possible failure modes.
Hugh, this is usually my thing. Natural history and natural interpretation is my passion.
First consider age. The bark of that tree was very freshly removed from that tree. We know this because the tree still has that mild yellow color that means the tree was quite healthy when the bark was removed. That yellow color gives you complete confidence that the event occurred within a year, but because of the rich color still present, I would argue weeks to months. It was a "recent" event.
Okay so now we have an idea of the age. What about causes?
So to remove tightly held and healthy bark from a tree is hard work. Mammals will expend their energy to remove healthy bark to extract the cambium layer of the tree which is the food/sugar transportation layer right underneath the bark. Eurasian beaver (if you have them?), voles (not nearly as high up the tree as pictured though), deer (characteristically messy and has a peeled look) will remove tightly held bark to eat the cambium. All of these mammals will leave incisor scrapings in one way or another. These are not present in this photo. Woodpeckers will remove tightly held bark to open trees up to infestation (their form of investing), and to let sap drip from the tree (to attract beetles, flies, etc.). Woodpecker damage does not look like what is pictured though. Small holes to small damage is typical of woodpeckers.
Disease? Diseases in North America kills trees, THEN tree bark starts to fall off. Like human infrastructure, when the energy to maintain the structural integrity is stopped, things start falling apart.
Weather? Weather doesn't just rip bark off healthy trees. Unless weather propelled something into the tree, weather would be unrelated to this event. Lightning will explode bark off trees, but cracking and terrible damage is also present.
So to sum this post up, the only thing that could have done that damage to that tree is something propelling into that tree. Look at the height of the area where the most damage was incurred. It's the same height as the car. The other two scrapes could have been from any number of metal or plastic pieces misplaced by the damage. While bark is held tightly to the main structure of the tree, its subsequently to easiest part of the tree to "remove." The main structure of the tree was only mildly damaged.
I am not a tree expert, but my daughter is. She is particularly interested in tree pathologies. Her opinion, just looking at the image (we couldn’t get the vid to run) is that she knows of no disease process that would cause that kind of damage. It was apparently caused by some kind of violence, but trying to guess whether it was the result of a car accident, and what kind of impact, would just be guessing. My totally unprofessional opinion is that it looks like a car hit it.
Doug
....Freefall is an embarrassment to the official story, because freefall is impossible for a naturally collapsing building. In a natural collapse there would be an interaction between the falling and the stationary sections of the building. This interaction would cause crushing of both sections and slowing of the falling section. I have done measurements on several known demolitions, using similar software tools, and found that they typically fall with accelerations considerably less than freefall. Building 7 was not only demolished, it was demolished with tremendous overkill.....The fact remains that freefall is not consistent with any natural scenario involving weakening, buckling, or crushing because in any such a scenario there would be large forces of interaction with the underlying structure that would have slowed the fall. Given that even known controlled demolitions do not remove sufficient structure to allow for actual freefall, how could a natural fire-induced process be more destructive? Add to that the synchronicity of the removal of support across the whole width of the building, evidenced by the levelness of the roofline as it came down, and the suddenness of onset of collapse, and the immediate transition from full support to total freefall. Natural collapse resulting in freefall is simply not plausible. It did not happen. It could not happen. Yet freefall did in fact happen. This means it was not a natural collapse. Forces other than the falling upper section of the building suddenly destroyed and removed the supporting columns for at least eight stories across the entire length and width of the building.
Deleted – too snarky!
This is an Apple.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nqbUkThGlCo
And if you listen closely, you can even hear the "office furnishings" going off between seconds 1 and 2 of the video.
This is not a time stamped video, but supposedly was produced by analysis of one (available here.). I believe that this includes the time period of interest to Chris.
[quote=cmartenson][quote=darbikrash]
I find it troubling this the majority of the commentary is focused on conspiracy theories, which although mentioned in Kunstler’s article, is really not his point.
[/quote]
I understand your troubled experience because the implications are immense and therefore hard to emotionally digest.
However, the term you use, 'conspiracy theories', is regularly used to shut down conversations and is dismissive, and therefore I'd like to request we keep the conversation focused on data, science, and facts as much as possible.
In my case my focus was solely on matters of science. Gravity, conservation of momentum and the like. I do not consider these to be either theories or a matter of conspiracy. If we cannot agree on basic science as a legitimate avenue for discussion and inquiry then I don't know quite what to do with this site. If you have alternative scientific explanations for the observed event(s) then I am completely open-minded an curious.
To couple the science of the bldg 7 collapse to the idea of a deep state, I find them intimately linked. After all, how much 'deep state' do you think is required to get a scientifically oriented institution like NIST to cobble together and publish a report that fails to conform to basic, high school level physics?
I'm thinking 'quite a lot' is the answer.
Again, I know the topic is emotionally difficult, and probably dangerous to discuss in today's environment, and yet the science stands in the way of letting it go.
There are numerous topics across all three E's to which that prior sentence applies. How shall we approach such things around here? Head on, sideways, or not at all? So far we've been pretty delicate but perhaps the circumstances of the world call for a more direct set of declarations along the lines of the emperor has no clothes!
[/quote]
The 'pan caking' theory of collapse the overt govt used to explain the collapse of the twin towers was easily dismissed by Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, an organization with approximately 2000 members. Beyond that, building 7, built using a completely different design plan, collapsed in an almost identical manner.
The people who are the most resistant to considering the possibility of criminal conspiracy, with regards 911, are often those who are pretty far left, raised on the "systemic failure" model of govt, proposed by Noam Chomsky; champion of the left. Chomsky, basically a Bolsheviik, believes the magic bullet theory of the JFK assassination.
He thinks the Kennedy sons as 'elitists' could not actually have been agitating for authentic change–that every baby American elitist is born a blank slate upon which his politics are written by class dictate. The individual is completely and without exception unable to change his world view orientation. In other words, very little free will. And when you reduce free will agency in favor of class preordination, in analysis of American domestic politics, you will not be able to apply the lessons learned in third world countries.
Chomsky is on YouTube at some conference stating that "congress would never have allowed an inside job, re 911". Wtf? Congress wouldn't have anything to do with the implementation. Would they try to cover it up after the fact… Obviously. I might if I were a pol and didn't want my control file pulled. He then goes on and states, "and even if they did, it wouldn't matter anyway!" Again… Wtf?
Da Comrade, really? That's nuts.
Chomsky has almost single handedly split and weakened the Left, on this issue alone.
Great discussion. Look forward to seeing more of the same.
Both Jim H and Stan Robertson reference the same web page. The jist of the claims are related to the time domain of the event- physicist Chandler claims the event is ~2.5 seconds, the NIST claims ~ 5.45 seconds.
Pretty big difference.
At 2.5 seconds we have a problem, at 5.45 we do not.
Unfortunately, this is not science, this is he said- she said. However, I did look at several videos on this website that purportedly show the collapse from several angles. I do not count 2.5 seconds, no matter how hard I try. Nowhere close.
And down the rabbit hole we go……
"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."
- Elvis Presley
Demolition expert Danny Jowenko, one of world's leading building demolition experts, was killed in a one-car accident last week when his car slammed into a tree. Jowenko received international attention as the expert who unequivocally described the collapse of Building 7 at the World Trade Center on 911 as a "demolition."
I'm way out of my depth with you guys discussing engineering and all that stuff, but I look at this whole WTC7 thing (and other events in which the "official" story is widely disbelieved) from a different angle. I look at it from the perspectives of psychology, sociology, political science and ethics/morality.
Temporarily setting aside the issue of what caused the collapse of WTC7, look at the problem we have. Our government and legacy MSM (and the oligarchs and Deep State behind it) have completely lost the trust of a significant and rapidly growing portion of our society. There are millions of people who don't believe a word they read, hear or see in public life or on teevee. In addition, there are many in our society who have no respect for our leaders, but are dependent on the government so they won't make a fuss or pay much attention as long as they get their benefits. Trust and credibility are the primary resources of any government or any public figures or institutions. And the level of distrust is gathering momentum and becoming more and more open and militant. Someone might rightly say ALL these conspiracy theories can't be true, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that our leaders don't have our trust. Trust in our leaders, trust in each other, trust in our leading institutions is the glue that holds a society together. Once that glue is lost past some indeterminate point, the whole house of cards will come crumbling down, vaulting us back into some apocalyptic Dark Age.
Seeing this, what would a leader with integrity and wisdom do? Such a leader would address the issue publicly and head on, taking all necessary steps to lead the nation and the people toward an honest appraisal of our terrible condition, communicating a vision of repentance and renewal, and personally taking the first steps toward individual and societal renewal him/herself. Do we see that kind of leadership from Obama, Hilary, Pelosi, Reid, McConnell, Boehner or any of the others? Of course, not. What we see from them are corrupt and cynical attempts to hide the moral rot from the people and maximize their own personal power, wealth and perks everywhere possible for as long as possible. We need some Fourth Turning prophets, but they seem to be in dramatically short supply. Ron Paul is the kind of guy we need with integrity which he fought to keep for decades in filthy D.C. There are others, but they remain largely unknown and certainly locked out of the halls of power and influence (Dr. Ben Carson comes to mind).
The truth is the prophets we need are not really in short supply. It's just that very few people want to hear anything they have to say. We're not ready (emotionally, psychologically, spiritually) for the honesty and repentance that would be required of us if we were to listen. So TPTB will continue to marginalize the prophets and the majority of the people will turn away from their message anyway because it is too threatening to our world view, our own personal faults, etc.
A Chinese proverb states: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." The "students" may currently appear determined to self-destruct and not listen to wisdom but the pressures of "The Truth" are bearing down on them. The pressure that "The Truth" is exerting on the "students" is very much like the building threat of avalanche we often discuss here. Nothing seems to be happening, but the pressure is building. Each person has their "aha" moments, and so do societies and institutions. Unfortunately, we're back to the question of how much pain will we have to endure before our collective denial and self-imposed blindness are breached by the intense sun light of "The Truth."
Personally, I'm very suspicious about WTC7 and a bunch of other stuff. But I am absolutely convinced there is an astounding level of corruption and evil in high places, and that our days are numbered. Surviving and even prospering during the dark times ahead are two of my motives. But my number one motive is to be judged later to have lived through what's coming to us with courage, honor, love and moral righteousness.
Tom
"Happy Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor."
(I just posted a book review on WTC7 in forums. Part 2 of my report summarizes the NIST study and Part 3 summarizes the criticisms of the study)
I really agree that the free fall issue is paramount here. Progressive collapses are not at free fall acceleration. David Chandler, (as referenced by Jim H and Stan above) a high school physics teacher explains that very clearly. If the potential energy of the falling building is being utilized to bend, crush, rip apart and pulverize other portions of the building as it falls, it will not accelerate at free fall. Free fall is the antithesis of a progressive mechanism. You just can't have both.
The NIST model also predicts 2 major findings that can be compared against videos of the building collapse. They do not match well at all! Compare the NIST animations with Time2Help's slow motion video of the collapse.
- The first prediction is that collapse will progress in a wave from one end of the building to the other. NIST predicts that the NE edge will begin its fall well before the SW. But when you watch the video you see that this is not what happens. Both ends of the building start falling at the same time and continue at the same rate. The roof line is level from every view point. (Better pictures available at NIST NCSTAR 1-9 page 593.)
- The second NIST model prediction is that the facade will buckle as the core crumbles. (Core columns are attached to the facade at every floor.) Again, when the videos are watched, we see that the facade remains completely flat without any buckling on any surface.
NIST NCSTAR 1-9 page 594
These two discrepancies strongly argue against a progressive or asymmetric collapse such as NIST has suggested.
Thanks, WT and Doug,Why is the bark removed so close to the base? Is the rectangular patter consistent with a Volvo's bumper and grill? You say the only thing that could have removed the bark from the tree is something that was propelled into it, WT, and Doug, you say that it looked like a car hitting it. But couldn't a chainsaw, handsaw or some other type of cutting tool also have removed the bark?
I am not saying I'm certain of the latter by any means, but I am still struggling with the idea of a Volvo bumper and grill doing that, all the way down to the ground. Probably difficult to know, unless one were to find the same kind of tree and run a Volvo into it. And it's only a very tiny piece is a massively complex puzzle.
Cheers,
Hugh
were brought down in the same manner, the only difference being, they forgot about or lost the third plane.
[quote=Stan Robertson]This is not a time stamped video, but supposedly was produced by analysis of one (available here.). I believe that this includes the time period of interest to Chris.
[/quote]
Yes, that's the data and analysis I have based much of my conclusions upon. The frame by frame analysis used multiple video sources from multiple angles and all were in agreement with the produced graph.
Perfect, linear, freefall for ~2.5 seconds. That's part one.
Part two is that this happened across the whole building structure…all four corners, perfectly evenly, all at once. If we are to go with the fire weakened concept, then how do we account for zero observations of smoke and or fire from any of the three corners that were visible to the cameras? Wouldn't we have to assume that an out-of-control fire capable of reducing the tensile strength of structural steel to near zero would be visible? You know, flames out the side and all that?
But there's none of that.