A respected BYU physics professor, Dr. Steven E. Jones, is stirring national controversy over 9/11. Physics and other fields of science have a lot to say about what happened in New York City that day, and the message is disconcerting. He presents an interesting case that something more than a couple of airplanes brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center – and another building, WTC 7, which many people haven’t heard about. If Dr. Jones is correct, the official explanations of the Federal Government simply don’t fit the facts, when viewed with the lens of science. While I am no expert in this field, I think he has a compelling case. Americans need to demand that the truth be told and a genuine investigation take place.
You can see a flash presentation of one of his slide shows at http://www.checktheevidence.com/911/BYUStevenJones/Flash/. You can also see a video of a presentation from Dr. Jones.
In the abstract of his paper, “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?“, Dr. Jones writes:
In this paper, I call for a serious investigation of the hypothesis that WTC 7 and the Twin Towers were brought down, not just by impact damage and fires, but through the use of pre-positioned cutter-charges. I consider the official FEMA, NIST, and 9-11 Commission reports that fires plus impact damage alone caused complete collapses of all three buildings. And I present evidence for the controlled-demolition hypothesis, which is suggested by the available data, testable and falsifiable, and yet has not been analyzed in any of the reports funded by the US government.
For many of us, 9/11 may have been the most dramatic national event of the past decade. Clearly it was an event that has changed this nation and the world. It is vital that the truth about this event be known. Dr. Jones, thank you for having the courage to put truth above your career in speaking out on this vital topic.
9/11 – what is the truth??
Oct. 22, 2006 Update: A rebuttal to many of the assertions from Dr. Jones has been posted at Implosionworld by demolition experts. I find the rebuttal to be credible, and would be interested to know if Dr. Jones has a response to it. Dr. Jones has just resigned from BYU after getting into trouble for some controversial views he has expressed.
I don’t know what actually happened and am awaiting further information, but I appreciate the efforts of others to dig deeper. I think it is foolish to instantly dismiss those who challenge official and mainstream views.
Some people have to find conspiracy theories in everything. What reason would the governemnt have for lying to the American people about how this was done? What about the other buildings that got hit by airplanes… why didn’t they have cutter charges placed? It all seems rather silly to me.
50 years ago a B-52 bomber got lost in the fog and hit the Empire State Building head on. Several people died and yet, nothing more than a gaping hole appeared in the side of the building.
WTC 7 was not even hit by a plane. Offically, it collapsed due to fire. The ONLY time in history a steel-framed building has collapsed due to fire.
What reason does the gov’t have for lying? Wow. Where to begin.
Steven Jones and his group don’t actually have any science to back them up. They have a lot of speculation, however, and rely on debunked 9/11 conspiracy websites.
They have never been able to refute the world’s structural engineers, physicists, chemists, and forensic scientists, much less the scientific investigations like NIST. They would like you to believe they have, however.
History has always had it’s snake-oils salesmen and charlatans.
It was a B-25, NOT a B-52. And the Empire State Building is of an entirely different construction then the WTC towers.
WTC 7 was structurally damaged from debris from the falling WTC 1 and burned for 7 hours before collapsing. To compare it to any other fire of steel buildings is just plain illogical; no two fires and circumstances are alike.
Where to start? By educating yourself and the reasons 9/11 conspiracists make unsupported assertions to deceive you, that’s where.
You’ve gotta be KIDDING me! PLEASE do yourselves a favor and visit these websites about the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/rumors.htm
I think this guy is out to lunch.
NIST Response to the World Trade Center Disaster, Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of World Trade Center Disaster, Part IIC–WTC 7 Collapse, April 5, 2005
(link)
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/WTC%20Part%20IIC%20-%20WTC%207%20Collapse%20Final.pdf
Please, please don’t tell me you are serious Jeff. This has got to be one of the most embarassing conspiracy theories anyone has been involved with.
Jeff,
Structural engineers have debunked the crazy BYU prof. One doesn’t even need to paint him as a conspiracy theorist to counter him. His engineering just doesn’t hold.
I can add my two cents, because I actually worked at one of the WTC buildings in 1976 for a few weeks that summer.
I worked pretty high up. And the first week was scary, because in strong winds, the buiding SWAYED by a few FEET. I don’t remember how many feet the lateral movement was, but it was over 1 foot, and likely 2 feet at the height our office was.
It was like being on a ship on the ocean and getting used to the gentle ocean swell.
So I read up on the building and its construction, and indeed it was constructed differently than other high-rises. It was built on a flexible spine structure. It was designed to move in the wind to relieve the pressure, and to withstand really high gusts.
In a traditional building of similar cross-section, you distribute the load-bearing columns in the corners AND throughout the floor plan all the way to the center. Colums are usually rigid steel or reinforced concrete.
However, the Trade Center towers were contructed with a FLEXIBLE load-bearing matrix as the spine in the center core only.
It’s design and construction was unique.
When I watched the collapse and the replays of the collapse, I understood exactly what was happening and could envision how the result was exactly to be expected based on a failure of a section of the core spine matrix.
You have to remember that this support matrix did not go out to the edges of the building. The floors were built on “ribs” that extended out from the spine. This “ribs on a spine” was what made the building flexible and able to withstand high winds.
The 20 floors (or however many it was) above the failure point was still a solid mass, but their descent of 1 or 2 floors vertical distance across the failure point had enough kinetic energy (potential energy of height converted to kinetic energy as it fell) to knock the next lower floor loose from the spine.
So the next section of the spine didn’t have to merely support the X tons of the floors above it, it had support X tons MOVING at Y feet/second, which it was NOT DESIGNED TO DO.
(And I can’t fault the engineers for not envisioning or pre-visioning an airplane crashing into the building and “cutting” the spine with burning fuel.)
The fall of the 20 story section across 1 or 2 floors created a new failure point in the spine, and the mass fell another 1 or 2 floors, converting more potential energy (due to height) to kinetic energy, and now it had gained another floor of mass too.
The “clean demolition look” to the collapse was due to the building’s structure. All the support was in the core, yet the outer edges of the building had only facade-type construction to keep it together, not heavy-duty support-type construction that would have held tightly and caused twisting due to uneven pressures.
Each floor was connected strongly to the core, so the forces were directly applied to the core all the way down.
Other things to remember, is that the burning fuel would have seeped down the core/spine almost all the way and prepared lower parts of the spine for failure by heating and softening them up.
The core/spine also functioned as a chimney funnelling air into the burning portion. Burning something in a vertical tube creates high winds in the tube, and that high wind acts like a blacksmith’s bellows and creates extremely high temps, enough to melt steel.
I realize your science is more related to chemistry than physics. But if you can envision the floors of the WTC being build on the ribs of a spine, and then envision how the mass of 20 floors (the floors above the impact point) moving AS A WHOLE downward across one floor as the spine melted at that point, then it could transfer enough energy to the next floor’s “vertebrae” to break it loose, then that new mass gaining even more kinetic energy as it fell another floor, I think you can picture what happened. It was almost a domino effect downward. It just “zipped” like a row of falling dominos.
Add another link that does a good job debunking these obnoxious 9/11 conspiracy theories.
http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/
Wow. This guy’s paper reads just like any standard anti-Mormon tract. And should be given the same credibility. The claims he raises are soundly answered elsewhere, but of course he doesn’t address the responses.
Hey Jeff, how can you still be Mormon? If you believe this crap you should believe the Tanners too.
Bookslinger, I was with you until you said:
“The core/spine also functioned as a chimney funnelling air into the burning portion. Burning something in a vertical tube creates high winds in the tube, and that high wind acts like a blacksmith’s bellows and creates extremely high temps, enough to melt steel.
I have read several websites dealing with this issue. One thing I found common to both pro-official theory, and anti-official theory sites, was that there is no way that any steel could have melted due to this crash.
Your theory makes plenty of sense, for the two main towers, but what about WTC7. Was it constructed the same way.
Also, what about all the molten metal found for several days at ground zero? I have yet to hear a plausable explanation for where it came from. If no steel melted (backed up by even the official reports now) then where did it come from, and why is no one asking about it other than professor Jones
It’s amazing to me how so many people can dismiss a theory when they have not even had time to read thw supporting evidence.
It’s sad, but most of you are walking completely blind into what our new future is becoming.
Hey there ‘Anonymous’…why do you think anyone is dismissing the “theory” (more like, unproven hypothesis) without evaluating the evidence? I first heard about this nut months ago and looked into it.
After seeing the overwhelming evidence of how the planes dropped the buildings, and checking this guy’s ideas (which don’t match up with facts), I dismissed him as a nutjob.
Dr. Jones brings up some interesting points in his presentation that really made me question the 9/11 Commissions conclusions. However, as I read through his presentation, I kept asking myself “why would the Bush administration perpetrate such an act?”
Just prior to 9/11 the US economy was just starting to recover from the market crash a year earlier. This attack reversed this recovery and stalled the economy.
Another contradiction is how could the Bush administration be so skilled in creating this well planned cover-up and mis-judge the scope of the war in Iraq?
If the idea was to justify a ‘Christian/Muslim war’ I would think a government that was skilled enough to pull off kind of cover-up would figure out a better way to accomplish the same thing without screwing up our economy.
The telling part of his presentation was his conclusions. They seem to be taken right out of the Democratic Party’s talking point: Illegal war, Illegal wire taps, Halburton, etc. In my mind, this showed the real intentions of his presentation–Blast Bush in anyway possible. This killed his credibility.
Dr. Jones may be completely wrong, but some of the responses don’t seem to refute key points of his thesis, though some have merit.
Let’s start with with Stacey’s reply:
You’ve gotta be KIDDING me! PLEASE do yourselves a favor and visit these websites about the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/rumors.htm
OK, I checked them out. The first one deals with the Pentagon, not the WTC. It’s irrelevant to Dr. Jones’ work. The second one critiques a wide variety of rather silly urban legends around 9-11, none of which deal with the analysis of Dr. Jones or with the substantial issues he discusses, such as the evidence of demolition with thermite charges. Sorry, it’s irrelevant.
Now the NIST document that John Mansfield points is relevant and does provide some useful analysis to explain how column failure could lead to the observed deformation and collapse of the building. At least a paradigm is offered. What is missing is the analysis to show that this could result in near free-fall velocities, or that the temepratures achieved could cause column failure, or that this could explain other pheonomena that appear to more closely fit a demolition model. The issue is not settled, and Dr. Jones calls for modeling work and further analysis.
More to follow….
I have to wonder what role Dr. Jones’ credentials have to play in this? He’s a BYU professor and is quoted in a Mormon blog. Would a respected professor from UC Berkeley get the same assumption of credibility?
I question this because Dr. Jones is not speaking on a subject where his Mormonism (or affiliation with the Church) has absolutely no bearing on what he says.
So that begs the question. Do we automatically give more credence to what someone says because he is LDS? Why?
Schuyler’s last comment is right on the money. The conspiracy theorists can’t explain how the Bush Administration could pull off a perfect snow job on 9/11 — including silencing the hundreds of people who would have to have been involved — and yet so badly bungle everything else they’ve set out to accomplish.
Time to turn off The X Files reruns. 9/11 was caused by 19 Islamic fundamentalist hijackers and a federal bureaucracy that was so large and inept that it couldn’t put the pieces together.
(And, while I’m on the subject, Lee Harvey Oswald was the only shooter in Dealey Plaza.)
Hilarious. Not Dr. Jones, the comments here. I know Steve very well and he’s no nutjob. Eccentric? Perhaps. Intelligent? Extremely. Crazy? Not so much.
schuyler, you dismiss all of Steve’s research based on two shaky assumptions:
a) Presidents of the USA (and those under their command) have the best interest of the country in mind.
b) Anything the party you don’t like (in your case, the Democrats) says about the party you do like (Republicans, including Bush) is automatically false.
Those who casually dismiss ALL alternate theories must by default accept the Official explanation. Do you really trust every agency of the federal government and every person involved to always give you, a mere member of the masses, the best information possible? Do you trust them to make the best possible decision?
I don’t. Apparently Jeff doesn’t either. Neither does Steve. Neither do a lot of people.
So who are we to trust? Nephi offers some counsel I’ve found valuable: “Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
Christopher: I don’t claim any special knowledge that Steve is correct on all or any counts. But I think he’s got something. The physics are solid, and his conclusions are very conservative considering what he’s presented. Finally, knowing Steve as well as I do, I have reason to believe that he will follow the Spirit in this research, just as I’ve watched him do that in every other aspect of his life.
Do I find it hard to believe that the Bush Admin. could pull this feat off? Absolutely.
But I don’t know if it’s harder to believe than our intelligence failing to warning us about the attacks in the first place.
I don’t know if it’s harder to believe than our intelligence failing us in the Iraq debacle.
I don’t know if it’s harder to believe than our intelligence failing to locate Osama Bin Laden during the past 4 1/2 years.
And where’s the outrage over the illegal war, wiretaps, Halliburton, etc.? Nothing will change as another of Bush’s followers will eventually take his place. Absolutely ridiculous.
MistaBen,
What conclusion is more shakey: somebody planted explosives in three buildings to take them down just after jets crashed into them or somebody doesn’t like Bush’s policies so they create a story to fit a few facts to show he conspired to take down the WTC?
I don’t have the expertise to validate Dr. Jones’s theory, but I did spend a few hours reading his papers. Other scientists have refuted his claims by the same scientific means he uses, so how does one judge? One way is to find out what motivates him. I can only do this through statements he has made. When his conclusions are basically the democratic party’s talking points it makes me question his motives. If this happened to a democratic administration and Jones cited Republican talking points, I’d come to the same conclusion: Facts may have been manipulated–even unitentionally to fit his politics.
MistaBen,
What conclusion is more shakey: somebody planted explosives in three buildings to take them down just after jets crashed into them or somebody doesn’t like Bush’s policies so they create a story to fit a few facts to show he conspired to take down the WTC?
I don’t have the expertise to validate Dr. Jones’s theory, but I did spend a few hours reading his papers. Other scientists have refuted his claims by the same scientific means he uses, so how does one judge? One way is to find out what motivates him. I can only do this through statements he has made. When his conclusions are basically the democratic party’s talking points it makes me question his motives. If this happened to a democratic administration and Jones cited Republican talking points, I’d come to the same conclusion: Facts may have been manipulated–even unitentionally to fit his politics.
I can guarantee you that Prof. Jones is far from being a member of the Democratic Party.
What Democratic talking points is Jones using? I don’t hear the Democratic Party saying much at all these days about anything.
Have we considered that simply because Jones’ observations are correct that his “conspiracy theory” is incorrect?
To jump from his findings to a “Bush orchestrated everything” (or even something) is a leap no smaller than Indiana Jones’ leap of feath.
Let’s just not lock ourselves into a diametric where either the planes caused everything or Bush caused everything. It simply isn’t wise, as the future archives will probably indicate a third way.
Look, in my LDS blog here, I occasionally highlight interesting things involving Mormons in the news. Whether it’s an LDS CEO, author, artist, or professor, I don’t mean that they should automatically be given credibility because of their religion, but I am inclined to give them some publicity. Discussing Dr. Jones is fair game, though I’m certainly more comfortable discussing theological issues or Book of Mormon issues.
Just as one’s religious association should not automatically give one credibility in non-religious matters, neither should politics determine the credibility of scientific arguments that are made. Those who trust President Bush or government in general are immediately challenged by observations that suggest fire could not fell the buildings, but our political beliefs should be put aside in evaluating Dr. Jones’ commentary on the physics behind the collapse of 3 buildings.
Schulyer said he was put off by Dr. Jones’ comments on wiretapping, Haliburton, etc. Help me out – I don’t see those in his paper nor in his flash presentation. Were you confusing someone else’s comments with his, or did I miss a link?
Bookslinger said that the structure of the WTC would allow the rapid fall shown. The mechanismm you describe is plausible: collapse of the major support columns in upper floors could lead to a downward avalanche with one section after another failing as the load above fell. BUT this analysis repeatedly leaves out some important but basic physics. If I understand correctly, the building fell almost as rapidly a bowling ball in free fall dropped from the upper floors would have fallen. The collapse would have taken several seconds longer using the mechanism given in the official theory.
It’s easy to see why. Let’s simplify the problem in terms of two clumps of sticky peanut butter of equal weight, one above the other, both being suspended by their own threads that are barely strong enough to hold each of them up. The thread holding the higher clump is cut and it begins to fall until it hits and sticks to the lower clump of peanut butter, causing its support to fail. The two clumps are now traveling together. Just before the moment of impact, the upper clump had a high velocity corresponding to the free fall velocity of the first clump having fallen the distance that was initially between the two clumps. Once the two clumps collide and beging to fall together, the momentum of the two clumps is the same as the momentum previously possessed by the upper clump alone, which is now shared by twice the mass, so the downward velocity drops by 50%. It picks up speed again, only to slow again for any other hanging peanut butter clumps encountered further below. Here, the clumps of peanut butter correspond to floors, and the string to the supports for the floors.
A building collapse driven by the successive failure of one floor after another due to impact from falling mass above must fall significantly slower than a building brought down by demolition, in which the key internal supports are removed at the bottom, allowing the internal beams to begin dropping and allowing the whole building to fall, with the outside structure initially falling more slowly than the inside supports, but generally resulting in a collapse close to free fall speed for objects dropped from the top.
What we observe with both the Twin Towers and WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane, was collapse with the same demolition-like characteristics: highly symmetrical descent almost as fast as pure free fall from the top, a behavior seen in each of the three buildings and unparalleled in other tall buildings that have suffered from intense fire.
And the avalanche theory, even if it was accurate, would not leave you with molten steel in the basement of the building.
So how do we account for these observations? If you presented the physical observations to an expert in building collapse and asked if anything other than demolition could explain it, what answer would you get? (Other experts have joined Dr. Jones in speaking out about this.)
I think we need to consider the physical issues more carefully before we go on a rampage about who’s a nut and who hates Bush, etc. Internal demolition does not mean that Bush did it, or that the CIA or Al Qaida did it, or that wire tapping all your conversations tonight is necessarily a bad thing.
I don’t know who did what – but I’m intrigued with a respected BYUI professor who seems to be putting his career on the line to raise some questions worth discussing intelligently – and not just ranting about conspiracy theories. I’m surprised at how many people automatically rule out something if there was the possibility that some kind of corruption was involved. How can anyone read the Book of Mormon’s numerous warnings about secret combinations in our day without being at least a little open to the possibility that maybe it’s good to ask pointed questions about government?
If I understand correctly, the building fell almost as rapidly a bowling ball in free fall dropped from the upper floors would have fallen. The collapse would have taken several seconds longer using the mechanism given in the official theory.
You don’t understand correctly. The buildings fell much slower than free fall, as is noted by one of the URL’s above.
What we observe with both the Twin Towers and WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane, was collapse with the same demolition-like characteristics: highly symmetrical descent almost as fast as pure free fall from the top, a behavior seen in each of the three buildings and unparalleled in other tall buildings that have suffered from intense fire.
Nope. Look for “symmetric” here. WTC 7 didn’t fall symmetrically, as is obvious from the debris.
All the buildings have tremendous moments of inertia, and it’s not surprising that they didn’t rotate much as they began to fall. However, they’re nowhere near the “symmetric” collapse done routinely by professional demolitions experts, as is obviously evident from the front page of that same URL.
And the avalanche theory, even if it was accurate, would not leave you with molten steel in the basement of the building.
How many 120-story buildings have you collapsed along with a plane-load of burning jet fuel? None? That’s right. In fact, there was more than sufficient energy to melt steel.
I think we need to consider the physical issues more carefully before we go on a rampage about who’s a nut
We can investigate, but this guy’s a nut. To quote him:
Thus, we find substantial evidence supporting the current conjecture that some variation of thermite … was used on the steel columns of the WTC Tower to weaken the huge steel supports, not long before explosives finished the demolition job.
He is claiming that people demolished the building after the crashes. This would require a conspiracy of a grand scale, with no leaks. His most significant claims are easily explained by conventional theories, and he is incorrect about much of the easily observable evidence (e.g. the symmetric collapse of WTC which wasn’t actually symmetric).
I don’t know who did what – but I’m intrigued with a respected BYUI professor who seems to be putting his career on the line to raise some questions worth discussing intelligently – and not just ranting about conspiracy theories.
Um, sorry–he is ranting about conspiracy theories.
This reads just like any anti-Mormon tract, or any of numerous people claiming we didn’t go to the moon. It begins by presuming what things should be like, then shows how they aren’t like that. But that’s not science. We look at what happens and then try to understand what physical laws are behind it.
I repeat: the collapse of the WTC is entirely explained by conventional physics, and does not require the “unnecessary multiplication of personalities” Jones requires for his claims. Occam’s razor makes it obvious what to believe.
How can anyone read the Book of Mormon’s numerous warnings about secret combinations in our day without being at least a little open to the possibility that maybe it’s good to ask pointed questions about government?
Nice straw man Jeff. We can ask pointed questions about government without being a nutjob. I don’t trust the government very much, and am no Bush apologist, but I am also more interested in truth than in conspiracy theories.
How is the collapse of the building being timed? It’s clear when each building starts to fall, but when do you stop the clock? Also remember that the “top” of the buildings would heaped several feet off the ground, which would throw off any calculations. From the videos I’ve watched, I don’t see how anyone can get an accurate, much less scientific calculation on the collapse.
Excellent points, emarkp. The analysis of momentum transfer makes sense, with the “slight” extra time for building collapse compared to free fall being within the scope of his demolition-free model. Does anybody know if Dr. Jones responded to the analysis in http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/freefall.htm?
But hey, even if Dr. Jones ends up being wrong, name calling is an inappropriate response. Alternative theories end up being discarded all the time in science, and people are often wrong. That doesn’t make them a “nutcase”. But let’s see if the debunking arguments hold up.
I’ve seen how adding air/oxygen increases the temperature at which a fuel normally burns. That’s the whole principal of a blacksmith’s bellows.
I’ve built and observed plenty of fires, both in fireplaces with chimneys and outside in the open like a bonfire. The chimney effect is noticeable and magnifies the fire.
So yes, the temps in the core support of the towers could have easily been high enough to melt steel.
I also believe the fuel not only covered the floorspace around the core, and made a lake around it on the floors of impact, but the flaming fuel would also have seeped down the core.
By the time the pancaking occured, the “vertebrae” were already severely weakened, so not as much kinetic energy had to be expended in breaking those connections.
In watching the videos, the building pancaked or “zipped” from the top down. It did not look to me like a demolition where they fire the charges in such quick succession that all floors appear to start falling at the same time.
Hey, if we’re going to talk conspiracy theories, I’m still stuck on the Branch Davidians and Oklahoma City bombing. I have a lot of questions about those that have not been answered to my satisfaction.
Here are some of the questions I want answered in the millennium:
1. Who all (plural) shot JFK, and who all were in on it? Who was in on a coverup, if there was one?
2. Did anyone in our government really have advance warning of Pearl Harbor? Was a malfunctiioning Teletype machine really to blame?
3. Did North Vietnam and Laos hold back American prisoners at the end of the Vietnam War, and did Nixon and Kissinger know about it?
4. Did the Soviets take American POW’s from Vietnam back to the Soviet Union?
5. What really happened with the Branch Davidians at Waco?
6. What really happened in Oklahoma City?
7. Was Hitler really a homosexual or a hermaphrodite?
8. Was J. Edgar Hoover a homosexual?
9. Was Jimmy Carter really that stupid?
10. [A zillion questions about the Clintons deleted for brevity.]
And yes, I have religious/spiritual questions, but I won’t enumerate them in this thread, so as not be irreverent.
Mormanity:
I can’t speak for his paper or flash presentation, but when he spoke here at UVSC, he talked a great deal about Haliburton, Bin Laden’s facial strucuture (the latter referring to the possibility that many of the tapes of Bin Laden were not authentic).
Just fyi
Had Jones simply said, “the physics doesn’t match the explanation”, I wouldn’t call him a nutjob.
When he started suggesting that someone must have used thermite and demolitions charges to bring the buildings down, and continues to make claims that are easily falsifiable (buildings falling at “free fall”, etc.), then I feel confident to label him a nutjob. When he (apparently) starts claiming that the different noses of bin Laden show that some bin Laden tapes are fake, I feel confident to label him a nutjob.
I label the moon hoaxers nutjobs too, because they are.
I label the Tanners as liars, because they are.
Okay, this is old news by now.
I’ve compared what structural engineers have to say about the collapse and what Dr. Jones has to say. Sorry Dr. Jones, but I’m going with the structural engineers.
There’s a lot of talk about steel melting. Remember that steel doesn’t have to melt to bring a building down, it just has to be heated enough to lose strength.
After the Pons & Fleischman fiasco with cold fusion, you would think Dr. Jones would learn to be careful about taking public positions that can’t be backed up. How can he back down now?!?
Jeff,
The more political statements are found towards the end of the second half of his presentation:
http://www.checktheevidence.com/911/BYUStevenJones/Flash/BYU-911EthicalQuestions%2001%20Feb%202006%20-%20part%202.swf
I haven’t dismissed his evidence outright. I just haven’t had time to study it. There may be other explanations for his observation that are more straight-forward. However, when his presentation took a political turn by blasting the Bush administration (which is far from perfect) it made me question his motivation meaning it’s easy to make complex data fit your agenda.
As far as secret combinations, one can make the same argument about the political left.
(I think the cold fusion fiasco was a UofU problem. BYU has some program but hadn’t published. Was Dr. Jones involved in this research?)
These quotes are not from conspiracy websites, but from sites that accept the “official” theory. Would you like more examples?
“The fire is the most misunderstood part of the WTC collapse. Even today, the media report (and many scientists believe) that the steel melted. It is argued that the jet fuel burns very hot, especially with so much fuel present. This is not true.”
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html
“While the fire would not have been hot enough to melt any of the steel, the strength of the steel drops markedly with prolonged exposure to fire”
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.shtml
Jet fuel flames, no matter how well they are fanned, will not get hot enough to melt steel or even to cause significant weakening. See http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2004-11-11-ryan.php.
Jet A has open-air burning temperature of 260 – 315 C, with a maximum of 980 C.
Hot-finished carbon steel begins to lose strength at 300 C, and loses most of its strength by 800 C.
I see no possible way to conclude from these numbers that burning Jet A could not have brought down the towers.
That article, http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2004-11-11-ryan.php, is very interesting. It’s a letter from Underwriter Laboratories pointing out that if the low temperatures caused by the fire really were able to cause structural steel to fail, then there is a severe safety problem that is not addressed by current codes and standards – and he implores NIST to settle the issue: did low temperature fires cause failure or was there some other explanation?
But the steel did not get close to that maximum temperature, and the UL letter points out that 1100 C is needed for failure to be likely.
The steel columns are designed to withstand the temperatures of such fires.
FWIW, yes, the cold fusion fiasco was a U of U problem. I mention Dr. Jones because he was involved — Pons & Fleischman went to the news media in order to beat Jones to the punch in publishing papers on cold fusion. They initially stole the spotlight, but ended up getting burned by it. Dr. Jones was wise enough to stay away from the unfounded claims of Pons & Fleischman, and thus still has a job and standing in the scientific community — at least until now. Too bad he took the opposite course regarding 9/11.
I prefer the opinion of experts over amateurs — and I consider Dr. Jones an amateur in matters of structural engineering.
For example:
http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/worldTradeCenter.htm
See http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/columnstemps.html:
* Fires did not cover an entire floor in either tower.
* None of the features of 700+ºC fires were observed:
o Steel glowing red-hot
o Extensive window breakage
o Big bright emergent flames
o Light smoke (not seen after first few minutes)
# Fires have never caused column failure in steel structures.
Steel structures stay far below flame temperatures, because of steel’s thermal conductivity.
* Corus Construction performed extensive tests subjecting uninsulated steel-frame carparks to prolonged hydrocarbon-fueled fires.
The highest recorded steel temperatures were 360ºC.
I think everyone is overlooking the smoking gun in relation to 911. If you will look at the closeup video of WTC 7 collapsing, you will see small puffs of smoke coming from several floors of the building at the moment of collapse. These are the squibs of cutter charges going off. Then the building collapes symmetrically and at free fall speed. There is no other logical explanation for this collapse other than controlled demolition.If someone has a reasonable explanation of this event, I would love to hear it!
Then there is the admission by Larry Silverstien where he admits in a pbs interview that the building was “pulled”. So the building looks like it was blown up, then the owner actually admits they blew it up, and yet people still say it fell because of fires. Who’s the nutjob here anyway?
When are latter day saints going to wake up to the warnings of the Book of Mormon. That book contains a central theme and warning of secret combinations that will be among “all nations” including this one. One must ask himself, why dd the Lord put all this secret combination stuff in there? It must have been pretty darn important for him to keep reitarating it all throughout the book.
Consider the story of Amalikiah and how he used intrigued and deception to gain power. He killed the king then blamed it on the kings guards. Then he gains power over the lamanites. Why did the lord find it important to include this in the BOM? Arent we told that the BOM is a parallel of our day? cant you see the parallel of the Amalikiah story and the 9/11 incident?
Why did the Lord include this in the BOM?
“Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
Notice how it says “awake”? People are asleep in regards to what is going on. We need to awake instead of just thinking all is well in zion.
Latter day saints would do well to remember that at some point before the second coming the mark of the beast will be instituted and antichrist will reign. This will not happen without the help of the US government.
Awake to a sense of your awful situation and act accordingly
The small puffs of smoke aren’t squibs. The structural analysis of the collapse showed that the trusses supporting the floors failed first, which caused the floors to fall down the tube of the tower, which destabilized the tube and let it fall. The falling floors easily account for air puffs blowing out windows.
Furthermore, this picture shows that the fall wasn’t symmetric. This page shows that there was no “free fall” of the towers.
Repeating these claims after they’ve been debunked doesn’t make them true.
In regard to the fires intensity and thier ability to melt the buildings and cause collapse, Dr Jones points out that the buildings are giant heat sinks. So fires burning isolated on several floors of a 110 story building have no chance of heating any large amount of the steel to high temps. The heat conducts through the whole of the building and is transfered away from the fires.
Also he points out that a wood burning stove does not melt or collapse or lose its strength with a raging fire inside. And a wood stove doenst have anywhere near the heat sink capabilities of the WTC buildings. This is very sound reasoning from Dr. Jones and is refreshing when compared to the “sophistry” handed to us by the official version purvayors.
In regard to the fires intensity and thier ability to melt the buildings and cause collapse, Dr Jones points out that the buildings are giant heat sinks. So fires burning isolated on several floors of a 110 story building have no chance of heating any large amount of the steel to high temps. The heat conducts through the whole of the building and is transfered away from the fires.
Also he points out that a wood burning stove does not melt or collapse or lose its strength with a raging fire inside. And a wood stove doenst have anywhere near the heat sink capabilities of the WTC buildings. This is very sound reasoning from Dr. Jones and is refreshing when compared to the “sophistry” handed to us by the official version purvayors.
Emarkp: I was refering to the WTC 7 building that collapsed. It falls from the bottom up instead of the top down. Until the collapse of WTC can be explained, it points to some kind of conspiracy.
Check out this link:
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/
You’ll need to scroll to near the bottom and look at the wTC 7 videos. You can clearly see squibbs of smoke on the font and on the sides of WTC 7 just as it collapses
In regard to the fires intensity and thier ability to melt the buildings and cause collapse, Dr Jones points out that the buildings are giant heat sinks. So fires burning isolated on several floors of a 110 story building have no chance of heating any large amount of the steel to high temps.
Except that the explosions blasted the insulating foam off the trusses, and they were much lighter metal and unable to carry heat away as efficiently as the steel columns.
The heat conducts through the whole of the building and is transfered away from the fires.
The steel columns are not superconductors. The area near the fire would be significantly hotter thna further away.
Emarkp: I was refering to the WTC 7 building that collapsed. It falls from the bottom up instead of the top down. Until the collapse of WTC can be explained, it points to some kind of conspiracy.
No, it falls from the penthouse which took damage from the other buildings and had a fire there for an extensive portion of the day, as has already been shown from this site earlier in this thread.
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/
It’s full of the same lies and dubunked claims as the other sites. The videos that show smoke puffs coming out of the main towers during collapse are precisely explained by the floors falling down the tube of the tower after the trusses failed.
Occam’s razor destroys the conspiracy theory.
So what if there was an inside bomber?
Have we considered that it could have been somebody OTHER than the government who did that?
A conspiracy, perhaps–I don’t know nor do I think we will for a VERY long time. But the conspiracy does not, of necessity, have to be coming from the Bush administration down. A suicide bomber may have sneaked in undetected, or the like. The alternatives to gov’t conspiracy are vast.
“Fires have never caused column failure in steel structures.”
This is demonstrably false. Here’s a quote regarding the Windsor Tower fire in Madrid:
“unprotected steel perimeter columns on the upper levels buckled and collapsed”
If you want some credibility, you need to reference something other than conspiracy-monger web sites.
Emarkp: Look again at the video of WTC7 falling. It falls as one unit with the bottom falling out and the structure collapsing onto itself just like a controlled demolition. The towers on the other hand fall from the top down. I dont know how much more obvious this can be. Even if WTC7 had sustained damage there is no chance for it to collapse symmetrically like that. All support members at the base would need to fail simultaneously in order for WTC7 to collapse in that manner.
Larry Silverstien saying they “pulled” the building may have been taken out of context. I will give you that. Him giving the order to “Pull” firefighters from WTC7 may have been what he meant instead of demoing the building.
Still, how do you explain WTC7s complete collapse like that? The web page you sent me to was not convincing at all on that point.
Also, if all those people who suspect an inside job on 911 are just a bunch of nutcases, why are people spending so much time trying to debunk all the therories by making websites. Don’t they have something better to do?
I noticed you didnt care to respond to what the BOM had to say about secret combinations. I guess those scriptures refer to “Gangs” and mafia but not to any government? If I remember correctly, it was secret combinations in the jaredite and nephite goverments that caused the extinction of both those nations. I guess we dont need to worry about that happening here as we are so much more righteous than they were?
Keep this scripture in mind and then apply it government and people in authority if you think Bush or any other president isnt capable of an act so evil as occurred on 911:
D&C 121:39 We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.
I’d be interested to hear your point of view on this topic.
Even if WTC7 had sustained damage there is no chance for it to collapse symmetrically like that. All support members at the base would need to fail simultaneously in order for WTC7 to collapse in that manner.
The page I pointed you to showed pictures showing the collapse of WTC7 wasn’t symmetric. Furthermore, the WTC1 and 2 didn’t fall “from the top” — they fall from the point of the planes’ impact, which was many stories below the top.
Also, if all those people who suspect an inside job on 911 are just a bunch of nutcases, why are people spending so much time trying to debunk all the therories by making websites. Don’t they have something better to do?
Because I’m offended by the violent marring of truth. Doesn’t Jeff Lindsay have something better to do than put together responses to critics of the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon?
I noticed you didnt care to respond to what the BOM had to say about secret combinations.
Because it’s irrelevant. The real combination was Al Qaeda which took down the WTC. You know, those guys who killed people with planes?
Keep this scripture in mind and then apply it government and people in authority if you think Bush or any other president isnt capable
Another nice straw man argument. I don’t think people in authority are incapable of evil acts. However, while the effort to conspire to fly planes was significant, it’s trivial compared to another conspiracy to blow the buildings with demolition charges. A conspiracy to bring down the WTC with methods other than the planes hitting the buildings as we saw is comparable or even bigger than the claimed hoax of landing on the moon.
It’s simply implausible, and is completely explained by the official explanation. You can hand-wave as much as you want, but the bulk of the conspiracy is dismissed by simple photographs.
As noted above, the WTC main buildings didn’t fall as if in “free fall”. WTC 1 and 2 didn’t fall “symmetrically”. WTC 7 fell towards the south, which would be expected since it was damaged from the south. Basic common sense shows those claims to be wrong, yet they are still a big part of the conspiracy theories.
I am not totally convinced either way, but according to Dr. Jones presentation the WTC was insured less than 2 months prior to the attack for terrorism. I know it was attacked before, but I am just thinking that the probability of insuring a building like that and then to have it anihilated soon thereafter is very, very small. It is strange, and it is strange you never hear anything about this in the media. Who in the world is Larry Silverstein?
Silverstein insured the buildings because he had just acquired the 99-year lease. He bid on it in January 2001 and the bid expired in July, after years of negotiation.
I have an engineering degree and I honestly don’t know what to believe regarding the science of the WTC attack so I’ll give both sides the admin the benefit of the doubt regarding motives. What does bother the heck out of me is why the obviously fake OBL confession video “found” in Afghanistan? Why ask for a media blackout of OBL denial’s of involvement then release this (see part 2 of the PPT presentation)?
The more you look at what was originally reported on the day of September 11th the more you realize that only part of the story is told today and much of the events like WTC 7 are never talked about in the main stream media. Why this deliberate black out? I did not want to believe anything else beyond the official story but the evidence is overwhelming that the official story of what happened is not accurate. I have come to the realization that main stream media feeds us with distractions. To find the real truth you will have to look at things in a non partisan way. Not everyone in this world caries the morals and convictions that most LDS members do, and greed and power leads some to do terrible things to keep that power. I realize that I am in the minority, and that it is scary to speak against the official story for fear of being ostracized. But I also know that doing nothing and not using my free agency to question our leaders after my eyes have been opened would be a greater lie. I don’t know how much time we all have left on this earth but I feel that I should stand up against evil in all it’s forms to protect the country I love and in order to give my children the best possible chance of living in a free society, where the constitution is still the law of the land.
Last, For those of you that would like to get some information in a documentary video presentation I would start by Googleing “Loose Change 2nd Edition” You can watch it on Google Video. I do not personally believe everything in the video but it raises enough questions for you to investigate things on your own and draw your own conclusions.
It is in our country’s interest that all citizens research the events for themselves. Do the research and then make your own decision. Don’t let me or anyone else make up your mind for you.
You people obviously don’t study the scriptures or words of the prophets. Or have studied the invisible government that exists.
How would I love to write all the quotes and scriptures and evidences by people who admit it that are a part of it. But it will just fall on deaf ears. If you are interested. Please reply and I will give you very much to ponder about. Don’t give your opinions when you have not researched something that you know nothing about.
I know Mr. Rothschild son. And everything you think is crazy and a conspiracy, you would be surprised it is true. Just look at the history in the Book of Mormon. There has always been secret combinations. Duh!
Building number 7 is across the street from the rest of the buildings with the same address. There was only minimum damage done to building 7. But one main point that proves what happened came from the owners own words. Larry Silversteen stated on air on film that he gave the go ahead to “pull it”. This order was made to the fireman on site and had already been given earlier that day to destroy the two other buildings that were severly damaged in the colapse of the towers. Yes, the owner of the complex admits he had the building demolished. What is interesting is that he had recently insured the complex for 3.5 billion dollars. And the official 911 report states that building 7 fell as a result of fire damage. Something isn’t right here. Why did he order the destruction of building 7 ? Because the fouth plane was probably originally scheduled to hit building 7 but, when that didn’t happen they had to implode without the excuse of airplane damage. All you have to do is read the 911 report for verification of this fact. In addition buliding 7 housed offices that had to be destroyed as part of the big plan which included destruction of evidence and important governmental agencies.
I have to respond to one subject that keeps bleeding through many of the comments made here. The Book of Mormon does warn of secret combinations; it also warns of murder, lies, stealing, etc. etc. If we were trying someone accused of murder, would it even be effective to argue to a faithful jury that the Book of Mormon warns of murder proving the defendant is a murderer? It would not even be relevant.
I realize that evidence (falsifiable though it may be) is being presented, but the dragging in Moroni’s and other’s warnings about secret combinations in the last days have no baring on the subject. Are there to be conspiracies in the last days? Yes. Did President benson and others warn against the possibility? Yes, Passionately. How do we know them? By their fruits. But do these theories constitute fruit? Not to me.
So far, I am not convinced that the events of 9/11 can be proven to be an inside job. The evidence and statements of the jihadists I believe are greater proof of the official story.
By the way, pancaking is an outdated official explanation. They have determined that it was not pancaking, but implosion. As the steel floor-supports sagged towards the center from structural and thermal damage to the steel, the supports pulled on the exterior load-baring walls. The eventual implosion of the most damaged areas caused a collapse that created one implosion after another. Although the heat could not have dissipated throughout the entire structure of the building enough to thermally weaken the lower floors that were farther from the burning areas, the weight and momentum of the upper floors having collapsed dozens of floors was enough to create the same effect in the lower floors.
This explanation satisfies the question of the explosive appearance of the fall. The opposite force to the implosions is logically an explosion of the contents of each floor.
If you know there will be conspiracy, does not al-Qaeda satisfy at least some of that prophecy? They are very Gadianton Robberish in there makeup and tactics. If you want to point out fruits of a hostile takeover from within, who is constantly pursuing the destruction of religious freedom in this country? Freedom of speech? Freedom of self-defense? I believe that there are conspiracies all over, but i don’t believe in coordinated world domination, Illuminati, etc. I think that they must be “private kingdoms” that are small and seek to manipulate politics “to get gain”. Go back and read Moroni’s response to awakening to a realization to this. Pray! After any vigilance on our part, there is no better solution than prayer.
There are two words that explain the molten steel: Eutectic reaction. The melting point temperature of structural steel is lowered by the presence of sulfur compounds. Manganese Sulfate was part of the mixture in the structural steel when it was manufactured and sulfur compounds were present in the air due to the jet fuel and other fires. With the right conditions such as these, steel actually will melt at lower temperatures. Evidence that such happened can be seen in the swiss-cheese holes in a number of the steel beams. These sorts of patterns would be expected as a result of a eutectic reaction. All that was needed was enough to weaken the beams and melt segments of the steel in certain locations and the building would be too weak to support the rest of the structure.
Obviously I’m a few years late to the party.
9/11 was an absolute inside job. I was there in Manhattan that day. I have researched this topic for over 6 years.
The smoking gun of 9/11 is World Trade Center 7. The 47 story building was nestled between the US Post Office and the Verizon building (both with minimal damage) ACROSS THE STREET from the World Trade Center complex. The building was never hit by a plane yet it collapsed into its own footprint faster than free fall speed at 5:20pm on 9/11.
Responses:
“It was damaged from the collapses of the Towers”: World Trade Centers 3,4,5 and 6 were immediately next to the Towers. They were extremely damaged yet they stood intact. They had to be controlled demolitioned weeks later.
“Bush couldn’t have done it. He’s too stupid”: Bush is a retard but Dick Cheney isn’t. Read Michael Ruppert’s “Crossing the Rubicon”. It is an excellent well laid out book backed by references demonstrating how Dick Cheney was in command that day and how he could have orchestrated the events using the communication and command system of the Secret Service.
“Something like this would take hundreds of people to do it. No one would keep a secret.”: No need for hundreds of people. Only a few dozen bound by secret oaths. Even if it was “hundreds”, projects like the Manhattan Project and the Stealth Fighter demonstrated that it’s all about “compartmentalization”. Besides, it’s a sad testament that of all people, the Latter-day Saints would have a hard time believing that in this day and age that a secret can’t remain a secret. Secret combinations, anyone?
I didn’t read anything about the insider trading. There were unusual massive insider trading on the very companies directly affected that day (United, AA, etc) just days before 9/11.
If WTC7 isn’t controlled demolition, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale if anyone is interested.