This is *NOT* a "collapse!" » Forum Post by Agent of Kharma

So. Concrete 'can't' pulverize. Well, we watched it do just that. You know so much, explain it. That you doubt or disbelieve it means nothing unless you can postulate and prove an alternative mechanism. Whatever your background, I'm not sure you understand the mass of that top story alone, not to mention the lateral explosive forces when an entire floor suddenly pancakes, not to mention the energy in 110 floors of an acre each pancaking. Twice.

Don't know what motivated you to post this but the whole notion of 'alternative' explanations is just stupid.

Agreed. Should we find a moderator to close this down?

Don't know what motivated you to post this but the whole notion of 'alternative' explanations is just stupid.

Not enough ET's visiting lately?

Quoting Daiwa,

reply 26

So. Concrete 'can't' pulverize. Well, we watched it do just that. You know so much, explain it. That you doubt or disbelieve it means nothing unless you can postulate and prove an alternative mechanism. Whatever your background, I'm not sure you understand the mass of that top story alone, not to mention the lateral explosive forces when an entire floor suddenly pancakes, not to mention the energy in 110 floors of an acre each pancaking. Twice.

Don't know what motivated you to post this but the whole notion of 'alternative' explanations is just stupid.

+1 to Daiwa.

So, how do you really feel?

IIRC there was a pretty decent piece on PBS that included some discussion of the physics/mechanics of the collapse. I'm pretty sure this is the piece, Why the Towers Fell, the clip is almost an hour long and so I didn't re-watch the whole thing to make sure.

Also here's a link to a couple of related stories, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/.

There's the "expert narrated slide show" Impact to Collapse and a piece that you might find particularly interesting, 9/11 Conspiracy Theories.

Personally, I'm not a real big fan of conspiracy theories, regardless from which side of the aisle they originate.

Regarding the Popular Mechanics link:

And just who is debunking it and what methods are they using? Why don't you think critically rather than believing everything you read on the internet without considering who is saying it and what qualifies them to say it.

Sure, it just comes down to a pissing contest, doesn't it? Someone posts a link to some article, I say the link has been debunked, and that I have my own links as well, you ask who debunked, and challenge my links, and it just goes around in a circle. It's pointless, isn't it? So why engage in it?

So... for those people who are truly interested in this topic, do you think it would be possible for them to tell me in their own words, using their own thoughts, how a building pulverizes into dust in mid-air, from top down, and why this should be termed a "collapse" (answers which, by the way, aren't contained in the Popular Mechanics article)?

If there wasn't a solid mainstream model for what happened to the WTC it would be easier to understand where you're coming from, but the fact is that there is a solid model

There isn't a "solid mainstream model" that even begins to explain anything regarding what happened to those buildings. The "models" are outright lies. It's so bad that FEMA couldn't even bring itself to produce a lie of a model for what happened to Building 7, and thus admitted in the conclusion of their report that "even their best hypothesis has a low probability of occurrence." Thus, they ended up stating that they didn't know what caused Building 7 to collapse.

But that's all beside the point. I guess that when you personally look at the photos above, nothing in your head automatically screams at you "this is not a collapse!" Nothing looks a little fishy or odd. It doesn't look to you like the buildings are being converted to fine dust from the top down, or even if it does, you don't find that odd. That fact, along with you stating that you believe there are already "solid mainstream models" explaining everything, means we are now at a point where we can agree to disagree, and thus you can just move on from this discussion.

This is what I like about debating points with you in most threads. It's efficient.

As has already been stated in those articles, no one is claiming that the steel melted

No one? You misunderstand. You see, I and others are claiming that steel melted - lots of steel. It can be seen flowing in videos and photos. Solidified chunks of it have been recovered from ground zero, and even analyzed. Firefighters and first responders reported seeing it. And NASA infrared satellite imagery reveals how hot ground zero was. And it stayed that hot for months, despite pouring water on it 24/7, and it raining.

Either way, a little off topic. What caused the mid-air pulverization of all that concrete?

...only that the heat weakened it to the point at which it warped and bent. The heat present was more than sufficient to make the steel lose 90% of its strength, which was more than sufficient to bring down the building.

We are back to the pissing contest again (my sources vs. your sources, blah blah), which I find pointless. And again, a little off topic. But if you want to go there:

1) In fact, the government couldn't make the steel warp, bend, and lose 90% of its strength in testing, despite holding it at higher temperatures for longer than what the WTC steel was exposed to, and loading it with a higher load than what the WTC steel was subjected to. So... it just threw away the tests and made up bare assertions for its reports. People who conducted the tests in the laboratories for the government have already come forward. One was fired for whistleblowing.

2) We already have real world tests with every steel building that has ever suffered a fire in history. I'm talking fires that dwarf the pissant fires of the WTC, which lasted about an hour and only covered a few floors. I'm talking towering infernos that engulfed entire skyscrapers and raged for 20-something hours, 30-something hours, etc. I'm talking being able to see the steel of the skyscrapers glow red hot after the fires are gone. Yet no steel building has ever "collapsed" due to fire. Ever. In the annals of recorded history.

Steel is quite strong. It's why they make skyscrapers out of it. It's why it's quite expensive to bring down these buildings, and why you have to hire demolition companies and pay them millions of dollars to do it, and why it takes months. If you truly believe fires can weaken steel and bring down buildings the size of the world trade center, then you and I need to go into the building demolition business right now. We could charge 25% of what professional demolition companies charge, but still get rich out the wazoo. Our labor costs would be nil. Our materials costs would be nil. Our time costs, planning costs, etc. would be nil. We just get a couple guys, tote barrels of kerosene to the top floors of the skyscrapers, light it up, and run like hell. If you truly believe what you say, that's what we need to do. Are you ready to go into business?

3) For the sake of argument, we could GIVE you the fact that all the steel in those couple of floors of the buildings not only softened or deformed... let's just say it instantaneously vaporized. So what? The rest of the building for the next 100 floors on down was perfectly fine. Yet the now detached top of the building converts into dust, and somehow causes the rest of the buildings 100 floors down to do the same? Well, fine if that doesn't seem a little odd to you. But it does to me.

Actually, I've noticed that the OP never mentions anything about government involvement in the incident one way or another..... this could be as innocent as a claim that the incident caused by the plane crash was not technically classifiable as a collapse (unlikely)...... or he could be convinced that the Illuminati have planned the whole thing since 1403 as a prelude to alien invasion and the Second Coming (also unlikely). He could be a structural-engineer cum nitpicker, or an escapee from the local max-security psychiatric hospital, or anything in between. The point is we don't really know, and until he tells us I think we should refrain from speculating (my above comment on leaky administrations was more directed at the repliers, not Agent)

Thanks Scoutdog, you are correct. I simply asked what would cause the phoenomenon I described in the photos, and how could or should this be termed a "collapse." Thanks for trying to stay on point.

So. Concrete 'can't' pulverize. Well, we watched it do just that. You know so much, explain it

I didn't say concrete can't pulverize. I said concrete DID pulverize.

You asked me to explain it. But my post is asking YOU to explain it. I'll give you a little help. Gravitational "collapse" couldn't and didn't cause it... so what did?

Agreed. Should we find a moderator to close this down?

Don't want to hear/don't like what I say, so just get a moderator to shut me down, huh? Amazing.

Quoting Agent of Kharma,

reply 31

2) We already have real world tests with every steel building that has ever suffered a fire in history. I'm talking fires that dwarf the pissant fires of the WTC, which lasted about an hour and only covered a few floors. I'm talking towering infernos that engulfed entire skyscrapers and raged for 20-something hours, 30-something hours, etc. I'm talking being able to see the steel of the skyscrapers glow red hot after the fires are gone. Yet no steel building has ever "collapsed" due to fire. Ever. In the annals of recorded history.

your post is full of stupid and wrong, but i'll just concentrate on this tidbit because its one of the more well-known fallacies.

your comparison to any other fire is disingenuous and completely incorrect. you can't provide us with a single point of comparison, because the nature of the planes, their speed and the types of buildings involved were a FIRST in the history of the world. you're comparing apples to cantelopes.

you've always held yourself to be a real intellectual giant on here, so its amusing to see you making such rudimentary errors in your arguments.

compare the nature of your standard building

with the twin towers, as well as building 7.

your attempts to argue that both structures MUST behave in the same fashion under duress are completely laughable. they simply cannot be compared. so stop.

if you wish to make a comparison, you must complete the following task:

1) Find a steel frame building at least 40 stories high

2) Which takes up a whole city block

3) And is a "Tube in a tube" design

4) Which came off its core columns at the bottom floors (Earthquake, fire, whatever - WTC 7)

5) Which was struck by another building or airliner and had structural damage as a result.

6) And weakened by fire for over 6 hours

7) And had trusses that were bolted on with two 5/8" bolts.

And which, after all seven tests are met, the building does not fall down. Anyone dissecting this into 7 separate events is lying to you.

Anything less than meeting these seven tests is dishonest because it's not comparing apples with apples. Showing a much lighter 4, 5 or even 15 story building which doesn't even take up a city block, and has an old style steel web design leaves out the massive weight the 47 story WTC 7 had bearing down on its south face columns. Yes, this is "moving the bar", back to where it should have started.

It is an absurdity to expect these buildings to perform the same during a collapse. This is why it's the first time in history these buildings fell as they did. It's the first time in history buildings constructed like this collapsed.

http://debunking911.com/firsttime.htm

or, feel free to head over to the 911 conspiracy section at the JREF forums:

http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=64

so that you may receive a much broader schooling in why the ideas you're postulating are nothing short of abject stupidity.

in b4 this cretin starts talking about thermite, rofl.

1: I just don't want this thread to become the spamapalooza that it inevitably will (not true spam, just arguement without resolution like what happpened in the Global Warming/ClimateGate thread).

2: Seriously? You want to know why some people call it a collapse and how they think it happened? I'm sorry, the OP just seemed a litle more arrogant than that would imply. My honest opinion is that the WTC and building 7 were not up to par and generated enough revenue to bribe their way through. But of course, that is only opinion, and I can't back that statement.

Like I said, believe what you want, Kharma. This article is silly.

if you wish to make a comparison, you must complete the following task:

No. I don't need to do any of those things, because none of it has any bearing on how hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete pulverized to fine dust in mid-air. Not tube-in-tube vs. traditional construction, not the amount or nature of the structural damage, not the duration or intensity of the fires, not the collision or lack of collision from airplanes - none of it.

If you claim otherwise, i.e. that tube-in-tube construction somehow causes the mid-air pulverization of hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete, I guess you and I are finished here, and I'll see if anyone else cares to attempt an explanation.

so tell us, you fucking retard. what relevance is the "dustification" of the WTCs? you can look that term up btw, perhaps you agree with judy wood that the WTCs were demolished by concentrated space beams! what caused this supposed notable event? we're all ears.

i also assume, by your lack of response, that you accept your erroneous comparisons to other buildings/fires to be complete BS. because it sure seems to me that you have an issue here

We already have real world tests with every steel building that has ever suffered a fire in history. I'm talking fires that dwarf the pissant fires of the WTC, which lasted about an hour and only covered a few floors. I'm talking towering infernos that engulfed entire skyscrapers and raged for 20-something hours, 30-something hours, etc. I'm talking being able to see the steel of the skyscrapers glow red hot after the fires are gone. Yet no steel building has ever "collapsed" due to fire. Ever. In the annals of recorded history.

which has nothing at all to do with the "dustification" you're now going on about. which goalposts are you really interested in? make up your mind, charlatan.

No. I don't need to do any of those things, because none of it has any bearing on how hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete pulverized to fine dust in mid-air. Not tube-in-tube vs. traditional construction, not the amount or nature of the structural damage, not the duration or intensity of the fires, not the collision or lack of collision from airplanes - none of it.

If you claim otherwise, i.e. that tube-in-tube construction somehow causes the mid-air pulverization of hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete, I guess you and I are finished here, and I'll see if anyone else cares to attempt an explanation.

So now that the steel theory has been put into question you resort to the pulverization argument which is of course not possible because the steel is too strong to allow for pancaking...? (its like a circle )

so tell us, you fucking retard. what relevance is the "dustification" of the WTCs?

As evidenced by your many responses like this, I don't see any reason whatsoever to have a dialogue with you. So I won't dignify anything you have to say with a response.

I'll leave it to the interested reader to figure out why "dustification" is relevant. If it isn't amazingly obvious to that reader without much effort, I guess this sort of discussion isn't the place for him anyway.

i also assume, by your lack of response, that you accept your erroneous comparisons to other buildings/fires to be complete BS.

You'd be quite wrong in your assumption.

which has nothing at all to do with the "dustification" you're now going on about. which goalposts are you really interested in? make up your mind, charlatan.

I've stated which goalposts I'm interested in - can you read? I engaged off-topic with the other poster out of politeness. Who's the charlatan?

Quoting Agent of Kharma,

reply 38

As evidenced by your many responses like this, I don't see any reason whatsoever to have a dialogue with you. So I won't bite, and furthermore this will be the last response I give you at all.

I'll leave it to the interested reader to figure out why "dustification" is relevant. If it isn't amazingly obvious to that reader without much effort, I guess this sort of discussion isn't the place for him anyway.

10 characteristics of conspiracy theorists
A useful guide by Donna Ferentes

3. Inability to answer questions. For people who loudly advertise their determination to the principle of questioning everything, they're pretty poor at answering direct questions from sceptics about the claims that they make.

So now that the steel theory has been put into question you resort to the pulverization argument which is of course not possible because the steel is too strong to allow for pancaking...? (its like a circle )

I "resort to the pulverization argument?" Pulverization is the only topic of my post! Thus, how can I be "resorting" by discussing it? Others brought up steel, not me. Did you even read my post?

As far as pancaking goes, pulverization is not pancaking. Pancaking was the first explanation the government ever put forth. It failed miserably, so the government retracted it long ago, and no longer uses it. If "pancaking" occurred, your "collapse" theory would be on far stronger footing.

Why do you bring up pancaking?

Because according to many people the pancaking theory or at least the idea that the upper floors impacted the lower ones and thus pulverized concrete is a reasonable explanation for that massive cloud of concrete dust

I "resort to the pulverization argument?" Pulverization is the only topic of my post! Thus, how can I be "resorting" by discussing it? Others brought up steel, not me. Did you even read my post?

Steel was brought up (as far as I can tell) as way to prove that the building could not have collapsed on itself and thus could not have pulverized the concrete to create the clouds of dust. Thus when someone hypothesized the buildings collapse could create dust clouds you said that it couldn't collapse, but when they provided evidence/theory it could you immediately "resorted" to saying that the collapse could not have created the dust and in no way relates to it

As far as I could tell your argument went something like this

Dust cloud--> not just airplane ramming --->X

the counter argument went something like this

airplane ramming ---> pancake/collapse---> dust cloud

and you went to this little circle

airplane ramming-->steel strong --->no pancake/collapse --->dust cloud--->X

But you cannot prove that there was no pancake/collapse without going through the steps mentioned above(A different post) yet you claim

"No. I don't need to do any of those things, because none of it has any bearing on how hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete pulverized to fine dust in mid-air. Not tube-in-tube vs. traditional construction, not the amount or nature of the structural damage, not the duration or intensity of the fires, not the collision or lack of collision from airplanes - none of it."

So I guess its not a circle but still...

Because according to many people the pancaking theory or at least the idea that the upper floors impacted the lower ones and thus pulverized concrete is a reasonable explanation for that massive cloud of concrete dust

The government already abandoned pancaking, but if you want to attempt it, I'm all ears. Let's hear it. Tell me how upper floors impacting the lower ones pulverizes all the concrete in the building. And by the way, I'm now congratulating you as being the first person on this thread to actually attempt to answer the question of this post, and you seem to be a pleasant enough chap about it so far.

By the way, note that the pancaking theory advanced by the government and others (now abandoned and defunct) is not the pancaking theory you apparently want to advocate above. Their pancaking theory was not an attempt to explain the pulverization of concrete into dust - in fact they made no attempt to explain this pulverization. Their pancaking theory was just an attempt to explain how the buildings progressively collapsed, i.e. how one thing led to another until the buildings were destroyed.

So it seems you will be arguing a "custom pancaking theory." I like that, because it requires balls. You'd have a hard enough time with this if all the pancaking floors fell the full 110 stories before impacting and then somehow pulverizing. But your task will be harder. Since the photos and film evidence shows pulverization happening from the very onset of "collapse," all the way through the entire sequence of events, you will have to argue that a concrete slab falling 20 or 30 feet or so (whatever the distance from 1 slab to the next was in those buildings) would result in one or both slabs turning into dust, and then that dust hitting the next slab 20-30 feet down turning it into dust, and so on.

Steel was brought up (as far as I can tell) as way to prove that the building could not have collapsed on itself and thus could not have pulverized the concrete to create the clouds of dust. Thus when someone hypothesized the buildings collapse could create dust clouds you said that it couldn't collapse, but when they provided evidence/theory it could you immediately "resorted" to saying that the collapse could not have created the dust and in no way relates to it

Not sure that I understand much of this. I think steel was brought up by Darvin3 in saying that the heat from fires softened the steel sufficiently to induce a global collapse of both (or, I guess all 3) buildings. I made several points in rebuttal to this, but the overriding point I made was that even if we assumed all the steel in those few floors which had fires and impact instantaneously evaporated (the most generous assumption possible), and even if we assumed this caused the entire structures to collapse, this won't get you the mid-air pulverization of all the concrete in the buildings into dust. In addition to being just "common sense," this is also born out through mathematics/physics (you can calculate how much energy is required to pulverize a slab) and also testing.

Because according to many people the pancaking theory or at least the idea that the upper floors impacted the lower ones and thus pulverized concrete is a reasonable explanation for that massive cloud of concrete dust

But it seems to have pulverized all the way down.

Once the initial impact of the upper floors pulverized the first few below, would the force be great enough to cause the chain reaction all the way down?

My initial though is that the pulverizing force would lessen with each floor, since the individual pieces impacting the subsequent lower floors would have less mass and inertia for a given area because of the dispersion. And the upper floors would be breaking up as they went down, wouldn't they? There should come a point of equilibrium where all the pulverized dust simply settled on and flowed around the remainder of the building.

The pancaking theory seems to rely on the assumption that the upper floors somehow stayed mostly intact all the way down. I guess they could have, if they were huge slabs of solid steel.

and we're all still waiting for kharma's explanation...

So kharma is asking why this would happen if it didn't happen by the planes? oh don't bullshit us conspiracy nutcase!

Unless you are asking if the lizard people from planet x did it you lunatic, there's no chance in hell that the government could set bombs to the place while people worked.

But it seems to have pulverized all the way down.

Yes.

By the way, I think you posted at the same time I did, so read my post directly above yours, if that is the case.

Once the initial impact of the upper floors pulverized the first few below, would the force be great enough to cause the chain reaction all the way down?

The first problem is that a floor falling 20-30 feet onto another would not pulverize either floor into fine dust. Secondly, whether it did or didn't, it wouldn't cause a chain reaction all the way down, certainly not an ACCELERATING chain reaction into the path of most resistance. Thirdly, there were never any floors in a big pile at the bottom anyway, which is what happens during pancaking. There was just dust and shredded steel.

The pancaking theory seems to rely on the assumption that the upper floors somehow stayed mostly intact all the way down.

Nothing appeared to stay intact all the way down, rather everything just disintegrated in a "disintegration wave" running down the towers at free-fall acceleration.

I guess they could have, if they were huge slabs of solid steel.

The floors were composed of steel "floor pans," several feet of steel-reinforced concrete, and usual floor coverings such as tile, carpet, etc.

The government abandoned "pancaking" after it didn't fly, so I doubt there is any use in us thrashing it out since it is no longer the officially-sanctioned explanation. But Maccilia is welcome to give it a shot if he wants, I guess.

You claim to be a Structural Engineer yet you do not know the properties of steel-reinforced concrete itself? That stuff is rather bendy but once it reaches its limit, the whole setup shatters and sprays sand and cement all over, leaving a sizable gap in the structure.

So kharma is asking why this would happen if it didn't happen by the planes?

Let's turn this around. I guess you are saying that thousands of tons of concrete suddenly pulverized into fine dust because of the planes? In one case, roughly 45 minutes after a tower was hit, and in another case, roughly 1.3 hours? And in a 3rd case (Building 7), a plane never hit it, so... ???

Fine, you've got my attention. So explain this please? I'm waiting.

You claim to be a Structural Engineer yet you do not know the properties of steel-reinforced concrete itself? That stuff is rather bendy but once it reaches its limit, the whole setup shatters and sprays sand and cement all over, leaving a sizable gap in the structure.

Great. So what theory are you espousing (pancaking?), and exactly what are you saying? For instance, are you claiming that a floor fell 30 feet onto another floor, both pulverized into dust, then that dust crashed onto another floor, causing it to turn into dust, all the way down? Or are you saying something else? Don't keep us waiting in suspense here - explain what happened.

And for the record, I didn't claim to be a structural engineer. I claimed to be an engineer (didn't say what kind) who worked in the structural engineering group of an engineering firm, doing structural engineering work. But please - I don't consider this to be important to the discussion. This was only brought up because some clown told me "go take some structural engineering classes," and I responded that I have not only taken structural engineering classes, I have done structural engineering work. Just pretend I'm a bum, who's only job is laying in an alley drinking booze.

Quoting -RAISTLIN-,

reply 44

and we're all still waiting for kharma's explanation...

I tell you what happened. First of all, the floors on fire did pancake and took out the few floors below it which left the structure unable to hold the weight of the structure above. Once that support went, you had one big frigging wrecking ball that plunged straight down the middle the of the towers which pulverized the concrete. This "dustification" is nothing more that hundreds of shattering concrete boulders constantly slamming into each other on the way down while the outside concrete support bended past their limits and shattering. The reason you didn't see any pancaked floors because the boulders tore them up.

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

This is NOT a "collapse!"

Quit referring to it as such!