[stemmer]

This is the show the 9/11 truthers and loonies do not want you to see...

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-shepp ... ies-monday

[xerxes]

Looks good but it won't matter. Those people are so wrapped up in their beloved conspiracy that reality has no chance agaisnt their mania.

[stemmer]

Of course you are correct. You can not use logic against their foolishness....

[DrCaleb]

Now you've gone and done it Stemmer. How can the Truthers who believe in A-GW believe anything National Geo has to say anymore? (Now that N.Geo is 'the man' )

[commanderkai]

Oh shit stemmer *Quickly starts building sandbag positions around CKA* The Troofers are going to be coming to "debunk" this.

Free shotguns to all rational people, left, center, or right!

[Akhenaten]

When i think of the hours i spent arguing over these:

Quote:

Conspiracy: The fire could not have gotten hot enough to melt the steel.
Science: The Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) designed explosives to test the effects of burning jet fuel on steel. EMRTC used a bare steel beam because the National Institute of Standards and Technology reports that much of the any fireproofing material would have been knocked off at the moment of impact. Within two minutes of igniting the fuel, the temperature peaked just above 2,000 Fahrenheit and complete structural failure occurred in less than four minutes.

Conspiracy: The collapse was caused by controlled demolition.
Science: The film crew recorded the demolition of a college dormitory building to learn all that is involved in the process of prepping and loading. The first step was to expose the columns in order to attach explosives to them. The World Trade Center had 47 inner core columns that would have needed to be prepared. To cut the steel beams the demolition team used a shape charge, which is piece of copper apportioned to a shape-charged weapon. When an explosive is attached and ignited, the device implodes and forms a stream of liquid copper that cuts through the steel. A demolition of this scale would leave clear evidence behind, but no such traces were found at Ground Zero.

Conspiracy: Thermite, which is less traceable, was used in the controlled demolition that brought down the towers.
Science: Some Truthers claim that pulverized dust found by some New Yorkers after the attack contained the checmical signature of thermite. Scientists assert that even if this dust did contain thermite, it would be impossible to determine whether the thermite came from a controlled demolition or simply from the melting of the airplanes. EMRTC designed an experiment to see if thermite was a plausible option in the collapse of the towers. The thermite in the test was not even able to melt a column much smaller than those in the World Trade Center.

....I, well I kinda wish I hadn't bothered.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Altho I'm not a moonbat, Nat.Geo.'s tests seem a little off. In the first example with regards to the jet fuel it said:

"Within two minutes of igniting the fuel, the temperature peaked just above 2,000 Fahrenheit and complete structural failure occurred in less than four minutes."

Then they went on to test the thermite part of the conspiracy and here was their "findings":

"EMRTC designed an experiment to see if thermite was a plausible option in the collapse of the towers. The thermite in the test was not even able to melt a column much smaller than those in the World Trade Center"

Now my issue with this statement is, thermite burns a hell of a lot hotter than jet fuel. Thermite burns at 3600-5400 Fahrenheit depending on the mixture. Now, if something burning at 2000F can melt structural steel, how is that something that burns around 2 times as hot, can't?

Again, I'm not saying there was a conspiracy, but National Geographic's physics just don't add up.

[Regina]

Absolutely! They only ask questions they don't understand the answers to anyway.

[Akhenaten]

Quote:

Now my issue with this statement is, thermite burns a hell of a lot hotter than jet fuel. Thermite burns at 3600-5400 Fahrenheit depending on the mixture. Now, if something burning at 2000F can melt structural steel, how is that something that burns around 2 times as hot, can't?

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that thermite burns almost instantaniously whereas the fuel will burn for quite a while.


But that's just a guess.

[SigPig]

Akhenaten wrote:

Quote:

Now my issue with this statement is, thermite burns a hell of a lot hotter than jet fuel. Thermite burns at 3600-5400 Fahrenheit depending on the mixture. Now, if something burning at 2000F can melt structural steel, how is that something that burns around 2 times as hot, can't?

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that thermite burns almost instantaniously whereas the fuel will burn for quite a while.


But that's just a guess.

Exactly what I was going to say. Thermite is a relatively quick burning substance. It reaches higher temperatures that could damage the steel. But Jet fuel subjects the steel to sustained time of 2000 degrees. If I remeber correctly, it was 1.5hrs until the towers started to go down. Assuming that temp was reached within the first 10 mins (and thats being conservative), there is 1 hr 20 mins for the fire to do it's work on the steel.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Akhenaten wrote:

Quote:

Now my issue with this statement is, thermite burns a hell of a lot hotter than jet fuel. Thermite burns at 3600-5400 Fahrenheit depending on the mixture. Now, if something burning at 2000F can melt structural steel, how is that something that burns around 2 times as hot, can't?

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that thermite burns almost instantaniously whereas the fuel will burn for quite a while.


But that's just a guess.

Ya know those sparklers you get on fireworks nights? That's thermite.
They do take a while to burn out.
And to be fair, altho I've not run into much that thermite won't burn through fairly quickly, I've not had much experience with structural steel.

[Proculation]

The steel didn't melt. It was weakened from the long exposure to burning fuel. The fuel burned for a lot longer than thermite would do.

[BartSimpson]

xerxes wrote:

Looks good but it won't matter. Those people are so wrapped up in their beloved conspiracy that reality has no chance agaisnt their mania.

Ditto. There's some awfully long threads on this site with some of the nutbars posting mindnumbing amounts of trash to support their wild ideas.

I certainly hope we have seen the last of them.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Proculation wrote:

The steel didn't melt. It was weakened from the long exposure to burning fuel. The fuel burned for a lot longer than thermite would do.

The claim is according to the article, it took 4 minutes for burning jet fuel to cause a complete structural failure.
A 4 minute thermite burn isn't all that difficult to achieve.
One little sparkler can burn for a couple to a few minutes.

[PluggyRug]

PublicAnimalNo9 wrote:

Proculation wrote:

The steel didn't melt. It was weakened from the long exposure to burning fuel. The fuel burned for a lot longer than thermite would do.

The claim is according to the article, it took 4 minutes for burning jet fuel to cause a complete structural failure.
A 4 minute thermite burn isn't all that difficult to achieve.
One little sparkler can burn for a couple to a few minutes.

The steel does not need to melt. Steel heated to a cherry red can be easily bent (as per a blacksmith). If only one of the load bearing members started to sag the load would be transferred to another member and so on, possibly causing a cascade effect.

I have a small forge for heating steel that uses old engine oil and can turn small areas of wrought iron white hot.