Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular.
I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected. There are some strange and dangerous people in America, but not in sufficient concentration for this one. They couldn’t even keep Watergate quiet, and that was a small group. Any group I can think of – even Blackwater – would contain operatives with scruples about blowing up New York. They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.
I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling. The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable.
The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.
I admit to a private speculation about WTC7. Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt. I recall vividly that in London some years ago a tragedy occurred when a simple gas oven explosion brought down the whole side of a tower block.
The inquiry found that the building contractor had simply omitted the ties that bound the girders at the corners, all encased in concrete. If a gas oven had not blown up, nobody would have found out. Buildings I strongly suspect are very often not as strong as they are supposed to be, with contractors skimping on apparently redundant protection. The sort of sordid thing you might not want too deeply investigated in the event of a national tragedy.
Precisely what happened at the Pentagon I am less sure. There is not the conclusive film and photographic evidence that there is for New York. I am particularly puzzled by the much more skilled feat of flying that would be required to hit a building virtually at ground level, in an urban area, after a lamppost clipping route – very hard to see how a non-professional pilot did that. But I can think of a number of possible scenarios where the official explanation is not quite the whole truth on the Pentagon, but which do not necessitate a belief that the US government or Dick Cheney was behind the attack.
In my view the real scandal of 9/11 was that it was blowback – the product of a malignant terrorist agency whose origins lay in CIA funding and provision. Also blowback in a more general sense that it was spawned in the nasty theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia which is so close to the US and to the Bush dynasty in particular. As with almost all terrorist activity, I do not rule out any point on the whole spectrum of surveillance, penetration and agent provocateur activity by any number of possible actors.
But was 9/11 false flag and controlled demolition? No, I think not.
(Now I have given full opportunity to discuss 9/11 here, any further references on other threads will be instantly deleted).
Craig Murray, what a disappointment you are. Goodbye.
“” at July 2, 2010 12:55 PM,
that link doesn’t work. Try this one:
http://tv.globalresearch.ca/content/israeli-spy-ring-part-2
Angrysoba,
if you do continue your discussion with MJ here, please try to include fewer cynical remarks, as I find they hinder me from following your argument. And I’m curious as to what “DRG” is, too!
DRG = David Ray Griffin
Terry McDermott was shown the flight manifests by the FBI, I believe. (In fact, I think I wrote that in my post so I don’t know why you said “Am I the only one curious to know where he got them from?”)
“DRG = David Ray Griffin”
Oh I see. Silly me, should have worked that out. It may come as a surprise to learn that I’ve never read him.
“Terry McDermott was shown the flight manifests by the FBI”
Yes I know you said that, but it’s just the kind of sloppy chain of provenance that sets the alarm bells ringing. The underlying point of the question is: where did the FBI get them from in the first place? If from the airlines then it should clearly say so. If it did, would that make them susceptible to a FOIA request? Just a thought.
Off topic.
MJ
Thought you would like to know about this, along with a few others.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16180
Just checking in again… does anyone have a serious response to my post on momentum? I mean, it’s not such a rarefied field that one can claim it’s too complex to grasp without special training. Anyone capable of following a reasoned argument is capable of understanding it.
Until one has answered that, should they claim to be genuinely open minded, they have no business believing the government line – and are intellectually dishonest in pretending otherwise.
The best counter so far is Soba’s analogy of bowling balls suspended on pieces of paper, which assumes the structure of the building was that flimsy, and entirely ignores inertia and observed accumulated velocity. But at least he had a go.
*
In case any newcomer wants to have a go, please respond to my post of ‘January 28, 2010 11:05 PM’ – this negates the Official Story by way of a most basic explanation of physics, and unless refuted in any meaningful way, means that an entirely different explanation for the destruction of the Twin Towers is required. That fact might be too horrifying to contemplate, but it does not alter the fact.
Glenn, as you’re promoting your thesis as the ultimate in debunking the “official story” I thought I’d ask a few people how it stood up to scrutiny. Here’s the response by one person:
“…We are expected to believe that as it suddenly (with a flash) lost all its structure and fell onto the floor below, …”
—-It doesn’t matter at all if the top section above the burning floors lost all their support in a flash or somewhat gradually. All that matters is that a cross-section of the tower crashed (columns/joints buckling and breaking) and the top section picking up some speed as it is accelerated by gravity.—-
“…how does each new floor suddenly assume the accumulated velocity of the falling floors above?”
—-Strawman. It doesn not assume the speed, it assumes the momentum, thereby losing some speed (as some of the mass starts out at rest)—-
“We’re talking about a progressively heavy core structure (it having been built to bear the weight of the entire structure above, at each stage). So why did it not _substantially_ arrest the downward motion?”
—-As lower stories became progressively heavy (and strong), so did the weight and the speed of the already falling top part accumulate. So while the static strength of the lower stories increased basically in a linear function, the momentum of the fall increased basically with a function that contains a power of 2 – momentum increased faster than resisting static force.—-
“As Frank Verismo points out, a great deal of the mass was pulverised in any case, so the full weight of the above sections were dispersed each time a new floor was reached by the downward progression.”
—-When we are looking at conservation of momentum, it doesn’t matter if the mass you want to arrest is already pulverized or still structurally intact. If you want to arrest the collapse, you need to arrest the downward momentum of all the masses involved, as it wouldn’t do much good to stop the intact parts and let the pulverized parts keep falling (all the way).—-
“How did the really heavy mid to lower sections suddenly start moving at the same pace as the falling upper sections, unless they were offering _virtually no resistance at all_ – unless they were already falling themselves immediately before the progression hit them.”
—-Because the dynamic load of n upper stories at velovity v with mass m is magnitudes greater than the static load these mid to lower sections were designed to carry. They were designed to excert the upward force of several (3-5?) times the weight of all the floors above, but to arrest these floors within the short distance that the columns still remain elastic would require a force much more than 10 times the weight.—-
“The towers did not come down quite at free-fall speed, but it was not far off it. It was way too close to free-fall acceleration to believe even for a moment than a substantial structure of increasing strength was being crushed by the powdered remains of the floors above.”
—-Towers came down around 2/3rds of free fall speed which actually is a considerable distance off.
Plus Argument from incredulity.—-
“If the motion was entirely downwards, with no other force than downward gravity operating after collapse was initiated, why do we see massive steel girders ejected out laterally for hundreds of feet? Why did tiny body parts (sections of finger, etc.) appear on rooftops hundreds of yards away?”
—-Drop a paper bag full with assorted things (screws, tomatoes, marbles, toys) from your upper floor down onto your terrace. Watch what happens. See how some of the things are flung sideways?—-
“In standard building collapses, one would find at least a few things intact. A chair, a monitor, something. How come the biggest items found were fragments of telephone keypads?”
—-Twin Towers were non-standard building collapses. They were just so very much bigger than anything we’ve seen so far. Potential energy of one tower, just standing erect, equals that of a formidable nuke. That is as much “standard building collapse” as Hiroshima was “standard bombing”.—-
“Look at the column on the last picture on this page: How did it acquire that precise cut, consistent with a controlled demolition?
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/thermite.htm ”
—-As has been pointed out before: Welcome to the dark ages of trutherism.—-
(Poster EDx writes: “lol he promotes the thermal lance cut column picture as evidence of thermite lol.”
“But back to conservation of momentum. Inertia dictates that a mass will not suddenly assume the velocity of the moving object falling onto it, even if it is so tenuously structured that a feather falling onto it would initiate its collapse. In this case, we are talking about an increasing substantial structure the further down the building we go. Yet it offered little more resistance than fresh air on the day of 9/11.”
—-Increasing substantial structure met even faster increasing momentum the further down the building we go.—-
MJ, you will also be pleased to know I have emailed Terry McDermott who has kindly replied about your questions. In fact, he says he tracked down the flight manifests himself and that they came straight from the airlines (although he suggests a more circuitous route). He says he did apply for an FOIA request from the FBI and that long after the book was published copies of the very same manifests arrived. I have asked him if I can reproduce his emails but he hasn’t replied to that yet and I’m not going to publish private correspondence without his permission.
angrysoba: sterling work contacting McDermott. I’m happy to proceed on the presumption that the manifests as published in 2005 are accurate and confirm that the alleged hijackers did indeed board planes that morning.
Regarding the buildings:
“it doesn’t matter if the mass you want to arrest is already pulverized or still structurally intact”.
It certainly matter does if much of the pulverised mass is no longer bearing down on the lower floors and instead is being diffused outwards and upwards into the air, as the videos clearly show was the case in this instance.
Hello Angry,
Jolly decent of you to take the time, may I respond to your responses.
glenn: “… We are expected to believe that as it suddenly (with a flash)lost all its structure and fell onto the floor below, …”
Angry: —-It doesn’t matter at all if the top section above the burning floors lost all their support in a flash or somewhat gradually. All that matters is that a cross-section of the tower crashed (columns/joints buckling and breaking) and the top section picking up some speed as it is accelerated by gravity.—-
Actually, it’s rather surprising to see such a large flash! But apart of that waving aside of an awkward observation, your mate added nothing to the discussion there.
glenn: “… how does each new floor suddenly assume the accumulated velocity of the falling floors above?”
Angry: —-Strawman. It doesn not assume the speed, it assumes the momentum, thereby losing some speed (as some of the mass starts out at rest)—-
Strawman my arse. If it did _not_ assume the speed, how does your mate account for the fact that we saw acceleration at virtually free-fall speed, which was the actual point? Slippery customer, this mate of yours.
glenn: “We’re talking about a progressively heavy core structure (it having been built to bear the weight of the entire structure above, at each stage). So why did it not _substantially_ arrest the downward motion?”
Angry: —-As lower stories became progressively heavy (and strong), so did the weight and the speed of the already falling top part accumulate. So while the static strength of the lower stories increased basically in a linear function, the momentum of the fall increased basically with a function that contains a power of 2 – momentum increased faster than resisting static force.—-
Ahem, your mate really needs to stop blowing smoke, and explain why the progression was not _substantially_ arrested. Your learned friend also forgets that a major component of that structure mysteriously turned into fine powder on the way down, so the momentum (weight x speed) of the falling structure was not accumulating to anything approaching the extent he pretends.
glenn:”As Frank Verismo points out, a great deal of the mass was pulverised in any case, so the full weight of the above sections were dispersed each time a new floor was reached by the downward progression.”
Angry: —-When we are looking at conservation of momentum, it doesn’t matter if the mass you want to arrest is already pulverized or still structurally intact. If you want to arrest the collapse, you need to arrest the downward momentum of all the masses involved, as it wouldn’t do much good to stop the intact parts and let the pulverized parts keep falling (all the way).—-
Huh! For crying out loud, that pulverised structure was billowing out over half of Manhattan, not neatly falling in a vacuum tube! Has your mate observed that under real-world conditions, dust doesn’t fall quite the same way as bricks? Jesus!
glenn: “How did the really heavy mid to lower sections suddenly start moving at the same pace as the falling upper sections, unless they were offering _virtually no resistance at all_ – unless they were already falling themselves immediately before the progression hit them.”
Angry: —-Because the dynamic load of n upper stories at velovity v with mass m is magnitudes greater than the static load these mid to lower sections were designed to carry. They were designed to excert the upward force of several (3-5?) times the weight of all the floors above, but to arrest these floors within the short distance that the columns still remain elastic would require a force much more than 10 times the weight.—-
Your mate has explained why the floors might have collapsed, not why they magically assumed the speed of the falling upper section without slowing it down. Is your mate fond of answering his preferred question to that asked?
glenn: “The towers did not come down quite at free-fall speed, but it was not far off it. It was way too close to free-fall acceleration to believe even for a moment than a substantial structure of increasing strength was being crushed by the powdered remains of the floors above.”
Angry: —-Towers came down around 2/3rds of free fall speed which actually is a considerable distance off. Plus Argument from incredulity.—-
Being incredulous at an explanation is not proof that the explanation in question is correct, you know. The precise time is difficult to say, because the base was surrounded by a plume of dust that your mate thinks is entirely pressing downwards on the structure (and in a neat column). It goes no way to altering the fact that a mild slowing (which I freely allowed for) is far removed from what we observed.
Think about your famous bowling balls, AS – would you expect it to fall to the bottom of a deep lake almost as fast (2/3rds, say) as it would through the air? No? Do you think the structure of the towers should have offered even the resistance of water?
glenn: “If the motion was entirely downwards, with no other force than downward gravity operating after collapse was initiated, why do we see massive steel girders ejected out laterally for hundreds of feet? Why did tiny body parts (sections of finger, etc.) appear on rooftops hundreds of yards away?”
Angry:—-Drop a paper bag full with assorted things (screws, tomatoes, marbles, toys) from your upper floor down onto your terrace. Watch what happens. See how some of the things are flung sideways?—-
Your mate is an idiot. If I dropped a sack full of _heavy_ bolts which are not going to be blown around by the wind, they’ll land pretty much below where they are dropped. What made the 40-ton steel girders of the Twin Towers go laterally with such substantial energy – brownian motion, perhaps?
glenn: “In standard building collapses, one would find at least a few things intact. A chair, a monitor, something. How come the biggest items found were fragments of telephone keypads?”
Angry:—-Twin Towers were non-standard building collapses. They were just so very much bigger than anything we’ve seen so far. Potential energy of one tower, just standing erect, equals that of a formidable nuke. That is as much “standard building collapse” as Hiroshima was “standard bombing”.—-
Oh, crap. I’ll agree on one thing – this was non-standard. But the idea that _nothing_ substantial survived due to this hand-waving explanation is weak to say the least. Is this guy supposed to be a scientist? He should be ashamed of himself, pretending potential energy was neatly converted into lossless explosive energy to pulverise everything.
glenn:”Look at the column on the last picture on this page: How did it acquire that precise cut, consistent with a controlled demolition?
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/thermite.htm ”
Angry:—-As has been pointed out before: Welcome to the dark ages of trutherism.—-
Angry: (Poster EDx writes: “lol he promotes the thermal lance cut column picture as evidence of thermite lol.”
Uh huh. Do you usually have firemen hanging around like that when a demolition clearance is well underway? So these lance-cutter boys had rushed in (not bothering to clear a path), cut a bunch of core columns (why?), and rushed off again why firemen were still scratching their chins at the sight? Uh huh.
glenn: “But back to conservation of momentum. Inertia dictates that a mass will not suddenly assume the velocity of the moving object falling onto it, even if it is so tenuously structured that a feather falling onto it would initiate its collapse. In this case, we are talking about an increasing substantial structure the further down the building we go. Yet it offered little more resistance than fresh air on the day of 9/11.”
Angry: —-Increasing substantial structure met even faster increasing momentum the further down the building we go.—-
Which might have achieved some equilibrium what with losing all that structure mass to powder, flying girders an’ all, but your mate ignores the point entirely, and is blowing smoke yet again. There is absolutely no way the falling structure would make the floors below assume the VELOCITY (and not just the momentum) and continue the progression.
*
Nice try, maybe worth 2.5/10 and it might even pass as plausible to someone completely ignorant about physics, but please get better help than this if you seriously want to refute my argument on momentum.
But thank you again for taking the time. I admire your doggedness in sticking up for the Official Story through thick and very, very thin.
The above was me, btw.
Btw, Angry, how long do you think it’ll take for you to relay my reply back to your mates at forums.randi.org, for them to make their various replies, and then for you to compile them all again?
Why are you so utterly uncritical of _their_ replies, while the knee-jerk thing happens for you at every word from an Official Story doubter?
One last thing puzzles me… and you can ask them this (fully attributed, if you don’t mind!)… doesn’t your nauseating obsequiousness bother them there at all, or do they actually get off on it?
“Btw, Angry, how long do you think it’ll take for you to relay my reply back to your mates at forums.randi.org, for them to make their various replies, and then for you to compile them all again?
Why are you so utterly uncritical of _their_ replies, while the knee-jerk thing happens for you at every word from an Official Story doubter?
One last thing puzzles me… and you can ask them this (fully attributed, if you don’t mind!)… doesn’t your nauseating obsequiousness bother them there at all, or do they actually get off on it?”
Fuck you, Glenn! I told you before I am not participating in the arguments over the actual collapse mechanism of the towers because I am not qualified to talk about it (unlike your good self, of course). But if you are interested in defending your theory you can do so here:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=180207
I know, of course, that you will not. So both sides can declare victory and everyone will be happy.
Hmmm… I think I see what’s happened here. You must have cut and pasted that response in to Google and been annoyed by the discussion you read. I can’t otherwise work out why the sudden shift in tone. Given that it was you who wanted the conversation to be respectful it doesn’t help you to say words to the effect of “lets discuss this rationally without resort to ad hominem attacks, you ignorant arselicking government lackey!”
If this is the case I’ll retract the “Fuck you, Glenn!” and you can retract the “nauseatingly obsequious” label.
Still, it is obvious that there is a massive miscommunication going on between those imagining completely different scenarios who seem to be unable to see what the other person is talking about.
One example is this: “We are expected to believe that as it suddenly (with a flash)
lost all its structure and fell onto the floor below”
I’m confused about whether you are talking about the “flash” as being a literal “flash” of light or, as the debunker interprets it, to mean the same as “suddenly”. (If it is the former then it distracts from the discussion of “conservation of momentum” so it should be left aside for now).
The second thing is this: “Look at the column on the last picture on this page: How did it
acquire that precise cut, consistent with a controlled demolition?
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/thermite.htm ”
This isn’t useful to your argument because the “precise cut” is also quite consistent with the cuts made by the clean-up crews AFTER the collapse of the towers. I thought about editing it out because it has no relevance to conservation of momentum and it tends to draw too much attention away from the main topic.
Paging Glenn…paging Glenn. Please pick up the white courtesy phone..
Glenn…this is an anonymous tip. Your correspondant Angrysoba can be found at the following address….
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=180207&page=4
Hey Angry,
Yes, I admit to getting a bit ticked at having our discussion posted on some site like that behind my back, and your cherry-picking the bits which agreed with your government line.
The “There’s this totally, sad, idiotic conspiracy nut who thinks… ” introduction to my post to set up as withering a bunch of responses you could get (paraphrased slightly, perhaps) was a bit irking. The manner in which you gratefully accepted without question answers from this bunch, is somewhat at odds with the barely contained fury you show us Official Story sceptics. Doubtless you found insufficient time to read anything except favourable answers.
I thought I was discussing with people here, and maybe someone they’d asked, not an entire forum’s worth of cherry-picked responses (which had ran up scores of replies) to my original post.
You invite me to go there and discuss it with them. That’s very kind of you, but I don’t generally enjoy the self-congratulatory company of a bunch of what I believe Americans call “circle-jerks”. Why don’t I invite some hard-core sceptics along here, to surreptitiously answer your points? Why not sit back and just watch them debate each other?
A do also appreciate your invitation to remove all distracting side points, and boil the whole thing down to one sentence maybe. Then we could have _that_ turned into a vague debate. So every objection to the Offical Story is whittled down to a single “On the one hand, but on the other… ” category of a possibly debatable, but utterly unimportant, point. I could then have a consolatory hand placed on my shoulder, be gently let down from my anxious state, and told in an adult to child fashion that it’s All Just As The Government Says.
I’m familiar with that game. Trouble is, just about every aspect of the Official Story is so ludicrous, you yourself would have to employ just 10% of that famous scepticism of yours in order to be outraged at these lies we’re expected to swallow, at every smallest point of it.
Only that’s not your bag at all, for reasons known best to yourself.
*
ok – let’s discuss the tone and reset things again, if we may. What you did was a tad underhand, and I find your entirely partisan approach to this subject very much at odds with your claim to be open minded. You have no open mind on this subject – one side is 100% full of idiots, the other is 100% full of clear minded observers of the obvious truth. If that’s the way you gather evidence to decide a point, I don’t know why you don’t save yourself a lot of trouble by just skipping a step, and decide it based on your initial prejudice. Even more puzzling is why you want to spend so much time arguing a point based on such uneven gathering of evidence, yet with a large need to see yourself and be seen as an impartial.
So yes – I was ticked upon finding that my post was being dissected on the quiet, so that I could be suddenly presented with “I asked a few people”, and sandbagged with your cherry-picking. I have to say, they didn’t do so well, and I’d have taken my time in replying (especially with regard to the format – it’s really not very readable, should I redo it?) if I’d known you’d gone to so much effort, and that I was replying to so many people. You should have said.
And I’m sorry to have been rather unflattering in my description of your relationship with that group. It was terminology which I’d rather not have used for a respected correspondent which – no kidding – you are to me. So my apologies, you deserve more respect than that.
*
(Btw – a typo in my all too hurried reply. My last sentence to your sixth point read:
It goes no way to altering the fact that a mild slowing (which I freely allowed for) is far removed from what we observed.
It _should_ have read:
It goes no way to altering the fact that a mild slowing (which I freely allowed for) is far removed from what we should have observed.
*
Maybe I should write the whole thing out again for clarity. So in conclusion… I’m keen to hear from Team AngrySoba. “team” glenn here over-and-out.
I published an article on my own blog about Craig Murray and 9-11, before I was made aware of this page.
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2010/07/19/dear-craig-murray-please-explain-wtc-7/
Responses welcome, especially from Craig.
Hello Glenn,
I’m Tom. Nice to meet you.
I’m one of “those JREF guys”. Sorry that you don’t seem to think the world of us. I’ll try to struggle thru. Somehow…
If you wish, I’ll offer replies to your direct questions.
(My first reply has gone into limbo. So I’ll break it up into smaller chunks. My apologies if this ends up a repeat.)
Right off the bat, I’m not particularly angry. So I won’t be getting into any name-calling.
Nor will I get dragged into interminable debate. I’ll state my case. I’ll address your comments. Briefly. If you choose to not accept what I say, that’s fine with me.
I am an old fart mechanical engineer, however. Under the BEST of circumstances, non-engineers consider us pompous & arrogant.
When we are sure about something, we frequently say things like “you’re wrong.” And “that’s pretty stupid.” We don’t consider these insults. Simply statements of facts.
I assume that you’re mature enough to not turn “that (i.e., “what you just said”) is stupid” into “you just called ME stupid”. If not, this will be a short encounter.
BTW, if I’m sure about something, I’ll say “You’re wrong.” If not, I’ll say “I think you’re wrong”.
I make mistakes, too. If you point out one of mine, I’ll happily say “I was wrong”. No skin off my nose.
End of the intro.
If you’re interested, I’ll try to politely answer some of your questions.
Tom
“I’ll try to politely answer some of your questions.”
Gee, thanks – the patronising approach now. People consider you pompous and arrogant, do they? Wonder where they get that from.
But why this unmerited act of charity? Why not leave us alone with our foolish delusions? Aren’t we harmless?
Anyway, I’m afraid you’re not an engineer if you’re anonymous – you could be Randi’s chauffeur for all we know. Real name and checkable credentials please – your expertise, so selflessy proferred, will be ignored if it can’t be checked.
A JREFer, eh? Has your hero recovered financially yet from his lost lawsuits with Uri Geller? And why did Randi resign from CSICOP? And why did Dennis Rawlins resign from CSICOP, and what was Randi’s role in the affair?
So there are some questions for you. If you’re a JREFer, you’re no rationalist.
http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html
glenn,
Ahh, I see the depth of your sincerity, objectivity, and allegiance to “the truth”.
Put your fingers back in your ears. Retreat behind your wall of ignorance. Waste another decade.
C’ya.
___
The “Truth Movement” is basically dead. The vast majority of people have seen its incompetence, insanity, angry young man, political & trinket-selling profit motive.
But if there are still a couple of honest folks out there who are looking for a few answers, this is what I’d suggest.
For a thinking person, this is not an exercise in structural engineering, metallurgy, fire dynamics, aeronautics, or any other tech field.
It is an exercise in epistemology.
How does an intelligent honest person find out the truth about a complex situation outside their field?
For example, whether or not to have a brain tumor removed. You’re getting conflicting advised. What do you do?
You have two options.
1. The hard way: Try to figure it out yourself by enrolling in med school & specializing in oncology.
2. The easy way: Leverage the experience & knowledge of the experts. And, when they answer your questions, listen to them.
One way takes 20 years. The other can be done in a couple of days.
All the standard epistemological caveats apply. Multiple opinions, lots of questions, etc.
You’ll find out that, in the engineering world, there are two great hegemonies: fields in which the vast majority of experts firmly agree. And fields in which the experts disagree.
Please note two things carefully:
1. There is no place (not even “the world if flat”) in which ALL experts in any field agree. There are occasionally strange folk who managed to get thru school. Perverse contrarianism, charlatanism and simple mental illness do not spare any field, including engineering.
2. There is no place here for the opinions of amateurs. They don’t count.
And this is precisely what you will find as the foundation of the Truth Movement: Amateurs feeding nonsense to other (credulous) amateurs.
The real engineering profession has long, long since rendered its verdict. The report done by NIST was excellent. It is not perfect. But its evidence, methods & conclusions are compelling.
And serious engineers have public healthy arguments on some details. But there is no serious debate that “maybe it was a controlled demolition”.
Anyone watching the circus will please note that, if Gage, Jones, Harrit, et al. really wanted to gain credibility for their theories, then the place that they’d take them is in front of a panel of the most experienced, most expert engineers that they could find.
It is highly revealing that that is the absolute last place that they will ever appear. They know that they’d get laughed out of the room in minutes.
Instead, they peddle their wares to credulous kids and conspiracy theorists. They blog the internet.
And, like glenn, shut up & stick their fingers in their ears if anyone with a background shows up.
If anyone other than glenn is interested, if anyone else is even reading this, and wants an explanation to any of the big picture engineering items, post a comment. I’ll check back periodically. If I can answer, I will. If not, I’ll try to direct you to a competent source.
Tom
“If anyone other than glenn is interested, if anyone else is even reading this”
‘tomk’ hasn’t read Vronsky at July 24, 2010 8:25 AM?
Or is he avoiding him?
“glenn Ahh, I see the depth of your sincerity, objectivity, and allegiance to “the truth”.”
If you knew glenn, you’d know that he probably has no idea that you posted here. I should warn you that your sarcasm won’t take you far in this forum. It didn’t do much for Larry, another American who attempted to patronise.
“There are occasionally strange folk who managed to get thru school. Perverse contrarianism, charlatanism and simple mental illness do not spare any field, including engineering.”
Maybe that’s why Vronsky wants to know your credentials.
“Leverage the experience & knowledge of the experts. And, when they answer your questions, listen to them.”
Ah, but even in oncology, doctors differ and patients die. 🙂
dreoilin,
___
dreoilin: ‘tomk’ hasn’t read Vronsky at July 24, 2010 8:25 AM?
tomk:
Ahhh, my bad.
Since I directed my first post directly to glenn, I made the bad assumption that it was glenn that had replied.
Glenn, my apologies.
_____
dreoilin: Or is he avoiding him?
tomk: I didn’t (intentionally) ignore Mr/Ms Vronsky in the slightest. Just misaddressed the mail. The first paragraph of my reply (above) was directed to Vronsky. Not to glenn.
With his attitude, I won’t be “avoiding” Mr. V. I’ll be ignoring him.
_____
dreoilin: I should warn you that your sarcasm won’t take you far in this forum. It didn’t do much for Larry, another American who attempted to patronise.
tomk: Thank you very much for your solicitous advice.
I don’t know Larry, either. Hopefully, with lots of counseling, Larry will be able to survive the dark depression that inevitably follows chastisement from anonymous internet posters.
You were saying something about “sarcasm”…?
_____
dreoilin: … another American who attempted to patronise.
tomk:
Re: “American”. Wrong attribution. It’s not “an American” thing. It’s “an old school engineer” thing.
Re: “patronize”. (by the spelling of your choice, of course.)
If someone insists that 2+4=123, is it patronizing to say, “you’re wrong. 2+4=6”?
If they insist that they can quote “experts” that say 2+4=123, is it patronizing to say, “your ‘experts’ are quacks”?
What is the proper level of respect & deference paid to someone who, in spite of efforts to enlighten him, has been repeating “2+4=123” for nine years?
I specifically offered to answer some questions for Glenn, because he post a list of them here: Glenn at July 14, 2010 8:23 PM
Strewn within his questions were comments such as:
“… [the building] suddenly … lost all its structure …”
“… acceleration at virtually free-fall speed …”
“… [the lower sections] were offering _virtually no resistance at all_ …”
To anyone with even a remedial understanding of structures, these comments are the equivalent of “2+4=123”.
You are welcome to consider me patronizing for “not allowing the possibility that ‘2+4=123’.”
Like Larry, my ego & I will both survive.
Somehow …
_____
dreoilin: Maybe that’s why Vronsky wants to know your credentials.
tomk: He didn’t ask for my credentials. He asked for my identity. Which he is not getting. Stupid people reveal their identity on the internet.
Mama drowned the dumb ones.
My credentials are: BS Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University, early 70s. 36 years as a successful working project engineer & product design engineer. That’s all you need. That’s what you’re going to get.
If this conversation continues, my explanations will serve as my credentials. If that’s not good enough for you, or anyone else, that’s just fine with me.
_____
dreoilin: Ah, but even in oncology, doctors differ and patients die. 🙂
tomk: That is exactly right. Due, in large measure, to the fact that medicine is, to the 90th percentile, art. Not science.
Engineering is different.
And, in this case, COMPETENT engineers do not differ.
Regards,
tom
Shame you can’t read, tomk. I suggest you look carefully at who’s posting in future.
>”If someone insists that 2+4=123, is it patronizing to say, “you’re wrong. 2+4=6″?”
And where has that happened since you arrived here? I was referring to your tone when you addressed “glenn” (as you thought.)
>”Wrong attribution. It’s not “an American” thing.”
I didn’t say it was. I said Larry was another American who attempted to patronise. Is that clear? ANOTHER American, see?
>”(by the spelling of your choice, of course)”
Are you making some point with that? Or just farting around?
>”He didn’t ask for my credentials. He asked for my identity.”
‘Real name and checkable credentials please’ –Vronsky
If this is going to be the level of your debate with Glenn, I don’t think anyone is going to be very interested, tomk. We have more exacting standards here.
>”That is exactly right. Due, in large measure, to the fact that medicine is, to the 90th percentile, art. Not science.
>Engineering is different.”
(See what I mean about standards?) Shame you gave the example of oncology then, honey, since you’ve had to change horses already. Oncology is not “art”, by the way, but that has nothing to do with 9/11. Be more careful in your lectures in future, and pick suitable examples for your homilies on ‘epistemology’.
Hello tomk, just checked back into this thread. Thank you for responding. If you have something to say, I’d be delighted to address it! I don’t believe you have said anything to counter my arguments as yet, but the thread is yet young.
And likewise, I’m not someone who takes these things personally. No insult intended… although, if you were the fellow who suggested dropping a paper bag of tomatoes, nails etc. from up high encounter the same phenomenon as blasted apart the Twin Towers (thus explaining away how tiny human parts were found hundreds of yards away, and massive girders flung some distance), I’d appreciate your detailing on how that happened.
I’m impartial, and only interested in the truth (I’m not religious!).
Let’s discuss then, but please let’s not go through a repetition of the usual stuff that Official Story apologists trot out, eh? Please see the earlier posts for all the usual crap, which led my clearly desperate correspondent Angry-Sober to get you on the case.
Howdy Glenn,
Nice to meet ‘cha.
You posted several questions above. I’ll just address the engineering (or aviation) ones.
I’ll take just a couple at a time.
The first point is one that you did not specifically ask, but is one of the most commonly asked questions.
“Why did 3 skyscrapers fall from fire alone, when several other skyscrapers have burned (some seemingly more intense than WTC 1, 2 or 7) and did not collapse?”
Answer: Different answers for WTC 1&2 versus WTC7.
WTC 1 & 2: Buildings that have not suffered the massive physical damage of WTC 1 & 2 are at similar stress levels to the “as built” condition, & need to have their supports raised to (depending on the unique design) about 600 – 800
`Paying Attention to 9/11 Related News`
http://911blogger.com/news/2009-12-12/carlyle-kissinger-saic-and-halliburton-911-convergence
“My credentials are: BS Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University, early 70s. 36 years as a successful working project engineer & product design engineer.”
I totally believe the ‘BS’ bit. Summa cum laude, no doubt.
V,
tomk: “My credentials are: BS Mechanical Engineering, Cornell University, early 70s. 36 years as a successful working project engineer & product design engineer.”
Vronsky: “I totally believe the ‘BS’ bit. Summa cum laude, no doubt.”
___
In two posts, I’ve made numerous points.
And the very best that you can do …
… is to immediately call me a “liar”.
Thank you, V.
Your reply is extremely revealing regarding your abject lack of substantial argument.
I won’t take your childishness as a sad representation of the current state of British etiquette.
Tom
PS. Exactly which of my statements did you find offended your mechanical engineering expertise?
PPS. May I enquire as to your credentials that enabled your conclusion? I take it, something related to math…
PPS. Regarding your comment @ February 27, 2010 9:47 AM
“For anyone who can take a little light mathematics, here is a very succinct proof that the towers could not have fallen as a result of fire and gravity. [Reference to Chandler paper].”
I think that you’d better look up the word “proof”. Show me where it starts out, “find an abject amateur to do a bogus analysis completely outside his realm of experience…”
Mr. Chandler, a high school physics teacher, (“Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach. Those that really can’t, teach teenagers.” And old saying, embodying the antagonism between academia & industry. One with which I do not completely agree.), with PRECISELY zero background in structural engineering or in the analysis of collapsing buildings, issues a 3rd rate paper, which would have gotten him an “F” grade in my freshman engineering class …
… and you advertise it as “proof”…?!
Let me ask you a couple of questions:
1. Any engineer (or engineering student) can tell you immediately why it would not have been accepted as a freshman level lab report. Are you able to do so? I politely informed Mr. Chandler of this lack when he put out his first paper on this subject. It surprises me not in the least to see that, over 2 years later, he’s done nothing to correct this massive flaw.
2. What law of physics do you believe says that the north wall of WTC7 could not have fallen at (or even above) an acceleration equal to “g”? Please explain why.
“What law of physics do you believe says that the north wall of WTC7 could not have fallen at (or even above) an acceleration equal to “g”? ”
You think that it would not be unnatural for something to fall at an acceleration above g? And you want us to believe you’re an engineer? God, you’re barely literate.