Occam's razor & Coincidence theorists

Originally posted by diggs
Each floor is designed to support the floor above it.

Actually that is a totally wrong representation of the tower's structural system.

You might be able to argue that position for a typical, box grid, curtain wall building, but the WTC towers were a totally different type of structural system.

The individual floors slabs had little do to with each other. They transfered their loads to the exterior and core columns which supported the building.

That being said, the floors slabs did however play a critical role in the structure. they provided stiffness and stability against buckling to the exterior columns by pinning them in place every 12 feet.

When the floor slabs in the impact and subsequent fire floor zone began to sag and fail, the exterior columns were robbed of this critical stability.

They buckled, and the building collapsed.

Originally posted by HowardRoark

All WTC debate has been moved to the WTC threads.

Btw, care to attempt to answer the main question on this thread?

"At what point do coincidences cease being coincidences and become conspiracy?"

Originally posted by Wizy

have you been around every single structure fire since the dawn of time?

I should of said no steel building has had a total collapse due to fire. And to your question. The answer is no. I didn't have to be around since the dawn of time and besides, steel structures have only been around 100 years or so. It's a known FACT that a total collapse of a steel building due to fire has never happened. I don't know how to make that any more clearer or how to make you understand that.

And the WTC towers were unique in building and design, so how would you know that steel wouldn't be affected by fire the way it did? Were you part of the design and engineering team?

Care to explain your credentials?

My credentials go like this:
I have above average intelligence. I watch and observe the world and take things in(I'm constantly learning) instead of projecting my image onto the world(not learning). I learned the hard way about 13 years back that you cannot trust authority or people in power. I understand American history and I know what this government is capable of doing.

If you want to stay ignorant that's your prerogative, but eventually truth will have to come out. When the sheet hits the fan you are the one that's going to go wacko(loco) because you choose ignorance over truth. The truth is too much for you to handle.


By the way, what do you think about movies like Syrianna, Munich, The Quiet American, etc.? Have you seen any of these films? Or do you think all films are pure fiction? Do you like the fact that governments work in secrecy to "protect you"?

You need to buy a clue Wizy.

Originally posted by diggs
"At what point do coincidences cease being coincidences and become conspiracy?"

I think you'll find the naysayers wont answer that question. Though I hope I'm wrong. I'd be curious to see the answers given.

Originally posted by loam

Originally posted by diggs
"At what point do coincidences cease being coincidences and become conspiracy?"

I think you'll find the naysayers wont answer that question. Though I hope I'm wrong. I'd be curious to see the answers given.

Wizy did. He said you can have "thousands" of coincidences without it being a conspiracy! LoL

I'll attempt an answer at it, too (much good may it do me ).

1. As someone else said - when enough coincidences make the CT people happy (paraphrase).

2. When enough coincidences are proven throughout the entire country where nothing happened at the same time. I'll expand on that one as it's badly worded but it's getting late here and my brain's not at it's best. To my mind, data needs to be taken and correlated for every coincidence in the whole country before you can start equating coincidence with conspiracy.

3. Coincidence (noun) - an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental.

4. Please bear in mind that I live in the bottom half of the Southern Hemisphere, I've been out of touch with American News sources for around five years, I'm not American and have no ulterior motive except the truth. I'm new to the topic, having started researching about two weeks ago and have read around 50 websites, as well as doing searches on specific things I needed to know. I've ploughed through Government Reports as well as CT sites. I've visited science forums to see their views.

5. The Pentagon crash, by the way, is unique in modern aviation disasters, in that it is the only crash where the pilot was not trying desperately to save the aircraft. That in inself makes investigation completely unprecedented. (Okay, there was the Empire State Building one but that was in thick fog and the pilot had no intention of hitting it in the first place.)

Originally posted by diggs
"At what point do coincidences cease being coincidences and become conspiracy?"

There must be some probabilty formula out there that can assess this. Does anybody here work as a risk assessor, or in insurance?

Originally posted by Aotearoa
2. When enough coincidences are proven throughout the entire country where nothing happened at the same time.... To my mind, data needs to be taken and correlated for every coincidence in the whole country before you can start equating coincidence with conspiracy.

That makes absolutely no sense. But maybe for a coincidence theoriest it does.

And what exactly is a "coincidence theorist"?

Originally posted by Aotearoa
And what exactly is a "coincidence theorist"?

Someone who marks up things that would otherwise be considered suspicious, especially in a court of law or by federal investigators, as merely coincidences or etc.





Examples:

FEMA was in NYC on the evening of 9/10 for a terrorism drill, and was set up and ready to go after 9/11 when the site had to be secured and evidence hauled off.

A coincidence theorist would say, "Just a coincidence."

NORAD was hosting war games on the morning of 9/11, including one that took jets that might have otherwise intercepted hijacked planes away from the Northeast and put them over parts of Canada.

A coincidence theorist would say, "Just a coincidence."

On the morning of 9/11, the NSA was carrying out an exercise based on the scenario of a plane being flown into their headquarters here in Virginia.

A coincidence theorist would say, "Just a coincidence."






And in none of those instances would a coincidence theorist care enough to look any further into those issues. They're perfectly content with just chalking them up to coincidences.






[edit on 15-6-2006 by bsbray11]

And there are hundreds and hundreds of coincidence surrounding 9/11 that all make it look like it was an inside job which, from a mathematical probability, PROVES it had to be a conspiracy to explain all those coincidences.

"hundreds and hundreds"?

That's at least 200 coincidences, maybe more.

What I've discovered about CTs since I've been here is that they're as slippery as eels. Pin them down on one point and they change the topic or are deliberately vague on the topic at hand.

You have to do a nationwide search for coincidences before you can say that coincidences apply to 9/11, otherwise you're cooking the data.

Originally posted by Aotearoa
"hundreds and hundreds"?

That's at least 200 coincidences, maybe more.

Yep! how could they all be just coincidences?

Originally posted by diggs
"At what point do coincidences cease being coincidences and become conspiracy?"

In a simple straight answer under the very basis of US Law (Innocent until proven guilty and only guilty if beyond all shaddow of doubt) a coincidence can never be conspiracy. No matter how many times the tired line from Oliver Stone's JFK is repeated.

In the case of 9/11 the only real proof of conspiracy is that on part of the highjackers. That is where the investigation ended. Did the they know the buildings would fall? I would say no they did not. Would they have been imploded by a demolation team after 9/11? Yes, I am sure they would have.

One point I have never heard asked was since these buildings were modern in the sense that it was known that old buildings are a pain to bring down cleanly, would WTC been built with with that in mind and the buildings collapsed cleanly by design?
And what would have been the effect in siesmic forces alone of reverberations into structurly weakened buildings right next to it when it collapsed?

[edit on 16-6-2006 by Ahabstar]

Originally posted by Ahabstar
Would they have been imploded by a demolation team after 9/11? Yes, I am sure they would have.

Demolishing buildings of that size is extremely dangerous. It would only be done under some special circumstances where the benefits would outweigh the damages.

Buildings of that size would normally be deconstructed. It's estimated that it would've cost several times the value of the WTC Towers to totally deconstruct them, yet it would've had to have happened eventually anyway because of the stress the buildings put upon the ground (caused a very slow sinking), plus other structural issues that come with a building's aging. A demolition would be cheaper if somehow allowed, especially if someone else paid for it because of some advantage that they would also reap.

[edit on 16-6-2006 by bsbray11]

I saw a report on the new ship there building and it has the steel beams from the towers being used in the ship the new ship will be fiinished in 2007 sometime its name will be the uss new york maybe the could check out that steel from some of that scrap .

Originally posted by diggs
Yep! how could they all be just coincidences?

how many coincidencies was needed for me to go to a café with a friend yesterday?
OK, just the major ones:
1) Our Professor had to rush with the exam so he managed to let us away by 10:30am
2) I've decided not to try to contact another teacher, as I wanted to get rid of the suit (ie go home) in the terribly hot weather ASAP so I've headed immediately for the train station.
3) Train did have two carriages, I usually choose the rear one, yet I've chosen the front one.
4) My friend was, by chance, returning home from a remote city and was in the very carriage. He also could've chosen a different train.
5) He was heading to visit my city's centre. By coincidence I had (unexpectingly) a free afternoon so I've joined him.
6) Last coincidence, he was going to have a look at a new café owned by his sister-in-law, whom do I know, by coincidence, from the kindergarten a long time ago and who
7) lives relatively close to me, yet we haven't seen each other for years.

So here are seven coincidences, involving just three people. I'd assume that the coincidences number would rise with the amount of people involved.
But after all the friend of mine is in the military so it had to be a conspiracy to get me a good coffee

Tuccy, what common conclusion do all of those coincidences point to?

Most of them seem pretty damned unrelated to me. Your professor let you go by 10:30, and then you go to a restaurant owned by someone you know? Alright, so what?

On the other hand, on 9/11, you have three different drills/exercises going on, on the same morning, by government agencies, that all relate to the actual terrorist attacks that are about to go down on that day. NORAD is having wargames and has redirected fighters, FEMA is already in Manhattan for a terrorism drill called Tripod, and the NSA HQ is conducting a drill in which a plane has been flown into their building. All of these conveniently in place or being conducted just minutes before the actual events begin to go down.

And those are just three of the "coincidences," but you can see how they relate to point to a common conclusion, right? Not, "My professor let me out early and then I went to a restuarant where I... KNEW THE OWNER! *gasp*".

Where to start......

1. Yes, they had no problems intercepting Payne Stewart's plane, its transponder was still on. On 9/11, one of the first things the terrorists did was switch them off. Then the jet becomes just another blip on a screen FILLED with them. Yes, that makes it harder to find the right one, let alone vector an intercept.

2. The argument about a steel framed building collapsing due to fire is a FALSE one. The Towers were doomed from the moment the planes hit them. The structral damage to both would have lead to the eventual collapse due to the overstress on the remaining supports. The fires only accelerated the collapse.

3. Again, the FEMA statement is overblown. The gentleman who said he was in New York on the Monday before, was being interviewed after several 20 plus hour days and was exhausted. Anyone else get their days confused in stressed out situations?

4. The drills statements have grown in scope and number......on the internet.

5. The USS New York has been launched, not commissioned just yet, and yes, her hull does have WTC steel in it. And yes, the steel was tested before it was sold or hauled away from the New Jersey site the wreckage ended up at.

6. Did Osama intend for the buildings to collapse? YES. Everybody refers to him as if he is a sheep herding idiot. The man was a trained engineer, who used to run a construction company. Far from being the simpleton that the conspiracy theorists would have you believe, he is , on all accounts, quite intelligent.

Bad part is, on the online world, the stories have gotten bigger, the videos grainier and horribly retouched. And unfortunately, more people are believing crap like Loose Change.

Originally posted by Swampfox46_1999
2. The argument about a steel framed building collapsing due to fire is a FALSE one. The Towers were doomed from the moment the planes hit them. The structral damage to both would have lead to the eventual collapse due to the overstress on the remaining supports. The fires only accelerated the collapse.

Then why didn't the buildings collapse immediately? It's not like they were getting any heavier.

3. Again, the FEMA statement is overblown. The gentleman who said he was in New York on the Monday before, was being interviewed after several 20 plus hour days and was exhausted. Anyone else get their days confused in stressed out situations?

Too bad FEMA spokesman Kenney wasn't the only one to say that FEMA was there early.

Giuliani said it too, during his testimony to the 9/11 Commission. He even explained why FEMA was there early:

"... the reason Pier 92 was selected as a command center was because on the next day, on September 12, Pier 92 was going to have a drill, it had hundreds of people here, from FEMA, from the Federal Government, from the State, from the State Emergency Management Office, and they were getting ready for a drill for biochemical attack. So that was gonna be the place they were going to have the drill. The equipment was already there, so we were able to establish a command center there, within three days, that was two and a half to three times bigger than the command center that we had lost at 7 World Trade Center. And it was from there that the rest of the search and rescue effort was completed."

Source, emphasis mine.

I guess that was just one huuuuuge slip of the tongue, too?

A terrorism drill known as Tripod or Tripod II was going to be carried out there on the 12th, so they got there early, ie on the 10th, and had everything set up within three days, so that rescue efforts began on Wednesday. That means they were there Monday.

4. The drills statements have grown in scope and number......on the internet.

No they haven't. But let me guess -- you just think they're all made up?


NRO plane-into-building exercise (I've been saying NSA, my mistake): From Associated Press, August 21, 2002

Vigilant Guardian (NORAD wargame which confused officials): From Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002, Newhouse News, and others

Northern Vigilance (NORAD operation, fighters redistributed over Canada and Alaska): Toronto Star, December 9, 2001

Then there was Tripod II, which was described by Giuliani in his 9/11 Commission testimony as mentioned above.

Source for above information. Also, check it out for yourself if you don't trust it. It's all right there for you to look up yourself if you don't believe it.

6. Did Osama intend for the buildings to collapse? YES.

Sources?

There was not enough structural damage done to the buildings by the impacts to cause a collapse, in either building. The perimeter column damage was less than 15% in the impacted regions in either building (not even that much on any one particular floor), and one would expect similar core damage, whereas it would require 75% overall failure on the upper floors to initiate ANY single floor's collapse, according to NIST figures.

That's where the fires come in, and you can blame fires for causing over half of all the columns on any given floor to fail all day, until you're blue in the face, but there's absolutely no evidence that that ever happened. Only words to assert it did.