NIST Admits Total Collapse Of Twin Towers Unexplainable

Yes, the building would reach a state of free fall if the structure was damaged during the inital shockwave. That is why I was stressing how the system works.

"The WTC towers collapsed at speeds approaching that of free fall because:

1. The dynamic force created out of the gravitational potential energy within the space of just one level spacing was far in excess of the static force the framing was designed to support, and

2. Elastic waves launched from the collapse front quickly filled the building --both lower structure and upper block --with large dynamic stresses, which weakened and ruptured joints well in advance of that material entering the collapse front.

The towers shattered, and the pieces fell to the ground."

Counterpunch by Manuel Garcia



The time it took for the south towr to fall vs. the north tower fit this explaination, as the south tower would have a greater shock wave travel to the base, and have more structure above.

And to all the "hole" pictures, you are assuming that the plane's structure would be more rigid and stronger than that of the building.

Have you ever smasked a Coke can? How offten does the can end up being a perfect circle when your done? The wing of an aircraft will shear, and the tail will too. When slamming a structure that is made of a lightweight metal .02 to .125 thick against a building of inches of concrete steel and glass, do you expect to see the perfect outline of an airplane?

If you expect to be able to draw the wings and tail into that hole in the building, then good luck.

Arguing that the fall is due to the lack of support from the structures having to handle the weight of the upper floors all falls apart when you factor in WTC tower 7 and this article. This article specifically stated that fire, burning hotter than jet fuel, could not bring the buildings down.

If that's the case, how did WTC7 fall when no planes hit it?

Originally posted by johnlear
Morgan Reynolds says there were no planes. He's a 'no planer'. The difference between Morgan Reynolds and the rest of us 'no planers' is Morgan Reyhnolds is putting his money where his mouth is.

Ahhh, "Dr." Morgan Reynolds, author of the article entitled "About Newton's Third Law" found at :

drjudywood.com...

I have forwarded that to a couple of friends I have at UA, who will no doubt find it quite laughable, as I'm sure their lawyers do over the lawsuit in general, I can assure you that they are not worried.

Nor should they be.

If I may quote from the article in question :

Quoted from the fingers of "Dr." Morgan Reynolds
We can check our understanding with a few calculations. Each WTC Tower weighed approximately 500,000 tons. As a first approximation, if a plane hit the upper five floors, these floors would weigh approximately 22,727 tons (5 floors divided by 110 floors = 4.5 percent of 500,000 tons). A Boeing 767 would weigh approximately 140 tons flying as described by government and media. The mass of such a plane would be 0.6 percent of the mass of five floors in a Tower (140/22,757). Therefore, the aluminum plane would be less than one percent of the mass of the section of the steel/concrete building it allegedly hit.

Wrong. Wrong. WRONG!

Do you see what he's done here to twist it so it looks like he's right? He's taken the ENTIRE weight of 5 floors of the tower to say it's impossible for the plane to breach the building. This is either horrendously bad math and logic, or an outright attempt at deception.

The plane did *not* need to overcome 22,757 tons of mass to breach the building. Not even close. It merely needed to overcome a section of the outer portion of ONE wall, alot of which was only glass, not 5 entire floors!

Conclusion: bye-bye airplane.

Wow. A correct statement. Yes the conclusion is correct, the airplane did go "bye-bye" alright, after it entered the building and was torn to shreds in the process.

Here's a personal example of why this is junk science :

When I was a teenager I was on the backside of a mall smoking a cigarette (yah, I know) ... when I witnessed a car chase on the street behind the mall, the cops had the guy boxed in but he turned towards the parking lot and gunned it. He lost control trying to turn too hard in the lot and went flying straight through the outer wall , which was large brick facade, with a reinforced cinder block inner wall. He finally came to a stop wrapped around a very large support pillar, how he managed to walk away from that alive I don't know. I agreed to give a statement and testify if needed since I was the only eyewitness besides the police to what happened, they estimated he was going between 50-60mph, I personally think it was faster, but no matter, my point is this :

Given the above "calculation" there is NO way it should be physically possible the car could overcome the mass of the bottom floor of the mall, especially one this large once you add up the *entire* weight of the floor!

So how in the world could it have happened??

Just like the planes crashing into the towers, it only had to overcome the mass of the area it struck, nothing more.

So, I have to say thanks for the head's up about the lawsuit, I have saved the article in question in case it gets deleted, and if it gets used somehow to disprove this "Dr." I will be sure you get many thanks!!!

I kind of get sick and tired of replies that simply shout down the original poster, or get stuck in semantics but it's really important that people actually read the article and what the NIST are reported to have said. The title of this thread is "NIST Admits Total Collapse of Twin Towers Unexplainable".

No they didn't. They said they couldn't explain it. Which isn't the same thing. Flaws in the method they used to try to do so have been pointed out above in this thread, but I'm afraid the fundamental flaw is in the title.

I don't tend to get worked up about these things, but it seems to me that even a slight misrepresentation like that undermines what this website is all about. Either we are seeking out truth or we aren't. My post is not suggesting one side of this debate or the other is correct - simply that any case is weakened if we aren't accurately representing the facts.

LW

Originally posted by Griff

Originally posted by MrKnight
No one floor of any building is ment to take the static load of all the weight above it, but to tranfer the load away down to the foundation. This also allows the building to flex due to the wind sheer that it has to take being so high.

Structural Engineering 202. The floors transfer the loads to the columns. Which then transfer to the foundation. Columns hold this load continuously. Where's the added load? Even if floors failed and pancaked down, how do you and they explain the columns?

[...]

Being in a similar situation and actually possessing a degree in Civil engineering with a structural background and working as a structural engineer, I was in awe when they fell. I guess to each his own.

Indeed. Someone with your claimed background who is unable to calculate the kinetic energy of two masses, one 40,000 tons, the other 110,000 tons, falling 6 feet onto a structure never designed to take those loads must be much more than in awe.

Amazing.

Originally posted by coughymachine

If you can explain everything that occurs up to the moment of collapse, then modeling the collapse itself is redundant.

This assumes that the failure of the upper section of each tower would inevitably lead to the initiation of a global collaspe. My point is, if their models ran to the point of localised structural failure and not beyond, then how have they ascertained that the localised structural failure would inevitably become a global failure?

How about forensic science, structural engineering, physics, and math?

As I just posted, what is the kinetic energy of two masses, one 40,000 tons, one 110,000 tons, falling 6 feet?

Originally posted by LoneWeasel
I kind of get sick and tired of replies that simply shout down the original poster, or get stuck in semantics but it's really important that people actually read the article and what the NIST are reported to have said. The title of this thread is "NIST Admits Total Collapse of Twin Towers Unexplainable".

No they didn't. They said they couldn't explain it. Which isn't the same thing. Flaws in the method they used to try to do so have been pointed out above in this thread, but I'm afraid the fundamental flaw is in the title.

I don't tend to get worked up about these things, but it seems to me that even a slight misrepresentation like that undermines what this website is all about. Either we are seeking out truth or we aren't. My post is not suggesting one side of this debate or the other is correct - simply that any case is weakened if we aren't accurately representing the facts.

LW

This desperate misrepresentation of NIST's letter is by far the norm for the 9/11 Truth Movement, not the exception. Eventually, 9/11 Truthers are going to have to sit back, take a deep breath, and evaluate why they are so easily taken in by such irrational nonsense.

Originally posted by seanm

This desperate misrepresentation of NIST's letter is by far the norm for the 9/11 Truth Movement, not the exception. Eventually, 9/11 Truthers are going to have to sit back, take a deep breath, and evaluate why they are so easily taken in by such irrational nonsense.

Perhaps, perhaps not - actually I'm not trying to come down on one side or the other. I think it's more important that people think about what is actually said, as opposed to how what is said can be used to to perpetuate an argument - mythical or otherwise. As I said before, either we're after truth (and I mean generally on these boards rathet than specifically in this instance) or we're not. If you change words to suit your purpose, you actually undermine that purpose in the minds of the sort of readers you're going to get at ATS - or so I would hope.

LW

Considering the twin towers were designed to withstand the impact of a 707, there were numerous reports of explosions, molten steel was observed at ground zero, molten metal was observed flowing from WTC2, concrete was pulverized into microscopic particles, steel was ejected hundreds of feet, there were only two isolated pockets of fire on the 78th floor of the south tower before it collapsed, NIST's fact sheet question 6 states that the towers fell essentially at free fall speed - the south tower falling in approximately 9 seconds (where free fall in a vacuum is 9.2 seconds), and questions still remain unanswered, its hard not to be suspicious about the official version of events.

Furthermore NIST still can't explain after six years how building 7 collapsed even though everyone including the BBC (which reported its collapse 20 mins early) seemed to know it it would. Isn't that strange?

[edit on 17-10-2007 by cams]

Originally posted by cams
Considering the twin towers were designed to withstand the impact of a 707, there were numerous reports of explosions, molten steel was observed at ground zero, molten metal was observed flowing from WTC2, concrete was pulverized into microscopic particles, steel was ejected hundreds of feet, there were only two isolated pockets of fire on the 78th floor of the south tower before it collapsed, NIST's fact sheet question 6 states that the towers fell essentially at free fall speed - the south tower falling in approximately 9 seconds (where free fall in a vacuum is 9.2 seconds), and questions still remain unanswered, its hard not to be suspicious about the official version of events.

You're claims have been addressed repeatedly for years. Why don't you know that?

Here's one. Count the seconds it took WTC 2 to fall in this video. Note the last frame that shows WTC 2. It has not yet completely collapsed. How many seconds after the start of the collapse is that frame. Let us know what you come up with:

911myths.com...

Originally posted by cams

Furthermore NIST still can't explain after six years how building 7 collapsed even though everyone including the BBC (which reported its collapse 20 mins early) seemed to know it it would. Isn't that strange?

[edit on 17-10-2007 by cams]

Yes, it is very "strange". Which still isn't the same word as "unexplainable". And the BBC's reporting - or anyone else's reporting -of the collapse is entirely irrelevant to the NIST statement that it hasn't got an explanation. The BBC may have reported it happening before it happened, or after, or as they collapsed. But they didn't explain how. And if NIST were in on a conspiracy, I'd have thought they'd have invented an explanation, not exude ignorance...

As far as it goes I'm much more inclined to believe that the BBC are idiots who got "unstable" confused with "collapsing". And that NIST are idiots who have wasted a lot of time and money trying to find a flaw in the design of a building.

LW

Mr.Knight You show the drawings with the holes in the towers, to show were the structure was penetrated and weakened. If the part of the tower would collapse, because of those holes, wouldn't it collapse in to the direction of the holes, and fall side ways, all over town, like a chopped down tree? It wouldn't fall in its footsteps like it did.
And why did WTC7 fall, when it wasn't hit. It was an obvious controlled demolition.

Former Chief of NIST's Fire Science Division Calls for Independent Review of World Trade Center Investigation

Here is the Link

Dr. Quintere is by no means a supporter of 911 Truth. However he does point out the flaws in the NIST report.

In summary he states:

“In my opinion, the WTC investigation by NIST falls short of expectations by not definitively finding cause, by not sufficiently linking recommendations of specificity to cause, by not fully invoking all of their authority to seek facts in the investigation, and by the guidance of government lawyers to deter rather than develop fact finding."

reply to post by enigmania


I agree with you, when I saw the events live the first thing that came to my mind was that the towers tops were going to tip over and fall into the streets below. Obviously that didn't happen (because they were built extremely welll...) and maybe was a good thing that it didn't as it may of cost more innocent lives.

btw I don't buy the "pancake theory" it does not add up to me, if anything these structures that collapsed that day should have burnt in place for days or until put out.

reply to post by seanm

NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A).

wtc.nist.gov...


Also the 9/11 Commission Report states that the south tower fell in 10 seconds
www.9-11commission.gov...

If I can't use official figures, what figures am I allowed to use then?


edit: deleted 'approximately' (10 seconds)

[edit on 17-10-2007 by cams]

Originally posted by cams
reply to post by seanm

 

NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A).

wtc.nist.gov...


Also the 9/11 Commission Report states that the south tower fell in 10 seconds
www.9-11commission.gov...

If I can't use official figures, what figures am I allowed to use then?


edit: deleted 'approximately' (10 seconds)

[edit on 17-10-2007 by cams]

You need to read carefully the quotation you cited.

The NIST was referring to the exterior panels, which detached and fell from the top of the WTCs in free fall time. This is not the same as saying the entire collapse happened in free-fall time.

Just watch the videos. You can see the exterior panels referenced by the NIST falling at a much higher speed than the progression of the collapse.

reply to post by LoneWeasel


My point was that everyone on the day seemed to know WTC7 was going to collapse ( eg firefighters, medics, rescue workers, Larry?, the media etc). yet after six years no-one can explain why it fell in the manner in which it did. I find that 'strange'

reply to post by robert z



So when they are talking about the collapse time of the towers (ie 9 and 11 seconds) they are not referering to the whole towers collapsing - ie from the top? Why would they bother mentioning the collapse time if they are only talking about a partial collpase time.
Besides, NIST still say 'essentially' free fall and the 9/11 Commission says 10 seconds. It's pretty official in my book.

Originally posted by cams
reply to post by LoneWeasel

 

My point was that everyone on the day seemed to know WTC7 was going to collapse ( eg firefighters, medics, rescue workers, Larry?, the media etc). yet after six years no-one can explain why it fell in the manner in which it did. I find that 'strange'

The suspicion that WTC 7 was going to fall from the damage was well founded, particularly after the survey measurements of the building showed a distinct bulge.

NIST has had an unchanging working hypothesis for a couple of years now. I have no doubt that the final report will be comprehensive in detail. I have no doubt, either, that 9/11 Truthers will never accept the findings.

Originally posted by robert z

Originally posted by cams
reply to post by seanm

 

NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A).

wtc.nist.gov...


Also the 9/11 Commission Report states that the south tower fell in 10 seconds
www.9-11commission.gov...

If I can't use official figures, what figures am I allowed to use then?


edit: deleted 'approximately' (10 seconds)

[edit on 17-10-2007 by cams]

You need to read carefully the quotation you cited.

The NIST was referring to the exterior panels, which detached and fell from the top of the WTCs in free fall time. This is not the same as saying the entire collapse happened in free-fall time.

Just watch the videos. You can see the exterior panels referenced by the NIST falling at a much higher speed than the progression of the collapse.

Which, of course, 9/11 Truthers never acknowledge even though we watched it happen LIVE on TV.