David Chandler's application of Newton's law to a collapsing structures...

Bob0627 · Oct 8, 2015

Mark F said:
I thought we were discussing probabilities. When discussing probabilities you have to throw the good in with the bad.

Try context, you don't throw into an experiment what doesn't apply or water down odds artificially. Successful CDs work 100% of the time and prove they can take down buildings globally in seconds every single time. Unsuccessful CDs work 0% of the time, apples and oranges. We know that fire burns a piece of dry ordinary paper 100% of the time but if you fail to light the fire because the lighter doesn't work, it will burn the paper 0% of the time. This is silly logic on your part.

Because you said:

But a person who does building demo for a living would know, so it seemed like you were excluding them.

Well I wasn't.

Column buckling wouldn't cause collapse Column buckling pretty much guarantee's collapse.

That's not true at all. A steel frame building will stand even if one column buckles and sometimes more (see Windsor Tower and Usci Tower). They don't destroy just one column in a CD. Your first sentence is accurate, the second is false unless you mean a bunch of key columns reaching a critical point (as in a CD). And in this case, we're talking about a global collapse in a matter of seconds.

Including things that actually happened is not setting up artificial barriers.

Your claim is more about denial than including things that actually happened. Then again, what isn't unless it supports the OCT.

In order for any CD hypothesis to stand it would have to explain all observed behavior. The observed behavior on 9/11 includes many things totally inconsistent with CD and few that are.

It's irrelevant to the point. If a computer model can be constructed to mimic the destruction of the 3 towers using data applicable to the 3 towers, they will be destroyed similarly to the actual destruction on 9/11, with or without fires, planes, column buckling or whatever kitchen sink you want to throw in.

I wasn't referring to building a computer model but rather to creating a plausible, testable hypothesis for CD (no computer model required). The only individual I know of to take a genuine crack at it utterly failed. Pardon me if that was not clear.

That's irrelevant to the point then since it was only a hypothesis. And that the alleged hypothesis from an alleged "truther" "utterly failed" is of course a story coming from you.

gamolon · Oct 9, 2015

Is anyone going to try and address the original post?

If Chandler's application of Newton's law is correct and his conclusion based on that application is that the number of floors destroyed in the bottom section should be equal to the number of floors of the descending upper section, then why doesn't this work for the verinage video I posted? Why does the upper section impacting the lower section completely destroy the structure?

According to Chandler, it should be only three floors worth of the lower section that should have been destroyed, not the whole building. Chandler, using his understanding of Newton's law and it application to structures, says that a smaller mass should never destroy a larger mass.

Any explanation? Or are we going to have more off topic banter?

Fledermaus · Oct 9, 2015

gamolon said:
Is anyone going to try and address the original post?

If Chandler's application of Newton's law is correct and his conclusion based on that application is that the number of floors destroyed in the bottom section should be equal to the number of floors of the descending upper section, then why doesn't this work for the verinage video I posted? Why does the upper section impacting the lower section completely destroy the structure?

According to Chandler, it should be only three floors worth of the lower section that should have been destroyed, not the whole building. Chandler, using his understanding of Newton's law and it application to structures, says that a smaller mass should never destroy a larger mass.

Any explanation? Or are we going to have more off topic banter?

I for one do not have the knowledge to contribute to the OP.

Apologies for off tracking some of the thread.

I will step out after this observation.

Buck Naked would go on about "Newton" this and "Newton" that, but when presented with a thread specifically to address the physics, clearly balked.

BmanMcFly as well has appeared to have balked even though he has claimed knowledge of physics and is a self proclaimed engineer (of which stripe he steadfastly refuses to say)

Bob is only interested in ranting about how bad the OCT is and is not interested in any way about any of the sciences involved.

Psyhacker won't talk to you unless you are willing to model the towers old school.

Bye

Mark F · Oct 9, 2015

gamolon said:
Is anyone going to try and address the original post?

If Chandler's application of Newton's law is correct and his conclusion based on that application is that the number of floors destroyed in the bottom section should be equal to the number of floors of the descending upper section, then why doesn't this work for the verinage video I posted? Why does the upper section impacting the lower section completely destroy the structure?

According to Chandler, it should be only three floors worth of the lower section that should have been destroyed, not the whole building. Chandler, using his understanding of Newton's law and it application to structures, says that a smaller mass should never destroy a larger mass.

Any explanation? Or are we going to have more off topic banter?

Chandler was wrong obviously. But then we knew that. The inevitable byproduct of trying to apply grossly simplified high-school level physics to a complex event.

/thread

Mark F · Oct 9, 2015

Bob0627 said:
Try context, you don't throw into an experiment what doesn't apply or water down odds artificially. Successful CDs work 100% of the time and prove they can take down buildings globally in seconds every single time. Unsuccessful CDs work 0% of the time, apples and oranges. We know that fire burns a piece of dry ordinary paper 100% of the time but if you fail to light the fire because the lighter doesn't work, it will burn the paper 0% of the time. This is silly logic on your part.

Well I wasn't.

That's not true at all. A steel frame building will stand even if one column buckles and sometimes more (see Windsor Tower and Usci Tower). They don't destroy just one column in a CD. Your first sentence is accurate, the second is false unless you mean a bunch of key columns reaching a critical point (as in a CD). And in this case, we're talking about a global collapse in a matter of seconds.

Your claim is more about denial than including things that actually happened. Then again, what isn't unless it supports the OCT.

It's irrelevant to the point. If a computer model can be constructed to mimic the destruction of the 3 towers using data applicable to the 3 towers, they will be destroyed similarly to the actual destruction on 9/11, with or without fires, planes, column buckling or whatever kitchen sink you want to throw in.

That's irrelevant to the point then since it was only a hypothesis. And that the alleged hypothesis from an alleged "truther" "utterly failed" is of course a story coming from you.

I don't doubt one can come up with a CD model that will collapse the WTC towers. But it sure as hell isn't going to be representative of what happened. Also, what it takes to do it is almost certainly going to prove completely implausible.

AE911T supposedly has thousands of experts. We know they have collected millions of dollars. Surely they have the resources necessary for this model - but they will never do it.

Bob0627 · Oct 9, 2015

Mark F said:
I don't doubt one can come up with a CD model that will collapse the WTC towers.

Exactly the point. It took you quite a few posts to agree though and I'm shocked you actually did. Then again if you really believe a fire can take down steel frame buildings in seconds, you should readily believe a CD can. A CD collapse of all 3 towers can be modeled proving that all 3 towers can be destroyed in seconds via CD, similar to what happened on 9/11. The same is not true for a fire induced collapse achieving a similar result for all 3 towers. Therefore, there is no precedent, no experiment and no computer model that can show it's possible and therefore, if it can't be reproduced via any facility, it doesn't exist and no such hypothesis is supported or supportable and remains only an unsupportable hypothesis.

But it sure as hell isn't going to be representative of what happened.

If you're looking for exactness, there is no such thing, if you're looking for similar, absolutely without a doubt, a computer model will look very similar for all 3 towers. Hell, real life models exist for WTC7, never mind a computer model.

Also, what it takes to do it is almost certainly going to prove completely implausible.

Putting the cart before the horse, the negativity slips in. You have no idea why it is "going to prove completely implausible" because you have no expertise in CD but you just had to toss that in. I believe not only is it quite doable but the result is exactly what happened on 9/11. And as for WTC7, it is not only quite plausible but it is historical fact (excluding 9/11).

AE911T supposedly has thousands of experts. We know they have collected millions of dollars. Surely they have the resources necessary for this model - but they will never do it.

There is no supposedly about it, they do count thousands of experts in their membership. But why don't you contact them and ask. There's a lot of typical contrarian speculation in your statements as expected. In any case, this should have been done by NIST, not by any private group. And you know they would never do it. But none of that is relevant to the point of the discussion. This isn't about AE911T.

Mark F · Oct 9, 2015

Bob0627 said:
Exactly the point. It took you quite a few posts to agree though and I'm shocked you actually did. Then again if you really believe a fire can take down steel frame buildings in seconds, you should readily believe a CD can. A CD collapse of all 3 towers can be modeled proving that all 3 towers can be destroyed in seconds via CD, similar to what happened on 9/11. The same is not true for a fire induced collapse achieving a similar result for all 3 towers. Therefore, there is no precedent, no experiment and no computer model that can show it's possible and therefore, if it can't be reproduced via any facility, it doesn't exist and no such hypothesis is supported or supportable and remains only an unsupportable hypothesis.

If you're looking for exactness, there is no such thing, if you're looking for similar, absolutely without a doubt, a computer model will look very similar for all 3 towers. Hell, real life models exist for WTC7, never mind a computer model.

Putting the cart before the horse, the negativity slips in. You have no idea why it is "going to prove completely implausible" because you have no expertise in CD but you just had to toss that in. I believe not only is it quite doable but the result is exactly what happened on 9/11. And as for WTC7, it is not only quite plausible but it is historical fact (excluding 9/11).

There is no supposedly about it, they do count thousands of experts in their membership. But why don't you contact them and ask. There's a lot of typical contrarian speculation in your statements as expected. In any case, this should have been done by NIST, not by any private group. And you know they would never do it. But none of that is relevant to the point of the discussion. This isn't about AE911T.

I never disputed a CD model could be done that will make buildings fall down - it just isn't going to look like what actually happened.

I also recognize that a collapse initiation mechanism is a collapse initiation mechanism. Collapse initiation just gets the building moving. As a practical matter, the only difference between CD and buckled columns due to overloading is what starts (initiates) the collapse.
All a CD does is get the building moving.
All buckled columns from overloading do is get the building moving.
Once initiation has taken place, once the bit above the initiation point gets moving, gravity does all the work. So it is not surprising that CD's and fire/impact induced collapses look similar (but they sound nothing alike).

But there are critical differences in the details (like sound) and the devil in this case is in those details.

A CD model can not match all observables from 9/11 because there was no CD. So while a model can demonstrate buildings can be demolished it won't get you any closer to demonstrating something that did not happen. The model by itself is pointless without a case for CD - without a testable hypothesis - because the model is that test.

As for AE911T they do not have thousands of members who are experts. They have 2,348 (last I checked - the number has been slowly dropping all summer) people who are eligible to and have signed a petition requesting a new investigation into the collapse of a single building. Signing a petition does not make one a member of anything. Only a few dozen of those petition signers have expertise and experience relevant to building design and collapse but they are not "members". The lead researchers for AE911T are a high-school teacher and a guy who has yet to pick up his Nobel for discovering delayed action gravity.

Our own JSanderO was a member of the board at AE911T for a time several years ago. He was thrown out of the organization for having the audacity to suggest they do actual research instead of just fund-raising all the time.

As for NIST - their mandate was to improve building safety. How does one make buildings safe from CD? Why build a model for CD when there is no case for CD to test?

Buck Naked · Oct 9, 2015

gamolon said:
Below is a video which contains an explanation as to what David Chandler says should have been the outcome of the collapse of the twin towers due to gravity.

Chandler explains how he thinks Newton's law should be applied to the collapse of the towers and then, based on that application, makes the following statement at 1:56 of the above video:

Chandler said:

Both sections are going to be... um... demolished at the same rate. So by the time you've crushed up 15 stories below it, the top 15 stories are also going to be crushed. So there is nothing left now to crush the rest of the building.

Click to expand...

Do you know why Chandler says this? Do you know who Chandler is debating against when he states this? I’m just curious to see where your knowledge, experience and involvment of the topic subsists, as I detest this topic and it has always been nothing more than a distraction and waste of time. I don't mind answer legitimate questions, but I really detest how people belittle others whom publish their ideas, hypothesis, theories, etc. I'm not referring to you, Gamolon, but clearly to others here, especially others who have admitted to know nothing about physics.

gamolon said:
He also shows this image of what he thinks the collapse should have looked like once the collapse stopped after 15 floors.

Do you know why this image is as simple as drawn? Do you know what image it was based off and from whom? If we’re going to waste are time bashing decent people, let’s know why so we can bash the correct people.

gamolon said:
So why does Chandler's explanation not provide the same expected results for the building in the following verinage video?

The lower floors load bearing walls and columns( and if memory serves correct, there wasn’t any load bearing columns)were weakened by the demolition company, Cardem, allowing for a greater weight to strenght ratio from the block of floors above. Therefore, the ForceDOWN of the block above does not equal ForceUP of the block below. In other words, the weight to strength ratio for the upper floors are greater than or equal to the combined strength of the lower floors. Furthermore, the verinage technique is not applied to steel framed buildings, making the comparison poor and invalid.

Other observations worth noting are that none of the pieces are ejected laterally(excluding dust) as observed from WTC1&2. What remains from verinage demolitions are large concrete pieces where a concrete pecker attachment on an excavator is used to further break down the concrete components into smaller pieces before hauling, unlike WTC1&2. And the collapse does not produce free fall or near free fall as the case of WTC7.

gamolon said:
If Chandler is correct in his belief that a smaller mass cannot destroy a larger mass and that the destruction of the lower section should equal the number of floors of the smaller, upper section, then why is the entire lower structure destroyed by just three floors in the verinage video.

I don’t believe Chandler said "a smaller mass cannot destroy a larger mass”, but if I’m mistaken, please cite and quote.

Bob0627 · Oct 9, 2015

Mark F said:
I never disputed a CD model could be done that will make buildings fall down - it just isn't going to look like what actually happened.

I also recognize that a collapse initiation mechanism is a collapse initiation mechanism. Collapse initiation just gets the building moving. As a practical matter, the only difference between CD and buckled columns due to overloading is what starts (initiates) the collapse.
All a CD does is get the building moving.
All buckled columns from overloading do is get the building moving.
Once initiation has taken place, once the bit above the initiation point gets moving, gravity does all the work. So it is not surprising that CD's and fire/impact induced collapses look similar (but they sound nothing alike).

But there are critical differences in the details (like sound) and the devil in this case is in those details.

A CD model can not match all observables from 9/11 because there was no CD. So while a model can demonstrate buildings can be demolished it won't get you any closer to demonstrating something that did not happen. The model by itself is pointless without a case for CD - without a testable hypothesis - because the model is that test.

As for AE911T they do not have thousands of members who are experts. They have 2,348 (last I checked - the number has been slowly dropping all summer) people who are eligible to and have signed a petition requesting a new investigation into the collapse of a single building. Signing a petition does not make one a member of anything. Only a few dozen of those petition signers have expertise and experience relevant to building design and collapse but they are not "members". The lead researchers for AE911T are a high-school teacher and a guy who has yet to pick up his Nobel for discovering delayed action gravity.

Our own JSanderO was a member of the board at AE911T for a time several years ago. He was thrown out of the organization for having the audacity to suggest they do actual research instead of just fund-raising all the time.

The problem Mark is the same problem that always exists when discussing any topic with you. There's not one thing you posted above that has anything to do with the point I made. A lot of repetition of the same things you keep bringing up and a lot of irrelevant side issues. I'm going to repeat it for the last time (you actually quoted me) and if you fail to address the heart of the point, there's nothing more to discuss with you here.

A properly planned successful CD will destroy all 3 towers in seconds and this has been proven with other structures. While it is impractical to re-create the destruction of the 3 towers using a CD, it can still be done via computer modeling and show similarity to all 3 tower destruction. The twins would be rigged as a top down demolition and WTC7 as a classic controlled demolition. No, it won't be exactly the same as what happened on 9/11 but it will show many major similarities. So any theory about the CD of the 3 towers is readily supportable.

None of that is possible with a fire induced collapse and therefore any theory about a fire induced collapse is unsupportable.

As for NIST - their mandate was to improve building safety.

NIST listed 4 objectives but you chose to list only 1. You know very well NIST's mandate and first objective was to: Determine why and how WTC 1 and WTC 2 collapsed following the initial impacts of the aircraft and why and how WTC 7 collapsed. And you know very well NIST did not do that. NIST concocted a fire induced theory, nothing more. A theory is just that, not a determination. And worse, it is an unsupported/unsupportable theory.

Why build a model for CD when there is no case for CD to test?

The case for CD is exactly the point I'm discussing. There is NO CASE for a fire induced collapse because it is an unsupportable hypothesis. The ONLY case that is supportable is the one for CD. That is not to say that NIST should not have looked into the possibility of a fire induced collapse but it is to say that the destruction of the 3 towers via CD is the MOST LIKELY case because it is fully supportable and NIST should have looked into that first and foremost, not dismissed it under pretense.

Mark F · Oct 9, 2015

Bob0627 said:
A properly planned successful CD will destroy all 3 towers in seconds and this has been proven with other structures.

Agreed. I see no reason why that would not be true.

While it is impractical to re-create the destruction of the 3 towers using a CD, it can still be done via computer modeling and show similarity to all 3 tower destruction. The twins would be rigged as a top down demolition and WTC7 as a classic controlled demolition. No, it won't be exactly the same as what happened on 9/11 but it will show many major similarities. So any theory about the CD of the 3 towers is readily supportable.

Impactical is an understatement if ever there was one. :mrgreen:

A model such as you suggest will also show a great many dissimilarities since there was no CD. There are observables in the real event that absolutely can not be explained by CD but must be accounted for in the model.

None of that is possible with a fire induced collapse and therefore any theory about a fire induced collapse is unsupportable.

A century of fire science says that is not true. We know steel framed structures are quite vulnerable to fire. This is why the steel needs to have special heat resistant protections added to it. That is also why the new 1 and 7 World Trade Towers have switched to an extremely robust (and hugely expensive and volume consuming) reinforced concrete core from an all-steel one.

NIST listed 4 objectives but you chose to list only 1. You know very well NIST's mandate and first objective was to: Determine why and how WTC 1 and WTC 2 collapsed following the initial impacts of the aircraft and why and how WTC 7 collapsed. And you know very well NIST did not do that. NIST concocted a fire induced theory, nothing more. A theory is just that, not a determination. And worse, it is an unsupportable theory.

And why did NIST need to determine collapse causation? To improve building safety. Fundamentally that is what NIST's investigation was about. They are after all the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Creating standards is what they do. There are no standards to review or consider in a CD.

The case for CD is exactly the point I'm discussing. There is NO CASE for a fire induced collapse because it is an unsupportable hypothesis.

Except that almost everyone who knows fire science and structural engineering who has reviewed the case disagrees with you and that includes all the major trade organizations that work in these fields. Only a very tiny fringe minority of people with mostly irrelevant or no experience or expertise in such matters have voiced any disagreement, and even that has to be taken with a grain of salt.

The ONLY case that is supportable is the one for CD. That is not to say that NIST should not have looked into the possibility of a fire induced collapse but it is to say that the destruction of the 3 towers via CD is the MOST LIKELY case because it is fully supportable.

But there is no case for CD thus no case to support. If the only case were CD, NIST wouldn't be involved.

There are claims and accusations for CD. But all rely on personal incredulity - I can not believe fire OR airplanes can cause a tall building to collapse (even though thousands of short ones have) or it looks just like a CD (with the implied therefore it must be a CD). There is no "case", no who/what/when/where/why or how for CD. The CD proponents can't even agree if it was shaped charges, blast charges, thermite, nano-thermite, super-duper nano-thermite, mini-nukes or energy beams from outer space much less on who did it, how they did it and when or quite frankly why anyone would bother because there is no reason to.

CD claims are always arrived at by working the problem backwards, rather than the correct way. As an exercise in working the problem the correct way from the beginning I've posed the following question before and it always gets avoided like the plague.

If you were charged by _____________ to execute a plot to attack 4 symbols of America economic, military and political power that have to look like terrorist hijacked airplanes and only hijacked airplanes were used, how would you do it?

How many people are really going to come up with I would pre-plant hundreds of malicious destructive devices in the buildings and hope I don't get caught and that no one finds so much as a single trace of any of them in the rubble?

gamolon · Oct 9, 2015

Buck naked said:
In other words, the weight to strength ratio for the upper floors are greater than or equal to the combined strength of the lower floors. Furthermore, the verinage technique is not applied to steel framed buildings, making the comparison poor and invalid.

The point I am trying to make is that nobody can say that the towers couldn't have totally collapsed from a smaller section impacting a larger section based on Newton's law and the supposed understanding implied by it that a smaller mass cannot crush a larger mass.

You gave one point way it CAN'T be that simple. Newton's law doesn't take into account strength to weight ratio. If the "strength" of the first floor of the lower section impacted by the descending upper section is exceeded by the impact force generated by the impact, the floor fails. Then the debris moves to the next floor. The next floor. Etc.

Bob0627 · Oct 9, 2015

Mark F said:
A model such as you suggest will also show a great many dissimilarities since there was no CD.

There is no proof whatsoever that the alleged collapse was fire induced, there was no investigation whatsoever into the destruction by CD or anything for that matter that could be considered legitimate, no precedent, no experiment, no model. Without any of those, it doesn't exist, other than as an unsupported hypothesis, that's plain and simple. Therefore, the ONLY possibility that has precedent and is fully supportable is CD. All 3 collapses exhibited numerous similarities to known CDs, whether you deny it or not.

There are observables in the real event that absolutely can not be explained by CD but must be accounted for in the model.

That's only your claim. Since no one knows how these buildings were CD'd and therefore data is missing, once the data is known (and that will never happen because of the massive cover up), it will likely be fully explainable.

A century of fire science says that is not true.

We're only talking about the global collapse of steel framed structures in a matter of seconds. There no such thing in history so your claim is false given those specific characteristics.

And why did NIST need to determine collapse causation? To improve building safety.

Again you deliberately omit NIST's first and most important objective.

Fundamentally that is what NIST's investigation was about.

Wrong, as already noted quite explicitly, NIST had 4 objectives as published and as mandated, not just the one you want and eliminate the rest. There can't be a discussion with someone who plays deliberate omission games.

Except that almost everyone who knows fire science and structural engineering who has reviewed the case disagrees with you and that includes all the major trade organizations that work in these fields. Only a very tiny fringe minority of people with mostly irrelevant or no experience or expertise in such matters have voiced any disagreement, and even that has to be taken with a grain of salt.

I'm not interested in your concocted marginalizations, just the science and logic.

I won't bother the irrelevant rest.

Mark F · Oct 10, 2015

Bob0627 said:
There is no proof whatsoever that the alleged collapse was fire induced,...

My first counter to that would be that there is also no proof whatsoever that the collapse (it isn't an alleged collapse) was done by CD. Stalemate.

Except,...

Twin Towers were both hit by very large, very fast moving aircraft filled with thousands of pounds of liquid accelerant.
Impacts destroy some support columns, damage others.
Impacts damage or remove materials fire protection for the structural steel.
Impacts destroy the fire suppression system in the impact area so there is nothing to suppress the fire.
Impacts ventilated the building, allowing the fire to spread across several floors simultaneously.
Subsequently very large fires were observed burning across multiple floors in both Twin Towers simultaneously bad enough to make jumping 1,000 feet to their death preferable to staying in the building for hundreds of people.

All of the above is unprecedented - well beyond the scope of what CT's love to refer to as normal office fires.

As the fires progressed observers noticed instability in the structures. Firefighters in the North Tower for example observed walls and outside windows in the lobby cracking and shattering as the building shifted about, creaking and moaning. And recall, these buildings were designed to withstand hurricane force winds. At 9:30am FDNY Chief Joseph Callan in command inside the North Tower, feeling the building move makes the decision that the building is no longer safe and orders an evacuation of his people.

Chief Callan: "Approximately 40 minutes after I arrived in the lobby, I made a decision that the building was no longer safe. And that was based on the conditions in the lobby, large pieces of plaster falling, all the 20 foot high glass panels on the exterior of the lobby were breaking. There was obvious movement of the building, and that was the reason on the handy talky I gave the order for all Fire Department units to leave the north tower. For me to make the decision to take our firefighters out of the building with civilians still in it, that was very tough for me, but I did that because I did not think the building was safe any longer, and that was just prior to 9:30."

EMS Division Chief John Peruggia: "I was in a discussion with Mr. Rotanz and I believe it was a representative from the Department of Buildings, but I'm not sure. Some engineer type person,... it was brought to my attention, it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised and they felt that the north tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse."

Firefighters and engineers in other parts of the North Tower relay the same. Building movement, interior walls coming down, windows shattering. This was an unstable structure more than 40 minutes before it collapsed.

Well prior to collapse NYPD aviation units note structural problems. At 9:49 am, ten minutes prior to its collapse, NYPD helicopters report that “large pieces” are falling from the South Tower. At 10:06 am, the NYPD aviation unit warns "it's not going to take long before the north tower comes down.'' At 10:20 am, NYPD Aviation Unit 14 reports the North Tower is leaning to the south, then at 10:21am they report perimeter columns buckling on the south face. At 10:27 the NYPD aviation unit reports that the roof is going to come down very shortly.

Video and photo imagery we have from the ground clearly shows sagging floor trusses and bowing perimeter columns.

Physical damage to the structure + compromise of fire safety systems + large unfought multi-floor fires + time + gravity = structural instability.

Continuing deterioration of structural stability + time + gravity = collapse.

The collapses were virtually silent and initiated in the damage zone. No 160db booms from each of hundreds of explosive charges that by some miracle managed to survive the impacts and extensive fires. No flash, no blast. Windows for blocks in every direction were not shattered. The thousands of people on the streets below were not showered in lethal high velocity fragments.

Rather, bowing columns transitioned to buckling. Buckling means the columns below were no longer supporting the mass above. That mass came down on floors whose connections to the columns were only designed to support their own weight. Floor fails. Connection between core and perimeter columns therefore fails. Core, floors and perimeter are part of an integrated system. None survives without the others. This process repeats with the next floor down, then the next, then the next and so on and so on. Floors are sheared away from the columns. Columns lose lateral support. Columns fail.

Add it together you get one inescapable conclusion: These observations are products of impact + fire, not CD.

Mark F · Oct 10, 2015

gamolon said:
The point I am trying to make is that nobody can say that the towers couldn't have totally collapsed from a smaller section impacting a larger section based on Newton's law and the supposed understanding implied by it that a smaller mass cannot crush a larger mass.

You gave one point way it CAN'T be that simple. Newton's law doesn't take into account strength to weight ratio. If the "strength" of the first floor of the lower section impacted by the descending upper section is exceeded by the impact force generated by the impact, the floor fails. Then the debris moves to the next floor. The next floor. Etc.

Some may recall that a few years back Dr Keith Seffen from Cambridge University published a study in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics which demonstrated that once the collapse of the twin towers began, it was destined to be rapid and total.

Dr. Seffen was able to calculate the "residual capacity" of the undamaged building: that is, simply speaking, the ability of the undamaged structure to resist or comply with collapse.

Dr. Seffen's calculations suggest the residual capacity of both towers was in fact limited, and that once the collapse was initiated, it would take only nine seconds for the building to go down (in reality it took a bit longer). Dr. Seffen noted that his calculations showed this was a "very ordinary thing to happen" and that no other intervention, such as explosive charges laid inside the building, was needed to explain the collapses.

Kat Dorman · Oct 10, 2015

Mark, if I could give out cash prizes for posts...

You're one of the handful of people I've seen who has mentioned Seffen in a forum. Bazant gets all the publicity.

Bob0627 · Oct 10, 2015

Mark F said:
My first counter to that would be that there is also no proof whatsoever that the collapse (it isn't an alleged collapse) was done by CD.

You can counter anything you like. Absolutely nothing points to a fire induced global collapse in seconds because there is no such thing. A fire induced global collapse of a steel frame high rise in seconds doesn't exist in any manner. It first has to be proven that it can happen. If it can't be proven that it can happen then it can only exist in theory. An experiment was conducted to see if such a structure can collapse from fire alone (see Cardington Fire Test). Not only did the structure not globally collapse in seconds from deliberately exaggerated fire conditions but it did not collapse at all. I understand there have been more than 50 fire experiments on steel frame structures which only resulted in column buckling. So the experiment only served to show that it can't happen, period. Perhaps one day an experiment might show otherwise but as of today, no such thing exists.

The responsibility to investigate the destruction of the 3 towers was given to NIST by the US Congress. NIST never fulfilled that mandate and instead of investigating the most likely cause (100%) of the global collapses, they eliminated it immediately and concocted a theory for the least possible cause (0%) and even that was done illegitimately. Besides the historical and scientific fact that any successful CD will globally destroy any building 100% of the time, there was an overwhelming amount of evidence that that's exactly what happened to all 3 towers, regardless of your denials. A legitimate investigation would and should have come to the only conclusion that makes both scientific and logical sense. That all 3 towers were destroyed via CD, they did NOT naturally "collapse".

Nothing you posted proves that the 3 towers globally collapsed in seconds from planes, fire or both and you agreed that such an event has not been proven (not that your agreement was required). The only potentially provable cause is CD since fire induced collapses can be eliminated for all the reasons stated in the first paragraph.

Kat Dorman · Oct 10, 2015

Kat Dorman said:
Mark, if I could give out cash prizes for posts...

You're one of the handful of people I've seen who has mentioned Seffen in a forum. Bazant gets all the publicity.

Very interesting paper, but I'm pretty sure Seffen was wrong.

Mark F · Oct 10, 2015

Bob0627 said:
You can counter anything you like. Absolutely nothing points to a fire induced global collapse in seconds because there is no such thing. A fire induced global collapse of a steel frame high rise in seconds doesn't exist in any manner. It first has to be proven that it can happen. If it can't be proven that it can happen then it can only exist in theory. An experiment was conducted to see if such a structure can collapse from fire alone (see Cardington Fire Test). Not only did the structure not globally collapse in seconds from deliberately exaggerated fire conditions but it did not collapse at all. I understand there have been more than 50 fire experiments on steel frame structures which only resulted in column buckling. So the experiment only served to show that it can't happen, period. Perhaps one day an experiment might show otherwise but as of today, no such thing exists.

The responsibility to investigate the destruction of the 3 towers was given to NIST by the US Congress. NIST never fulfilled that mandate and instead of investigating the most likely cause (100%) of the global collapses, they eliminated it immediately and concocted a theory for the least possible cause (0%) and even that was done illegitimately. Besides the historical and scientific fact that any successful CD will globally destroy any building 100% of the time, there was an overwhelming amount of evidence that that's exactly what happened to all 3 towers, regardless of your denials. A legitimate investigation would and should have come to the only conclusion that makes both scientific and logical sense. That all 3 towers were destroyed via CD, they did NOT naturally "collapse".

Nothing you posted proves that the 3 towers globally collapsed in seconds from planes, fire or both and you agreed that such an event has not been proven (not that your agreement was required). The only potentially provable cause is CD since fire induced collapses can be eliminated for all the reasons stated in the first paragraph.

Except that I just demonstrated to you in my last post that this is wrong.

A century of fire science demonstrates this is wrong.

The long history of steel buildings destroyed by fire shows this is wrong.

And no, I never agreed that "such an event (fire + impact induced collapse) has not been proven".

Tell you what. My last post to you made out a prima facie case for fire + impact + gravity + time induced collapse initiation starting from impact all the way through to the point of initiation. How long it takes the building to collapse once collapse is initiated is a product of collapse progression. Other posts, like the one I did a few hours ago about Dr. Seffen's work cover collapse progression and why, once the building was moving it wasn't going to stop (cause of collapse initiation is irrelevant to this point).

Can you post a similar reasoned start-to-initiation argument for whatever form of CD you prefer that explains all the observables?

Bob0627 · Oct 10, 2015

Mark F said:
Except that I just demonstrated to you in my last post that this is wrong.

You haven't demonstrated any such thing.

A century of fire science demonstrates this is wrong.

The long history of steel buildings destroyed by fire shows this is wrong.

There is nothing in history or the history of fires that includes any steel frame high rise that collapsed globally in seconds from fire or in steel structure experiments, so not only have you not shown anything that changes anything I posted but the history of fires in steel frame high rises and experiments in steel frame structures supports everything I posted.

And no, I never agreed that "such an event (fire + impact induced collapse) has not been proven".

Unfortunately for you, you did when you said:

My first counter to that would be that there is also no proof whatsoever that the collapse (it isn't an alleged collapse) was done by CD.

Note the highlighted. Perhaps it was yet another slip but the meaning is unmistakable. There is no proof that any of the 3 towers collapsed from fire, planes or both. The only attempt at such proof was NIST's worthless non-attempt.

I am not interested in the rest and I kind of lost my interest in this discussion. I was only interested in using you to post the logistics and I got my point across.

Kat Dorman · Oct 10, 2015

Could any of the Chandler fans here hazard a guess as to why he hasn't taken on the papers by Bazant (et al) and Seffen directly? He's touted as a physicist by so many. Do you suppose it's because he's really a high school teacher and they're notorious for not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground? If he dug into the papers, followed the derivations step-by-step, he should be able to point out exactly where Bazant went wrong. That's what I did with Seffen. Took me a little over a week of spare time. How many years has Chandler had?

gamolon said:
Is anyone going to try and address the original post?

I believe it's the lay notion that "equal and opposite reaction forces" means equal and opposite everything. The correct way to do mechanics is to apply the law as it concerns forces, which will assist in formulating equations of motions, then solve those for what happens. Now, this problem is not exclusively in the domain of physics, but rather engineering mechanics. Therefore this problem is outside the scope of what a physicist normally deals with. Likewise, it's quite different from what mechanical engineers deal with, and even further from the domain than straight physics. Engineers, generally speaking, won't even know how to frame the problem, let alone solve it. Physicists will grossly oversimplify (spherical chickens), possibly to the point of failing to capture the problem at all.

Chandler's stance is shameful, as it fails at statement one of the preceding paragraph. That is, he fails on the basic physics without ever getting into engineering mechanics at all. It IS possible to do this correctly even at this childish level of simplification. He interprets Newton's third as meaning equal and opposite destruction. This is not true. Someone pointed out, either here or in the Pile Driver thread (or maybe it was ISF (ex JREF)), the tilt of the upper section introduces asymmetry which renders any perceived equivalency between the two sections in collision void. Their point was that the eccentric loading on the upper section means suboptimal conditions for its survival, and that's surely true.

gamolon, IMO the demolition in the video you posted is a corroboration of Bazantian mechanics, where the towers are not. It's also much closer to the homogenized model that Chandler is stuck in. Rather than ask sycophants to explain the discrepancy, Chandler should be challenged. Of course, Chandler's MO is to never answer questions or address criticisms. It's the high school teacher coming through; I lecture, you listen.

Anyone here have Chandler's ear? Like, can you email him and ask him to come here and hand the naysayers their ass? Try it. See if he'll oblige you, or if the excuse will be "can't be bothered". He's NEVER been bothered.

Kat Dorman · Oct 10, 2015

Kat Dorman said:
He's NEVER been bothered.

Okay, that's not strictly true. He's popped in to JREF to deliver a few dismissive posts. To my knowledge, he's never ever defended his YouTube "academia" to anyone except Frank Greening. There was one case where he dismissed Greening's objections on Newton's third via email exchange. Greening started out kinda wrong but evolved into correctness. Chandler quit before the argument got good.

Mark F · Oct 10, 2015

Kat Dorman said:
I believe it's the lay notion that "equal and opposite reaction forces" means equal and opposite everything.

:thumbs:

And if the Chandler huggers followed their own logic through they would quickly find that nothing could move.

But of course, they can't make it even that far.

Buck Naked · Oct 11, 2015

Why is everyone focused on Chandler? It has been over half a decade of Chandler already.

Chandler is irrelevent. All he is, is a focal point for distraction, to keep everyone’s eyes off the ball. He is not the official conspiracy theory’s creator. Why spend so much time analysing Chandler’s reasoning, why isn’t the internet physics board of directors( the very small group of loudmouthed engineers, mathematicians and physicists) focusing on the US government’s conspiracy theory? Did everyone forget where the burden of proof lies? Does the burden of proof lie with Chandler?

Remember which hypotheses are claimed by the US Government?

Remember FEMA’s copy of Eagar and Musso’s hypothesis? Remember the hypothesis of the NIST joint venture of Bizant, Zhou, Verdure, Le, Greening and Benson?

These people are your culprits, these people are the hypothesists, because they’re damn sure not theorists, and these are the people and governmental agencies where all the focus should be centered.

Hey, but let’s focus on Chandler for which zero of the US Government’s claim lies……..

Kat Dorman · Oct 11, 2015

Buck naked said:
Chandler is irrelevent.

Works for me. Everyone on board with that?

Mark F · Oct 11, 2015

Buck naked said:
Why is everyone focused on Chandler? It has been over half a decade of Chandler already.

He is the subject of the OP as well as the source for all the bad Newtonian physics arguments which are the reason why CT's have the silly idea that collapse of the Twin Towers should have arrested itself.

That's why.

You can't just dump him now because he is becoming obviously inconvenient.