9/11 theories

[Weapon X]

There was lots of loose sheets of paper falling down, all around.

Out of the few fiery explosions, there was no visible fire to speak of up in the towers.

The picture I posted was to prove and debunk the "pyroclastic flow" of the poster before me.

But you claim there was no visible fire to speak of, so these are for you remeber the saying "a picture is worth 1000 words"

Please tell me how according to you there were no visible fires but according to photographic proof there were visible fire, who am I to believe???

here is another picture

Edited September 27, 2011 by Weapon X

[tyron]

Sorry Weapon X.

Didn't see that you had replied. When I said pyroclastic dust flows this is what I meant and below that is the research that I used to back my assertion that it was impossible physics for such buildings to turn into clouds of fine dust as they free fell.

Concrete Pulverization

Twin Towers' Concrete Turned to Dust in Mid-Air

A striking feature of the Twin Towers' destruction was the pulverization of most of the concrete into gravel and dust before it hit the ground. This is evident from the explosive mushrooming of the towers into vast clouds of concrete as they fell, and from the fact that virtually no large pieces of concrete were found at Ground Zero, only twisted pieces of steel. 1 Estimates put the size of the particles, which also included gypsum and hydrocarbons, in the ten- to 100-micron range. 2

Some idea of the volume of the dust clouds can be obtained by examining photographs taken shortly after each tower collapsed.

The researcher calling himself plaguepuppy articulated the thoroughness of the destruction and its incompatibility with the official explanation.

In trying to come to terms with what actually happened during the collapse of the World Trade Towers, the biggest and most obvious problem that I see is the source of the enormous amount of very fine dust that was generated during the collapses. Even early on, when the tops of the buildings have barely started to move, we see this characteristic fine dust (mixed with larger chunks of debris) being shot out very energetically from the building. During the first few seconds of a gravitational fall nothing is moving very fast, and yet from the outset what appears to be powdered concrete can be seem blowing out to the sides, growing to an immense dust cloud as the collapse progresses.

The floors themselves are quite robust. Each one is 39" thick; the top 4" is a poured concrete slab, with interlocking vertical steel trusses (or spandrel members) underneath. This steel would absorb a lot of kinetic energy by crumpling as one floor fell onto another, at most pulverizing a small amount of concrete where the narrow edges of the trusses strike the floor below. And yet we see a very fine dust being blown very energetically out to the sides as if the entire mass of concrete (about 400,000 cubic yards for the whole building) were being converted to dust. Remember too that the tower fell at almost the speed of a gravitational free-fall, meaning that little energy was expended doing anything other than accelerating the floor slabs.

Considering the amount of concrete in a single floor (~1 acre x 4") and the chemical bond energy to be overcome in order to reduce it to a fine powder, it appears that a very large energy input would be needed. The only source for this, excluding for now external inputs or explosives, is the gravitational potential energy of the building. Any extraction of this energy for the disaggregation of the concrete would decrease the amount available for conversion to kinetic energy, slowing the speed of the falls. Yet we know that the buildings actually fell in about 9 seconds*, only slightly less than an unimpeded free-fall from the same height. This means that very little of the gravitational energy can have gone toward pulverizing the concrete.

Even beyond the question of the energy needed, what possible mechanism exists for pulverizing these vast sheets of concrete? Remember that dust begins to appear in quantity in the very earliest stages of the collapses, when nothing is moving fast relative to anything else in the structure. How then is reinforced concrete turned into dust and ejected laterally from the building at high speed?

Evidence indicates that the hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete in the Twin Towers was converted almost entirely to dust.

Both reports of workers at Ground Zero and photographs of the area attest to the thoroughness of the pulverization of the concrete and other non-metallic solids in the towers. 3 An examination of our extensive archives of images of Ground Zero and its immediate surroundings reveals no recognizable objects such as slabs of concrete, glass, doors, or office furniture. The identifiable constituents of the rubble can be classified into just five categories:

pieces of steel from the towers' skeletons

pieces of aluminum cladding from the towers' exteriors

unrecognizable pieces of metal

pieces of paper

dust

Despite the presence of 400,000 cubic yards of concrete in each tower, the photographs reveal almost no evidence of macroscopic pieces of its remains.

Pyroclastic Flows

Many observers have likened the Towers' destruction to volcanoes, noting that the Towers seemed to be transformed into columns of thick dust in the air. An article about seismic observations of events in New York City on 9/11/01, relates the observations of scientists Won-Young Kim, Lynn R. Sykes, J.H. Armitage:

The authors also noted that, as seen in television images, the fall of the towers was similar to a pyroclastic flow down a volcano, where hot dust and chunks of material descend at high temperatures. The collapse of the WTC generated such a flow, though without the high temperatures. 4

*****

The North Tower's Dust Cloud

Analysis of Energy Requirements for the Expansion of the Dust Cloud Following the Collapse of 1 World Trade Center

by Jim Hoffman

October 16, 2003

[Version 3]

On September 11th, Both of the Twin Towers disintegrated into vast clouds of concrete and other materials, which blanketed Lower Manhattan. This paper shows that the energy required to produce the expansion of the dust cloud observed immediately following the collapse of 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) was much greater than the gravitational energy available from its elevated mass. It uses only basic physics.

Introduction

Vast amounts of energy were released during the collapse of each of the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan on September 11th, 2001. The accepted source of this energy was the gravitational potential energy of the towers, which was far greater than the energy released by the fires that preceded the collapses. The magnitude of that source cannot be determined with much precision thanks to the secrecy surrounding details of the towers' construction. However, FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Report gives an estimate: "Construction of WTC 1 resulted in the storage of more than 4 x 10^11 joules of potential energy over the 1,368-foot height of the structure." That is equal to about 111,000 KWH (kilowatt hours) per tower.

Of the many identifiable energy sinks in the collapses, one of the only ones that has been subjected to quantitative analysis is the thorough pulverization of the concrete in the towers. It is well documented that nearly all of the non-metallic constituents of the towers were pulverized into fine powder. The largest of these constituents by weight was the concrete that constituted the floor slabs of the towers. Jerry Russell estimated that the amount of energy required to crush concrete to 60 micron powder is about 1.5 KWH/ton. (See http://www.911-strike.com/powder.htm.) That paper incorrectly assumes there were 600,000 tons of concrete in each tower, but Russell later provided a more accurate estimate of 90,000 tons of concrete per tower, based on FEMA's description of the towers' construction. That estimate implies the energy sink of concrete pulverization was on the order of 135,000 KWH per tower, which is already larger than the energy source of gravitational energy. However, the size of this sink is critically dependent on the fineness of the concrete powder, and on mechanical characteristics of the lightweight concrete thought to have been used in the towers. Available statistics about particle sizes of the dust, such as the study by Paul J. Lioy, et al., characterize particle sizes of aggregate dust samples, not of its constituents, such as concrete, fiberglass, hydrocarbon soot, etc. Based on diverse evidence, 60 microns would appear to be a high estimate for average concrete particle size, suggesting 135,000 KWH is a conservative estimate for the magnitude of the sink.

A second energy sink, that has apparently been overlooked, was many times the magnitude of the gravitational energy: the energy needed to expand the dust clouds to several times the volume of each tower within 30 seconds of the onset of their collapses. Note that the contents of the dust clouds had to come from building constituents -- gases and materials inside of or intrinsic to the building -- modulo any mixing with outside air. Given that the Twin Towers' dust clouds behaved like pyroclastic flows, with distinct boundaries and rapidly expanding frontiers (averaging perhaps 35 feet/second on the ground for the first 30 seconds), it is doubtful that mixing with ambient air accounted for a significant fraction of their volume. Therefore the dust clouds' expansion must have been primarily due to an expansion of building constituents. Possible sources of expansion include:

thermodynamic expansion of gases

vaporization of liquids and solids

chemical reactions resulting in a net increase in gaseous phase molecules

The evidence does not support the idea that chemical reactions in the dust cloud liberated vast quantities of gases. That leaves increases in gas temperatures and vaporization of solids and liquids, primarily water, to drive the expansion.

How much heat energy was involved in expanding the dust clouds? To calculate the energy we need to answer three questions:

What was the volume of the dust clouds from a collapse at some time soon after it started (before the clouds began to diffuse)?

How did the mixing of the dust cloud with ambient air contribute to its size, and how can this be factored out to obtain the volume occupied by gases and suspended materials originally inside the building?

What is the ratio of that volume to the volume of the intact building?

How much heat energy was required to produce that ratio of expansion?

Since I have better photographs for North Tower dust, I did the calculation for it.

1. Quantifying Dust Cloud Volume

To answer question 1, I made estimates based on photographs taken at approximately 30 seconds after the onset of the collapse. The photo in Figure 1 appears to have been taken around 30 seconds after the initiation of the collapse of the North Tower. The fact that the spire is visible directly behind Building 7 indicates the photo was not taken later than the 30 seconds, since video records show that the spire started to collapse at the around 29 seconds. In this photograph, as in other ones taken around that time, the dust clouds still have distinct boundaries.

Figure 1. Photograph from Chapter 5 of FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Report.

I used landmarks in this photo to make several approximate measurements of the frontier of the dust cloud. The following table lists some of them. Measurements are in feet. The first column lists heights above the street, and the second lists distances from the vertical axis of the North Tower.

label height distance description

3 230 1011 west corner of 45 Park Place

5 228 729 top of south corner of building with stepped roof

6 204 658 east corner of Building 7, 30 stories below top

7 600 776 upwell towering over southeast end of Post Office

8 700 ? upwell slightly higher than the top of Building 7

11 190 870 top of west corner of 22 Cortland St tower

12 508 588 8 stories below top of face of WFC 3

13 498 517 3 stories below top of upper face of WFC 2

To approximate the volume I used a cylinder, coaxial with the vertical axis of the North Tower, with a radius of 800 feet, and a height of 200 feet. All the above reference points lie outside of this volume. Although the cylinder does not lie entirely within the dust cloud, there are large parts of the cloud outside of it, such as the 700 foot high upwelling column south of Building 7. The cylinder has a volume of:

pi * (800 feet)^2 * 200 feet = 402,000,000 feet^3.

I subtract about a quarter for volume occupied by other buildings, giving 300,000,000 feet^3.

2. Factoring out Mixing and Diffusion

To accurately answer question 2 would require detailed knowledge of the fluid dynamics involved. However it does appear that for at least a minute, the dust cloud behaved as a separate fluid from the ambient air, maintaining a distinct boundary. There are several pieces of evidence that support this:

The WTC dust clouds inexorably advanced down streets at around 25 MPH. This is far faster than can be explained by mixing and diffusion.

As the dust clouds advanced outward, features on their frontiers evolved relatively slowly compared to the clouds' rates of advance. This indicates that that clouds were expanding from within and that if surface turbulence was incorporating ambient air, it's contribution to expansion was minor.

The top surface of the clouds looked like the surface of a boiling viscous liquid - churning but not mixing with the air above. Sinking portions of the clouds were replaced by clear air, not a mixture of the cloud and air.

The dust clouds maintained distinct interfaces for well over a minute. Mixing and diffusion would have produced diffuse interfaces.

There are reports of people being picked up and carried distances by the South Tower dust cloud, which felt solid. New York Daily News photographer David Handschuh recalled:

Instinctively I lifted the camera up, and something took over that probably saved my life. And that was [an urge] to run rather than take pictures. I got down to the end of the block and turned the corner when a wave-- a hot, solid, black wave of heat threw me down the block. It literally picked me up off my feet and I wound up about a block away.

Initially the dust clouds must have been much heavier than air, given the mass of the concrete they carried and the distances they transported it. As time went on the cloud became more diffuse, but all of the photographs that can be verified as being within the first minute show opaque clouds with distinct boundaries, indicating the dominant mode of growth was expansion, not mixing or diffusion. It seems reasonable to assume that mixing with ambient air did not account for a significant fraction of the expansion in the volume of the dust cloud by 30 seconds of the start of the North Tower collapse. Nevertheless, I reduce the estimate of the dust cloud volume of building origin to 200,000,000 feet^3, imagining that a third of the growth may have been due to assimilation of ambient air.

3. Computing the Expansion Ratio

The answer to question 3 is easy. The volume of a tower, with it's 207 foot width and 1368 foot height, is:

1368 feet * 207 feet * 207 feet = 58,617,432 feet^3.

So the ratio of the expanded gasses and suspended materials from the tower to the original volume of the tower is:

200,000,000 feet^3 / 58,617,432 feet^3 = 3.41.

4. Computing the Required Heat Input

Above I identified two energy sinks that could have driven expansion of the dust cloud: thermodynamic expansion of gases, and vaporization of liquids and solids. Since most constituents and contents of the building other than water would require very high temperatures to vaporize, I consider only the vaporization of water in evaluating the second sink.

It is clearly not possible to determine with any precision the relative contributions of these two sinks to the expansion of the dust cloud. If the cloud remained uniform in temperature and density for the first 30 seconds, then the expansion would consist of three distinct phases:

The temperature would increase to 100 C, accompanied by thermodynamic expansion.

The temperature would remain at 100 C until all of the water was vaporized.

The temperature would increase above 100 C, again accompanied by thermodynamic expansion.

Since such uniform conditions were not present, I will first treat the two energy sinks separately, and will compute the energy requirements for each if it alone were responsible for the expansion.

4.1. The Thermodynamic Expansion Sink

The ideal gas law can be used to compute a lower bound for the amount of heat energy required to induce the observed expansion of the dust cloud, assuming that the expansion was entirely due to thermodynamic expansion. That law states that the product of the volume and pressure of a parcel of a gas is proportional to absolute temperature. It is written PV = nRT, where:

P = pressure

V = volume

T = absolute temperature

n = molar quantity

R = constant

Absolute temperature is expressed in Kelvin (K), which is Celsius + 273. Applied to the tower collapse, the equation holds that the ratio of volumes of gasses from the building before and after expansion is roughly equal to the ratio of temperatures of the gasses before and after heating. That allows us to compute the minimum energy needed to achieve a given expansion ratio knowing only the thermal mass of the gasses and their average temperature before the collapse.

I say that the ideal gas law allows the computation of only the lower bound of the required energy input due to the following four factors.

The finite size of molecules leads to a slight departure from the ideal gas law wherein the expansion of a parcel of gas leads to a decrease in its temperature. This means that slightly more heat energy is needed to achieve a given expansion ratio than is predicted by the ideal gas law.

The dust cloud at the time of the photograph used to estimate its volume had not finished expanding. Videos show that it continued to expand well after the 1 minute mark.

The suspended dust in the cloud had many times the mass of the gasses. This increased the energy needed to expand the dust cloud since it takes energy to lift and accelerate mass.

The suspended dust in the cloud had many times the thermal mass of the gasses. Increasing in temperature of the dust cloud to a level needed to induce the observed expansion entailed raising the temperature of the gasses and suspended solids by similar amounts. Since the solids had many times the thermal capacity of the gasses, this multiplied the energy requirements.

In this paper I examine only the fourth factor. Before considering its effect on energy requirements, I first consider the energy requirements of heating only the gasses in the clouds to the level needed to achieve the observed expansion.

According to the ideal gas law, expanding the gasses 3.4-fold requires raising their absolute temperature by the same ratio. If we assume the tower was at 300 degrees K before the collapse, then the target temperature would be 1020 degrees K, an increase of 720 degrees. Given a density of 36 g/foot^3 for air, the tower held about 2,000,000,000 g of air. Air has a specific heat of 0.24 (relative to 1 for water), so one calorie will raise one g of air 1 / 0.24 = 4.16 degrees. To raise 2,000,000,000 g by 720 degrees requires:

2,000,000,000 g * 720 degrees * 0.24 = 345,600,000,000 calories

= 399,500 KWH

To evaluate the energy requirements of the fourth factor, it is necessary to consider the composition of the dust cloud. The cloud was a suspension of fine particles of concrete and other solids in gasses consisting mostly of air. Since concrete was the dominant solid, I will ignore the others, which included glass, gypsum, asbestos, and various hydrocarbons. The small size of the particles, being in the 10-60 micron range, would assure rapid equalization between their temperature and that of the embedding air. Therefore any heat source acting to raise the temperature of the air would have to raise the temperature of the suspended concrete by the same amount. Assuming all 90,000,000,000 g of concrete was raised 720 degrees (300 K to 1020 K), the necessary heat, given a specific heat of concrete of 0.15 is:

90,000,000,000 g * 720 degrees * 0.15 = 9,720,000,000,000 calories

= 11,300,000 KWH.

If we assume that the water vaporization sink absorbed all available energy once temperatures reached water's boiling point, we can compute the size of the heat sink of thermodynamic expansion that was in play as temperatures rose from room temperature to 100 C, or from 300 K to 373 K:

2,000,000,000 g * 73 degrees * 0.24 = 35,040,000,000 calories

= 40,744 KWH

The associated sink of heating the suspended solids to this temperature would be:

90,000,000,000 g * 73 degrees * 0.15 = 985,500,000,000 calories

= 1,145,000 KWH.

4.2. The Water Vaporization Sink

At 100 C at sea-level, water expands by a factor of 1680 when converted to steam. Hence it is reasonable to expect that water in the building accounted for a significant part of the expansion. How much energy would be required to expand the volume of the cloud by the 3.41 ratio if water vaporization were entirely responsible for the expansion? Since water vaporization involves the introduction of volumes steam from comparatively negligible volumes of water, I assume that all the incremental volume was occupied by steam. The estimated 3.41 expansion ratio means that the incremental volume was:

200,000,000 feet^3 - 58,617,000 feet^3 = 141,383,000 feet^3

= 4,003,542,000 liters

Given the 1680 to 1 ratio between the volume steam and liquid water, 2,383,000 liters of water would have been required. The heat of vaporization of water is 540 calories/gram at 100 C. Therefore the heat energy required to produce the expansion is:

2,383,000,000 g * 540 = 1,286,820,000,000 calories

= 1,496,000 KWH

Was there enough water in the building for this sink to be anywhere near this large? That is a matter of great uncertainty. Even well-cured concrete has a significant moisture content. Assuming that the estimated 90,000 tons of concrete in the tower was 1 percent water by weight, that would have provided 900 tons of water or about 900,000 liters -- well short of the 2,383,000 liter estimate above. However, there is a large amount of uncertainty in the water content of the concrete, which, like the rest of the remains of the disaster, was apparently disposed of with little or no examination. Moreover there were other sources of water in the building, such as the plumbing system, which could have accounted for tens of thousands of liters, and, gruesomely, people. The thousand victims never identified could have accounted for about 30,000 liters of water.

4.3. Which Energy Sink Was Dominant?

Both thermodynamic expansion and water vaporization have the capacity to produce vast expansion in gas volume given sufficient heat. Two major difference in the features of these sinks may help in understanding the relative contributions of each. First, thermodynamic expansion to the observed ratio requires very high temperatures, whereas vaporization-driven expansion occurs at a constant temperature of 100 C. Second, vaporization-driven expansion would be limited by the available supply of water.

If all the expansion was due to thermodynamic expansion, it would require that the dust cloud was heated to an average temperature of about 1020 K. Certainly the temperatures of the cloud near the ground were no-where near that high. Eyewitness reports show that the cloud's ground-level temperatures more than a few hundred feet away from its center were humanly survivable. Most of these reports are from the South Tower collapse, and it is unclear how similar the dust cloud temperatures following the two collapses were. Although serious fires raged in Buildings 4, 5, and 6, other nearby buildings that suffered extensive window breakage from the tower collapses, such as the Banker's Trust Building, and Word Financial Center Buildings 1, 2, and 3, did not experience fires. Digital photographs and videos show a bright afterglow with a locus near the center of the cloud, commencing around 17 seconds after the onset of the North Tower's collapse. Once the afterglow started, the cloud developed large upwelling columns towering to over 600 feet, and the previously gray cloud appeared to glow with a reddish hue. This suggests that at lest the upper and central regions of the North Tower cloud reached very high temperatures, but the evidence is insufficient to draw even general quantitative conclusions about the ranges and distributions of temperatures.

If enough water was present for vaporization to drive most of the expansion, temperatures in much of the cloud would have remained around 100 C until most of the water had vaporized. Thermodynamic expansion would occur in regions with liquid phase water until 100 C was reached, and again after the water was vaporized.

To the extent that thermodynamic expansion was the dominant factor driving the expansion, the distribution of concrete dust in the cloud, and its relationship to the temperature distribution in the cloud, would greatly affect the total energy requirements. Less energy would be required if the hotter portions of the cloud had a lower density of dust. The density was probably greater toward the central portions of the cloud, which also seem to have experienced the most heating. On the other hand, much of the dust may have settled out by the 30 second mark. The violent churning of the cloud, and the opaque appearance of its frontier, suggest that most of the dust had not settled that early.

Summary

The dominant energy source assumed to be in play during the leveling of each of the Twin Towers was the gravitational energy due to their elevated mass. The energy sinks included the thorough pulverization of each tower's concrete, the vaporization of water, and the heating of air and suspended concrete dust in the ensuing dust cloud. Estimates for these energies are:

energy, KWH source or sink

+ 111,000 falling of mass (1.97e11 g falling average of 207 m)

- 135,000 crushing of concrete (9e10 g to 60 micron powder)

ignoring water vaporization

- 400,000 heating of gasses (2e9 g air from 300 to 1020 K)

- 11,300,000 heating of suspended concrete (9e10 g from 300 to 1020 K)

assuming water vaporization sink was not supply-limited

- 1,496,000 vaporization of water (2.38e9 g water)

- 41,000 heating of gasses (2e9 g air from 300 to 373 K)

- 1,145,000 heating of suspended concrete (9e10 g from 300 to 373 K)

The imbalance between sources and sinks is striking, no matter the relative shares of the thermodynamic and water vaporization sinks in accounting for the expansion. Moreover, it is very difficult to imagine how the gravitational energy released by falling mass could have contributed much to any of the sinks, since the vast majority of the tower's mass landed outside its footprint. The quantity for the crushing of concrete appears to be conservative since some reports indicate the average particle size was closer to 10 microns than 60 microns. The quantity for the heating of suspended concrete has a large amount of uncertainty, but the energy imbalances remain huge even when it is ignored entirely. All of these energy sink estimates are conservative in several respects.

They are based on an estimate of dust cloud volume at a time long before the cloud stopped growing.

They use a liberal estimate of the contribution of mixing to the volume.

They ignore thermal losses due to radiation.

They ignore the resistance to expansion due to the inertia of the suspended materials, and energy requirements to overcome it.

Conclusion

The amount of energy required to expand the North Tower's dust cloud was many times the entire potential energy of the tower's elevated mass due to gravity. The over 10-fold disparity between the most conservative estimate and the gravitational energy is not easily dismissed as reflecting uncertainties in quantitative assessments.

The official explanation that the Twin Tower collapses were gravity-driven events appears insufficient to account for the documented energy flows.

[Weapon X]

Hoffman boosts the energy required to pulverise the concrete by assuming, in his calculations, that it was all turned to dust. Actually in his text he admits it was "nearly all", which leads to the question: how much is that? And how do we know? Whatever the answer, this makes his first figure potentially an overestimate.

And second, he treats the tasks of pulverising the concrete, then heating it up, as entirely separate. So, for instance, we read that crushing the concrete may have required 135,000 KWH, while heating it could have required 1,145,000 (low estimate).

Of course this is missing a point, because the kinetic energy used to pulverise the concrete didn't simply disappear. Much of it became heat, and so crushing the concrete would also increase its temperature.

What difference would this make? We don't know, but it's another flaw in the calculations. Heating the concrete dust need not require as much additional energy as Hoffman claims.

This is not mine but this person shows how hoffman mathematical calculations were wrong

And Another Thing, Jim Hoffman…

Posted on April 5, 2009

by Scott Creighton

Another glaring problem with Jim Hoffman’s revised “Hypothetical Demolition Theory”.

Jim Hoffman’s Wiki page says that the man worked “applying scientific visualization of mathematics” which makes this next problem I found in his hypothesis even more stunning.

Hoffman makes the following claim in his paper…

“We know that the Towers had only two types of ceiling tiles: 20-inch squares for the tenant spaces and 12-inch squares for the core spaces. An estimate of the number of tiles per tower is 12,000,000 large tiles and 8,000,000 small tiles.” Hoffman

This is basic math folks, surely not even childs play for someone with Mr. Hoffman’s background. And yet, somehow, Mr. Hoffman publishes his paper on his site missing the mark by a factor of about 10.666….

The towers were about 207′-6″ x 207′-6″ square. That itself is a little large for the floor footage that we need because that number is based on the center to center measurement from the opposing exterior columns. So my figures will be slightly off, but as you will see, not nearly as off as Mr. Hoffman’s.

I drew this up very quickly so you can see what we are talking about. It’s based on the 67th floor plan taken from the high resolution architectural plans that came out in 2007. Take a look…

To find the square footage of the floor space of the areas, you simply multiply length times the width. it’s not hard. Basically what you come up with are the numbers you see above,

total area for each floor is 43,056 sq ft

Total tenant area per floor is 30,589 sq ft

Total core area per floor is 12,467 sq ft.

Since each tower has 110 floors, you multiply 110 times each type of floor space and that tells you the total ‘tenant” and ‘core” floor space for each tower.

Total tenant floor space per tower = 3,364,790 sq ft

Total core floor space per tower = 1,371,370 sq ft.

Now if the 20″x20″ “tenant” type tile has a 2.99 sq ft. requirement (with “T” grid support, then you simply divide the total “tenant” space by the space required for one tile, and you get the estimate, per tower, that Mr. Hoffman suggested as being 12 million tiles… what you end up with though is…

Tenant tiles per tower = 1,125,347

So Mr. Hoffman’s estimate misses that mark by about… 10.875 million? Is that about right? And you can do the math for the 12×12 “core” tiles yourselves…

Personally, I would change that little figure myself Mr. Hoffman, before someone else mass emails the link to the essay. And hope Popular Mechanics hasn’t seen it yet…

***UPDATE*** Since I just received an email from someone trying to suggest Hoffman missed a decimal in his “tenant” tiles number, I decided to take a look at Mr. Hoffman’s “core” tile number of 8 million to see if that could be the same thing. (note; the difference factor is 10.666, and not a factor of 10 that a missed decimal might have caused… but, who’s counting?)

Total core floor space per tower = 1,371,370 sq ft.

“core” tiles are 12″ x 12″ (required spacing 12.75 x 12.75) for a sq ft per “core” tile of 1.13 sq ft.

Divide 1,371,370 by 1.13 and you get = 1,213,601 “core” tiles per tower. Not 8 million like Hoffman has stated.

The difference is a factor of 6.6. And that is not a slipped decimal point.

Not only that but you have to take in consideratio that Hoffman has had to change/edit his hypothetical scenario and published version 1.1 on his site. So what does that tell you??? Well it trell me that he was wrong from the get go and since he was rebutted and erroneous in his calculations he had to change the math.

[Weapon X]

I have found and read this paper from DR. Frank greening

Energy Transfer Addendum - This companion to the WTC Report addresses other issues, including Jim Hoffmans claim that there was insufficient evidence from a gravity-driven collapse to pulverize concrete and create and expand the observed dust clouds. (PDF file).

The Pulverization of Concrete in WTC 1 During the Collapse Events of 9-11 - ...are there any experimental data available to support the claim that concrete in the WTC could have been pulverized by gravity driven impact as opposed to explosive blasting?

In this report we address these questions and after considering the available evidence conclude that the pulverization of WTC concrete by gravitational collapse of each tower was indeed quite possible. Furthermore, we show that the predicted concrete particle size distribution is consistent with observations of the concrete debris at, and adjacent to, ground zero.

It does a very good job in questioning and exposing inconsistencies in hoffmans assumptions.

[tyron]

Hi Weapon X,

I found other scientists that disagree with Greening and not only that make available their emails with him. See below. However, I think that is not important. You will continue to believe what you believe and I will believe what I believe so lets not waste any more of each other's time.

In all investigative pursuits the question used to always be que bono? Who benefited? Follow the money. 19 Arabs did not benefit, Osama bin Laden did not benefit, no Muslim benefited. But turn your head a little to the right and see a group of Neocons that got exactly what they wanted, the Patriots Act, the most amazing money making machine of all - 2 wars, cheap oil, the caspian sea pipe line, a new source of heroin... The weekend before 9-11 there was an unprecedented power cut that lasted the whole weekend. During that time no door in the building could be locked! Another coincidence. Take care Weapon.

Steven Jones and Frank Greening (and others) correspond - April-May, 2009.

submitted by Reprehensor on thu, 05/14/2009 - 6:24pm

david_chandler Dr. Steven E. Jones

(From Steven Jones...)

For years, Frank Greening has argued with our research group, which is not in itself unwelcomed because we welcome review of our research. Here I will refer to recent arguments by FG and our responses, to let the reader decide for himself whose “side” has the greater scientific veracity. There are two main categories in this discussion: 1) Newton’s Third Law as applied to WTC Towers and 2) Discussion of the red/gray chips paper.

1) Newton’s Third Law as applied to WTC Tower

On April 19, 2009 F. Greening wrote to me and I replied:

FG: "I would say that Chandler's slight of hand is the implied notion that Newton's 3rd Law is universally applicable, even to a collapsing building. The fact is that when a building is collapsing by multiple floor failures the reaction force obviously fails to balance the downward force because the yield strength of the failing columns is being exceeded."

SJ: No. This is a blatant and fundamental error. I have caught many a student on the equivalent of this nonsense, as I taught Newtonian Mechanics for over 21 years. Newton's 3rd law is always applicable, even in the case you mention, Frank. The key is that the "equal and opposite forces" must act on DIFFERENT bodies. Suggest you consult a basic physics or mechanics text if you don't understand that. – Steven Jones

Later the same day, FG persists in his misunderstanding of Newton’s Laws and says:

FG: So, to recap: Newton’s Laws apply to the external forces acting between interacting bodies in closed systems. Newton’s 3rd Law does not apply to the internal forces causing an open-structured body to collapse in on itself.

At this point, after several scientific comments, physicist David Chandler replies to FG in such a way as to drive home the point:

DC: Bullsh*t!!! Total absolute bullsh*t!!!!!!!! I can't believe I'm reading this from someone who claims to be a scientist. You get an F in my class.

FG: "Newton's 3rd Law applies to bouncing billiard balls not the interiors of collapsing buildings".

DC: You are so... so... absolutely full of sh*t!!! …I charge $60 (USD) per hour for tutoring. I'll round this lesson off to 1 hour. Please send the check to David Chandler (address redacted).

David then proceeds with a detailed explanation of Newton’s Third Law, a tutorial. He concludes the tutorial with these cogent comments:

DC: Energy and Momentum did not come to destroy the law(s of Newton), they came to fulfill them. When you use concepts such as energy and momentum you are applying Newton's laws without knowing it. Within the confines of classical mechanics, which includes building demolitions, Newton's laws of motion are THE LAW. They are never, ever violated. If you apply concepts involving energy and momentum in such a way as to violate Newton's Laws, you are applying them incorrectly.

…If you want to see true insanity, turn a bunch of people loose in a physics discussion governed only by their intuition. What you get is a JREF forum.

FG’s response was not an admission of error exactly, but this:

FG: “Dear All,

Why all the fuss about Newtonian semantics?”

Humorous, I thought. At some point, a full display of this back-and-forth demonstrating Greening’s complete misunderstanding of Newton’s Third Law as it should apply to the Towers’ destruction along with my and especially David Chandler’s efforts to help FG understand would be valuable. Some of this exchange has already been posted on Newsvine as noted to me by Dr. Frank Legge, who wrote:

FL: Steve, you may be interested to know that Greening's lapse regarding Newton's third law has been exposed in Newsvine.

http://gravity32.newsvine.com/_news/2009/04/23/2721099-frank-greening-an...

I should note that F. Greening is a co-author with Bazant on a paper supporting the official story for the collapse of the Towers, so FG’s misunderstanding of the Third Law is particularly relevant to the nonsense known as the “official story of 9/11”.

2) Discussion of the red/gray chips paper.

Also in the April-May time frame, there was a discussion between FG and authors of the paper “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”; find the April 2009 published article at this link:

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/000000...

This back-and-forth (for those who gave permission to have their emails posted) has been posted by "metamars" here:

http://the911forum.freeforums.org/email-correspondence-on-active-thermit...

IMO, certain deficiencies in Greening’s thinking became evident, such as his statement:

“The microspheres reported in the Harrit paper could at best be described as "iron-rich", with Al, Si and O always present. But let me remind you, this is also true for the magnetically separated microspheres found in incinerator ashes – they contain mostly Fe, Al, Si, and O.”

SJ response: “Dr. Farrer and Danny and I have looked at many of these post-DSC spheres, many do NOT contain Al. See for example Fig 21 in our paper:

Fig. (21). Spheroid found in post-DSC residue showing iron-rich sphere and the corresponding XEDS spectrum. The carbon peak must be considered indeterminate here since this sample was flashed with a thin carbon layer in order to preclude charging under the electron beam.

SJ response cont’d: “Look again at the data (above) -- there is no Al in evidence. Furthermore, the amounts of Si and Ca and especially S here [are] trivial. The melting points of iron and of iron oxide are both above 1200 C, yet the DSC reached only 700 C, insufficient to cause melting of iron or iron oxide.”

He finally admitted to some error on that point related to Fig. 21, as you may read.

The absence of ZINC in the red chip material (our paper, Fig. 7), in particular, implies that this is NOT primer paint used on the WTC – it appears that FG agrees with this point.

A number of FG’s straw-man arguments were also identified and dispelled. On May 11, 2009, I wrote to FG:

SJ: “Nor is your conflation of "thermate" with "nanothermite" valid. Nor did I EVER write or say that thermate alone would suffice to bring down the Towers, but rather wrote that explosives would be needed (in addition).”

During the discussion, I briefly expressed my hypothesis that nanothermite served as an igniting agent, as in the “super-thermite matches” described in our paper, to ignite more conventional explosives such as C4 or HMX, in the destruction of the WTC buildings. Thermate (sulfur plus thermite and possibly the form thermate-TH-3) was ALSO in evidence and probably intended to weaken critical steel members (e.g., residue/ material flowing with orange glow from the So. Tower just minutes before its collapse and the sulfidation of WTC steel reported in the FEMA report but ignored by NIST). Thermite incendiary without sulfur is not in evidence at the WTC to date.

But sulfur is NOT needed for the function of explosive nanothermite and would not be expected to appear in the red/gray chips. Reliable and robust super- or nano-thermite ignitors would each be ignited by an electrical pulse generated by a radio-receiver, in turn igniting shaped charges to cut steel, the sequence beginning near where the planes went in for the Towers and computer-controlled, so that the destruction wave would proceed via explosives in top-down sequence. Thus, this was no conventional (bottom first) controlled demolition, agreeing on this with B. Blanchard, but I never claimed it was! (For the Towers; the demolition of WTC7 appears to be bottom-first and more conventional.) The top-down destruction of the Towers in this model would doubtless require more explosives than would a conventional controlled demolition. Thermate (an incendiary, not an explosive) is not the “be all and end all” explanation (FG’s terminology), nor did I ever claim it was – I have consistently pointed to evidence that explosives were used in bringing down the Towers.

The “working hypothesis” above is a scientific hypothesis, that is, subject to change as further research data emerge. It is also possible (for example) that explosive nanothermite (not an incendiary) could have been used in SHAPED CHARGES, to cut through steel explosively (a use suggested in Fig. 1 of Miziolek AW, “Nanoenergetics: an emerging technology area of national importance.” Amptiac Spring 2002; 6(1): 43-48. Available from: http://www.p2pays.org/ref/34/33115.pdf .

I continued on 11 May 2009 to FG: “My main gripe with your soliloquy today is that it ignores the additional data collected by on-going experiments which I described to you -- the comparison we did of the DSC trace for paint vs. for red/gray chips, the controls we did for the quantification of elements (using known chemical compounds as controls), the TEM studies, the independent clip by researcher Mark B. showing the very rapid ignition of the red material accompanied by gas generation, (He also observes microsphere formation.) Why did you not comment on these points?”

I think you will find the discussion interesting and informative, and you get to read the emails as penned by Frank Greening, Dr. Legge, myself and others. You be the judge.

Thanks to "metamars" for encouraging this discussion and then posting the exchanges.

[Weapon X]

Tyron half your links dont work.

The only link that works is a DOD report talking about nano technology, and it mentions thermite I can give you that, but we have a problem here, the 911 truthers started out with thermite, than changed with thermate and when they could not prove either without a reasonable doubt came out with nano thermite, there has never been any doubt that it exists, the doubt come out that it was used to bring down the WTC 1,2 and 7.

The specimen that he received that he identifies as nano thermite lacks one thing, a verifiable chain of custody, without that chain of custody he cannot make a valid and believable claim that that specimen came from NYC.

I would like for you to see this video and aroung the 4;55 minute mark they do a scientific test with thermite and listen to the dimensions of the steel beam they are going to use and the amount of thermite needed. They use a 8x6 bt 1/2 thick steel beam and they need 100 lbs of thermite. Wha were the dimensions of the WTC 1 and 2 steel steel beam

Take that and tell me how much thermite was needed to burn a WTC column?? It would take tons of thermite. Tell me how did it get there???

The thermite theory only holds water if you can prove how they were pur on the columns.

Have you noticed how you jumped from pyroclasitc clouds and pulverized concrete to thermite?? Stay on one topic, anywho truthers have nothing but a conspiracy theory to hang on to, all and every CT from the 911 truthers can be debunked scientifically and when they dont like it they just say they are wrong but provide no evidence to prove their claim. You said many truther scientists dont agree with Greenes paper about the Pyroclastic cloud and "pulverized concrete" but Hoffman edits and changes his theory, why is that?? Simple jhe was proved wrong and had to adjust his math and equations to fit his theory, when it should be the othr way around, you adjust your theory to accomodate what the proof and/or math are telling you.

Put it as you put it there are serious flaws in the 911 truther movement and to a scientific and logical mind they dont hold water.

[tyron]

Tyron half your links dont work.

The only link that works is a DOD report talking about nano technology, and it mentions thermite I can give you that, but we have a problem here, the 911 truthers started out with thermite, than changed with thermate and when they could not prove either without a reasonable doubt came out with nano thermite, there has never been any doubt that it exists, the doubt come out that it was used to bring down the WTC 1,2 and 7.

The specimen that he received that he identifies as nano thermite lacks one thing, a verifiable chain of custody, without that chain of custody he cannot make a valid and believable claim that that specimen came from NYC.

I would like for you to see this video and aroung the 4;55 minute mark they do a scientific test with thermite and listen to the dimensions of the steel beam they are going to use and the amount of thermite needed. They use a 8x6 bt 1/2 thick steel beam and they need 100 lbs of thermite. Wha were the dimensions of the WTC 1 and 2 steel steel beam

Take that and tell me how much thermite was needed to burn a WTC column?? It would take tons of thermite. Tell me how did it get there???

The thermite theory only holds water if you can prove how they were pur on the columns.

Have you noticed how you jumped from pyroclasitc clouds and pulverized concrete to thermite?? Stay on one topic, anywho truthers have nothing but a conspiracy theory to hang on to, all and every CT from the 911 truthers can be debunked scientifically and when they dont like it they just say they are wrong but provide no evidence to prove their claim. You said many truther scientists dont agree with Greenes paper about the Pyroclastic cloud and "pulverized concrete" but Hoffman edits and changes his theory, why is that?? Simple jhe was proved wrong and had to adjust his math and equations to fit his theory, when it should be the othr way around, you adjust your theory to accomodate what the proof and/or math are telling you.

Put it as you put it there are serious flaws in the 911 truther movement and to a scientific and logical mind they dont hold water.

Actually, Weapon I have not jumped anywhere. If you go back to our past posts you will notice that when I mentioned pyroclastic clouds, you tried to debunk that, and when I proved that there was such a phenomena, you came up with a theory that produced pyroclastic cloud but from a different source!

Just like your scientist was trying to say that too much of conventional explosives would be needed to bring down the towers your video too is no good for the same reason. It talks of thermite. There is a world of difference between thermite and nano thermite. If you look at any of my posts on 9-11 you will see I always say the same thing - sophisticated military grade nano-thermite explosive were used. Please look up CIA whistle blower Susan Lindauer who confirms that the CIA not only knew of but were also expecting just such a bomb to go off during that period in New York!

But as I said before we should not waste any more of each others precious time. Your paradigm does not allow for conspiracies to occur in this world and mine does. So let us agree to disagree and hope the RV comes through soon. Take care Weapon.

[kenbo]

Tyron and Weapon X. You guys have certainly studied this subject very well. And it seems that you have a grasp of what you are discusing. I am impressed with both of you.

As I said before I have no formal education from which to draw my opinion from. But what I do have is personal experience and while it isn't on as large a scale as the towers, still I believe that the observations would be valid.

1. Tyron, You have mentioned several times that all of the fuel was burnt up almost immediatly and you use the ball of flame for your evidence. That is actually an opinion and one that I disagree with. And the reason I do is from my own experience. I have had plenty of bon fires. And often I used diesel fuel to get the fires burning and even usied diesel to stoke it when the fire wasnt strong enough for my liking. I've thrown quarts of fuel on the fire. The result was a ball of fire that occured from airborne fuel while a much lower level fire continued as a result of non-combusted fuel flowing into the wood.

It is my belief that when the plane hit the building, the airborne fuel ignited in a ball of fire. It is also possible that an enormous amount of fuel poured onto the floors. This type of fuel needs to be airborne to go up in a ball of flame. But flowing fuel would simply burn on the surface of the fuel where the fire had oxygen to burn. Very much like my bonfire but on a greater scale.

　

2. Concrete Pulverization

Has any one taken into consideration what happens to concrete when heated? I have and again I draw from my experience.

I have seen what a fire does to concrete. Experiment one time by placing some wood on a concrete slab and light it on fire. The concrete will litterly explode. Dont stand too close to the flame as hot exploding concrete hurts! And with such a low level heat too. Whatever chemical bond that holds the concrete to the agregate and steel changes with fire, I've even seen concrete after a house fire simply crumble to dust.

3. And for the last observation today, The statement was made "Who benefited? Follow the money. 19 Arabs did not benefit, Osama bin Laden did not benefit, no Muslim benefited." That isnt entirely true.

While I completly agree that under most circumstances we can "Follow the Money" I also know that there is another possible motivation worth mentioning.

In many religions the prize that is sought after is obtaining eternal life after leaving this life. The Muslim faith is one of these. And those 19 Arabs were Muslim extremists and they more than willing to die for their cause. For them to die while killing infidels guarantees them eternal life. And for those that are motivated by religion, that benefit is far greater a reward than any financial benefit could ever be.

Again, I have no statements that would satisfy an engineer or a scientist and I dont understand half of the stuff you guys talk about, but I do know what I have seen with my own two eyes.

[tyron]

Tyron and Weapon X. You guys have certainly studied this subject very well. And it seems that you have a grasp of what you are discusing. I am impressed with both of you.

As I said before I have no formal education from which to draw my opinion from. But what I do have is personal experience and while it isn't on as large a scale as the towers, still I believe that the observations would be valid.

1. Tyron, You have mentioned several times that all of the fuel was burnt up almost immediatly and you use the ball of flame for your evidence. That is actually an opinion and one that I disagree with. And the reason I do is from my own experience. I have had plenty of bon fires. And often I used diesel fuel to get the fires burning and even usied diesel to stoke it when the fire wasnt strong enough for my liking. I've thrown quarts of fuel on the fire. The result was a ball of fire that occured from airborne fuel while a much lower level fire continued as a result of non-combusted fuel flowing into the wood.

It is my belief that when the plane hit the building, the airborne fuel ignited in a ball of fire. It is also possible that an enormous amount of fuel poured onto the floors. This type of fuel needs to be airborne to go up in a ball of flame. But flowing fuel would simply burn on the surface of the fuel where the fire had oxygen to burn. Very much like my bonfire but on a greater scale.

　

2. Concrete Pulverization

Has any one taken into consideration what happens to concrete when heated? I have and again I draw from my experience.

I have seen what a fire does to concrete. Experiment one time by placing some wood on a concrete slab and light it on fire. The concrete will litterly explode. Dont stand too close to the flame as hot exploding concrete hurts! And with such a low level heat too. Whatever chemical bond that holds the concrete to the agregate and steel changes with fire, I've even seen concrete after a house fire simply crumble to dust.

3. And for the last observation today, The statement was made "Who benefited? Follow the money. 19 Arabs did not benefit, Osama bin Laden did not benefit, no Muslim benefited." That isnt entirely true.

While I completly agree that under most circumstances we can "Follow the Money" I also know that there is another possible motivation worth mentioning.

In many religions the prize that is sought after is obtaining eternal life after leaving this life. The Muslim faith is one of these. And those 19 Arabs were Muslim extremists and they more than willing to die for their cause. For them to die while killing infidels guarantees them eternal life. And for those that are motivated by religion, that benefit is far greater a reward than any financial benefit could ever be.

Again, I have no statements that would satisfy an engineer or a scientist and I dont understand half of the stuff you guys talk about, but I do know what I have seen with my own two eyes.

Hi Kenbo,

If you reread the posts you will find that the fireball observation is Estewart''s. My statement is not an opinion. The official 9/11 report by NIST had no choice but to conclude that the fire from the fuel was spent in 10 minutes. And after that they had grasp at paper, furniture and drapes to generate the heat that melted steel at room temperature!. Do not confuse disel fuel to plane fuel. Totally different. Please read up.

I notice you also conveniently disregard all the witnesses and first responders who testified that they heard explosions or the close to free fall speed of the buildings demise!

You have obviously not understood what an extremist is. A Muslim extremist would never touch any alcohol before he sacrificed himself or his 70 virgins waiting in heaven for him will be cancelled! Those hijackers were witnessed the night before getting drunk and rowdy and even picking a fight in a strip club!!! Here's something else you didn't know. These boys were apparently so religious they left a koran in the hotel room they stayed in, in the taxi that took them to the airport, and also in the suitcase that conveniently did not get boarded onto the plane. A bit of an overkill, wouldn't you say? No Kenbo under no circumstances were they real terrorists. They were just patsies.

As for your experiments of fire turning concrete into dust:

Other Skyscraper Fires

Fires Have Never Caused Skyscrapers to Collapse

The One Meridian Plaza fire

Excepting the three 9-11 collapses, no fire, however severe, has ever caused a steel-framed high-rise building to collapse. Following are examples of high-rise fires that were far more severe than those in WTC 1 and 2, and Building 7. In these precedents, the fires consumed multiple floors, produced extensive window breakage, exhibited large areas of emergent flames, and went on for several hours. The fires in the WTC towers did none of these things.

The One Meridian Plaza Fire

One Meridian Plaza is a 38-floor skyscraper in Philadelphia that suffered a severe fire on February 23, 1991. The fire started on the 22nd floor and raged for 18 hours, gutting eight floors and causing an estimated $100 million in direct property loss. 1 2 3 It was later described by Philadelphia officials as "the most significant fire in this century".

The fire caused window breakage, cracking of granite, and failures of spandrel panel connections. 4 Despite the severity and duration of the fire, as evidenced by the damage the building sustained, no part of the building collapsed.

The First Interstate Bank fire

The First Interstate Bank Fire

The First Interstate Bank Building is a 62-story skyscraper in Los Angeles that suffered the worst high-rise fire in the city's history. From the late evening of May 4, 1988 through the early morning of the next day, 64 fire companies battled the blaze, which lasted for 3 1/2 hours. The fire caused extensive window breakage, which complicated firefighting efforts. Large flames jutted out of the building during the blaze. Firefighting efforts resulted in massive water damage to floors below the fire, and the fire gutted offices from the 12th to the 16th floor, and caused extensive smoke damage to floors above. The fire caused an estimated $200 million in direct property loss. 5

A report by Iklim Ltd. describes the structural damage from the fire:

In spite of the total burnout of four and a half floors, there was no damage to the main structural members and only minor damage to one secondary beam and a small number of floor pans. 6

The 1 New York Plaza Fire

Close-up of the First Interstate Bank fire

Photo: New York Board of Underwriters

1 New York Plaza is a 50-story office tower less than a mile from the World Trade Center site. It suffered a severe fire and explosion on August 5, 1970. The fire started around 6 PM, and burned for more than 6 hours. 7

Caracas Tower Fire

The tallest skyscraper in Caracas, Venezuela experienced a severe fire on October 17, 2004. The blaze began before midnight on the 34th floor, spread to more than 26 floors, and burned for more than 17 hours. Heat from the fires prevented firefighters from reaching the upper floors, and smoke injured 40 firefighters.

Lax enforcement of fire codes in Venezuela was blamed for the malfunctioning of water pumps and a lack of fire extinguishers inside of the building. Because the building was empty when the fire broke out, no civilians were killed or injured. 8

The Windsor Building Fire

The Windsor Building fire

A more recent case of a severe high-rise fire is the one that destroyed the Windsor Building in Madrid, Spain on February 12, 2005. The Windsor fire was more severe than any of the fires described above, and the incident has been widely publicized, with comparisons to the fires in the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11/01. However, the Windsor Building, unlike all the buildings mentioned above, was framed in steel-reinforced concrete rather than steel. Hence it is described on a separate page, which notes differences between the response of these different types of structures to fires.

9

The Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel Fire

The Hotel Mandarin Oriental blazes

The most recent example of a spectacular skyscraper fire was the burning of the Hotel Mandarin Oriental starting on February 9, 2009. The nearly completed 520-foot-tall skyscraper in Beijing caught fire around 8:00 pm, was engulfed within 20 minutes, and burned for at least 3 hours until midnight. Despite the fact that the fire extended across all of the floors for a period of time and burned out of control for hours, no large portion of the structure collapsed.

It is tempting to draw parallels between this spectacle and the destruction of WTC 1, 2, and 7 because of the stark opposites: on 9/11/01, three skyscrapers were transformed into piles of rubble primarily as a consequence, supposedly, of fires -- fires spanning small fractions of each building; and on 2/09/09, a skyscraper remained intact after burning like a torch for hours. However such parallels may be limited by major structural differences between the buildings in the two cases -- one being that the Hotel Mandarin Oriental, designed by the famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, had a full-height interior atrium, and thus had the hollowness that the 9-11 Commission deceptively attempted to attribute to the Twin Towers. 10

Perhaps the relevance of the Mandarin fire to the events of 9/11/2001 is more symbolic than forensic. The Mandarin fire is examined more fully here.

[kenbo]

Tyron, Thank you so much for your replies. I very much appreciate the civility of your responses. But I have a few clarifications below. Please dont take my posts as someone that has made up their mind about this subject. I realize that there has been a lot of Data presented from both sides and I try to read them. I realize that data can be skewed some. That is why it so difficult to come to a conclusion. I look at opinions however as what they are. They might be or might not be what happened.

1. If you reread the posts you will find that the fireball observation is Estewart''s. You have my apology, I was confused about the similarity of the two. Obviously, your reference from the official 9/11 report by NIST

(which most truthers dissagree with) is much more acceptable than my opinion.

2. Do not confuse disel fuel to plane fuel. Totally different. Actually, I posted earlier from my experience, there isnt much difference between jet fuel and diesel. There is however a large difference between Airplane fuel and Jet Fuel.

Besides the extra sulfer in jet fuels, the main difference between jet fuel and road diesel is that there is an anti-bacterial agent added to the jet fuel. I also understand that Sulfer in diesel engines burns less cleanly than our low sulpher.

There is a bacteria that can flourish at the bottom of the diesel tanks. I remodeled a mitary base some years back and learned of this bacteria there. Part of the scope of work was to demo some in-ground jet fuel tanks. I had a commercial rig come in and pump the majority of the fuel. They sold the fuel to the bulk fuel plant in the area. They told me that if the bacteria was in the diesel, it would clog diesel (piston type) engine injecters. The bulk plant had it tested and found the fuel free from bacteria. I also took home 55 gallons to burn in my farm tractor. It worked very well.

You can check it out further for yourself but here is a comment and link.

I realize that the following are just posts on a forum but they agree with my experiences.

http://www.rcunivers...1/anchor/tm.htm Auto diesel fuel is ordinary kerosene to which a dye has been added to show that the road tax has been paid. Jet fuel is ordinary kerosene to which an anti-bacterial agent has been added and sometimes an anti-icing fluid. The anti-bacterial agent prevents the growth of hydrocarbon eating bugs at the interface between kerosene and water. The anti-icing fluid is added on a seasonal basis and is sometimes added at the pump.

There is no difference in either product as a diesel fuel.

Wikipedia (which is full of opinions too) states that "Jet fuel is very similar to diesel fuel , and in some cases, may be burned in diesel engines ."

3. I notice you also conveniently disregard all the witnesses and first responders who testified that they heard explosions or the close to free fall speed of the buildings demise!

Not exactly, I explained my opinion in an earlier post about my experience with the explosive potential of heated fuel vapors in confined area. It is simply amazing and I am fortunate even to be able to see.

4. You have obviously not understood what an extremist is. A Muslim extremist would never touch any alcohol before he sacrificed himself or his 70 virgins waiting in heaven for him will be cancelled!

You may be right however, I never said that they were devout Muslims. I read somewhere that some sects allow this sort of promisuity just prior to a suicide act in a holy war. I couldnt tell you where I read that or even if the source was accurately speaking truth.

Also, why are people so willing to accept someones observation about these guys drinking but so defiant of other possibilities? The statements about these men drinking could very well be a ploy to defame them and bring shame to the Musilm faith.

.

5. As for your experiments of fire turning concrete into dust:

Actually, my experiences were no experiment. I was suggesting that you may choose to experiement. No amount of "Data" or testimony from experts will change what I have seen or experienced. Concrete crumbles when burnt. It also explodes and I can't tell you why there are different results. But, I have personnaly seen both.