I try. Really, I try. I try hard to give the 9/11 conspiracy theories time and serious consideration. But they're just so blasted easy to debunk.
The one I've been hearing most lately is that the buildings were blown up, because they wouldn't have collapsed under the stress and heat caused by a jet impact and burning jet fuel. It's simply not possible, I'm told, to believe that steel girders could have been weakened by the heat.
Adding fuel to this fire, so to speak, has been been a BYU physics prof who says he thinks the towers must have been brought down by thermite. (The rest of the physics department -- who I'm sure know their physics just as well as he does -- took pains to distance themselves from his statements.)
Am I just missing something or is this incredibly easy to disprove?
First, ask yourself this question:
1. Do they, or do they not put fireproofing insulation on steel beams in skyscrapers? Did such insulation exist in the WTC or not?
Of course the answer is "yes", this is indeed what they do, and did. That's not even controversial. So now the second and final question is:
2. If heat from a normal fire couldn't possibly weaken steel girders enough to cause collapse, then what is that fireproofing for?
Tim,
I'm hooked on your blog. Thanks for your random observations, they're always interesting to me!
The whole conspiracy thing with 9-11 is an interesting thing. I don't buy into the BYU professor's ideas or the "loose change" video. BTW, there's a great critique of the loose change video found at:
http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/loose_change/index.html
but I haven't seen any critique of the professors thermite theories yet.
I will admit that I enjoy speculating about conspiracies often: the Federal Reserve, Quixtar AMOs, etc. But the 9-11 cover up group is beyond reality IMHO.
Have you seen the "loose change" video yet? The first glance review seems like a compelling story, but when you start to really listen and do some looking, it has no merit.
So many conspiracies: which are real, and which are just distractions? =)
Don
Hiya Don!
I'm pleased you're amused and provoked! I only wish I had more time to do this.
You mentioned:
... I haven't seen any critique of the professors thermite theories yet.
Well, I'll give you some then: Here's the chain of reasoning, as best I can make it out: Steven Jones (the prof) says he saw traces of molten metal in some of the wreckage. In a video.
Molten metal; therefore: thermite blew up the buildings. Here's Jones' own words (Google cache, may disappear):
We start with the fact that large quantities of molten metal were observed in basement areas under rubble piles of all three buildings: the Twin Towers and WTC7.... The photographs below by Frank Silecchia show chunks of the hot metal being removed from the North Tower rubble... Notice the color of the lower portion of the extracted metal....
The yellow color implies a molten-metal temperature of approximately 1000 [degrees] C, evidently above that which the dark-smoke hydrocarbon fires in the Towers could produce...
That's pretty much it. Astounding, isn't it? A visual analysis of metal based on a video. He isn't even sure what the metal is, as you can see by reading closely. He's simply eyeballing it.
I viewed the video which Jones says is supposed to prove the termite controlled-detonation theory. As far as I can tell, it proves the opposite: a camera focuses on one small region on the outer part of the building, where something is burning brightly (unlike the other regions of the building), and is clearly slagging off what appears to be melting metal.
But, uh, wait, a "controlled detonation" of "thousands of pounds" of explosives, doesn't look like one small region, slowly burning. The claim, again, was that through a simulatenous set of violent, perfectly-timed explosions, it was supposed to have fallen all at once -- too fast, we're told, for gravity to have done it. Not that one little corner area had a something burning brightly for a while, slowly dropping a few bits of melting metal.
Which part of the word "explosion" confuses us?
Another thing Jones points to was orange-hot metal in one picture. Yet if this is was caused by a 'controlled explosion', shouldn't every demolished building have orange-hot metal in it?
And yes, I'm curious about the high-temperature metal in that photo, and suspect it's iron or steel, not aluminum, but that doesn't get me immediately to government conspiracy, as it seemingly does with Dr. Jones. I know that with the right air movement conditions, blacksmiths have, for ages, been able to create such heat only using burning wood and coal -- without a trace of thermite in site.
I don't claim to know all the answers, or what Jones would say in his defense, but I also don't understand why people don't notice and challenge such seemingly obvious contradictions. Am I missing something here? It seems they have complete scepticism towards the "official" theory (you know, the one with the planes in it) and nearly none at all towards the alternatives.
Instead of telling people Jones's basic theory ("the melted bits look yellow -- therefore, thermite") most news reports play hide-the-details, like this, from MSNBC:
The movement's de facto minister of engineering is Steven Jones, a tenured physics professor at Brigham Young University, who's studied vectors and velocities and tested explosives and concluded that the collapse of the twin towers is best explained as controlled demolition, sped by a thousand pounds of high-grade thermite.
(He's studied the "vectors and velocities"? Really now. If you know physics or some math, that language is hilarious: a vector already includes a magnitude, e.g. a velocity.)
And if he "tested explosives", then why doesn't his own page mention that?
From another article:
He later began to say the charges must have been set by a group inside the U.S. government.
So now we have molten metal, therefore, US government. It's amazing how you can find detect chemical trace of "US government" on the residue in rubble. No, not Mossad or the Bilderbergers -- the chromotography specifically ruled out those elements. ;-)
Here's more...
Jones appeared on KUER-FM 90.1's respected news talk show "Radio West." On the show, he said it appeared responsibility for the attacks rested with Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and an "international banking cartel."
Ah! So the "vectors and velocities" revealed the rubble fell because of an "international banking cartel." Hmmm... where have we heard all that before?
Later in the article, Jones claims he had no idead that accusing Perl, Wolfowitz, and "bankers" might make some people think he was accusing Jews. Which rock has this guy been hiding under? Or which one does he think we've been living under?
Regardless, I think it shows how 'carefully' Dr. Jones researches a subject before speaking up on it. He had no idea that "international bankers", "Wolfowitz" and "Perl" were typically code-allegations for international Jewish conspiracy.
Tim,
I'm hooked on your blog. Thanks for your random observations, they're always interesting to me!
The whole conspiracy thing with 9-11 is an interesting thing. I don't buy into the BYU professor's ideas or the "loose change" video. BTW, there's a great critique of the loose change video found at:
http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/loose_change/index.html
but I haven't seen any critique of the professors thermite theories yet.
I will admit that I enjoy speculating about conspiracies often: the Federal Reserve, Quixtar AMOs, etc. But the 9-11 cover up group is beyond reality IMHO.
Have you seen the "loose change" video yet? The first glance review seems like a compelling story, but when you start to really listen and do some looking, it has no merit.
So many conspiracies: which are real, and which are just distractions? =)
Don
Posted by: don on September 13, 2006 02:49 AM