BYU physics professor disputes official version of WTC 7 collapse

November 11, 2005 5:27 PM

Y. professor thinks bombs, not planes, toppled WTC Yeah, yeah. We've heard it all before. Or have we?
posted by muppetboy (84 comments total)

We have.
posted by sdrawkcab at 5:32 PM on November 11, 2005

Pretty sure we have.
posted by kjh at 5:33 PM on November 11, 2005

Give me a break.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 5:33 PM on November 11, 2005

Yeah.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:34 PM on November 11, 2005

I haven't heard this before.
posted by Mr_Zero at 5:35 PM on November 11, 2005

Have we, have we truly?
posted by TwelveTwo at 5:36 PM on November 11, 2005

I think it is at least interesting that this is supposed to be a peer-reviewed paper by a university physics professor... not your usual brand of crackpot.
posted by muppetboy at 5:36 PM on November 11, 2005

[old]
posted by thirteenkiller at 5:40 PM on November 11, 2005

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posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:40 PM on November 11, 2005

posted by fandango_matt at 5:40 PM on November 11, 2005

Ah, yes. Thanks for elevating the discussion matt.
posted by muppetboy at 5:45 PM on November 11, 2005

posted by thirteenkiller at 5:45 PM on November 11, 2005

posted by Pretty_Generic at 5:45 PM on November 11, 2005

No, No, No! Placed explosives dropped the Twin Towers, and a missle was fired into the Pentagon.

I hate when people mix those up.
posted by Balisong at 5:52 PM on November 11, 2005

posted by muppetboy Ah, yes. Thanks for elevating the discussion matt.

You're welcome. But, "elevating" the discussion? The verb for which you're searching is pronounced, "flushing." As in, down the toilet, where this feculent post--like the turd that it is--ought to be.
posted by fandango_matt at 5:55 PM on November 11, 2005

*head explodes for at least the fourth time this week*
posted by marxchivist at 5:59 PM on November 11, 2005

No doubt, this will be the last time it comes up.
posted by jmccorm at 6:01 PM on November 11, 2005

Do you care to back that up with anything in particular, like say, evidence or logic or thought... or is it that you just want to say "fuck you" to the world, Matt?
posted by muppetboy at 6:05 PM on November 11, 2005

well, if its all hogwash, im sure the government will step right up and offer the man access to the photographs, video footage and a sample from the molten steel. Oh shit, except all the steel was immediately destroyed to shipped overseas. but i bet they'll make the photos and footage available though right?

i for one think the 911 story sounds like horse shit and smells exactly like the gulf of tonkin, sinking of the maine, and hitler attacking his own people and blaming the jews. Really folks, this is the oldest trick in the goddamn book. Even Nero was pulling this one over on the masses. Whats great is that I know of no instance in which it hasn't worked. No one wants to believe the ones they trust to watch over them would fuck them in the ass to start a war.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 6:05 PM on November 11, 2005

Did anyone read the article?

I know most or all of us are suffering from outrage and/or disbelief fatigue, but this isn't necassarily some tin-foil hat wearing, glue-sniffing weirdo.

Ok, yeah, so it's BYU, the Mormon University, but a lot of good and reputable real-world science work has come out of there.

It's not just a bible college. And it's not like the 9/11 commission had any teeth or valuable results.

What if the accusations of this completely hubristic affront to decency and human life is true?
posted by loquacious at 6:05 PM on November 11, 2005

I'm not saying this guy is right. I just think it's interesting that he's publishing a peer reviewed paper as a physics professor at BYU.
posted by muppetboy at 6:06 PM on November 11, 2005

I just think it's interesting that he's publishing a peer reviewed paper as a physics professor at BYU.

It would have been just as interesting in the 9/11 conspiracy thread that was posted earlier today.
posted by marxchivist at 6:09 PM on November 11, 2005

I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy. But I don't have the requisite faith in the abilities of our beloved leaders to be able to pull off anything this grandiose.
posted by puddles at 6:10 PM on November 11, 2005

The USA is allied to Saudi Arabia, in the face of Saudi Arabia's continuing evil. It is allied to them for political, military and above all economic reasons.

Why would the USA fake an event in which Saudi Arabians were responsible for the worst homeland atrocity since Pearl Harbour? Why didn't they make them, I dunno, Iraqis?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:10 PM on November 11, 2005

How about this: Why don't you, since you're the one who made the post and are presumably a believer of what this professor has to say, explain to us--with evidence, logic, and thought--how such an incredible conspiracy could be kept a secret by the thousands of people who must've been in on it.
posted by fandango_matt at 6:11 PM on November 11, 2005

Yeah, except that my site search didn't turn up the article AND the link would have been buried by people who failed to read the article and then buried it by posting images of elephants taking a dump.... oh wait, that happened anyway... nevermind.
posted by muppetboy at 6:12 PM on November 11, 2005

Uhuh, this my shit. All the girls stomp your feet like this.

This shit is retarded. R-E-T-A-D-E-D.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:13 PM on November 11, 2005

"How about this: Why don't you, since you're the one who made the post and are presumably a believer of what this professor has to say, explain to us--with evidence, logic, and thought--how such an incredible conspiracy could be kept a secret by the thousands of people who must've been in on it."

See that's just the thing. I don't believe it. I just think it would be interesting to discuss his observations like rational adults. I guess that's asking too much.
posted by muppetboy at 6:13 PM on November 11, 2005

"I think it is at least interesting that this is supposed to be a peer-reviewed paper by a university physics professor... not your usual brand of crackpot."

The man's a professor at BYU, which means he believes the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith the golden plates telling the story of the lost tribe of Israel which wandered North America. NO WAY is he your usual crackpot!
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:14 PM on November 11, 2005

Is this what the Oliver Stone 9/11 movie is about? Anyone know?
posted by stevis at 6:14 PM on November 11, 2005

crash, you left out the bit with the toad that turned into an angel. And the bit with the magic stone in the top hat. And the bit where he lost the translation and said God was so angry that he wouldn't let him translate it again and he had to translate another book which was the same story told slightly differently. I <3 lds
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:16 PM on November 11, 2005

I'm sorry to break it you muppetboy, but crackpot conspiracy theories are not discussed by rational adults.
posted by fandango_matt at 6:16 PM on November 11, 2005

Kindof like the crackpot conspiracy that we went to war under false pretenses?
posted by muppetboy at 6:20 PM on November 11, 2005

Jones says he became interested in the physics of the WTC collapse after attending a talk last spring given by a woman who had had a near-death experience. The woman mentioned in passing that "if you think the World Trade Center buildings came down just due to fire, you have a lot of surprises ahead of you," Jones remembers, at which point "everyone around me started applauding."

I have zero problem with the official explanation that the WTC's innovative flooring technology failed under stress, causing a vertical pancaking effect that flattened each floor in succession. That the tower that was hit lower failed first makes sense from a engineering standpoint.

I also believe it is possible, but not necessarily probable, that the admin counter-intelligence peeps had some warning on who the hijackers were and that they were about to hijack some domestic flights, but I don't believe that the admin would have let the kamikaze plot unfold as it did had they known 4 jets flying into important buildings was in the program.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 6:20 PM on November 11, 2005

HA! The seed of doubt has been planted! I win!
posted by zeerobots at 6:23 PM on November 11, 2005

I'm glad this story isn't going away.

There are lots of holes in the official story. If this paper helps gain access to confidential government documents (why are they confidential?), that's a good thing.

Someone point me to the molten metal debunking (i.e. the 3000-degree thing), if you don't mind. That's something that puzzles me.

Fwiw, I think the government seriously tampered with the crime scene, regardless of their motives.
posted by mrgrimm at 6:27 PM on November 11, 2005

Logically, I'd think "fuel bomb" would fit under "explosive", tacking on a bit of leeway for corner-cutting in construction. The latter being easy to expect unless it can be disproven.

The idea of this being staged seems out of line to me. Permitted, not so much. I mean, there's still theories that Pearl Harbor was avoidable, and they're not crackpot.

It'd be too easy if they were Iraqi. Saudi Arabia is known to have a government friendly to the US, and a populace that's not nearly so forgiving. Osama is Saudi, why not let his underlings be so too? The public will believe whatever you tell them anyway. Just think about how many people thought Saddam Hussein personally ordered the 9/11 attacks just before invading Iraq.

I'd prefer to believe that the government would try to avoid a tragedy on this scale, prefer to think that it was incompetence over malice. Even then, it's hardly comforting that it happened at all. I know that if someone in the government were responsible for purposely letting this happen or assisting in the deed, there could not be enough outrage by the people.

I can sympathize with the majority of the public that would rather not know better when it comes to this. I'm not sure whether I'd really want to know if things had really gotten that bad.
posted by Saydur at 6:32 PM on November 11, 2005

In a paper posted online Tuesday and accepted for peer-reviewed publication next year...

Could this perhaps mean that the paper is going to be peer reviewed, and not that is has been peer reviewed?
posted by nyterrant at 6:35 PM on November 11, 2005

toppled what?!!! when?!!!
posted by damnitkage at 6:35 PM on November 11, 2005

What a wonderful discussion.
posted by voltairemodern at 6:39 PM on November 11, 2005

How many people would need to be involved in a conspiracy of this size? Or is he saying that some other kind of bomber was involved, not the government.
posted by tomplus2 at 6:39 PM on November 11, 2005

I think Tryptophan-5ht has the most correct analysis.
It has worked before, it will work again.
posted by Balisong at 6:43 PM on November 11, 2005

Gee another opportunity to link to the co-incidence theorist's guide to 911
posted by hortense at 6:48 PM on November 11, 2005

muppetboy, this topic was already posted today and was thoroughly lambasted. Take a hint.
posted by Falconetti at 6:50 PM on November 11, 2005

He's a physicist, so he must be an expert on structural failure!

Except that he's a nuclear physicist. In fact, a few years ago, his team discovered "cold fusion" right after Pons & Fleischmann.
posted by smackfu at 6:51 PM on November 11, 2005

hahahaha cold fusion hahaha pwnd
posted by Pretty_Generic at 6:59 PM on November 11, 2005

i bet he went straight on and developed jrun
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:00 PM on November 11, 2005

I think I figured out which muppet muppetboy actually is.

Now it all makes sense.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:00 PM on November 11, 2005

It'd be too easy if they were Iraqi.

That doesn't mean anything.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:05 PM on November 11, 2005

Not much discussion happening in this thread, the best I got out of it was "this has happened for centuries" and "what a load of shit".
posted by Dean Keaton at 7:08 PM on November 11, 2005

"The man's a professor at BYU, which means he believes the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith the golden plates telling the story of the lost tribe of Israel which wandered North America. NO WAY is he your usual crackpot!"

Yeah, that thought crossed my mind, too. I'm sure there are some serious academics at BYU who enjoy actually getting paid, but it's difficult for me to take anyone associated with the CLDS seriously--cold fusion, anyone?
posted by ParisParamus at 7:09 PM on November 11, 2005

"The man's a professor at BYU, which means he believes the angel Moroni gave Joseph Smith the golden plates telling the story of the lost tribe of Israel which wandered North America. NO WAY is he your usual crackpot!"

Is that really that much more ridiculous than Noah's Ark or Sodom and Gomorra or transubstantiation?
posted by joegester at 7:16 PM on November 11, 2005

"Is this what the Oliver Stone 9/11 movie is about? Anyone know?"

I think there is a conspiracy here. I'm starting to think it's called Viral marketing.
posted by Mcable at 7:24 PM on November 11, 2005

And if you enjoyed this, you may enjoy other research by BYU professor Steven E. Jones, "Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America."
posted by Slithy_Tove at 7:25 PM on November 11, 2005

It is in that those events are in relatively recent history and are highly dubious.

But, I will agree that BYU has put out plenty of legitimate research.
posted by abcde at 7:25 PM on November 11, 2005

(That was to joegester)
posted by abcde at 7:25 PM on November 11, 2005

much more ridiculous than Noah's Ark or Sodom and Gomorra or transubstantiation?

for real-world evidence, yeah. With Noah's Ark and S&G biblical peeps are free to backtrack and claim it's allegorical or a distorted telephone-game version of events.

But when a dude claims to have been given/pointed to the original texts, there's less wiggle-room for the claims.

Mormonism is quite an interesting proof that people will believe absolutely anything.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 7:29 PM on November 11, 2005

Yes, I think believing in crazy-go-nuts miracles that occured during the age of the printing press (or the sci-fi trade paperback) and yet still didn't produce any decent evidence is more indicative of a counter-scientific mindset than faith in a religion whose mysteries are lost in the mists of time would be.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:32 PM on November 11, 2005

posted by Stynxno at 7:32 PM on November 11, 2005

take anyone associated with the CLDS seriously--cold fusion, anyone?

P&F were Brits, IIRC.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 7:33 PM on November 11, 2005

Is this where Metafilter jumped the shark? Or did it happen some time back, and this is where we noticed it?
posted by LarryC at 7:35 PM on November 11, 2005

Is today Art Bell's birthday or something?
posted by c13 at 7:37 PM on November 11, 2005

It doesn't take a very detailed reading of Jones's paper to see that he isn't a materials or structural engineer. I wish he were, because maybe then he would bring something new to the table. His paper is just a list of the same old claims we've all heard before. They've either been debunked or are irrelevant. And they're all boring.
posted by event at 7:39 PM on November 11, 2005

WHY ISN'T THIS PART OF THE OTHER THREAD POSTED TODAY ABOUT WACKO 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIES, RATHER THAN GETTING ITS OWN FPP?
posted by caddis at 7:42 PM on November 11, 2005

Is this where Metafilter jumped the shark?

Just a sec... I'm still gathering links for my 150mpg carburetor post.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:43 PM on November 11, 2005

And he hasn't published anything since 1998, which doesn't speak well of his credibility as a physicist. And he seems to have been sparked onto this trail by someone who claimed to have had a near-death experience, which doesn't speak well of his gullibility.

I just think it would be interesting to discuss his observations like rational adults.

Well, fine. Here's why it's bullshit.

The man is saying that people were running around the WTC, stripping columns down to the bare metal, cutting them, and putting explosives in them. And never once did a single solitary person ever say "Hey, dude, what are you doing over there?" or "Dude, why are you cutting that column? It like holds shit up, man." Or "Dude, why are you putting a bomb on that column? That might could hurt someone." Never once.

The entire operation, surely lasting for weeks, did not attract any attention whatsoever from anyone, including the victims. Victims who, given the blast in 1993, might be expected to be unusually vigilant about men putting bombs on columns in their offices.

Does that really sound credible? Is that really easier to believe that that we just don't have good physics models of what happens when you take the second-tallest buildings in the world, with exceedingly unusual construction techniques, and fly hugely fuel-laden aircraft into them at high speed, or what happens to the materials when the second-tallest buildings in the world collapse?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:45 PM on November 11, 2005 [1 favorite]

Perhaps I'm stupid, but I don't get all the jokes. It isn't a very funny subject.

Please tell me: why is this guy's work obviously insane? Why is he a crackpot? Did you look at his paper? What is so ridiculous about his arguments?

There isn't any actual physics in the paper -- like formulas and stuff -- so I can't say for sure if it's bullshit. But, damn, there are some good questions there.


First question: why did 7 World Trade Center fall? There have been many serious fires in skyscrapers before -- none of them have collapsed. It wasn't hit by a plane. It wasn't even that tall. It didn't look that badly damaged. Then it collapsed into a perfect little pile.


Second question: how could the three buildings have possibly fallen like that -- straight into their own footprints -- at a speed almost exactly that of a freefall?

By the nature of things, one corner or side of the building would give first and then that corner or side would continue to get increasing disproportionate stress during the collapse. While you wouldn't expect the building to fall over like a stick, there would almost certainly be a distinct, obvious asymmetry.

Symmetry-breaking is characteristic of a lot of catastrophic phenomena. If you see a house damaged by fire, a collapsed building, a dam break, a landslide, a tornado, you will characteristically see assymetric damage. It's classic that a fire will spare the front of a house and destroy all the rest of it it or one person swept away by an avalanche while the person right beside him is untouched. In fact, arson investigators look for unexpected symmetries as clues to a possible crime.

The reason that strong things are strong is that they are designed to distribute stress symmetrically away from the local area. But when strong things fail catastrophically at one point, this is not longer true. You can have that crack in your beam for 30 years and nothing will happen to it. But when one day a truck hits it and it starts to buckle, the whole corner of your building comes down. You'd think that would be emphasized in 1 and 2 WTC because of the deeply assymmetric nature of the attacks.


I spent some time looking up the standard answers to these questions, and to be frank, I didn't find any good answers at all.

I liked this guy's explanation but it's notable for what he doesn't say as well as what he does. This one's good too but doesn't address 7 World Trade Center or the speed of the collapse. And he doesn't really address the symmetry when I read it again -- he just uses words like "uniformly" a lot to explain the fact that, at the end, all four sides collapsed at the same instant.


The fact that I was unable to find a complete, official explanation anywhere as to why those three buildings fell in a way that throughout all the rest of time has only been associated with controlled demolitions doesn't hurt this guy's case at all.

The government seemed entirely uninterested in investigating the cause of a disaster that killed three thousand people. The 9/11 investigation didn't start till 2003(!), and spent only $12 million investigating the building collapse, the hijackings, the failure in airline security, the failure of intelligence and the failure of the military to intercept the planes altogether (NIST also spent $4 million separately).

By contrast, the investigation into the Challenger disaster cost $40 million and the various Clinton investigations were in the $100 million range.


So where's the high-powered computer models? Where's the reams of evidence reassuring me, instead of your dull jokes?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:46 PM on November 11, 2005

Does the government's complete and utter ineptitude at everything inspire a million conspiracy theories? YES. Does it justify or prove any of those conspiracy theories. NO.
posted by afroblanca at 7:51 PM on November 11, 2005

WTC 7 fell down because some asshole dropped big chunks of tower all over it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:51 PM on November 11, 2005

why is this guy's work obviously insane?

So where's the high-powered computer models? Where's the reams of evidence reassuring me, instead of your dull jokes?

Where is the conceivable motive for smashing a jumbo jet into a building in plain view, and then doing something else nasty to it as well, and hiding the fact that you've done the other thing? I don't require a computer model to tell me that there are a lot of people around these internets who were very sorry to see the X-Files cancelled. Life is more exciting if the truth is not only out there, but is a special kind of truth that doesn't need to have any motivation or rationality behind it. Just lots of random double-crossing, secrecy and explosions.

Mulder's Razor: the explanation that makes no fucking sense whatsoever is probably the correct one.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:59 PM on November 11, 2005

And I do want to reiterate one thing I said at the beginning, which is that there isn't any physics in this paper so it's hard to evaluate on truth or falsehood.

The point is that there was such a limited investigation that we'll never really know what happened. In particular, the reason that 7 WTC collapsed is an anomaly that does not appear to be addressed anywhere.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:00 PM on November 11, 2005

I don't get all the jokes
Hmmmm
- looney theory
- posted twice in same day

... and you wonder why people are poking fun in the thread? I am surprised we haven't seen a big Calvin pissing graphic.
posted by caddis at 8:02 PM on November 11, 2005

posted by ori at 8:10 PM on November 11, 2005

I'm Very Interested In Hearing Some Half-Baked Theories

By Roberta Foit
November 9, 2005 | Issue 41•45
I'm Very Interested In Hearing Some Half-Baked Theories

As an ill-informed pseudo-intellectual with a particular interest in the unverifiable, I'm always on the lookout for some partially thought out misinformation. So, if you have an uninformed solution to a dilemma that doesn't actually exist, don't bother double-checking your information. I'm all ears.

However, I must warn you: If you want to convince me of anything, you better be prepared to back up your claims with rumor, circumstantial evidence, or hard-to-make-out photographic proof. I may also need friend-of-a-friend corroboration or several signed testimonials all written in the same unmistakably spidery handwriting. I'm a quasi-critical-thinker. Things have to add up more or less in my head before I let myself be taken in by some baloney story.

Take Atlantis, for example. When I first heard about this lost civilization, I was suspicious to say the least. But then someone made a good point: Prove that it didn't exist. I was hard-pressed to find a comeback to that.

But if Atlantis really did exist, then where did it go? It couldn't have just disappeared without an unreasonable explanation. I was about to give up on the whole matter when suddenly it hit me: It probably washed away, and it's too deep underwater for scientists to find it. All it takes is a little supposition mixed with critical theorizing and you can easily stumble on a tenuous half-truth that really makes you think.

Over time, I've also learned that slapdash research is key before jumping to any conclusion. While I've always postulated the existence of gnomes, it wasn't until I researched the topic on AskJeeves.com that I realized it's a well-documented medical condition.

As important as research is, it's all about common sense in the end. If you can't cool your apartment by leaving the refrigerator open, how's it keeping all that produce fresh? Think about it. If you can't really read the world's great works of literature in only five minutes using a system peddled on TV, how do you explain that gentleman on the infomercial who aces those tests? Would extraterrestrials travel millions of light years just to abduct a non-trustworthy human for their series of intrusive tests? Yes.

And there's a reason liars like James Randi have never been anally probed.

Now, if you have a half-baked theory that you'd like to disclose, please be so kind as to skirt around the issue. I'll only listen to your elaborate webs of presumption and hearsay if you promise to veer unexpectedly and pointlessly off course at every opportunity. Prose density is part of what makes a half-baked theory fascinating.

Only last week, my friend Janet gave me a book that teaches how, through a diet of salmon and romaine lettuce, you can shave 20 years off your appearance. However, before we got to the hard-core salmon-and-lettuce, face-lifting theory, I was taken through a series of anecdotes, solicited testimonials, and long-winded circular logic proving the author's qualifications by citing the medical establishment's fear of his simple brilliance. It was an eye-opener.

I encourage people endowed with a gift for half-baked theories to inform as many unsuspecting strangers as possible. That's how I'm most interested in being exposed to shaky new ideas. At the bus station, on the street corners, wherever strikes your fancy. If you don't have the courage to approach people in this way, I recommend a stiff drink or a lifetime of crippling mental illness.

Only then will we continue to safeguard the free exchange of erroneous fallacy so vital to maintaining a freethinking, uneducated society. Thank you.
posted by ori at 8:13 PM on November 11, 2005

Jones says he became interested in the physics of the WTC collapse after attending a talk last spring given by a woman who had had a near-death experience. The woman mentioned in passing that "if you think the World Trade Center buildings came down just due to fire, you have a lot of surprises ahead of you," Jones remembers, at which point "everyone around me started applauding."

I know that when I need an expert opinion on collapsing buildings, I turn to a "woman who had had a near-death experience." That is, if I can't find a "raving, frothing homeless man with a cardboard sign."
posted by Krrrlson at 8:17 PM on November 11, 2005

I said big.
posted by caddis at 8:21 PM on November 11, 2005

With all due respect to those who scoff at the Angel Moroni, one must be a firm believer in Agni to assume that fire alone was sufficient to bring down three skyscrapers in unprecedented fashion; and to obliterate all traces of three jumbo jets involved in the 9/11 unpleasantnesses. If the towers simply pancaked because the floor pans weakened and their trusses let go, why was molten steel found burning in the basement of the WTC site? Why should the contemporary reports of ground level explosions be discounted? Why is there seismic evidence from 9/11/01 which is consistent with explosions prior to the collapse of the towers?

These questions are inconveniently troublesome and cannot be easily squared with The Official Story of 9/11. I am just as skeptical as anyone as to the ability of the BushCabal successfully to carry out a monstrous conspiracy. But as Thoreau said: "Circumstantial evidence is sometimes strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
posted by rdone at 8:25 PM on November 11, 2005

The man is saying that people were running around the WTC, stripping columns down to the bare metal, cutting them, and putting explosives in them. And never once did a single solitary person ever say "Hey, dude, what are you doing over there?" or "Dude, why are you cutting that column? It like holds shit up, man." Or "Dude, why are you putting a bomb on that column? That might could hurt someone." Never once.

See last post. Levels of the buildings were shut down for weeks for 'security' reasons. Power to many upper levels cut, to re-rout cable to increase bandwidth. Why the hell would you need to cut the power to route, what were they? Ethernet cables? What kind of a network runs through the power lines?

Not that any of it's entirely convincing without more data, but it's funny how the circle of debunking keeps going round and round.
posted by IronLizard at 8:27 PM on November 11, 2005

Oops, forgot the italics in the quote.
posted by IronLizard at 8:27 PM on November 11, 2005

WTC 7 did not fall symmetrically. The BYU guy claims that it did and uses it as a key premise in the first half of his paper. But this is not the case: (1) (2)

Note the roofline in both images; if the collapse had been truly symmetric, the roofline would have remained horizontal, or nearly so. What we see instead is that the collapse started about one third of the way across the building, and then the rest followed it down (the low point in the falling roof obviously had to start falling first).

Now look at this structural diagram of the building (image hosted on a conspiracy site, but it's a copy straight out of the WTC7 chapter in the FEMA report). Note the triangular structure (a truss) in that diagram -- a considerable portion of the weight of the building, from the 7th floor upwards, is transfered to the apex of that triangle, and if it failed, it is very likely that the building would collapse.

In the diagram, we're looking at the truss from the reverse angle, so actually the apex of the truss coincides with the vertical line where the collapse of the building started (the "notch" in those first two pictures I linked to). Photos like this one (again, photo is hosted on a conspiracy site) indicate fires burning on the fifth through seventh floors (where this truss was located). Given these two facts, it is not unreasonable to assume that this truss failed from stress under the heat, and this failure lead to the collapse of the building.

Note that failure of a single truss like this is inconsistent with controlled demolition.
posted by event at 8:30 PM on November 11, 2005

Hey, I just saw this movie by Oliver Stone about JFK and it blew my mind.
posted by nanojath at 8:31 PM on November 11, 2005

to assume that fire alone was sufficient to bring down three skyscrapers in unprecedented fashion

That's a good point. There must have been some other force to weaken the buildings, other than fire alone.

If the towers simply pancaked because the floor pans weakened and their trusses let go, why was molten steel found burning in the basement of the WTC site?

Interesting... something made of steel, that gets very hot... perhaps an explosion is involved... the plot thickens!

Why is there seismic evidence from 9/11/01 which is consistent with explosions prior to the collapse of the towers?

Actually, I think I saw those explosions on the news. Some kind of trouble with airplanes.

Oh yes, that was the thing, the other thing, the thing that wasn't the fire! Airplanes! Slipped my mind.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:32 PM on November 11, 2005

Steve Jones has been busy lately. He recently published evidence that Jesus visited America.

"These discoveries have provided me a deeper appreciation for the reality of the resurrection of Jesus and of His visit to "other sheep" who heard His voice and saw His wounded hands as did Thomas. My hope is that these new insights will encourage you to seriously consider the Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Christ. Why don't you start reading right away?"

Can't start reading right away. Got to sort out conspiracy theory of 9/11.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 8:39 PM on November 11, 2005

Not to get in the way of a good snark, mein Herr, but the seismic evidence is after the planes crashed into the buildings but just before they collapsed.. . . .the plot thickens. Just sayin. . . .
posted by rdone at 8:42 PM on November 11, 2005