Conspiracies r' Us

[Weeping Sore]

laz, no disagreement that the official account is incomplete. but do we really need explosives to account for the collapses? occam's razor, &c.

Occam's razor only applies if both explanations are equally likely; I submit that the official explanation is simpler but much less likely.

If it were just a single very unlikely event it might be easier to accept. You'll have to admit that none of the three collapses in question were caused directly by impacts: the first collapsed 56 minutes after the impact, the second, 1h 42m after impact, and the third (WTC 7) 6h 53 m after the impact of debris from the North Tower collapse. The main cause of collapse in all three instances is attributed to the resulting fires.

Surely all of the jet fuel would have burned off after 56 minutes. Steel being an excellent conductor of heat, the frame would disperse heat from the hottest areas. If the combination of heat and impact were enough to trigger total collapse, there would be a "pancaking" effect of the force of one floor's collapse pushing down on the floor below. That is, the structure of the floors below would resist the collapse somewhat, slowing it below free-fall speed. If the structural damage caused by the impacts were very important to the collapse, you would not expect the collapse to be symetrical, instead tipping toward the damaged area (and not continuing much below the damaged area).

Instead, the collapses of all three buildings share characteristics with controlled demoliton: total, symetrical collapses largely into their own footprints, occurring at near free-fall speed (this is made possible by steel beams being cut by timed charges in sequence from top to bottom so the falling floors don't encounter structural resistance). While the NIST does prove that collapse due to fire is scientifically possible, it does not reconcile its model with all of these characteristics.

Again, the official explanation asks and answers the question "How did the impacts + fire cause the collapse?" rather than "Of all possible explanations, which is most capable of causing the three collapse events of 09/11?"*

*particularly when circumstantial evidence like the thermite traces found in the WTC dust is taken into account...

ETA: But I'll leave off this thread at this point, if nobody objects. People are free to inquire into the subject on their own, and in closing just submit that not every question about 9/11 should be reflexively dismissed as nutjob tinfoil hattery.

[Dr. Pepper]

Oh geez, 2005 called. They want their 9/11 conspiracy theories back. Further, 2005 is embarrassed it ever got into the conspiracy theory business.

As for the conspiracy sparking this thread, it honestly seems like business as usual for the Republic. Of Texas, that is. I recall this same sort of conspiracy theory making waves a couple of years ago. Much like North Korea, every time the US conducts a scheduled training operation Texas reacts with shock that any government would dare to flaunt it's military might in a place where they can see. Next week, the conspiracy theory will be about untrained servicemembers, with Abbott leading the charge against the Obama Administration, claiming Obama is a mole who wants to drive the US military into the ground by sending them into war untrained.

All good Texas boys and girls are brainwashed with Texas nationalism from the time they are kids Some sort of Texas history is taught every year up to high school (can't remember how many years it's taught in high school, but I think it's only one full year of Texas History), and a lot of public colleges list Texas history credit as part of the core required coursework. I was shocked during my student teaching year in Massachusetts that there was no Mass state history in the student curriculum because I just thought this sort of rabid state pride was the norm. There was a poster at my last school in Texas saying something along the lines of how Texas is so great that the US can't live without her, which is why the US is constantly courting Texas to stay in the union. I started learning this sort of thing before I was even in kindergarten. It sets up a mentality that just naturally leans towards conspiracy theories.

[sologdin]

laz, thanks. I don't regard it as nutty or tinfoily, but i am respectfully disagreed. with things like operation northwoods out there, it should not be considered inconceivable for the united states to self-inflict for foreign policy/casus belli purposes.

i don't think that we should necessarily prefer self-infliction theories, however, which introduce a de-simplifying proposition into the debate. (that is, the presumption should always be against self-infliction). similarly, i'd rather avoid relying on the assumption that the event was too complicated to be carried out by fundies or troglodytes or arabs or whomever. it strikes me as a fairly simple affair, provided someone knows how to fly a plane. (that is, the presumption should always be against disabling complexity requiring interiority.)

the self-infliction theories for pearl harbor and the USS maine are interesting from a cui bono perspective, i suppose. but does one proposal, in northwoods, require a finding that the US has a operation canned goods for every belligerence? i tend to prefer chomsky's position on 9/11 conspiracism: other folks have plenty of legitimate reasons to be pissed off at the united states, and there's no reason to assume that all of them are incompetent or unwilling to take reprisals.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Conspiracy theory porn titles: (NSFW)

The Second Gunman on the Grassy Mound (double penetration in Dallas)

Chemtrail Pilots: Mile High Club Raver's Orgy

50 Shades of Area 51: Extraterrestriam BDSM

Watergate Afterparty: Nixon and Goldwater - water sports for powerful men behind taped doors

Banana Republics -American ExPats Exploit the Locals

[Swordfish]

This is a prime example of why I disagree with Lincolns decision to

preserve a Union at all costs.

They should be a seperate country down there, which is thier wish as well.

They've been proposing a breakoff, I wish the government would accomodate them.

Why? How would both parties benefit from such an arrangement?

[Lord of Oop North]

The official explanation of the collapse of World Trade Center 7 was not proposed for several years after 09/11/01, and it is a little more curious due to there being no plane impact and no jet fuel involved. As for damage from debris, World Trade Center 6 was adjacent to WTC 1 and was damaged much more severely; it stood in between WTC 1 and WTC 7, 355 ft away. As you can see, if any other WTC buildings were going to collapse from debris, you would expect them to be WTC 6 and WTC 4.

Plane impact or jet fuel was not required. WTC7 didn't collapse from debris, directly. WTC7 collapsed because of uncontrolled fires.WTC7 caught on fire, and the sprinkler system was completely inadequate to fight the fires. Uncontrolled fires can easily lead to failure of structural steel. Remember, steel doesn't need to actually melt to fail, it just needs to be hot enough for it's properties to change enough to cause an issue. The prevailing theory regarding the collapse of WTC7 is that the girders expanded in the extreme heat, eventually pushing a girder off it's seat, causing the floor to fail, which caused a failure of lateral support, which caused columns to buckle, which caused a cascade collapse.

WTC7 collapsed east-to-west, which is not consistent with the theory of a controlled demolition that would be designed to bring everything down at once.

Also, don't forget that WTC6 was an eight-storey building and WTC7 was a 47-storey building that included a major structural transfer floor between 5 and 7, as the original foundations were built for a much smaller building, so the structural situations aren't comparable at all. Curiously, major uncontrolled fires were observed and reported on floors 7 - 10 during the attacks. I don't know how anyone can expect such a massive change in loading above the transfer floor to occur and for the building to remain standing.

I'm not sure why anyone is surprised that it collapsed. Seems pretty straightforward.

[eyenon15]

Conspiracy theory porn titles: (NSFW)

The Second Gunman on the Grassy Mound (double penetration in Dallas)

Chemtrail Pilots: Mile High Club Raver's Orgy

50 Shades of Area 51: Extraterrestriam BDSM

Watergate Afterparty: Nixon and Goldwater - water sports for powerful men behind taped doors

Banana Republics -American ExPats Exploit the Locals

Reptilian Delight -for beastiality lovers

I have a great one for Iran Contra that's probably to risqué for this crowd.

[Liffguard]

The world is a chaotic, complex, scary place where big, terrifying things happen pretty much at random and totally out of anyone's control. It's probably comforting to think that things are directed by a sinister, omnipotent cabal for nefarious purposes rather than that something bad could happen to you tomorrow for no reason at all and there's nothing anybody can do about it. Better to have someone with their hands on the wheel, even if that someone is evil.

[Weeping Sore]

@Lord of Oop North - the NIST report on WTC 7 you're referencing came nearly seven years after the attack (8/20/08) so it can't have been all that obvious.

ETA: The east-to-west comment is interesting, though. The videos I've seen seem to show the middle of the roof buckling in the middle first, then a pretty much clean vertical collapse. Maybe I'll seek out some different angles to see if it jibes with what you're saying...

@solo - fair enough, though as I said previously, I'm not necessarily implying self-infliction, just some likely level of intelligence service coordination. Bin Laden was run by the ISI in the first place, after all.

[Lummel]

Conspiracy theory porn titles: (NSFW)

The Second Gunman on the Grassy Mound (double penetration in Dallas)

Chemtrail Pilots: Mile High Club Raver's Orgy

50 Shades of Area 51: Extraterrestriam BDSM

Watergate Afterparty: Nixon and Goldwater - water sports for powerful men behind taped doors

Banana Republics -American ExPats Exploit the Locals

This is more like it...

"Pearl Harbour" is fine as it is

"USS Maine goes down"

"A union of passion" - lusty Lincoln pursues Jefferson Davis in drag

[Seli]

@Lord of Oop North - the NIST report on WTC 7 you're referencing came nearly seven years after the attack (8/20/08) so it can't have been all that obvious.

....

Or people thought it so obvious that no-one considered the actual pressing need for an earlier report.

[Weeping Sore]

Or people thought it so obvious that no-one considered the actual pressing need for an earlier report.

The first official report on WTC7 was released by FEMA in 2002. This put forward what it called its “best hypothesis” as to why the building collapsed, but noted that this hypothesis had “only a low probability of occurrence.”*

*FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf), Ch. 5, Sect. 6.2, “Probable Collapse Sequence.”

But....I was leaving this thread. Let me try that again. :leaving:

[Lord of Oop North]

ETA: The east-to-west comment is interesting, though. The videos I've seen seem to show the middle of the roof buckling in the middle first, then a pretty much clean vertical collapse. Maybe I'll seek out some different angles to see if it jibes with what you're saying...

You misunderstand me. About five floors around a single column failed, causing that column to fail, which pulled the east part of the building and other significant columns with it. From that point the collapse proceeded east-to-west across the building core until critical failure of all perimeter support in that five-floor area, which caused everything above it to fall as a unit.

Surely all of the jet fuel would have burned off after 56 minutes. Steel being an excellent conductor of heat, the frame would disperse heat from the hottest areas. If the combination of heat and impact were enough to trigger total collapse, there would be a "pancaking" effect of the force of one floor's collapse pushing down on the floor below. That is, the structure of the floors below would resist the collapse somewhat, slowing it below free-fall speed. If the structural damage caused by the impacts were very important to the collapse, you would not expect the collapse to be symetrical, instead tipping toward the damaged area (and not continuing much below the damaged area).

This is the most ludicrous thing I've read in a long while, and proves that you don't know much about structural engineering. There is simply no way that the building would stop collapsing, as the floors would never be able to support that sort of loading. The building was not designed to take such a load, and would never be able to remaining standing if floor-upon-floor-upon-floor kept falling down as units.

ETA

Taking out exterior columns on either WTC1 or WTC2 would be insufficient to cause a collapse. The perimeter tube design of those towers was pretty redundant. If you somehow were able to fly a jet airliner into the WTC that had no fuel, and took out a row of exterior columns, the building would most likely not collapse. What caused the collapse were the thousands upon thousands of litres of jet fuel, which started a fire, which created a situation with extremely variable high temperature across the impact floors. Remember, structural steel loses a significant portion of it's strength as it reaches high temperature, and even in the 425-800 degree celsius range (I believe this is the conservative estimate of the fire temperatures), the loss of strength would be significant. Also, and perhaps a more important point, is that such high temperature variation would create distortion in the steel. The impact point was likely much hotter than the opposite side. If the floor joists were heated to such variable temperatures across the units, it could easily cause buckling, which caused floor failure.

[Weeping Sore]

You misunderstand me. About five floors around a single column failed, causing that column to fail, which pulled the east part of the building and other significant columns with it. From that point the collapse proceeded east-to-west across the building core until critical failure of all perimeter support in that five-floor area, which caused everything above it to fall as a unit.

This is the most ludicrous thing I've read in a long while, and proves that you don't know much about structural engineering. There is simply no way that the building would stop collapsing, as the floors would never be able to support that sort of loading. The building was not designed to take such a load, and would never be able to remaining standing if floor-upon-floor-upon-floor kept falling down as units.

If the top of the building sheared sideways, the full load would not be falling on the remaining floors, right? So if the collapse was asymmetrical with the upper part of the building falling outside of the footprint, the remainder of the building would likely collapse only partially. Is that really ludicrous?

I was saying this is an indication that the impacts did not cause the collapse; the heat from fires supposedly weakened the structures enough to cause vertical and total collapse. This is actually in line with the NIST reports. Which leads us with fire causing the total collapse of steel-frame high-rises, which is an incredibly rare occurrence. And in those rare occurrences, you would expect "pancaking", not free-fall.

Are you a structural engineer, LoON? If so, it's quite possible you know more about structural engineering than me.

[eyenon15]

a beast was unleashed by bringing up 9/11

Is there a Godwins Law that applies to 9/11 yet????

[Lord of Oop North]

If the top of the building sheared sideways, the full load would not be falling on the remaining floors, right? So if the collapse was asymmetrical with the upper part of the building falling outside of the footprint, the remainder of the building would likely collapse only partially. Is that really ludicrous?

Yes, it is. The building at 500,000 tons has far too much inertia for that to happen.

I was saying this is an indication that the impacts did not cause the collapse; the heat from fires supposedly weakened the structures enough to cause vertical and total collapse. This is actually in line with the NIST reports. Which leads us with fire causing the total collapse of steel-frame high-rises, which is an incredibly rare occurrence. And in those rare occurrences, you would expect "pancaking", not free-fall.

Again, a misunderstanding of the structure of WTC1 and WTC2. Think about the construction behind them for a second. All columns were either on the perimeter or in the core, and laterally supported by the floor trusses. The most likely explanation, IMO, is that the high temperature from the fire caused enough weakening and distortion in the floor trusses to buckle them, which pulled the exterior columns inwards, and eventually sheared them from the edge angle (the part that connects them to the exterior column, and always the weak point of any structure). This failure of the floor truss would cause lack of lateral support in the columns in that area, which means it would never sustain the loads of everything above it. This failure would cause more failures, which would eventually cause complete failure. I don't know why you say it didn't pancake. It did.

I also don't understand how you can say they descended at "free fall speed". The towers were 417m tall. They weighed approximately 500,000 tons. They collapsed in approximately 11 - 13 seconds (or more), depending on which building. Do the math. I guarantee you that it won't be free fall speed (hint, free fall would mean the collapse took about 9 seconds). Actually, I'll do it for you.

d = 1/2at^2 ergo t = (2d/a)^1/2

a = 9.8m/s^2

d = 417m (height of tower)

so; t = (834m/9.8m/s^2)&1/2 = 9.23s

So, if the buildings fell at free fall speed. It would take 9.23s. Not 11 - 13 seconds. What was the building doing in the other 2 to 4 seconds?

Obviously it isn't possible to know exactly what went on and what happened, but we already have a pretty good idea. We don't need conspiracies to explain anything.

Are you a structural engineer, LoON? If so, it's quite possible you know more about structural engineering than me.

I'm not an engineer, but a technologist, and I work in high-rise construction.

eta; remove some personal info

[Weeping Sore]

@LoON-

Nice post. Let me take some time to dust off my resources and respond to your points when I have more time; there is an interesting discrepancy in the NIST's handling of the WTC 1 & 2 floor plan/ internal structure.

[Horza]

nm

(reading the whole thread before you post things, it's a rule to live by)

[Shryke]

LoOP,

This is pretty awesome and interesting to read.

[Gears of the Beast]

Occam's razor only applies if both explanations are equally likely; I submit that the official explanation is simpler but much less likely.

I don't know where you heard that but it's totally incorrect. For Occam's razor to be applicable the explanations only have to be equal in the sense that they both are able account for the observation. I believe 9/11 conspiracy theories can be (and have been) debunked without the need to invoke Occam's razor but as a skeptic I really don't like to see Occam's razor butchered like that. Just think about it; how often are we in a situation where we can determine the probability that each explanation is correct and it turns out that both are equally likely?????