Talk:Collapse of the World Trade Center

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What is really lacking from controlled demolition section

Is that there is not really any evidence presented strongly against it. I feel the culteral phenomenon of the perception that there was a CD is relavant enough to be addressed here on this page. What needs done however is that the arguments against it need not to be dismissed as trivial, but presented and countered correctly. I think that turning the user to the "Conspiracy theories of 9-11" page when they wish to examine the CD plausability does not aid them whatsoever, it just turns their attention to a list (and for each item, a rationality for believing each item) of possible conspiracies which occured around 9-11. Since this page discusses the realities of the collapse, I feel it would be a good idea to attempt to bring together the arguments for the CD, and then present the rational dismisal of them, instead of arrogantly claiming WE know its not true, thus the reader should conclude the same. DerwinUMD 22:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be just as easy to cite the 1945 incident where a B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building sending it toppling to the ground? Zghost 09:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I was trying to refer more to some of the more controversial points, such as the motlen metal dripping out of the building minutes before the collapse, the near free fall speed, the janitor supposedly hearing a bomb explode in the basement, etc. I think these all can be explained with out a controlled demo, but I think ignoring them is a very dumb idea. DerwinUMD 13:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The section does link to controlled demolition hypothesis for the Collapse of the World Trade Center.--Thomas Basboll 14:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be safe to assume that the CD page does not deal with nearly as much scientific nor researched opinion, and much more hearsay. Neither does it account for or present discenting opinions. I think this page had ought to address a few of these issues as they should be addressed. For example. The CD page suggests the presence of molten metal, but never gives any explaination for it - merely inciting that since metal has melted, something very hot has occured. However, if you examine what is actualy being dealt with, it is molten aluminum dripping from the towers, which melts right in the range of the temperatures of the fires in WTC 1 & 2. I think that since this really has nothing to do with a CD, it should still be addressed here. DerwinUMD 18:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Why? It's hardly surprising that a fire hot enough to melt aluminum would melt aluminum in its presence. We know aluminum was present because a plane crashed into each tower. Should we also include evidence of burned paper? Burned carpet? Burned desks? With respect to the collapse, the presence of molten aluminum is meaningless. With respect to conspiracy theories, it's pivotally important because the conspiracy theories depend on the metal not being aluminum. --Durin 19:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, so why isn't that on the page? It is still a fact of what happened, yet the only point about molten metal that I can find is rather lacking in information regarding the fire's temperature. DerwinUMD 04:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Zghost; the B-25 into the Empire State Building is a completely different circumstance. You're attempting to compare throwing apples at a barn with throwing garbage cans at a doll house. There was a MASSIVE difference in kinetic energy between the two incidents, as the 767's weight traveling at the speeds it was, compared to the B-25's weight and the speed it was flying at, resulted in the 767 having ***45*** times the kinetic energy the B-25 had when it hit the ESB. Further, the design methodology of the WTC and the ESB were dramatically different. In light of these facts, anyone who seriously thinks the B-25 incident sheds any light on the WTC incident is badly deluding themselves. --Durin 13:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories are little better than grossly unqualified opinions and shouldn't be part of a factual article. I urge that any mention of the 9/11 conspiracies be dropped entirely from the entry. The value of the wiki is in its ability to concisely summarize known and/or agreed upon facts for the layperson, and this value is undermined when the wiki becomes cluttered with pet theories or ideologies put forth by unqualified individuals. --FCYoon.

I agree in your assessment of conspiracy theories. Which is why the government's version of events should not be presented here without criticism. Oneismany 19:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What ideologies? And who are the unqualified induvidials? The induvidials that doesn't agree with your conclusions perhaps? In diffrence from you, I beleive the value of the wiki is to present pure facts, and not making conlusions, but only presenting as many conlusions as possible that already have been made, quoting the references.

All the fact should be presented neutrally, by looking at the history page It currently looks like you're methodicly sorting out all fact that doesn't support the official theory. And why dismiss theories as "conspiricy theories", shouldn't all theroies be neutrally presented in the same article where they apply?

--CooPs89 22:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Removed personal attack. Please discuss how to improve the article. It is Wikipedia policy not to make personal attacks. Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

More than a third of the US public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11

SOURCE: Scripps Howard News Service
DATE: August 2, 2006
BODY: More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
http://newspolls.org/story.php?story_id=55 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.108.248.76 (talk) 23:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

89% of all Americans don't believe that evolution is real either. Shows you how smart Americans are when it comes to science. 4.143.238.59 07:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)eric

Article in New Scientist

I just found this article in the New Scientist [1]. In includes what looks like an early formulation of the fire-proofing theory (which is now the received view) and some criticisms of the site cleanup. I.e., something for the history section and the aftermath section. [Quintiere's criticisms of the cleanup are not part of this article. Sorry.]--Thomas Basboll 13:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Cartoon airplanes

MONGO, try looking at the information here. An aluminum airplane is not going to glide through a steel/concrete building like it glides through the air. It violates laws of physics, no ifs ands or buts. No planes hit the towers. See here: [2] [3] Complete Truth 06:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

911researchers.com is not a reliable source under Wikipedia policy, so what that site says is completely irrelevant to our purposes here.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 06:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Also... an airplane isn't going to make a cartoon-cutout of itself in a steel/concrete building. But that's exactly what seems to have happened on 9/11: the aluminum wings seem to have sawed through structural steel and steel-reinforced concrete. This is physically impossible. There's no proof that planes hit the towers. Some eyewitnesses reported missiles, not planes [4]. The government's story is a lie from beginning to end. There were no planes and no hijackers. It was a lie to start war in the Middle East and invoke the Patriot Act. The thugs who did 9/11 are masters at creating propaganda. They plant false/misleading stories to fool people. This includes Norad standing down, Steven Jones and his thermite, and a stand down order by Cheney. There was no stand down order because there was no plane! It's been 5.5 years. People need to face up to what happened and work together to remove the criminals from power. Complete Truth 06:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

First: what do you think missiles are made of?: A: lightweight aluminum and soft explosive. An airplane is much denser and stronger. --also has much more energy than a 1000 lb missile. Second: the building was mostly air, which is why the airplane went straight through.

Why do people who don't know the laws of physics keep saying that they are violated? It's cool, though, that the new conpsiracy theory is that the old conspiracy theory is part of the conspiracy to fool the conspiracy theorists. controlled demolition is now a ruse to throw smart people off the track of energy weapons? You do realize that the formulators of these theories make their living off of new conspiracy theories and you can expect a new one every six months or so, right? --Tbeatty 06:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you take a few moments to actually look at the information. I'm sure you know that it's already been proven that the towers were pulverized to powder [5]. Complete Truth 06:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I've seen it all. But the towers collapsed under their own weight after the steel fireproofing was damaged and a post crash fire weakened the steel. (see the NIST report for the actual science and engineering). Cartoon airplanes don't spew jet fuel all over the occupants. It seems to me to be intuitive that the size of the remaining pieces would depend only on the building height and mass. A massive, tall building would have very, very small pieces. As an example, take two pieces of concrete and drop one from 10 ft onto the other. Both will break into fairly large chunks. Now drop it from 10,000 ft and they will be pulverized. Common sense. --Tbeatty 17:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

You wanna talk common sense? Okay. Let's say you're in a car, driving towards a big metal mesh made of structural steel, such as the ones seen in this videoclip. Now.... how fast would you need to be driving so the car would glide into the steel, just like it glides through the air? How fast would you have to drive to create a cartoon cutout of the car in the steel, the way the wings of the 9/11 "plane" did?

There's no evidence that the towers collapsed. They didn't collapse, they were pulverized. Look at the BEFORE and AFTER. Where's the hundreds of tons of steel beams? Each tower was a 1/4 mile tall! On top of that, where's the thousands of desks, chairs, bookcases, computers, xerox machines, water coolers, filing cabinets, doors, sinks, toilets, etc? Whatever sources used on the topic page are obviously not reliable, and that page should be rewritten immediately. Wikipedia is contributing to the propaganda campaign that the government is running.

FYI, 99% of the "alternate 9/11 theory" stuff in the mainstream media is propaganda. NORAD didn't stand down, because there were no planes for them to stand down for. There was no molten metal, Steven Jones is a fraud. How many times has Dr Judy Wood's directed energy weapons (DEW) theory been mentioned in the media? The answer is none. I wonder why? Her Request for Correction to NIST is archived on a US Government website, she's represented by attorney Jerry Leaphart, and not one media outlet picked it up. Why is that? I wonder why Steven Jones has ties to Los Alamos, where DEW are researched? I wonder why Greg Jenkins, the physicist who did the "ambush interview" of Dr Wood, has ties to Los Alamos? I wonder why Jenkins' previous work was funded by the NSA? On 9/11 Dr Van Romero, a demolitions expert said it was a controlled demolition and that the towers could have been taken down with a "relatively small amount of explosives". Take a look at the BEFORE and AFTER links above. Could a "relatively small amount of explosives" have done that? Is it coincidence that Romero made a presentation to DEPS, the Directed Energy Professional Society? Is it coincidence that Applied Research Associates, a founding sponsor of DEPS and a manufacturer of directed energy weapons, was contracted by NIST for the 9/11 report? The 9/11 perps are masters at creating propaganda. Don't you see what's going on? Complete Truth 03:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Your'kidding right? An aluminum can at 300 MPH would simply deform into the mesh holes. Bullets made of lead are deformed by the human body. Lead is much denser than aluminum and the human body is much softer than steel. What happened on 9/11 is more akin to an egg being thrown at a chain link fence. It cracks and goes through and disintegrates. Steven Jones has his own problems as CD didn't happen either but all of these people are in a different universe. So for your edification, I have familiy that was in Manhattan that day and two real airplanes crashed into the two towers. There were no controlled demoltions. There were no cartoon airplanes. You dishonor the victims by claiming this was all made up. I also see that my purely made up consipracy theory below would be believed. I could be rich. Do you attend these 9/11 CT conferences? They had one in my city not too long ago and they only charged the participants $300 per person to hear The Truth.^TM --Tbeatty 04:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Rambling away like that does not make your beleifs so. You need to use scientific analysis. The two photos here and here prove that the towers "went away", and did not collapse. Aluminum cans and bullets cannot be compared with an airplane. But a car can, which is why I used it in my analogy. This photo is further proof of cartoon airplanes. Half in, half out. No break in the building between the engines and fuselage. Pure cartoon. See this article for the newest analysis. You need even more proof? See here. To the left of the towers is the Whitehall Building. To the left of that, according to the CNN shot, is the 19 Rector Street building. However, that building is NOT visible from that location, as proven by the other photo. I challenge you or anyone else to go to Battery Park and prove otherwise. The corporate media broadcasted a cartoon! Here's an article in Technology Review magazine, written one year before 9/11. It details how the military and TV Networks can insert images in live video feed to alter world politics. Complete Truth 21:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Just so we're clear, 19 Rector Street is to the right of the Whitehall building in the gif on the page you link to (here). In both images in the gif too. 19 Rector St looks like this: [6]. Now, here's a shot from the harbor of 19 Rector Street, the Whitehall Building, and Battery Park: [7]. Here's a broader view: [8]. The building to the left of the Whitehall building looks like it's this building: [9], the Bankers Trust Building at 200 Liberty Street. From Battery Park one can see right the space in buildings from West Street/West Side Highway, so it's not to surprising that 200 Liberty Street is visible. It's not all surprising that 19 Rector Street is visible, because the only thing between it and Battery Park is the entry for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which is at ground level. Oh, that and it's in both the "suspected" picture and the "debunker" picture. But then, so is the Bankers Trust Building, it's just behind the trees. It's called parallax. Look it up. Might try google maps to, so you can pull 19 Rector street from somewhere other than your... JetGoodson 07:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

See the NIST report for the actual science and engineering.

See the NIST WTC FAQ, referenced in the article, for some glorious nonsense. NIST says about the glowing liquid puring out of the side of WTC 2: "This flow lasted approximately four seconds before subsiding."

Then watch this (warning: graphic content!) yourself and make your own conclusions about the accuracy of what NIST is saying.

I also love this portion:

"Question: Why did the NIST investigation not consider reports of molten steel in the wreckage from the WTC towers?

Answer: NIST investigators and experts [...] found no evidence that would support the melting of steel in a jet-fuel ignited fire in the towers prior to collapse."

Well, that doesn't answer the question, but nice smoke bomb, anyway. Thanks, NIST. "Did you see an elephant?" - "No, we didn't see any pink flying elephants!"

"NIST considered the damage to the steel structure and its fireproofing caused by the aircraft impact and the subsequent fires when the buildings were still standing since that damage was responsible for initiating the collapse of the WTC towers."

Translation: NIST had already made up their minds about the cause of the collapse before they even began searching for evidence. Who needs the scientific method anyway?

I'd rather believe the zaniest conspiracy theory than burdening my credulity with this sort of bovine manure. Aragorn2 23:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

My own pet theory to make money

I have a theory that a new government weapon that creates seismographic events brought down the towers. This explains why the the siesmographs matched the collapse exactly. It was tuned to resonate with buildings the height of the World Trade Center. The airplanes were a ruse to throw people off the track. The Government put out the Controlled Demolition theory to make the Conspiracy Theorists look like loons. But I have discovered the True Events of 9/11. Shortly after this test on 9/11 the U.S. attacked a village in Iran and more recently a Tsunami in the south pacific. How else do you explain the timeline of events: 9/11, Iran, Indonesia? How can I sell my story to True Believers to get rich? I could write a book and hold conferences around the country (charging about $300 for admission). P.T. Barnum would be proud. --Tbeatty 17:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

No Tbeatty you are completely wrong, I have a source that shows that one airplane was responsible for all four attacks. [10] Good luck on the lecture circuit though. — MichaelLinnear 19:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The President Bush airplane called Air Force One? Was he reading about the pet goats for while on the airflight? Ha ha. Babalooo 04:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

You have your facts fauxed (as Jim Fetzer said live on FOX news). The seismic readings match that of much smaller buildings. Dr Wood shows proof of this in her paper on her site. "Collapse" is not a descriptive word for what happened. The towers did not collapse, they were pulverized, as shown in the BEFORE and AFTER images I linked to above. Yes, the airplanes were a ruse to throw people off track. Yes, the government put out the CD theory to make those "who have open minds" look like loons. Our culture has been brainwashed into thinking that certain things are crazy. The brainwashers use the term "conspiracy theory" to do the job. Americans have been duped into thinking that anything associated with the CT term is crazy. Anyone who continually uses that term is still brainwashed. The fact is, there is no proof to back up the government's version of 9/11. Yet the public buys whatever the corporate media spews out hook, line and sinker, just like a conspiracy theorist. Complete Truth 04:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The alleged government seis-mo-matic™ technology is a hoax - the effects have been revealed to actually be gold-seeking river dwarves. Peter Grey 04:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Let me get this straight: The government used a directed energy weapon (from space I presume?) to destroy the Twin Towers and kill thousands, using both an elaborate mainstream story and a false flag conspiracy theory to throw people off track, yet you have figured it out. And are able to promote The Truth with no repercussion? Why isn't your (and Judy Whatshernames) house a smoldering mass destroyed from space and disguised to look like a crack pipe accident? --Tbeatty 04:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

No, it wasn't the government, it was criminal elements within the government. A big difference! It might have come from space. The organization that I mentioned above, Directed Energy Professional Society, put out their first newsletter one year before 9/11. The newsletter opened with the following: "Lasers in space, lasers in the stratosphere, lasers on and over the battlefield - we're at the beginning of an evolutionary new wave of weaponry." Interesting opening, isn't it!! But the beam weapon might have come from an airplane or helicopter. There aren't a lot of these people, so they just can't kill every threat. Judy Wood's student Michael Zebuhr was killed last year. Not only was he a 9/11 researcher, but he did experiments with Dr Wood to prove that Steven Jones' work was faulty! (Check out her website for the information.) A few weeks ago, someone at Virginia Tech managed to kill over two dozen people using a small gun that could only hold 17 bullets at a time. Some of those killed were engineering professors. Guess who got their PhD in Materials Engineering Science from V-Tech? Complete Truth 04:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

What happens with the 4 airplanes if the ones who hit the towers and Pentagon and other crash are not real? They took off and just go away? All the people inside who leave and never come back. Where did they go to? Babalooo 05:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent questions. Flights 11 and 77 were not listed in the BTS database. They were phantom flights and never existed on the morning of 9/11. The other two did, but no one knows what happened to them. All four flights were "reported" as being extremely underbooked. Many names are suspected to be fictitious, but some were definitely real (i.e. news media person Barbara Olsen). Complete Truth 05:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you familiar with portal and wormhole technology? As to what dimension they are in now... — MichaelLinnear 05:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you familiar with portal and wormhole technology? Not myself personally, but you can find wormhole engineers in the Yellow Pages™. Peter Grey 16:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

If you examine the lists of passengers, posted many places, it appears that the total count of all passengers on all 4 flights just happens to be very close to the seat count of one full boeing 767. I have not been able to find another flight as underbooked as any of those 4. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.212.59.41 (talk) 17:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

Complete Truth, your delusions run deep. 9/11 had nothing to do with rogue government operatives, directed energy weapons or any other of your flights of fancy. A group of us in New Jersey who live just across the river from "Ground Zero" have, after years of analysis and debate, cracked the case wide open. Here's what happened: a group of disgruntled special effects specialists who had worked on the 1998 remake bomb Godzilla ran amok and designed/implemented the mass illusion we call "9/11". After the film was panned by all major critics and failed to even recoup expenses, these specialists found themselves out of work and the laughingstocks of Hollywood and New Zealand-based effects studios. Two of them (whom I will not name at this time) literally went insane and formulated a plan to bring chaos to the U.S.-- chaos for the sake of chaos. They built incredibly lifelike models of the World Trade Center and, aided by some CGI, filmed the sequences we are all familiar with, including the building collapses. That's right-- the WTC is intact today, underneath a holographic shell projected by the group. As soon as my colleagues and I complete our personal security arrangements, we will be stepping forward with all the evidence. Forget Bush and Cheney, forget Skull & Bones and the Illuminati. There are few forces on this planet today that can compare to angry special effects specialists bent on chaos. JDG 10:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

WTC 7

The WIKI states that WTC 7 collapsed due to debris damage from WTC 1 and 2 combined with "widespread fires". I have examined many photographs, videos of WTC 7 and can not find any evidence of widespread fires. It appears that almost none of the windows were broken, and only a few (2 or 3) offices were on fire at any time until the collapse.

NIST has still not released a document on WTC 7's collapse, as of 04/2007.

What happened to WTC7? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.212.59.41 (talk • contribs)

Perchance were these photographs all taken from the north side of the building? Peter Grey 12:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the assertion that WTC 7 collapsed due to "widespread fires". The reference cited was not a final report on WTC 7 and did not mention widespread fires. The NIST draft report predicted in December, 2006, to be released in early 2007, has not, as of June, 2007, been released. I also removed the assertion that diesel fuel from the tanks in WTC 7 contributed to the collapse, because 1) the reference cited did not say so, and 2) the reason for the collapse is still unknown. I moved the entire WTC 7 collapse section up so that it follows the description of the other towers' collapses. I renamed the "collapse of the two towers" section to "collapse of the twin towers" to help clarify that not two, but three, WTC towers fell that day. Pmocek 08:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Reversion without discussion is a violation of Wikipedia policy

See the section NPOV. Discussion first, then consensus, then reversion or no reversion. This will not become a revert war. Oneismany 23:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Let it be noted that the NPOV tag was removed without discussion on the grounds it was "misleading." Oneismany 01:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

It was already noted in the edit summary. Pablo Talk | Contributions 02:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

Whoa. "The hypothesis [of controlled demolition] is pursued mainly as part of larger conspiracy theories about the events of 9/11"? And the hypothesis that the building collapsed due to fire is not part of a conspiracy theory, i.e. the government version of events? You really must wonder how weak a point of view has to be if it will not begrudge any suggestion that other points of view are equally valid. The video testimony of the collapse of WTC7 is widely available on the internet and comes from major news sources, and it might legitimately support more than one hypothesis. Therefore I am sticking an NPOV tag on this article. Oneismany 19:08, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Other points of view, such as that of unqualified amateurs misinterpreting video, are not equally valid. Peter Grey 05:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I have placed an NPOV tag on this article.

Against Peter Grey, with specific reference to Wikipedia advice on WP:NPOV:

This article as it stands attempts to evade WP:NPOV policy through misleading use of a POV fork - that is, creating a new article about a certain subject (the controlled demolition hypothesis) ... 'to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. This is generally considered unacceptable. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major Points of View on a certain subject are treated in one article.'

• Because the controlled demolition hypothesis is definately a viewpoint considered by a significant minority, including the former professor Steven_Jones, a 'prominent adherant' - it should be included in the one article. Lectures have been given at universities and conferences around the United States on this hypothesis. Moreover, Steven_Jones recently had a recorded debate with Leslie_Robertson, the structural engineer who designed the World_Trade_Center (listen to the Podcast or read the Annotated Transcript).

• Moreover, good scientific research forms the basis of Steven_Jones work. A source for his research is the peer_reviewed Journal of 911 Studies and a specific PDF research report is Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse.

• Let the facts speak for themselves. Persons interested in the facts of the collapse of the world trade center would surely be interested to hear of the research of Steven_Jones, a 20 year professor of physics specializing in the physics of steel. Especially since Steven_Jones has spoken at universities and multiple conferences on the specific alternative hypothesis (videos of him speaking are available from YouTube) and has debated live with Leslie_Robertson (listen to the podcast).

• Fairness of tone must not be violated. Has the fairness of tone been violated? And what has happened when reviewers try and improve the fairness of tone? The frequent revisions on the history page - many simply improving the tone in minor ways - are further evidence that the neutrality of this article is in real dispute.

(Those of us who trust and hope the government hypothesis is reliable, let us nevertheless provide the most reliable links to other hypotheses on this very same page - for example, the two major points of view of 911 scholars. Let us be aware of any persistent and coordinated efforts to quickly remove other hypotehses. A simple litmus test of the neutrality in this article will be use of the word 'hypothesis', the absence of the word 'conspiracy', and links to the 'good scientific research' of Steven_Jones.)

(Given the political significance of this article, people must be aware of misinformation (incorrect information) and disinformation (deliberately incorrect information). A good summary of this information issue, clearly relevant to contributors of this Wikipedia article is available from the Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Misinformation.)

[removed per policy on biographies of living people] Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

There are no facts supporting the controlled demolition hypothesis. To present facts that supposedly support controlled demolition in the article would be dishonest. Pablo Talk | Contributions 02:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The towers were pulverized. This is not hypothesis nor theory, it is fact, and is supported by ALL the evidence. Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Collapse is a question of structural engineering, not folklore; buildings do not fall down by consensus. The demolition hypothesis is a hoax, based on disinformation. It is not just wrong, it is demonstrably wrong. Peter Grey 03:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The towers did not collapse, they were pulverized. Try looking at the simple evidence before making such ridiculous claims. Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The 9/11 scholars are anything but that.--MONGO 05:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Some of the so-called "scholars" are government plants. Look at Judy Wood's evidence for the obvious truth. Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Of course they are, teh ebil gooberment is always out to get poor people like you . laff--ChaplineRVine^{(talk ¦ ✉)} 22:04, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure...sure they are. She has a conspiracy theory just like the scholars do.--MONGO 18:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of collapsed buildings, I always consult dental experts. Pablo Talk | Contributions 19:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Reminder

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Collapse of the World Trade Center article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. RxS 04:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly how do we discuss improving the article without discussing the article's subject? Oneismany 02:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

You discuss how the article should be written and what it should include...you don't discuss how one or another theory makes sense or doesn't make sense based on your own observations and calculations. That's original research and doesn't belong here....RxS 04:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Total progressive collapse theory

The article's section on the total progressive collapse can be improved by pointing out shortcomings of the theory that contradict the laws of physics. Oneismany 02:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

For example, the total progressive collapse theory does not adequately explain how the momentum of the collapse accelerated because the force of gravity, the rate of change of momentum, is a constant with respect to altitude and mass. Oneismany 02:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Are there any reliable sources that make that point? Pablo Talk | Contributions 02:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Steven Jones, "Revisiting 9/11/2001 --Applying the Scientific Method," Journal of 9/11 Studies, May 2007, p62.[11] It's called the Law of the Conservation of Momentum. Steven Jones is a prominent adherent. Oneismany 05:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The acceleration of gravity is constant. Rate of change of momentum is not constant when the mass is not constant. Jones' paper applies the scientific method selectively. Besides, 'total progressive collapse' is an idealization. Peter Grey 06:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC) (I think most people are 'adherents' to conservation of momentum.)

The acceleration (rate of change of velocity) due to gravity is constant. The force of gravity is the rate of change of momentum. The force of gravity is $F=G{\frac {m_{1}m_{2}}{d^{2}}}$ is proportional altitude and that is why velocity increases identically regardless of mass or any increase or decrease in mass. The force of gravity over distance falling increases less for more mass and more for less mass. The rate of momentum increase is greater for lighter objects and lesser for heavier objects, that is why two similar objects of the different mass fall at the same velocity. Point out where Steven Jones uses the conservation of momentum selectively. Oneismany 06:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

No original research...thanks.--MONGO 06:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Since when is basic physics original research? Besides WP:NOR applies to the article not the talk page! Oneismany 06:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The talk page is here to help us make the article better, not as a place for you to soapbox.--MONGO 07:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Right. And we can make the article better by pointing out that peer-reviewed articles have argued that the total progressive collapse theory does not preserve conservation of momentum or conservation of energy. Oneismany 07:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Where are these peer reviewed papers?--MONGO 07:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Here.[12] Here.[13] Here.[14] Oneismany 08:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Ha...for a minute, I thought you were serious--MONGO 09:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Jones makes appeals to intuition, and does not provide any calculations contradicting structural failure. I think the confusion comes from But with no explosives (the "official theory") and the law of conservation of momentum, material below the roof - including intact steel columns - must significantly slow the motion of the roof., p. 72, which is asserted without proof or a definition of 'significant'. Jones refers to conservation of momentum with respect to an intact building (which of course would not have collapsed in the first place). Peer review is review of scientific theory by other scientists, not of propaganda by other charlatans. Peter Grey 14:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

We are only editors, it is not for us to make a judgment call as to who are scientists and who are charlatans, nor what is science or what is propaganda. The same criticism can be directed toward Bazant et. al. who propose that the rate of change of momentum increases but do not adequately account for the increased force. Oneismany 22:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Who is or is not a scientist with respect to structural failure is decided by the engineering profession. Peter Grey 02:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The reference desk would be better suited to learning fundamental physics. Peter Grey 14:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, good idea. Thanks! Oneismany 22:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Currently, the article contains this passage:

While the NIST report analyzes the initial failure mechanism in detail, it does not address the subsequent total collapse of the WTC towers. An early analysis[21] explains that the kinetic energy of the upper portion of the building falling onto the story below exceeded by an order of magnitude the amount of energy that the lower story could absorb, crushing it and adding to the kinetic energy. This scenario repeated with each successive story, crushing the entire tower at an ever-increasing pace. While it is the most widely held view among engineers[22], it has been been criticized for ignoring the resistance of the underlying structure, which may have slowed a progressive collapse much more dramatically and even prevented it altogether.[23]

I've read this a few times, and it doesn't make any sense to me -- the first sentence looks like a truism (yes, this is what happens when a structure collapses), but the second sentence seems like borderline gibberish ("ignoring the resistance of the underlying structure"?). Are they just trying to say that there's a minority that thinks the building was stronger than the majority does? This is just "truthie" physics, isn't it? The article is relatively free of that stuff, it would be nice to see this passage go as well. -- Doom (talk) 01:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to make it represent Cherepanov's criticism of Bazant in the Int Journal of Fracture. It could probably be improved. The idea is precisely to make it clear that progressive collapse is a non-trivial explanation of the totality of the collapses (not a truism), i.e., that there is a discussion about whether or not it is correct. Perhaps it would be better to describe the progressive collapse in greater detail (dynamic loads, buckling of columns, etc.) and then say that others have argued that such a collapse would take much longer than the collapses actually took, and might not even get started.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

"The best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence."

This quote with regard to the collapse of WTC7 from section 5.7 of the the FEMA reportWorld Trade Center Building Performance Study [15] is relevant to the topic and deserves to be included in the article. The article is unduly vague about the conclusions of the FEMA report and we should include more detail. The report goes on to say, "The collapse of WTC 7 was different from that of WTC 1 and WTC 2. The towers showered debris in a wide radius as their external frames essentially "peeled" outward and fell from the top to the bottom. In contrast, the collapse of WTC 7 had a relatively small debris field because the facade came straight down, suggesting an internal collapse." These details should be included in the article. Oneismany 06:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

pools of metal

has there been an explanation for the pools of molten metal under the towers? 69.11.120.151 16:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Knowledge of WTC collapse

Rudy Giuliani has flip-flopped since 2001 on his story of whether he knew of the coming Twin Towers collapse.

Editor User:DBaba gutted a bona fide statement by a commenrcial newspaper and by a commercial TV station. Such gutting of documented statements is POV. Dogru144 23:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed Dogru144's "contribution". http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/search/label/Rudy%20Giuliani and has a concise explanation towards why this "flip flop" is nonsense. Wasted Time R 03:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The fires were bad enough to totally weaken the supports?

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones."

Ladder 15: "Chief, what stair you in?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower."

Ladder 15: "Floor 78?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."

[16]

Perhaps he was mistaken. Kevin77v 08:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

That was one floor. Multiply it by the number of floors. then add in the structural damage. --Tbeatty 08:41, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The firefighter is reporting what he is seeing at that moment in time in a stairway on floor 78. I don't see a reason to think he is mistaken about the number of pockets of fire he is observing at his location. Floor 78 was the lower boundary of impact damage; parts of floors 77 and 78 were hit by the tip of the wing of flight 175. Apparently the wingtip didn't hit the stairway from which the firefighter was reporting. The bulk of the fire and damage were above floor 78. Weregerbil 09:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Graphic Images Warning Tag?

I don't know if wikipedia has a Graphic Imgages Tag or not, but I feel that there might be a need for one on this page. A lot of people still are effected by the footage and pictures shown about this disaster, and some of the pictures (The woman in the gash picture) kinda made me feel uneasy. So i think someone should add that tag or make it. Thanks 02:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Confusion over the 707 impact study

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, however, was unable to document the study reported by Robertson and FEMA.

Can someone rewrite this so it's clear? What does this mean? Does it mean that the 707 impact study could not ever be located, so it may not have existed? Or it was hallway speculation by some engineers and not a rigorous study? Tempshill 14:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

• This refers to an apparent analysis done in February/March 1964 by the Port Authority. It was mentioned in a 3-page document from the Port Authority -- a letter with attachment dated November 13, 2003 from John R. Dragonette (Retired Project Administrator, Physical Facilities Division, World Trade Department) to Saroj Bhol (Design and Engineering Department, PANYNJ) Here's what NIST says:

Buildings are not designed to withstand the impact of fuel-laden commercial airliners. However, Port Authority documents indicate that the impact of a Boeing 707 flying at 600 mph and possibly crashing into the 80th floor had been analyzed during the design of the WTC towers in February/March 1964. While NIST has not found evidence of the analysis, the documents state that such a collision would result in localized damage only, and that it would not cause collapse or substantial damage to the WTC towers. The effect of fires due to jet fuel dispersion and ignition of building contents was not considered in the 1964 analysis. Loss of life in the immediate area of aircraft impact was anticipated, but loss of life from fire and smoke was not considered.

NIST found nothing that actually documented this analysis. What Robertson says is from his own recollection, regarding analysis and consideration of a plane crashing at 180 mph. Don't think any documents of this have been found either. --Aude (talk) 15:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Impact diagram incorrect

The diagram showing the impact locations on the towers has an error. According to Building of the World Trade Center "The core in 1 WTC was oriented with the long axis east to west, while that of 2 WTC was oriented north to south." The diagram in this article shows both building cores oriented the same direction.

Suggestion to keep Conspiracy Discussion Confined to 9/11 Conspiracy Page

And keep this page scientific. People with no background in engineering or science have no business passing off conjecture as encyclopedic fact. Conspiracy "evidence" belongs in the 9/11 conspiracy page, not here.

130.134.81.16 21:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC) (Aerospace Engineer)

I have to disagree. Although Wikipedia shouldn't become a battle ground for conspiracy theorists, such situations are unavoidable.I think we should keep the theories 'confined,' so to speak to their appropriate places. In a perfect world we would not have to make a mention of it. Despite this, because (regrettably so) such a large amount of people happen to believe or suspect the theory of controlled demolition, there should be at most a mention of it, perhaps accompanied by a summary of the theory. We must be especially vigilant and careful to make sure this section of the article remains factually based, small and concise, and it should for the most part be a redirect to the conspiracy page.

Any other mention of the controlled demolition theory within the article, or of its implications would be inappropriate and should be removed.

As for the talk page, I think any kind of discussion regarding the conspiracy theories is very much inappropriate. In my opinion, the warning tag placed at the beginning of the discussion page should be separated by a space from the other tags, so as to stand out more, and should also be the first tag that appears. The talk page should be used specifically for discussion of the article, not its subject matter. [And no, none of us except engineers really have a right to talk about it :)]

--Chopin-Ate-Liszt! 20:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Amen, brother.--Beguiled 22:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The best way to improve the "Collapse of the World Trade Center" article is to remove it. It's based on fabricated evidence (aka "lies"). The towers did not collapse, they were pulverized. The structural steel was turned to dust. Again, the best way to improve the "Collapse of the World Trade Center" article is to remove it. Complete Truth 00:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

You are a single purpose, pro-Judy Wood, revert/POV warrior. This project would benefit greatly if you discontinued editing 9/11-related articles. Thanks, Pablo Talk | Contributions 01:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

My use of a descriptive term is being interdicted by certain individuals. The tone of this article is heavily biased in favor of the official party line.Djg2006 17:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Controlled demolition: conspiracy theory? Or hypothesis?

Casting the controlled demolition hypothesis as a conspiracy theory injects POV by branding it (and its adherents) as something kooky, beyond the pale. The "conspiracy" aspect of the hypothesis is peripheral; the hypothesis itself is the central point. Peterhoneyman 01:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Which theories? There are many conjectures - some are legitimate hypotheses, some are genuinely "kooky" and some are outright disinformation. "Hypothesis" is not a suitable word for folklore-based speculation that has already been disproven. Peter Grey 02:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

bin Laden Section

The original words "Although its authenticity was initially questioned" indicates to readers there is no longer any dispute so I changed them to "Although the translation is contested" and included a cite from a RS. Tom harrison reverted it with the comment "rm - belongs with conspiracy theories". Before another revert, a cite is needed to prove the translation is no longer disputed or such a revert is extreme POV at best, especially considering the dissenting view is from a more reliable source than the source of the original translation. I suggest that if the translation is disputed the entire section could probably be deleted as irrelevant. If the section is to stay then it must be NPOV and not give the impression that the White House translation is the only one and undisputed. Wayne 08:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Since Tom harrison was asked to come to talk and/or provide a cite for his claim he has now reverted twice more without the courtesy of an explanation. I can no longer assume good faith and ask that he refrain from vandalising the section. Wayne 03:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:South WTC Collapse.jpg

Image:South WTC Collapse.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 08:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert on this, but the fair use rationale seems to have been added to this image by mistake. According to the image page, the owner of the copyright has given permission to use it. There is no need to invoke fair use and the solution seems to be just to remove the rationale.--Thomas Basboll 15:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Was there ever any debate?

I just noticed this sentence in the section on the investigations:

Interviewed by the BBC in October 2001, the British architect Bob Halvorson correctly predicted that there would be "a debate about whether or not the World Trade Center Towers should have collapsed in the way that they did."

Did he really correctly predict those debates? I haven't found very much discussion in the engineering literature. The closest I've come is the (apparently) mostly ignored criticisms by Lane, Quintiere, Cherepanov, and Bailey. If we can document some discussion about whether or not the WTC should have collapsed the way it did then let's do that. Otherwise we may have to delete this sentence.--Thomas Basboll 06:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Why the sentence and not the word "correctly"?--Pokipsy76 09:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure the sentence is informative enough if he was wrong.--Thomas Basboll 09:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

POV check needed

I haven't had much time for Wikipedia recently, and not able to undertake detailed review of this article at this time. Soon though I should (maybe in the next week or two), as the way some thing are worded are problematic. I have tweaked the section about progressive collapse, which said things like "is widely regarded as the most plausible hypothesis" and contradicted that with "So far, only one rudimentary paper has been published". And the part about "not take much longer than it would take a free-falling object" is not adequately explained. The WTC7 section also desperately needs to be reworked. I'm happy to do that, ASAP when I have the time. For now, the article should be tagged, warning our readers that the article is problematic. --Aude (talk) 08:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. I'd very much like to see the excellent work on WTC7 over the 7 World Trade Center article influence this article. (I understand the reluctance simply to move it, though it still seems to me to be the most natural way of organizing the material.) As to the "is widely regarded" and "only one paper", I think it did look a bit odd, and I've tried to correct that. It can be reliably documented, however, both that most engineers endorse progressive collapse and that very little has been done to demonstrate it. The most common explanation for this is that once the "simple" overload calculation is done, no further argument is needed.--Thomas Basboll 09:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Aude...for instance, the entire section and even including the section heading "Anticipation of aircraft impact" is POV...the section is written as though the collapse is extremely odd, and worded to indicate that not only were the buildings built to withstand fires but also aircraft impacts...but nothing is mentioned which indicates they were built to withstand BOTH incidents, one right after another...possibly because that scenario was not ever examined as a joint event.--MONGO 14:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd be carefull with that MONGO as the architect for the WTC said the buildings were designed to withstand both the impact and the planes fuel load. Considering most of the fuel load was ejected and actually burnt outside the buildings it would only feed conspiracy theories to make too much of it. Wayne 18:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't really understand MONGO's concern here. The issue he emphasizes is well-developed in the section and based on solid sources. It concludes, as MONGO does, that there is little evidence that the joint-event scenario (or even the aircraft scenario alone) was properly considered.--Thomas Basboll 07:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

No one knows if "most of the fuel load was ejected and burned outside the buildings"...the fact that the buildings were burning is obvious by the smoke they produced, which was easily seen by all. I find that section and a number of others to be slightly, but not egregiously POV.--MONGO 17:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Lets look at the NIST findings. NIST estimated that 3,000 gal. of fuel burnt outside the building and 7,000 gal. inside (which started the fires). The jet fuel took, at most, a few minutes to be completely burnt and the effects of the fires it started were negligible according to NIST. Now lets look at statements by the designing engineers and documents predating the attack which confirm that engineers considered the effects of an impact by a 707 jetliner travelling at 600 mph and the ensuing fires caused by 23,000 gal. of jet fuel (A paper released on February 3, 1964), the calculations alone take up 1,200 pages. (According to NIST each plane only held around 10,000 gal. when they hit). This means the buildings were supposed to withstand not only a larger impact (a 707 @ 600 mph impacts with more kinetic energy than a 767 is capable of) but fires caused by twice the amount of fuel. According to engineers in documents dated February 13, 1965 the towers were over designed by a factor of 16. This means that more than 90% of the columns (this includes both core and perimeter columns) would need to be severed to initiate a collapse (less than 25% actually were). So the collapse really does look odd when compared to what the buildings were designed for. Obviously some factor was involved that was not taken into account. What factor caused the collapse we will never know unless it is investigated. Shall we add these details to make it more NPOV or leave it as it is? From your "knowledgeable" comments it seems it is not POV enough yet to suit you. Wayne 03:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

We already know what caused the collapse of the towers. We don't need to wait for any investigation; such investigations have already taken place. Pablo Talk | Contributions 03:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Dang. I missed it. I thought the NIST report was the investigation. Please give me a link to the other investigation thx. Wayne 04:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I never said there were any other investigations (I probably should have written "investigation" instead of its plural form in my previous comment). Based on your earlier comments, you might need to read WP:SOAP and also WP:OR. Pablo Talk | Contributions 04:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Wayne, let us know when you discover what other things made the buildinsg collapse...as of now, the only factual evidence is that the combined effects of high speed collision by wide body jets and the subsequent fires brought the buildings down.--MONGO 05:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It looks like there is some useful information about the design of the WTC in Glanz and Lipton's City in the Sky, which we should probably make use of in this article, since it is one of the few books on this subject. They also mention the studies Wayne refers to. But as far as I can tell NIST's "couldn't find the documents" remains the last word on the matter. (I can't imagine Glanz and Lipton had already found what NIST later couldn't find.) BTW, the question here is not whether or not the aircraft impacts brought the buildings down, but whether, given the impacts, they came down against the expectations of their designers. The answer, I think, is: NIST refuses to "speculate" about that.--Thomas Basboll 07:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The collapse *is* extremely odd. To my knowledge such a thing has never happened anywhere before or since. The view that the collapse was caused by fire is only a theory, and one which has not been proven. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.96.161.52 (talk) 14:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

according to bažant, the decisive factor was the scraping of insulation, not anticipated at the time of design, without which the collapse would not have occurred.

Bažant, Zdeněk P. (2007-05-27). "Collapse of World Trade Center Towers: What Did and Did Not Cause It?" (PDF). 2007-06-22. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. Structural Engineering Report No. 07-05/C605c. Retrieved 2007-09-17. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Peterhoneyman 16:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

As MONGO said, NIST concluded that "the combined effects of high speed collision by wide body jets and the subsequent fires brought the buildings down". What they didn't do was give a reason why. NISTS computor simulations could not make the buildings collapse so they based their findings on the fact that they did fall and this indicates a factor which NIST never fully investigated. It's not my OR as it's in the NIST report which I recommend that Pablothegreat85 read instead of relying on the summary. NIST couldn't find the reports but what they did find was a written summary of the report (dated 1964), copies of emails confirming details and the recollections of the engineers who wrote the original report. Wayne 16:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Bažant's paper while ok covering the collapse is still speculation in regards to fire damage as NIST never found enough columns affected by heat and even said the fires were negligable. Losing fireproofing was obviously a factor but to what extent? The fact remains that the towers were designed to stay standing even after losing most of their columns ("live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs" ENR, Feb 4, 1964). In fact they were designed to lose ALL the columns on one side of the building and have the columns on the other side support the entire structure. Wayne 17:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, it didn't work out the way the engineers planned then.--MONGO 05:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

That fires could significantly weaken huge steel girders is possible although it seems very unlikely in the context of experience to date. (Have any buildings anywhere had modifications made in the light of this new possibility?) - However there is absolutely nothing so far as I am aware to eliminate the theoretical scientific possibility that they gave way due to localised explosions, either caused by unrecognised accidents or by deliberately planted explosives. Either scenario is possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MegdalePlace (talk • contribs) 19:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

POV check needed (continued)

"BTW, the question here is not whether or not the aircraft impacts brought the buildings down, but whether, given the impacts, they came down against the expectations of their designers." -- Thomas Basboll

I don't think you have looked at the available videos and photographs enough. (1) The second plane approached the south tower, making a dramatic, last-minute correction. (2) A white-looking light, apparently emanating from a pod under the right wing of the plane, was reflected on the south face of the building. (3) An explosion ripped out the facade on the east face of the building, on the same level the plane was about to hit. (4) The plane hit the south face of the building, just to the left of the white light, sending a fireball out of the east face of the building. According to a group of pilots who have viewed this video, the flash was too bright to have been caused by burning jet fuel, which isn't that explosive. One professional pilot subsequently refused to fly unless his airline certified that none of the insulation in the plane had been replaced by explosives. He hasn't flown since. The plane apparently missed most, if not all, of the core columns. (5) The building burned, at low temperatures, as evidenced by the black smoke, for about a half hour. Material which has been alleged to be molten iron is seen flowing down the side of the building. (6) The top of the building suddenly tilted to the west, as if all of the core columns on the level the plane hit, had just been severed. One of the photographs of the building at this stage should be included in the article. (7) Just before the top of the building would have fallen over to the west, pyroclastic clouds of pulverized concrete and other materials shoot into the sky above the roof of the building. (8) The top floors of the building, minus their former concrete floors, are forced back over the center of the building and compressed together in one action, visible through the dust. (9) The dust cloud covers the falling building as pieces of steel are ejected laterally. Military demolition experts identify some of the lateral ejections as "demolition squibs," or "mistimed explosives," and explain why they could not have been caused by compressed air. The building subsequently collapses straight down, but the floors do not "pancake," as all of the concrete is now missing on all floors, having apparently been pulverized and ejected laterally. Some engineers, some military demolition experts and others begin to suspect controlled demolition. (10) Firemen describe streams of molten "steel," like "lava," flowing underneath the building during clean-up, six weeks later. (11) Chunks of formerly molten metal, the size of a car, are found in the rubble and termed "meteorites." (12) Analysis of formerly molten metal indicates that it was not structural steel, but purer iron with trace amounts of potassium, aluminum and sulfur. (13) Experiments indicate that molten aluminum, poured on rusty iron, does not produce an aluminothermic reaction. (14) Experiments indicate that liquid metal from an aluminothermic reaction, falling on wallboard, does not become contaminated with sulfur. (15) Experiments indicate that molten aluminum contaminated with various colored materials remains silvery in color as the contaminants float off and burn. (16) Experiments with samples of WTC dust reveal that passing a magnet over a zip-lock bag of dust separates out a black powder. (17) This powder is discovered to consist of tiny spheroids of iron-rich metal, similar to the formerly molten metal, and in some cases, hollow balls coated on the inside with sulfur. These experiments are duplicated by several physicists at various institutions. (18) Firemen comment that there are no typewriters, computers, desks, chairs or anything else in the rubble larger than half of a telephone keypad. (19) Very few bodies are found in the rubble, but tiny pieces of people who have been blown apart are retrieved from the roofs of neighboring buildings. (20) Osama bin Laden is accused of being behind the events, which he denies, criticizing them. (21) A completely phony "Osama bin Laden Confession Video" is allegedly found by unidentified military personnel in a large city in Afghanistan. The speaker on the video is obviously NOT Osama bin Laden, but has obviously been dressed and made-up to resemble him from a distance. He uses rhetoric unlike that of Osama, and ignores issues Osama cares about. His voice does not sound like Osama's. Everything on the tape alleged to be a "confession" has been added by English translators and does not appear in the Arabic voice track. (22) None of these factors are explained by NIST, FEMA or the OCT Commission. (23) Scientific theories indicate that a thermite variation called "thermate" -- has been ignited during the collapse, sending tons of thermate residue into the air as liquid, where it hardened into tiny balls, in some cases forming around bubbles of gaseous sulfur. (24) These theories do not explain how the concrete was pulverized, without further theorizing. The theories do not explain what kind of explosive ejected the pyroclastic clouds above the roof of WTC-2 just prior to the collapse. The theories do not explain what explosive or other force caused the top floors to compress together over the remains of the WTC rather than toppling into the street. (25) Conspiracy theories develop to explain what appears to have been a controlled demolition carried out by unknown individuals and to be blamed on Osama bin Laden to "justify" attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq for which our troops had already been pre-positioned. The theories involve members of the U.S. military, the CIA, the FBI and related private corporations as well as the Canadian Air Force and Secret Service, British intelligence, the Pakistani ISI, the Mossad and the Spanish government.

Wowest 09:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I am aware of these other issues (and I believe they are dealt with adequately in this and other WP articles). I have looked very closely at the material you mention. What I meant was that in the section MONGO raised doubts about the issue is whether or not the buildings behaved as expected.--Thomas Basboll 12:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The buildings appear to have behaved exactly as expected up to a certain point in time. The planes hit them. They survived. The kerosene burned, at a fairly low temperature, as evidenced by the black smoke, and went out. They survived. A fireman said that the remaining flames could be put out with two hoses. Then, the buildings were subjected to additional stresses for which they were not, and could not have been designed. They fell, of course. Wowest 15:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Giving the conspiracy theories their own section over-emphasizes their importance. The link in the side navigation template is appropriate. Tom Harrison ^Talk 13:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

With the publication of Keith Seffen's paper, the conspiracy theories seem to have become an explicit part of the engineering debate (only to be refuted of course). I'm not against removing the section, but the information in it will then have to be moved into the relevant parts of the article (not just left in the navigation template). The model for this would be the way they are dealt with in the 7 World Trade Center article.--Thomas Basboll 16:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

does anyone actually have seffen's paper? i have written him twice asking for a preprint, but i get no reply. however, bažant's forthcoming paper, which is available in preprint also addresses itself directly to CDH rebuttal.

Bažant, Zdeněk P. (2007-05-27). "Collapse of World Trade Center Towers: What Did and Did Not Cause It?" (PDF). 2007-06-22. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. Structural Engineering Report No. 07-05/C605c. Retrieved 2007-09-17. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Peterhoneyman 16:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Items (1) through (24) are not conspiracy theories. They are observable or documented facts, not adequately represented in this article. You only have to look at the right photograph or video. Item (25) is a factual statement about conspiracy theories.

Wowest 15:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

No they aren't.....most of those items are non-scientific impressions, assertions, unproven experimental results and/or opinions. They do not belong in the article...period. To include them would be to corrupt the very idea of an encyclopedia and NPOV. RxS 15:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course they are. By the way, everything in Wikipedia is an assertion -- a linguistic commitment to present evidence. Excluding them totally corrupts NPOV. A declaration, such as "four no trump" or "I now claim this stinking desert in the name of the Kingdom of Spain forever" of "I now pronounce you man and wife" is a different matter, not requiring evidence, but we are not talking about that sort of statement. We're talking about observable phenomenon, although we do need to jump to a conclusion to determine that, in fact, the emperor has no clothes.

Evidence exists to support every assertion I made. Let's start with the first one.:

(1) The second plane approached the south tower, making a dramatic, last-minute correction.

Is that an observable fact which can be seen on several videos, or not?

(By the way, wouldn't this whole enterprise be better if we had a way to include videos, as on youtube? Or, do we have it, and I'm just not aware of it?)

Wowest 15:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, [17] assertion: a positive statement or declaration, often without support or reason In any case, what Wikipedia is full of is reliable sources and verifiable facts...something your list has very little of. It's full of random facts, opinions, unproven experimental results and yes, unfounded/unverified assertions ("apparently emanating from a pod under the right wing of the plane" for example). None of it belongs here and this is not the page to be arguing over pods some people say they have seen in videos. RxS 16:59, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

All 'Explanations' Too Controversial

The fact is that the collapse of the WTC buildings has not been properly explained. The explanations provided by NIST and FEMA are not engineering fact - they are hypotheses. And they are not supported unanimously in the structural engineering community. See for example www.ae911truth.org (architects and engineers for 9-11 truth). The NIST analysis only attempts to model the towers' behaviour up to the moment of initiation of global collapse. The FEMA study was poorly funded and staffed by 'volunteers' many of whom could not be said to be without political affiliation. Forensic evidence from the site in the form of structural steel was not well managed. Nothing I have said so far should be in any way contentious. This being the case, I think Wikipedia should limit itself to a detailed description of the collapse sequence, including a detailed timeline linked to eyewitness testimony, step-by-step description of the collapse, the nature, development and movement of the clouds, the movement of larger fragments into the space above and around the falling buildings and an analysis of the debris field. Links can be provided for the 'official' and 'alternative' views of WHY this happened. CarbonUnit2 19:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

model the towers' behaviour up to the moment of initiation Obviously. What other kind of modelling would one do? There's no controversy about how a failed structure behaves. Peter Grey 23:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Au contraire - there is a multitude of different failure modes that one could envisage for a structure this large and complex. Many of them would look very different from what was seen. If you don't have a credible model with realistic numbers for the collapse sequence itself, can you claim to have explained anything?. By the way, I'm not advancing an alternate or 'conspiracy' theory, just pointing out that the official account is based on investigations which fail to meet many basic criteria of good forensic science. In fact, what we think of as the 'official' account (specifically the 'explanation' of the tower collapses) is largely the work of PBS/Nova and Popular Mechanics magazine.CarbonUnit2 02:09, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

[T]here [are] a multitude of different failure modes but once failure has happened there are not many options for collapse (i.e. down), particularly for a building of this size and geometry. Peter Grey 13:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

NIST details the mechanisms leading to the initiation of collapse. thereafter, as bažant makes clear in several (peer-reviewed, authoritative, and archival) papers, the kinetic energy transferred by the falling upper portion exceeds by an order of magnitude the absorptive capacity of the story below. consequently, it must also collapse. and so on. in other words, the mechanics of the building dictate that once collapse begins, progressive collapse is inevitable. critics are free to question or reject this explanation, but to do so credibly, they must identify a flaw in bažant's mathematical and engineering analysis and propose an alternative that stands up to scientific and engineering scrutiny. without that, the NIST/bažant explanation is incontrovertible. Peterhoneyman 04:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

the flying spaghetti monster is not a fact, it is a hypothesis. Peterhoneyman 01:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

no, it's a parody. That's not a hypothesis.

Wowest 04:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

i was being sarcastic. i apologize. Peterhoneyman 04:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree with adding too much about conspiracy theories to this page nor do I agree with all that Wowest has put forward. However it is important to sort out fact from fiction. It is obvious that many editors are either POV or have not read the sources they are quoting as they keep incorrectly saying everything is proved. The NIST conclusions are a theory not supported by experimentation. NIST could not get the towers to collapse in simulations so they eventually left out a critical structural component (the Hat Trusses) from the next set of simulations to make the towers fall. As I said before the flaw in Bažant's analysis is that the fires he used were entirely speculative with no supporting evidence and his mathematical and engineering data while correct followed on from that. In both cases they worked backwards speculating on the events needed to get to the end result witnessed. They may possibly be correct but equally possibly they are not. This is why so many experts are calling for a proper (scientific) investigation. For doing this they are dismissed out of hand as conspiracy theorists without ever supporting one. Wayne 05:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Where are these so many experts at? I haven't seen any experts come forward and offer any other evidence that contradicts what has already been examined. The puzzle isn't going to have every single little miniscule piece fit...the preponderance of the evidence is well documented by NIST and it's not like this is an event that that can be cross examined precisely since no other similar event has ever happened. Don't forget that you are leaving out the a major portion of the equation...more than 200,000 pounds of airliner was added to the floors that were impacted.--MONGO 06:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Why do they need to offer evidence? The problem they are complaining about is lack of evidence. Also an excellent proposal you make..."it has never happened before so there is no need to investigate it properly". There is no "preponderance" of evidence for any theory whether that be official or conspiracy. What has the weight of the aircraft got to do with anything? The towers were designed to have a load factor in excess of 10. This means it can support 10X the weight and in fact, according to the engineers they over engineered so that they could actually support 20X. I suspect a 767 weighs slighly less than the WTC. Not to mention that the towers were designed to survive a much heavier aircraft lodging in it. According to the chief engineer it could survive multiple impacts and I suspect he does not mean impacts by Cesnas. Wayne 07:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

BTW heres clarification on my mention of "heavier aircraft" ... The towers were designed to survive a 707 weighing 328,000 lb. The 767 that actually hit weighed 200,000 lb (after subtracting debris ejected from building and fuel used before impact according to NIST). Wayne 07:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Where did you get the numbers for the weight of those planes? According to the Wikipedia pages on the 707 and the 767 (which are adequately sourced), your numbers are wrong. Also, you can't use the estimated weight of the plane after impact as the weight for the 767. The relevant weight is the weight of the aircraft on impact. Pablo Talk | Contributions 08:27, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

i agree that the weight of the aircraft is irrelevant. the specific mass of the WTC (mass per unit height) was on the order of a million kg/m. Peterhoneyman 13:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Peterhoneyman -- Bazant's theory was debunked by Gordon Ross, ME

(Master of Engineering, I believe) in an earlier version at

http://www.911blogger.com/node/9154/print

Looking at Bazant's paper, I see a lot of assumptions (which could

be fine), and a lot of math which I certainly can't follow.

Reminds me of the time, as a college freshman, when I did NOT

have time to finish a proof on a math final, so I faked it. I

started from the bottom and the top, and in the middle, on one

side, wrote "completing the square...." I never learned whether

I would have gotten the "A" anyway, but I got it that way. If you

cannot follow the math yourself, you can't trust it, but the math

is only a model anyway. The model predicts the behavior of the

real-world phenomenon. To prove it, you need a repeatable

experiment. I only see Steven Jones doing actual experiments.

The academics supporting the OCT are just creating computer models

and tweaking the data until they get the results they were paid for.

189 licensed architects and engineers disagree with Bazand et al.

and Gordon Ross ME isn't even listed among them, so make it 190.

Gordon Ross is listed here:

http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html

and so is his website.

:-)

MONGO - these experts (189 architects & engineers) are at:

http://www.ae911truth.org/joinus.php

Also, if it's true that "the preponderance of the evidence is well documented by NIST" then it's the part of the evidence they ignore that troubles some of us. If you go to the ae911 truth home page, you can look at the multi-media explanation for free.

Also, WAYNE! Hi. If you go HERE:

http://www.captainsherlock.com/

you can get a download link, a user id and a password, all

on one page, so you can download "Captain Sherlock Solves 9/11"

(or whatever they call it). Captain Sherlock is a composite

person made up of a group of pilots. They make a few points,

including one I THINK you current do not agree with. They

get a little too artsy and pretentious, but I think it's worth

the time. At the end, when all you have is music and images of

flowers in a garden, there is no more "meat" following that, if

you get as bored as I did.

Wowest 09:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

i followed the suggested link. was that page really written by someone with a master's degree? it is mere hand-waving, without a shred of credible engineering on it. (and would someone please buy that man a spell-checker?) drawing lines on photographs then pointing and shouting is not debunking. let me know when gordon ross, m.e. has submitted his work for peer-review and published it in an independent journal. (and please let me know when ae911t reaches 1% of the size of the 133,000-member ASCE.) in the meantime, i suggest you study bažant's recent tech report Collapse of World Trade Center Towers: What Did and Did Not Cause It?. you will have to put up with the math — that is the language of science and engineering — but there is much to learn from that paper (and that man). Peterhoneyman 12:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

These POV pushers don't want to accept the facts, they want to try and add junk science to the article. They use minimalist information that is not based on the evidence to try and say that the known evidence is incorrect, or that a new investigation is needed...the underlying purpose of this is to try and add conspiracy theory nonsense to the article...enagaging with them in long term debates is a waste of time.--MONGO 17:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Firstly I remind you of civility and good faith. "We", as in NPOV editors, do not argue the evidence is incorrect but that lack of evidence makes the conclusions incorrect and that this fact requires an adequate investigation to disprove conspiracy theories. Unfortunately it is true that enagaging with POV editors in long term debates really is a waste of time but the hope is that open minded people will help put conspiracy theories to bed, or accidentally prove one. Wayne 08:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not exist to experiment in original research, nor do these talk pages exist for others to waste our time with silly notions about what they think happened. The "we need a new investigation" crowd is almost always those that support conspiracy theories. There isn't anything that is incorrect about NIST's research...it was conducted by hundreds of engineers and consultants. I really do suggest if people want to use this website to chat about the event rather than write a better article, then they go find a blog.--MONGO 18:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

At this point I will simply reiterate my point that ALL EXPLANATIONS of these collapses are at this time highly controversial and therefore none of them should be presented as fact. Thanks to all contributors to this thread for so dramatically illustrating this.CarbonUnit2 20:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Bazant and/or Seffen

Peterhoneyman has replaced a reference to a forthcoming paper by Keith Seffen with a reference to a paper by Zdenek Bazant that has been submitted to the same journal but has not yet been accepted. The advantage of Bazant's paper, as Peter points out, is that it is available online. The advantage of Seffen's, in my view, is that it has been peer-reviewed and accepted. We do, of course, have to take a press release from Cambridge at its word, but I think that it passes WP:RS. The sorts of things we are reporting here are, to my mind, covered adequately in the press release. I would prefer sourcing them to the peer-reviewed paper.--Thomas Basboll 15:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

bažant's tech report also meets the WP:RS standard. (i expect both papers will be published in j engrg mech within a few months.) but i am not comfortable citing a paper that i can not get my hands on. if no one has read the paper, i don't think we should reference it. Peterhoneyman 02:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd still say there is a difference between a submitted and a forthcoming paper. But you may have a better sense of whether or not J Eng Mech will accept Bazant's paper than I do. Like you say, in a few months this won't be an issue in either case. Perhaps we could reference just the press release for now along with Bazant's paper? Surely it (or the BBC's coverage of it) count as a reliable source of knowledge about research into the collapses.--Thomas Basboll 07:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

i don't know whether j engrg mech will accept bažant's paper, but there is nothing wrong with citing a tech report. i don't put much stock in secondary sources; even the claim that seffen's article has been accepted for publication is second hand. Peterhoneyman 13:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Secondary sources are used throughout WP (and this article). For our purposes here, they are fine and conform to WP:RS. That doesn't mean you (as a reader of the article) have be satisfied, of course. But I think that Seffen's results (and especially the background that the press release presents) is informative and credible. It does have to be presented as "forthcoming", of course, and it was.--Thomas Basboll 13:36, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

i view the press release and bbc article as (fairly) reliable sources about the paper's existence and its pending publication. but as to the content of the paper, proceed with caution: none of us knows what's in the paper; i don't view the press release or bbc article as reliable sources about that. Peterhoneyman 22:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

But isn't the BBC piece just a common example of science journalism? It tells us what a researcher has discovered (specifically, the residual capacity of the WTC towers) and why he set out to discover it (to refute conspiracy theorists). Like I say, we rely on sources like that all the time.--Thomas Basboll 05:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

it all depends on what seffen's paper actually says. i made a third request for a preprint yesterday. grumble. Peterhoneyman 16:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Basboll: I think the 'earlier' BBC report gives more insight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7SwOT29gbc Wowest 18:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

i remain disappointed in my attempts to obtain a preprint of seffen's paper. i suppose it is understandable: i have read on some truther blogs the nasty letters accompanying their requests, so i guess he is just placing all preprint requests in the circular file. but this leaves us with no way to verify what he has done. as far as i am concerned, we lack certainty that the paper has been accepted anywhere, submitted anywhere, or even written. under the circumstances, i don't think it is appropriate to cite seffen's mythical paper. Peterhoneyman 19:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

i think we should stop referencing seffen. he is not distributing preprints and has not answered my multiple (very polite and proper) email requests. the press release gave someone else's email address for preprint requests; i wrote three times (again, politely) and got no response. something is fishy here. Peterhoneyman 15:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking into this myself and found this interesting bit of info on Seffens Cambridge published papers webpage.
"K A Seffen,"Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Centre: a Simple Analysis", (2007) ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics, in press"
Problem is that it says the paper is in press but the ASCE apparently has not heard of it. I did find a mention in an Irish newspaper (Seffen is Irish) that the paper is due to be published by ASCE in February 2008 (it's a monthly journal so why so late?) so we need to wait till then before risking a mention. My guess it's a paper Seffen wants to write and Cambridge messed up by assuming it was already written. All media mentions seem to use the Cambridge press release (or a source that used it as their source). Then we have Seffens position as senior lecturer at the University (which gives his "paper" added weight), according to this it is only a temporary appointment due to the unexpected resignation of both the Master and Senior Tutor at the same time. Wayne 18:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anything is necessarily fishy here (though this wouldn't be the firsty hasty press release in the history of science). I think it is fine to wait for the publication of the paper before putting it in. BTW, I can't find any mention of Seffen in the current version of the article. Am I not looking in the right place?--Thomas Basboll 19:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

actually, it is not mentioned in this article. over to CDH; cheers! Peterhoneyman 19:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep. I just followed Peterhoneyman here to put my 2c in lol. Seffen should be removed from the CD Hypothesis article then (for now)..... and lets not mention him here either. Wayne 19:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Bazant is incontrovertible?

Without "an alternative that stands up to scientific and engineering scrutiny," says Peterhoneyman, "the NIST/bažant explanation is incontrovertible" (above). Well, ref 26 refers to a paper by G. P. Cherepanov that claims (in a journal that Bazant serves on the editorial board of) that the progressive collapse hypothesis does not square with the observed facts. It also provides an alternative (fracture waves) that has passed peer-review.--Thomas Basboll 15:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

How can an educated person such as yourself believe such crap?  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 16:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, he used the word 'claims'. Looks more like bringing up a verifiable fact (that a paper has been written on this, and passed peer review) than 'believing crap'. Skittle 13:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

i downloaded cherepanov's paper (and a followup: Cherepanov, Genady P. (2007). "Progressive Collapse of Towers: The Resistance Effect". Int J Fract. 143 (2). Springer Netherlands: 203–206. doi:10.1007/s10704-007-9060-y. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)) today, skimmed them both. i intend to give them a close read later this week, but until then, i don't have an opinion on whether they are incompatible with bažant. Peterhoneyman 02:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I've just finished reading several papers supporting progressive collapse and noticed a problem. They assume a "typical" load rating for the towers of 3. In fact the towers were over engineered according to the builders to have a load rating of >10. Is there a reason for using "typical" instead of the actual (apart from the typical needing 4 times less damage to initiate a collapse)? Wayne 05:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

You're forgetting the towers were compromised by having many of the columns destroyed and the fires severely weakend many of the floor trusses...the additional weight of the aircraft was but one of many contributing factors.--MONGO 05:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The weight of the aircraft is completely insignificant. What is 100 tons compared with 300,000 tons? The example commonly given as a model for understanding the aircraft impact is to push a pencil through the screen part of a conventional screen door and notice whether the door falls down. But what evidence is there, MONGO, that, say, the twenty minute low-temperature fire in building two weakened ANY floor trusses?

Wowest 15:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The towers were designed to survive losing 90% of their support columns. According to NIST WTC 1 lost 12%, WTC 2 lost 34%. I will accept the statement NIST made on it's own investigation "We are unable to provide a full explanation of the collapse". Supporters of the official theory conveniently overlook that NIST did not actually investigate how or why the towers collapsed but only the events leading to a point before the collapse. In it's official reply to Dr Steven Jones criticisms, NIST stated it's conclusions are based almost entirely on visual evidence of the collapse rather than scientific models because "the computor models are not able to converge on a solution". Wayne 10:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I don't think so...I have read every paper I have found which discusses the building's capacity to support itself and nowhere has it stated that the building was designed to remain standing if it lost 90% of it's support columns. The vast majority of structural studies that were done and implemented involved the ability of the strutures to withstand severe winds, such as those that occur during a minimal hurricane.--MONGO 17:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

You need to research to find stuff. It was the architects and engineers who designed the towers who said that. In fact they also said that the towers could lose the core columns and most of the perimeter columns and the perimeter columns on one side could still support the structure on their own. This is because each perimeter column could support 2000% more than their load rating. BTW.. Todays news headline "The NIST Admits Total Collapse Of Twin Towers Unexplainable". Wayne 04:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

A) you are talking about static loading. Falling floors are dynamic. b) what temperature do you think the load rating was calculated at and c) saying that something could support more than their load rating makes no sense. It's like saying a 1 gallon milk carton can hold 10 gallons. d) as I recall, it's the opposite of what you said. The tower could withstand losing it's perimeter, not it's core. Again, static forces only, not dynamic. --DHeyward 05:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

No, the designers did not say that the towers could lose 90% of their support columns and remain standing; nor is it true that the perimeter columns could support 2000% more than their load rating. And that "headline" you speak of is nothing more than the usual willful and deliberate misinterpretation that conspiracy fantasists apply to anything that does not fit their fantasies. In reality, the NIST smacked down the Request for Correction submitted by Morgan Reynolds, Kevin Ryan, etal, and conspiracy fantasists have cherry-picked one sentence out of that smackdown in a lame attempt to spin it into something entirely inconsistent with what was actually imparted. It's sad, really. Jazz2006 01:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

i agree. here is the sentence that was picked out: "As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse." and here is the previous mention to which it refers, which explains why the NIST computer models were not run past the point "where the buildings reached global instability": "At this point, because of the magnitude of the deflections and the number of failures occurring, the computer models are not able to converge on a solution." representing this as an "admission that the total collapse is unexplainable" is a lie. concluding that NIST is "implicitly acknowledging that controlled demolition is the only means by which the buildings could have come down" is another lie. it has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of the NIST report or the CDH; these are lies, spread by liars. Peterhoneyman 03:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Dead External Link

In the NIST Report section, more specifically in the subsection called "Scope and limits", the link in footnote #51 is dead and a search at the Wayback Machine generates no matches. Jazz2006 00:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Biased Censorship by Admin "Fram"

TheEmac 14:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

This is what "Fram" is continuing to remove.

ALL information is factual and correct and referenced when necessary.

TheEmac

The 911 Commission Report states that the South Tower (WTC 2) collapsed in 10 seconds.

The more recent NIST Report states that the estimated 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.

The height of the Towers at roof level was 1,368 feet.

The distance an object will fall in 10 seconds in a vacuum, absent of any frictional drag, is 1607 feet.

The Towers were NOT in a vacuum.

please review the section titled "Comparison of Collapse Duration with Seismic Record" starting at the bottom of p. 12 in

• Bažant, Zdeněk P. (2007-05-27). "Collapse of World Trade Center Towers: What Did and Did Not Cause It?" (PDF). 2007-06-22. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. Structural Engineering Report No. 07-05/C605c. Retrieved 2007-09-17. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Peterhoneyman 15:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Your references dispute your content. From the reference for time of building colapse:

From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.

-Improbcat 15:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Cherepanov "agrees" with Bazant?

I don't think we should say that Cherepanov and Bazant agree about the collapse times, and that their models agree with the seismic records, without saying they disagree about the mechanics of collapse.--Thomas Basboll 14:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

cherepanov's collapse model predicts a duration of 73% greater than free-fall. the difference is probably due to oversimplification in his model; in particular, he assumes mass is distributed uniformly. bažant's model is more precise, and more accurate. so far, so good — they both predict a collapse time greater than free fall, and are in reasonably close agreement with one another and with the LDEO observations. cherepanov then goes on to develop his fracture wave mechanism to explain why the towers collapsed in free fall, which he asserts without citation. the LDEO data moots cherepanov's theory. Peterhoneyman 15:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Cherepanov's paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal while the LDEO data is cited (and interpreted) in a working paper. Data can't (for our purposes) render a disagreement that Cherepanov insists on (and has gotten through peer-review) moot. Also: as I read Cherepanov a more realistic assumption about the distribution of mass would slow the modeled collapse still further. More importantly: as he point outs, his calculation doesn't even take the resistance of the structure (only its mass) into account. Finally, in his footnote he says that once safefy factors are also taken into account "progressive failure [is] absolutely impossible". Cherepanov was being imprecise but in a commonly accepted way. Like NIST, he obviously meant "the buildings collapsed essentially in free fall with the lower portions apparently providing almost no resistance". The disagreement is about whether this (shared) observation conflicts with the "progressive collapse regime". We should report that disagreement in the article.--Thomas Basboll 06:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

cherepanov says: The comprehensive data of the collapses collected in many reports of NIST evidence the free fall regime of all collapses on September 11, 2001. Evidently, the WTC towers were disintegrated at the very beginning of each collapse. the remainder of his paper uses fracture waves to explain that phenomenon. but if the free-fall assertion is invalid, then the fracture wave theory does not apply. (moreover, it suggests that fracture waves did not play a role in the collapse.) the disagreement between cherepanov and bažant amounts to the duration of the collapses. do you want to add a section on collapse time? Peterhoneyman 15:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

(back to left)Peter, I think you are forgetting that Cherepanov claims to "prove that the collapse in the regime of progressive failure is much slower than the free fall even if we ignore the resistance of the underlying, intact structure" (page 288, my emphasis). By "much slower" he means at least 1/3 the accelaration, which means it would take 73% longer. But, like I say, the underlying structure still hasn't been taken into account.

Bazant and Verdure say that "the collapse duration could not have been much longer (say, twice as long or more) than the duration of a free fall from the tower top." NIST says that "the building section above came down essentially in free fall". And Cherepanov (rightly) summarizes this as a general consensus about the "free fall regime" of the collapses. In fact, they appear to have taken about 50% longer than free fall (consistent with Bazant and Verdure's definition of "not much longer"). But Cherepanov's calculations show that even positing a very unrealistic structure (essentially no structure) the collapses would proceed at less than half the acceleration of free fall and would take at least 73% longer.They in fact took at most 53% longer. Cherepanov says that "the collapse in the regime of progressive failure is much slower than the free fall" (p. 288); Bazant and Verdure, like I say, say that "the collapse duration could not have been much longer than the duration of a free fall". This is why I say that it is not "free fall" as such that they are arguing about. It the question of whether or not it would take much longer than free fall. Cherepanov and Bazant (and NIST and Seffen) agree that it didn't take much longer. They disagree about whether it should have.

I am not at all against writing that the collapses took about 50% longer than free fall. I am against suggesting that this jibes with Cherepanov's model of progressive collapse. To repeat: he says it would take 73% longer if there were no intact structure underneath (just the mass of the floors). And he also says that once that structure is factored in (with its safety margin), a progressive collapse is "absolutely impossible" (note 1). We simply can't have Bazant and Cherepanov sourcing the same claim about the match of "model" and "calculations" in the engineering literature.--Thomas Basboll 14:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Removal of mainstream sources from controlled demolition section

A long list of sources that support the received view (NIST's) of the collapse of the WTC cannot be used to support the claim that mainstream engineering scholarship has "rejected" CDH. Leaving them there would be tantamount to saying that the Chicago Manual of Style has "accused" Kaavya Viswanathan of plagiarism, i.e., using the CMS as a source of the claim that she has been accused of plagiarim (because she has in fact been accused of doing what (we think) the CMS (would) call(s) plagiarism). See Wikipedia's policy on the synthesis of published material serving to advance a position.--Thomas Basboll 07:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't see how the example you provide about Kaavya Viswanathan has anything to do with removing information that is referenced and accurate regarding the collapse issue. I'll look it over again, but I hope you can explain it to me why that section was so vastly reduced.--MONGO 07:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay..I guess what you are saying is that these sources don't say anything about whether CD happened or not and therefore, can't really be used as fodder to support an anti-CD discussion...correct me if I am wrong.--MONGO 07:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

That's about right. Here's what I had just written before the edit conflict: To my mind, the section was not vastly reduced. Rather, a long list of references that did not reject controlled demolition were removed as sources for a sentence that said that "the theory was rejected by ... mainstream engineering scholarship". Those sources only "reject" CDH on the line of reasoning explicitly barred by WP:SYNTH). The CMS would no doubt see Viswanathan's work as an example of plagiarism, but, as a matter of fact, it doesn't mention her. Likewise, these engineers would no doubt reject the CDH, but, as a matter of fact, they ignore it.--Thomas Basboll 08:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Cooperative research as external link

If you look at the external links, it's a pretty rag tag bunch of sites, most of them are not RS at all. Nor should they be. RS doesn't really apply in this section (certainly hasn't so far). So we need a better argument than "conspiracy drama" to bar it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

We can certainly amend and or remove any links that are not reliable. Biased sources or those that mislead have no reason to be here at all.--MONGO (talk) 02:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

CR is not especially biased; the page I've linked to is a perfectly good resource. I would of course never use it to source a claim in an article but it could easily be used to locate reliable sources. Much like a Wikipedia article. (We link to them, but we don't use them as sources.) BTW, what gives you the idea that CR is biased or misleading in this case?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

No reason exists to link to less than completely accurate sources, highly regarded and as being peer reviewed and published or publishable. See [18]--MONGO (talk) 02:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything in WP:SOAP that says you can't link to less than highly regarded and peer-reviewed/able sources. But I note that WP:LINKS explicitly says that "sites with ... meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article" should be linked and "sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources" should be considered. (CR is nothing like the things listed to be avoided.) I think policy is clear here: Cooperative Research is a perfectly good external link.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 17:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree...please cease interpreting policy to suit your needs.--MONGO (talk) 20:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

What part of the policy on soapboxing do you think linking to CR violates? And in what way is my interpretation of the guidelines on external links mistaken?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 00:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the CR link and editing the links section. I am of course still open to discussing it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I took it out again. It's merely a website that cherry picks refs to support a view that is not altogether anywhere near accurate. It's also bothersome to see their donate link at the top left of their website...donate to what?...their pockets? Sorry, we're not in the business of providing a link to their fund raising efforts.--MONGO (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Do we agree that CR is very much like WP? Like WP, users provide CR's content and, like WP, CR asks for donations. As far as I can tell, CR does not cherry pick: it just gathers most of the press coverage on a given topic together and organizes it chronologically.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

As an object of comparison consider the link to Z-Axis [19], which arguably advertises a piece of software. I think there are good reasons to keep that link because the animations are of obvious interest to readers of this article regardless of the business interests of Z-Axis. We want to inform readers, and the CR link provides a useful overview of media coverage regardless of possible ulterior motives at the History Commons project.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

If Mongo can't accept CR because "It's merely a website that cherry picks refs to support a view that is not altogether anywhere near accurate' then we need to get rid of Popular Mechanics and other similar references as they can be accused of exactly the same thing in regards to this subject. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You have to apply the same standards to everything regardless of which side it supports. If you also want to only allow links to "peer reviewed and published" references then we will be left with maybe 3 links for the whole page. Please try to be NPOV instead of concentrating on debunking and throwing out anything that you personally don't like. Wayne (talk) 09:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Cooperative Research is not a reliable site. Even in the links section, we need to include the best quality sources. The cooperative research timeline seems to word things in a misleading way with many weasel words. For example, on the timeline concerning United Airlines Flight 93, scroll down to where it says "(After 10:06 a.m.): Witnesses Report Lack of Plane Wreckage at Flight 93 Crash Scene". It seems they are selectively choosing quotes and sources to imply something that the references really don't support. For example the timeline only quotes Frank Monoco, "If you would go down there, it would look like a trash heap. There’s nothing but tiny pieces of debris. It’s just littered with small pieces" The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reference supporting a "lack of plane wreckage" also says quotes Jeff Phillips "There was one part of a seat burning up there, that was something you could recognize." [20] Cooperative Research, given its anonymous nature and the way it puts sources together, is not a good reliable source that we should include here. Not even in the external links section. --Aude (talk) 18:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

While I think this is way too detailed a discussion to have to settle the question of an external link, here's the context of Phillips' remark:

"It didn't look like a plane crash because there was nothing that looked like a plane," Barron said.

"There was one part of a seat burning up there," Phillips said. "That was something you could recognize."

"I never seen anything like it," Barron said. "Just like a big pile of charcoal."

It is clear that the burning seat (part) is presented as the exception that proves the rule, namely, that there was nothing there that resembled what observers expected of a plane crash (i.e., there were only few recognizable airplane parts). CR is not cherry picking here, they are choosing representative quotes to illustrate a point that the source is emphasising.

Like I say, I don't think we need to have the discussion at that level. We don't have to fact-check our links. They don't have to qualify as reliable sources. The list of victims and the CameraPlanet video are not RS either, but perfectly informative. So is the research done by CR.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

What? I thought we were here to write a factual and reliable encyclopedia...if that is not your mission, then you're on the wrong website.--MONGO (talk) 18:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be disagreeing with me about something completely different. I don't see any ambiguity in WP:LINKS. It says we should consider the inclusion of "sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources". That's what we're doing now: considering it. There is no need to raise any doubts about anyone's mission when having that discussion.

CR's objective seems to be to find every mainstream media source (and some official documents) that report on whatever topics they are interested in. It clearly contains "information about [the collapses] from knowledgeable sources". It would do so even if examples of the sort of cherry picking that Aude is driving at could be found. In the case he mentions, however, I don't think CR has displayed any bias or infidelity to the source.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

So far, I haven't found above a constructive argument that would link CR with a Wikipedia policy that it allegedly violates. Thus, the conclusion for now should be to include it. It's a very well organized RS news database on the topic, nothing more.(I really don't know how one can be finding a Conspiracy Theory in the site construction itself... unless at the same time he's finding it in the RS news sourced there.) salVNaut (talk) 15:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

POV Edits?

Mongo has made what I consider POV edits. I did leave some edits he made that were borderline legitimate but these below were too POV for me to let go. See here for context.
1. Mongo wants to include "but not necessarily those that involved aviation fuel".
This sentence is irrelevant as NIST concluded the fuel fire was minor. It is covered elsewhere in the artical and serves no purpose here other than to reinforce the OCT view.
2. Deletion of mention that NIST accepts that the WTC were designed to handle an aircraft impact.
It is relevant as the next sentence says that building codes have no requirement that buildings handle an aircraft impact. Without qualification this implies that neither did the WTC so why can't it be mentioned?
3. Severe editing of the engineering artical in the critism section on the grounds that it is a conspiracy theory.
The source is a peer review publication with referenced critism supported by experts speaking in their field of expertise. It does not qualify as an "alternative" theory and makes no claim regarding support of any CT.
4. Deleting the qualifier "Though they did not investigate controlled demolition" to the sentences claim that NIST rejected CD. I said i would remove it if he could show that they did investigate. Mongo said in the edit summary that "NIST didn't investigate it because it is nonsense". A case of "I don't like it"? No qualifier makes it falsely give the impression to the reader that NIST did investigate.
I'm open to legitimate reasons for the edits. Wayne (talk) 04:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, what I saw was that Wowest did a wholesale revert because "Jet planes don't use "aviation fuel (obsolete)" they use jet fuel.)" Ridiculous.

I think it's only fair to say that NIST didn't look into CD because there was no technical reason to and didn't feel it was worthwhile, not because they didn't "like it". So if you're gonna say they didn't look into it, then we should say why (as they explain it) and not leave it to interpretation. RxS (talk) 04:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

My edit summary was accurate..they did not have unlimited time and or budget to examine the ridiculous.--MONGO (talk) 09:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What is the OCT view?--MONGO (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What does Wowest's revert have to do with anything? He was only restoring the page to it's original state and didn't need to say anything in the summary. I was probably not clear above. Mongo made the first edit which included all 4 of those items in a single edit and his summary made no sense as he claimed he was reverting a conspiracy theory. If Mongo is concerned that NIST didn't feel CD worthwhile to investgate then say so in the artical instead of leaving the text to read as if they did investigate before rejection. Wayne (talk) 13:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Blindly reverting is not ok, and reverting without comment (as you suggested he is justified in doing) is edit warring at it's worst. This is an encyclopedia anyone can edit and he does not own this article (nor do you). Let me me repeat, "and didn't need to say anything in the summary" is completely mistaken. RxS (talk) 14:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Mongo had already had his edit reverted 3 or 4 times so it was obvious there is a dispute and from experience the summary tends to be neglected more often than not after a few times by everyone. If you want to critisize him for it then have a go at Mongo as well for his "informative" original summaries. Instead of "reverting (to Mongo) because there is no consensus", is it not normal to leave the original version if a major edit is disputed and the editor is not willing to compromise even when shown to be in error? It seems strange to me that the original, and in some cases long standing, text suddenly needs consensus while the new mass edit doesn't. Wayne (talk) 14:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Fire protection and anticipation of aircraft impacts

This has nothing to do with CT/OCT debates. Read the relevant sections of the NIST report (which I have sourced with page numbers for easy reference) and explain how I am getting the facts wrong. My aim in making these edits, line by line, with detailed explanations in the edit summaries, was to get the fire protect issues and aircraft impact issues as clear as possible. My edits simply deserve more than "rv CT" ... even if I have misunderstood NIST.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's talk about these issues one at a time, not as question of pushing the article towards or away from CTs.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In examination of your "improvements"...well...here's the diff which I just reverted...you changed:

• But NIST was unable to find any further details about the study and stated that without the original calculations which were used to render such conclusions, any attempt to compare the performance of the buildings to design expectations would be "speculation". In examining the collapse of the towers, NIST also stated that, "No building code in the United States has specific design requirements for impact of aircraft, and thus, buildings are not specifically designed to withstand the impact of fuel-laden commercial aircraft."

to

• Unnable to locate the original calculations, NIST declined to comment any further on the document. While buildings are not designed specifically to survive commercial aircraft crashes, NIST found documentation that "clearly indicates that the Port Authority recognized during the design stage the possibility of an aircraft impact."...

that is a huge change...from the buildings not being designed to withstand the impacts to that they did recognize they could be subject to aircraft impacts...sorry, wikipedia is not a soapbox.--MONGO (talk) 09:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

• You say NIST says the "the buildings [were] not desined to withstand the impacts" but if you look at the quote you can see that's not what NIST says. Your understandable misreading of that sentence is exactly what my edit was trying to avoid. NIST says that buildings in general are not designed to withstand them but that the WTC towers did in fact specifically take such contingencies into account.
• The important fact that no building codes required this is preserved in my version. Before my edits, the section seems to end by having NIST contradict both Skilling and Robertson. My version simply gets that section of the NIST report right.
• The version you propose says that NIST says that "any attempt to compare the performance of the buildings to design expectations would be 'speculation'. But that is not what NIST says would be speculation. NIST says any further comment on the content of a report they couldn't locate would be speculation. (The version you are defending misquotes the NIST report.)
• You have also removed (by reverting rather than editing) perfectly good information about fire protection. Please read the parts of the NIST report we are talking about and propose corrections.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 09:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I see...so you are suggesting that removing the part about speculating...is accurate? Is there a problem with that word? They took into account that the buildings could be hit by an airplane, but I know what you're getting at...and this is simply a twist on the same old news...no...they never anticipated that the buildings would withstand high speed imapcts....they never even looked at that possibility when the buildings were being designed since...they considered (at best) a low speed impact by an airplane on takeoff or in approach for a landing...one that would be flying less than 150-180 mph. Please stop soapboxing conspiracy theories in serious articles.--MONGO (talk) 09:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

No, you don't know what I'm getting at. On page 71 of the report in question, NIST writes "Without the original calculations of the original aircraft impact analysis, any comment on the document would be speculation." The sentence you are defending in effect quotes NIST as saying "any comment on the topic would be speculation." That's a pretty straightforward error. Please tone down your rhetoric and read the sources we are arguing about.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think you know what I am getting at either, Thomas.--MONGO (talk) 10:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I doubt our failures to communicate interest the other editors working on this article. Did you have anything to say about the article content and the sentence about "speculation"?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I did...already...above.--MONGO (talk) 10:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

We are talking about the corrects of a quotation. You have not done anything to show that your interpretation of what NIST dismisses as "speculation" is the right one. Please do.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

A number of mischaracterizations?

Could Luke please list them?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

MONGO mentions the main problems above. His wording wording, while not perfect, seems more in line with the sources to me, without engaging in unfounded extrapolation. On that note, the New Civil Engineer article seems to have been misrepresented. It should explain that the requests were refused because NSIT had not developed the visualizations. The wording was also POV and undue WEIGHT—naming the scientists which the NSIT supposedly refused. For further reference, here is the text of the article from Factiva:

6 October 2005 New Civil Engineer English © Copyright 2005. Emap Construct Limited. All rights reserved.

News

WORLD TRADE Center disaster investigators are refusing to show computer visualisations of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers, NCE has learned.

Visualisations of collapse mechanisms are routinely used to validate the type of finite element analysis model used by the investigators.

The collapse mechanism and the role played by the hat truss at the top of the tower has been the focus of debate since the US National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) published its fi ndings (NCE 22 September).

NIST showed detailed computer generated visualisations of both the plane impacts and the development of fires within WTC1 and WTC2 at a recent conference at its Gaithersburg HQ. But the actual collapse mechanisms of the towers were not shown as visualisations.

University of Manchester professor of structural engineering Colin Bailey said there was a lot to be gained from visualising the structural response.

"NIST should really show the visualisations; otherwise the opportunity to correlate them back to the video evidence and identify any errors in the modelling will be lost, " he said.

University of Sheffield professor Roger Plank added that visualisations of the collapses of the towers "would be a very powerful tool to promote the design code changes recommended by NIST."

NIST told NCE this week that it did not believe there is much value in visualising quasistatic processes such as thermal response and load redistribution up to the point of global collapse initiation and has chosen not to develop such visualisations.

But it said it would 'consider' developing visualisations of its global structural collapse model, although its contract with the fi nite element analysis subcontractor was now terminated.

A leading US structural engineer said NIST had obviously devoted enormous resources to the development of the impact and fi e models. "By comparison the global structural model is not as sophisticated, " he said.

"The software used has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgement calls.

"This doesn't mean NIST has got it wrong in principle, but it does mean it would be hard to produce a definitive visualisation from the analysis so far." Dave Parker

Document NCENG00020051006e1a60000a

Cool Hand Luke 10:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll take that as a "per MONGO" revert on the first section. Thanks for drawing attention to the other problem. I hadn't noticed that those changes were part of the diff between the two versions.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

My main issue is that the revision selective quotes a lengthy document to make the NSIT sound sinister. The quote choices are particularly revealing. For example, the italicized snippet about adjusting the models until they lead to collapse. Unless you have a good secondary source, it seems odd to pluck this line out of the document. To my understanding, complex physics models often have to be tweaked, so you should instead find a good source that criticizes their methodology in regards to their adjusts. Otherwise, it's just an uncontextualized quote plucked from a lengthy document. Cool Hand Luke 10:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes, I think we agree on that. My concerns are about the fire protection and aircraft impact stuff (see below).--Thomas Basboll (talk) 11:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, this diff is helpful. There was a lot going on in the earlier reverts. I don't know anything about the building code subject, so will probably stay out of the discussion, but it seems strange that the Port Authority's consideration of an aircraft is being highlighted. As MONGO points out the aircraft they contemplated would have been traveling at landing speed. Cool Hand Luke 11:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I think we have agreement. Actually, MONGO is emphasizing one engineer's recollections (Robertson) over another that actually appears to be more credible. This is from the Seattle Times article (a source in both versions): "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there." NIST was able to document the existence of the study Skilling refered to (positing a plane going 600 mph, not one landing in fog) and found no trace of the study Robertson recalled. Given the cause of the collapses, it isn't strange at all that everything we know about the design of the WTC towers in re aircraft impact is being noted (in a specific section devoted to it). I'm going to revert to my version for now (that way the page numbers of the relevant passages are more easily available.)--Thomas Basboll (talk) 11:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I deleted "the italicized snippet about adjusting the models until they lead to collapse" myself a while back as it comes from another source. Nist themselves admitted they adjusted the models until collapse occured and that is a problem because the parameters they eventually used exceeded the visual evidence they had (both photographic and eyewitness). That is probably better off in the CT page than here. Wayne (talk) 13:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Fire protection and aircraft impact

I've created this version to highlight the points on which we disagree. I still don't see any specific mischaracterizations. But all the sources are there in my version (the one prior to the self-revert), so let's hear it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)