Even for Democratic Underground, this is pretty amazing.

Hint: among many other things, the fire was contained within the structure, with much higher temperatures.

What's frightening is that guy is probably a college graduate. My high scoller' knows more about physics than this monkey. It shows that they are either deliberately trying to mislead their less educated readers, or they are too poorly educated themselves to understand basic fundamental principals.

But don't you know that's a completely accurate representation? So what if the structures are nothing alike, the entire thing is open to air, it uses kerosene instead of Jet A, the fire didn't last as long, and the fire was never in contact with the steel. The point is, it proves its a Bushitler lie

To some people science and engineering are mysterious and inexplicable crafts. To them there is no obvious difference between, say, a multi-tonne structure made of reinforced concrete and steel and a similar looking structure made of chickenwire and a paving stone.

This is cargo-cult science.

Hey, at least the guy tried an experiment first.

Isn't it wonderful how the mentally-challenged are able to use computers nowadays?

They really shouldn't let them play with fire, though. They might get hurt!

I hope he has a safe, padded room to sleep in at night.

I really like the "cargo-cult" science thingy!

That was smart. The experiment was not.

Dennis

Another comment.

They talk about these steel structures not collapsing from their own weight but in Alabama we had an example of this in 1978.

There was an open truss steel bridge over the Warrior river on highway 78 between Jasper and Birmingham. On the fateful day two Semi's were side by side going to the bridge. One was an 18 wheeler tanker truck with Kerosene and the other was a 22 wheeler flatbed truck. These open truss bridges (steel above the deck supporting the weight) are generally older than current construction and have a somewhat narrower footprint. Well these two trucks banged together on the bridge (no damage to the truss) and the tanker caught on fire.

After 2.5 hours the bridge truss supports got hot enough that their strength was compromised. Guess what happened next. Splash, the truss collapsed and the bridge could not support its weight and went into the river. If you watch the movie "Hooper" with Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields you will see his Trans Am jumping over the river where the bridge fell into the river.

There are other examples of this happening in structures, these guys doing these experiments know absolutely nothing about the strength of materials and what happens under elevated temperatures.

Dennis

Someone once said that the most dangerous thing in the world is someone with half an idea.

This experiment did prove that.

One of them seems to have a modicum of sense:

"The difference is that I wouldn't take an aluminum can and some kerosene, fail to make a working jet aircraft, and use that as evidence that flight was impossible.

Or Cutting into the head of a live squirrel with a rusty pocket knife, killing it and concluding that Brain Surgery is a Scientific impossibility.

One of them seems to have a modicum of sense:

"The difference is that I wouldn't take an aluminum can and some kerosene, fail to make a working jet aircraft, and use that as evidence that flight was impossible."

Or Cutting into the head of a live squirrel with a rusty pocket knife, killing it and concluding that Brain Surgery is a Scientific impossibility.

Another amusing aspect of the DU is that every one of them is convinced that Bush is a moron (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) or an evil genius mastermind of skullduggery (rest of the week). At the same time, they're convinced they're all brilliant and anyone who disagrees with them is stupid.

He doesn't seem to show the calculations he used to determine the proper weight to place atop his faux Trade Center. Or is it possible the paving stone was simply the most convenient weighty object available? This is either the most idiotic thing imaginable, or engineeering is much, much simpler than I had thought.

RK

This is either the most idiotic thing imaginable, or engineeering is much, much simpler than I had thought.

I'm going to have to go with option A, though I actually (frighteningly) can imagine even more idiotic things.

This is actually quite a bit dumber than Dan Burton shooting a watermelon in his backyard to simulate Vince Foster's death (not that there aren't many unanswered questions about that).

So...all those building codes (most of them *vastly* pre-September 11) requiring asbestos or these days, some other thermal insulator on steel structural members, were completely unnecessary, and only written to sell insulation, right?

Or was it hard-learned experience?

http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/analysis/compare/NYTimes_reportechoes.htm

Indeed, had both towers not collapsed, I'd hate to be part of the construction team trying to go in there and beef the structure back up again.

(Even more so, if just *one* of them had gone down, givng everyone images of what could still happen...)

One other thing that he didn't take into account in his experiment is scale. If one scaled up the coat hanger structure to the size of the WTC, the beams would be considerably thicker than the I-beams used in the actual building. Of course, if such thick beams had actually been used to construct the WTC, then it couldn't have stood up under its own weight anyhow.

1. This government can not transport a few hundred Taliban members secretly without the anti-administration government members exposing the story to the press.

2. This government can not track international financial transactions with any level of secrecy.

3. This government did, however, find two crews of explosive experts to go into the WTC at night, do enough demolition to expose the structural steel, drill holes, plant explosives, and then clean-up enough before anyone got there to see it. Then they hijacked four planes via remote control, after some electronics experts secretly planted control systems inside the planes, again with no one noticing, and flew these planes into 3 buildings and 1 field. This secret has been kept since 2001.

Does anyone else here wonder why we didn't use the super-secret special forces that did the WTC job on the financial transaction and transport jobs?

I mean, sure they screwed up enough that the DU'ers have identified the plan, but at least they don't talk about it to the press.

Nice comment JAFAC, but these are the same Bushies who, during the Carter Administration, manage to pull off the October Surprise.

Somewhat serious here for a moment... what type of mind would come to the conclusion that killing thousands of workers is ok, but killing innocent pedestrians is just unacceptable collateral damage, thus the WTC should be rigged to collapse straight down in a controlled demolition?

JAFAC, you miss the obvious.

The mission was performed by mercenary space aliens. They recieved their instructions, as well as their payment in miniturized chicken nanomachines, via interplanetary fax.

Then, they performed the operation telepathically. Very clean, very cold. No witnesses, no documentation.

Remember those Stirling RTGs that went black not so long ago? They're the incubators for the chicken nanomachines.