20 9/11 Questions Remain Unanswered over 8 Years Later, page 30

Originally posted by bsbray11
What I want NIST, or whatever investigative body to do, is take the building's structural documents, fire data, etc., and construct a theory that is totally self-supported, and verified not by referring back to the acceleration seen in videos (which is essentially circular reasoning), but by referring to their calculations and realistic models that reflect that this is could be expected.

If they could take the building's structure in a model, apply the damage, apply realistic heat fires, and then just see what occurs, instead of trying to force it to conform to what we see in videos, then we would have an independent verification that this is a legitimate thing for fire and debris damage alone to do. As it stands, they constantly refer back to the very same building being investigated to justify changing certain things in their report or adjusting data a certain way to make it better fit. That's not how these kinds of reports are supposed to be done.

These paragraphs appear reasonable on their face, but come across as a genuine NIST criticism. However, the point made is not valid. NIST indeed did what you request, they constructed a reference structural model of WTC7. They applied damage, fire and time and observed the predictions.

The only time they do what you claim, which is "changing certain things .. to make it a better fit" is when they are selecting for a better fit. The best example I can give of this is quite relevant, and is the impact vector of the planes hitting WTC1 and 2. These values are also derived from videos, although quite a few more and with a more in depth analysis. However, they have inherent errors.

NIST analysed these errors, and produced three cases for impact, slow, base and high speeds. They then ran each situation in their simulator, and found that the high speed impact produced the best fit with post-impact damage. Once they had done this, they eliminated some of the lower and medium speed tests in order to reduce the amount of simulation they had to do.

This is exactly how an investigation of this type should be conducted. They have a limited budget and time, and discarding lines of enquiry which do not match the data is completely valid. Remember, the only way of identifying which value out of a range is correct, is if it matches what we saw on 911. NIST referring to what actually happened is not only unsurprising, it is exactly what they should be doing!

If NIST could not refer to the events of the day in their investigation, it would have cost a significant amount more, and taken longer. One of the reasons for this is the fire simulation. In both stages the fire lasted a very long time (in structural simulation terms) and involved a very large area with significant uncertainty about fuel distribution, ignition times and heat output. NIST built full scale reproductions for fire testing, but even so the towers had significantly more floor area and office layouts were quite uncertain.

These fire simulations would have to be run thousands of times to cover only a fraction of the initial cases. I will attempt some more poor maths! Even if there are only 6 variables, and lets say each of them has 4 potential values. That is 4^6 or 4096 test runs that would need to be conducted.

Would you then allow them to refer back to eliminate particular results, or would you force them to run the structural simulation 4096 times multiplied by the number of initial conditions in WTC7?

In essence, what I am saying is that the way you would like to investigate 911 is simply not practical. The complexity of these simulations is such that you have to aggressively select the best fit data. I cannot think of a single case where anyone has shown NIST using selection inappropriately.

Using the same methodology, again, I could come up with any bizarre demolition theory, and so long as I can match what the demolition mechanism is theoretically doing to what you see in the videos (ie 'now this column is blown under the penthouse', 'now all these braces are eaten through by powerful eutectic reactions,' 'now these final columns are cut simultaneously', etc.) then I could come up with a report that is 100% as justified as NIST's.

PLEASE PLEASE do! We (the 'debunkers') have been asking for this for some time. This can only help your case, as at the very least the community can rally around a specific theory. I mean even now ae911truth talks both about huge explosives that blow mass out of the footprint and then talk about thermite, which has none of the properties they ascribe to it. Developing a specific hypothesis is something I believe to be a good use of any truther's time.

But you would be quick to point out yourself that none of that theory is actually proven by evidence. It is simply a theory.

On the contrary, what you would have done is constructed a theory which makes predictions. Testing predictions is the bread and butter of science, and by making predictions, we can then scour the existing literature to find if these predictions are confirmed or contradicted.

And in fact they had to invent a "new" phenomena for their theory to make sense, though OF COURSE they didn't reproduce this same "new" event in a lab in any way to verify it. They simply say, "Well, it's the only way we can think of for this to have happened from fire and debris alone, so that must have been what happened."

NIST in no way invented any phenomena, the "new" event was this affecting a building on this scale. Everyone who knows anything about physics knows that heating metal makes it expand, and the equation to calculate the force involved is very trivial. In order for NIST to verify this they would have to have fabricated quite a large structure, wheras modelling it will be quite accurate and give you much more information. This is why computer modelling exists, so you don't have to build full scale reproductions of everything

I hope that conveys what my issue is here, what my question is, and why I have so much trouble trying to get that kind of analysis out of a NIST report.

I think part of your problem is that you just don't trust them, and this biases your view somewhat. I can't think of any scientific investigation ever carried out which would meet your criteria. I would come up with an electrical engineering analogy, but I don't know the specifics of your profession, and I don't want to come across as arrogant or patronising.

Originally posted by NIcon
Sorry exponent I missed your post earlier today. I wasn't saying it was an exact correlation. I was just demonstrating how precise they could be. Two points stood out for me in this test however:

I understand, I just wanted to point out that there are 'tricks' that can be used because of square pixels which don't apply in all cases.

So from these two things I assume their measurements from video can be very precise and if they had a problem with believing 32.2 ft/s^2 they could have found something like 32.19 ft/s^2 and reported it.

Unfortunately "something like" is not how errors are worked out. I am not completely confident in doing the maths, but you can actually calculate the errors from the available information. I cannot remember how to do it with the acceleration though

Originally posted by bsbray11
And STILL none of the 20 questions are resolved by anyone posting here. I must have picked some really good ones, eh?

No, you just haven't done your homework! It's the same as saying "Nobody has answered my physics homework questions therefore black holes don't exist". It is a non sequitur. I have given answers that with some research you can determine to be valid, for many of the questions.

Running out of characters

Originally posted by exponent
If NIST could not refer to the events of the day in their investigation, it would have cost a significant amount more, and taken longer.

In other words if they couldn't use circular reasoning to prop up their models, it would cost too much to figure anything out? Do you think that excuse would ever change the objectivity of what "really" happened to that building?

Using the same methodology, again, I could come up with any bizarre demolition theory, and so long as I can match what the demolition mechanism is theoretically doing to what you see in the videos (ie 'now this column is blown under the penthouse', 'now all these braces are eaten through by powerful eutectic reactions,' 'now these final columns are cut simultaneously', etc.) then I could come up with a report that is 100% as justified as NIST's.

PLEASE PLEASE do! We (the 'debunkers') have been asking for this for some time.

You should have kept going with that paragraph. I said the theory I come up with would be useless because it would have no specific data to back it up, ie that device x was placed on floor y. Just like the NIST report, which also has 0 evidence going for it, only an unsubstantiated theory that was produced using circular references and could very well still be describing the physics of a controlled demolition.

This is the whole quote:

Using the same methodology, again, I could come up with any bizarre demolition theory, and so long as I can match what the demolition mechanism is theoretically doing to what you see in the videos (ie 'now this column is blown under the penthouse', 'now all these braces are eaten through by powerful eutectic reactions,' 'now these final columns are cut simultaneously', etc.) then I could come up with a report that is 100% as justified as NIST's. But you would be quick to point out yourself that none of that theory is actually proven by evidence. It is simply a theory. And that is what NIST has done: concocted a theory that superficially matches observations made in videos, and they have not independently verified that these things would be expected through the necessary calculations and models without tampering to make them fit to videos. They have molded data and models to fit with the videos. Not investigated how possible these kinds of events would have been through separate analyses.

This can only help your case

Pulling a theory out of my butt that has no more objective verification going for it than NIST's is not going to help my case. It would be hypocritical.

as at the very least the community can rally around a specific theory.

I am not a part of any "community," unless seeking objective data is a "community," but I think you would even consider your own self a part of that one. In other words I am not in this to conform to a "movement," I don't care what anyone else says, my questions either can be answered or they can't. End of story. And so far they have not.

On the contrary, what you would have done is constructed a theory which makes predictions. Testing predictions is the bread and butter of science, and by making predictions, we can then scour the existing literature to find if these predictions are confirmed or contradicted.

You mean like, if it were a demolition, people would hear explosions coming from the building? Oh wait, people did heard explosions coming from the building, and also testified to witnessing them inside the building, and were also picked up on seismographs after the Twin Towers collapses and well before WTC7's global collapse. If evidence is being able to make predictions accurately about what will happen, why don't any of those things count as evidence? Don't tell me it's because you can come up with unproven excuses to invalidate them.

NIST in no way invented any phenomena, the "new" event was this affecting a building on this scale. Everyone who knows anything about physics knows that heating metal makes it expand, and the equation to calculate the force involved is very trivial. In order for NIST to verify this they would have to have fabricated quite a large structure, wheras modelling it will be quite accurate and give you much more information. This is why computer modelling exists, so you don't have to build full scale reproductions of everything

They also ramp up heating and temperatures to levels that aren't substantiated. For example, in the Twin Tower reports, assuming some 70+ wood fire stoves' worth of total heat in a garage or living-room sized area, applied consistently for about 30 minutes iirc (when according to them the fires were not applying consistent heat to the same parts of the structure but were roaming), and admitted they had to keep intensifying parameters in subsequent computer simulations based on that data to get their desired theoretical initiation state. In computer models, realistic conditions also aren't a burden or have to be backed by verified/realistic data. Again, they just keep adjusting parameters until they get results that match what they see in videos. Not an objective method, only a circumstantial method at best, and intellectually dishonest.

I think part of your problem is that you just don't trust them

If I don't trust them it's because they aren't being objective themselves. They've made too many assumptions while lacking real data, which blows any chance of a real investigation since they've just made assumptions about the most critical parts of the investigation based on preconceptions.

I can't think of any scientific investigation ever carried out which would meet your criteria. I would come up with an electrical engineering analogy, but I don't know the specifics of your profession, and I don't want to come across as arrogant or patronising.

You can't think of any scientific studies that are 100% objective, yet you can't think of an analogy that demonstrates what is wrong with this, either. You can plug a schematic into a simulator, load the variables for each component into it, and it will tell you exactly what will happen when you apply power based on formulas alone. You don't have to build the circuit first, watch what it does, take measurements, and then try to "predict" what will happen when you turn the power supply on. That would be an example of what I am talking about, applied to EE. But the problem is, what I am saying is what actually makes sense, and the methodology NIST used, is what doesn't make sense, and used fallacious circular references that re-enforced blind assumptions and was not objective.

And STILL none of the 20 questions are resolved by anyone posting here. I must have picked some really good ones, eh?

No, you just haven't done your homework! It's the same as saying "Nobody has answered my physics homework questions therefore black holes don't exist".

First of all, you've already admitted in a former post that my specific question, question #6, is not explicitly answered in the NIST report, and I have yet to see where it was implicitly answered, either. If I go back and dig up the post, are you going to be contradicting yourself?

Secondly, how many questions have you answered again? Even if you're now saying you answered 6 (though you really haven't, as NIST hasn't), then you still have 19 others. You have nothing but personal conjecture, and your conjecture isn't worth a hill of beans to me.

[edit on 8-11-2009 by bsbray11]