Truthers: Please point out the errors in the following statements...

[1337m4n]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.
2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.
4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.
6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.

[beachnut]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.
2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.
4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.
6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.
I am sorry, but as a truther I can only ask questions I could answer myself if I listened in 3rd grade, but I failed.
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/12447460d8430f0ca9.jpg
Do I have to have evidence, or will hearsay and made up stuff suffice?

[Good Lt]

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/12447460d8430f0ca9.jpg


Well, there are stupid questions. Like "What role did Larry Silverstein play in the controlled demolition of WTC7?"

That, and I'm sure you can think of hundreds of others, are most certainly stupid questions.

[Bluekush623]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.
2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.
4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.
6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.

Ill take the bait.. 1-7 (except #3) are not 100% provable. We can't see through the Planes or Buildings as they are flying and falling. So who cares what anyone says, theres no photo, video showing terrorists hijacking or flying, and theres no way too look inside the building and determine if explosives were set off or if anything else may have been used and caused the buildings fall besides the provable airplane damage, fuel, fire and falling debris.

[Corsair 115]

We can't see through the Planes or Buildings as they are flying and falling. So who cares what anyone says, theres no photo, video showing terrorists hijacking or flying, and theres no way too look inside the building and determine if explosives were set off or if anything else may have been used and caused the buildings fall besides the provable airplane damage, fuel, fire and falling debris.Are you a solipsist? Your comment makes you sound like one.

[LastChild]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.

Hijacked exactly by who? Hijacked exactly how? What plane and how exactly was it identified?

2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.

Obviously but exactly what combination and caused by exactly what and how do you know?

3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.

Sure but exactly how much and how do you know?

4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.

What's the combination exactly and how do you know and how do you know that's all?

5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.

Where's the plane and where is it identified? How many pictures exist of it hitting the pentagon? Are they clear pictures?

6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Where's the plane and where is it identified? How many pictures exist of it crashing? Who exactly is al queada and how many of them were involved to pull off the ENTIRE mission? How were they all identified? Who financed it exactly and where exactly did all the money come from?

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.

The error is that even if all of YOUR questions could be answered it still wouldn't dismiss the need for more investigation.

[Corsair 115]

LastChild also appears to be another solipsist. Or at least, it seems to be a natural extension based on his posts.

[Confuseling]

I wouldn't have said that, exactly.

What I'm thinking makes you go "Oh nah!", and ends in NIST, as in the report he obsesses over.

I can say no more. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that.

[Good Lt]

Hijacked exactly by who? Hijacked exactly how? What plane and how exactly was it identified?

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/linkstoterrorism%2Calqaedainfo
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/the911commissionreportandhearings%2Ccongre
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/aircraftpartsnyc911

Obviously but exactly what combination and caused by exactly what and how do you know?

The towers collapsed, that's how we know. The combination was obviously enough to make this happen.

http://911stories.googlepages.com/accountsoftowerstructuralinstabilityande
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/whattheysaw%3Aeyewitnessaccountsofthenycai

Sure but exactly how much and how do you know?

Enough. It collapsed too, unless you're proposing something else that happened. If so, let's hear it.

Note that you agreed at "sure."

What's the combination exactly and how do you know and how do you know that's all?

Enough. It collapsed.

Where's the plane and where is it identified? How many pictures exist of it hitting the pentagon? Are they clear pictures?

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/911pentagonflight77evidencesummary

Where's the plane and where is it identified? How many pictures exist of it crashing? Who exactly is al queada and how many of them were involved to pull off the ENTIRE mission? How were they all identified? Who financed it exactly and where exactly did all the money come from?

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/flight93page1

The error is that even if all of YOUR questions could be answered it still wouldn't dismiss the need for more investigation.

Yes, it does, actually.

In addition, there was an investigation. It did not conclude that 9-11 was an inside job.

[HENTAI DOUKYUSEI JP]

The error is that even if all of YOUR questions could be answered it still wouldn't dismiss the need for more investigation.
S-T-U-N-D-I-E!

[1337m4n]

LastChild, I asked you to find the ERRORS in those statements, not to ask random questions.

Are there any ERRORS in those statements?

[Jonnyclueless]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.
2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.
4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.
6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.

1) Tower is capitalized
2) Should start with the word "the"
3) Should be "A tower" or "the towers"
4) Should start with "Building" or "WTC"
5) Should start with "A"
6) Should start with "A"
7) Not the preferring spelling, though I think it can be spelled that way.


Did I get it right????? ;-)

[chillzero]

1) Tower is capitalized
2) Should start with the word "the"
3) Should be "A tower" or "the towers"
4) Should start with "Building" or "WTC"
5) Should start with "A"
6) Should start with "A"
7) Not the preferring spelling, though I think it can be spelled that way.


Did I get it right????? ;-)

No.
3) Should be "a tower" or the towers"

:p

[Bluekush623]

Are you a solipsist? Your comment makes you sound like one.


nope.

[gumboot]

One day there will be a JREF thread in bold type:

EXCLUSIVE! 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIST ANSWERS SIMPLE YES OR NO QUESTION!

Sadly, probably not in my life time.

[GregoryUrich]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.
2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.
4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.
6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.

4) Energy dissipated during collapse = 10 GJ. Energy required to expel the air in the building in the timeframe = 7 GJ. That leaves 3 GJ or 63 MJ per floor to destroy the structure, comminute concrete and account for adiabatic compression. The plastic buckling energy for the columns on floor 34 was around 170 MJ. Lower down, the plastic buckling energy was at least twice that. Doesn't add up.

[1337m4n]

One day there will be a JREF thread in bold type:

EXCLUSIVE! 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORIST ANSWERS SIMPLE YES OR NO QUESTION!

Sadly, probably not in my life time.

Max Photon could do it, and did so on a regular basis. Sadly, he's the exception rather than the rule when it comes to Trutherism.

Where is he, anyway? I haven't seen him post in a long time.

[1337m4n]

4) Energy dissipated during collapse = 10 GJ. Energy required to expel the air in the building in the timeframe = 7 GJ. That leaves 3 GJ or 63 MJ per floor to destroy the structure, comminute concrete and account for adiabatic compression. The plastic buckling energy for the columns on floor 34 was around 170 MJ. Lower down, the plastic buckling energy was at least twice that. Doesn't add up.

And (adding on to my point above) it appears GregoryUrich can do it to.

Well done, Gregory. I had about given up all hope for conspiracy people. You win this thread*.




*At least until someone who knows more physics than I do comes and challenges your winnership** of the thread.

**Is "winnership" even a word?***

***Why am I posting?

[Mobyseven]

4) Energy dissipated during collapse = 10 GJ. Energy required to expel the air in the building in the timeframe = 7 GJ. That leaves 3 GJ or 63 MJ per floor to destroy the structure, comminute concrete and account for adiabatic compression. The plastic buckling energy for the columns on floor 34 was around 170 MJ. Lower down, the plastic buckling energy was at least twice that. Doesn't add up.

Thanks for answering the question...it gets frustrating to see so much JAQing off. I have the feeling that one of our resident engineers will be by soon enough to write a response, but from this unqualified pleb, thanks for being polite and not dodging. :)

[DGM]

4) Energy dissipated during collapse = 10 GJ. Energy required to expel the air in the building in the timeframe = 7 GJ. That leaves 3 GJ or 63 MJ per floor to destroy the structure, comminute concrete and account for adiabatic compression. The plastic buckling energy for the columns on floor 34 was around 170 MJ. Lower down, the plastic buckling energy was at least twice that. Doesn't add up.
I think I need to see this in much more detail. Do you have a paper on this or would you like to start a new thread? 7 GJ ? What were your assumptions?

[A-Train]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.
2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.
4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.
6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.

1) True

2) No way crash damage plus fires could have caused the type of collapse shown on numerous videos.

3) True

4) See #2. Even more preposterous with no crash damage.

5) True

6) True

7) A preponderance of evidence suggests this is false; certainly it has never been proven to be true, only suggested by non-credible sources.

Al-Qaeda has never had the means-- the organizational sophistication and personnel-- to pull off such an operation in the US or anywhere else.

Al-Qaeda has no motive for such an attack. The fallout from the attack has been disastrous for their alleged goal of expelling Westerners and Zionists from Muslim lands. Their alleged previous actions have been limited to defensive acts in their home territories. Other terrorist attacks on Western soil attributed to al-Qaeda are likely false flag attacks like 9/11. That the attack was motivated solely by raw hatred can only be believed by the most gullible and brainwashed.

Most important: There has never been any hard evidence presented that the men who boarded the four flights were al-Qaeda, or even Arabs at all. The non-existence of surveillance video from Newark and Dulles airports strongly suggests the identities of the actual hijackers are being hidden by a conspiracy with influence within the security operations of those airports.

[WildCat]

Al-Qaeda has never had the means-- the organizational sophistication and personnel-- to pull off such an operation in the US or anywhere else.
This from the guy who claimed Mossad agents hijacked the planes and parachuted out of the landing gear bay just before the planes hit the towers... :rolleyes:

[A-Train]

Wildcat: please don't blaspheme me.

Mossad agents yes. Parachuting out, maybe. Landing gear bay, just before hitting the towers?-- I never said that.

[DGM]

Al-Qaeda has never had the means-- the organizational sophistication and personnel-- to pull off such an operation in the US or anywhere else.



The reason 9/11 worked relatively well is the fact it was so simple. Why would you say that Al Qaeda couldn't pull off a simple plan? What was so sophisticated about their plan?

[rwguinn]

The reason 9/11 worked relatively well is the fact it was so simple. Why would you say that Al Qaeda couldn't pull off a simple plan? What was so sophisticated about their plan?
Let's see:
Airline tickets (wild guess) $1000 X 19 =$19,000
Box cutters (utility knives) $3.00 X 19= 57
Total cost: = ???
Assets (donations, theft, etc) =$1000000's
Screwing up the Western World,
Instilling terror and fear of flying,US
In particular Priceless

[Jonnyclueless]

Wildcat: please don't blaspheme me.

Mossad agents yes. Parachuting out, maybe.

:dl:

[Quad4_72]

2) No way crash damage plus fires could have caused the type of collapse shown on numerous videos.



Ya know I hear this claim all the time. "There is no way that it could have happened like that." I always ask why? Where is your evidence that it could not have collapsed from damage and fire? Additionally, why have scientists and engineers all around the world all agreed that it did indeed collapse due to fire and damage? Are you more skilled than they are A train?

[GregoryUrich]

I think I need to see this in much more detail. Do you have a paper on this or would you like to start a new thread? 7 GJ ? What were your assumptions?

I've only done a back of the napkin analysis. I'm not really interested arguing about the details but it would be interesting to see what someone else comes up with. If I ever write it up, I'll post it for comments.

[beachnut]

I've only done a back of the napkin analysis. I'm not really interested arguing about the details but it would be interesting to see what someone else comes up with. If I ever write it up, I'll post it for comments.
If you are trying to imply there were explosives used, your analysis is wrong. But then not understanding mass and energy is not a thing to worry about since you do not build buildings like the WTC. Gee, wonder why Robertson, the chief Structural engineer understands 9/11? Makes your failed analysis more so.

Robertson is still alive, he could help you if you really had something. But your understanding of the WTC compared to his would be orders of magnitude. Good luck with the failed ideas expressed in the petition you signed before you had the overwhelming evidence.

Did you mean to post on WTC7? I think you meant to do number 2. ...

[Apollo20]

Gregory:

Well, if you are calculating the expulsion of air from WTC 7 the way I think you are, you must be assuming the air inside the building was accelerated (on average) at about 1000 m/s^2. Is this realistic?

[yodaluver28]

Al-Qaeda has never had the means-- the organizational sophistication and personnel-- to pull off such an operation in the US or anywhere else.

They pulled off the coordinated embassy bombings in Africa. This wasn't that much more complicated really, surprise was the key element. The plan was extremely simple, all they really needed were the bodies to actually carry it out. The meat and potatoes of the plan were quite elemental.

Al-Qaeda has no motive for such an attack.

Al Qaeda has all the motive in the world to carry out such an attack. They successfully hit the only remaining superpower on Earth square in the jaw. They not only inflicted thousands of civilian casualties on the enemy they'd declared war on years earlier and created mass hysteria in the one of the largest cities in the world, they destroyed the primary symbol of the global economy and struck a blow to the headquarters of the US military. The attack was a spectacular success from Al Qaeda's point of view.

The fallout from the attack has been disastrous for their alleged goal of expelling Westerners and Zionists from Muslim lands.

We don't know what the ultimate fallout of the attack will be and neither do they. Al Qaeda and the Taliban may have lost Afghanistan a for while but through patience, they are regaining an even stronger foothold there than they had before. The same could happen in Iraq if the US pulls out too quickly, sectarian violences escalates to civil war, and the country gets separated into lawless tribal territories run by war lords and terrorist sympathizers. Al Qaeda was perfectly willing to take a few early hits of retaliation for the attacks because they don't believe that the US or it's allies have the patience to stamp them out completely in the long run and they may be right. Please remember that this isn't a new fight. Al Qaeda itself didn't create this sentiment, they simply taking up the fighting of a war that began centuries ago. As they say in Islam, a 1000 years for revenge.

Their alleged previous actions have been limited to defensive acts in their home territories.

How were the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania defensive acts? And do you consider those countries "home territories"?

Was the USS Cole bombing a defensive act?

Was the bombing of Phillipines Air Flight 434 a defensive act?

Were the Bali nightclub bombings defensive acts?

Was the bombing of a hotel in Yemen being used by US soldiers on their way to Somalia to participate in the international famine relief effort a defensive act?

Were the truck bombings of synagogues in Istanbul defensive acts?

I could go on and on with literally hundreds of Al Qaeda attacks but you get the picture. I hope.


Other terrorist attacks on Western soil attributed to al-Qaeda are likely false flag attacks like 9/11.

First prove 9/11 was false flag, then prove what other attacks were please. Otherwise this statement is meaningless. You can't just say that any Al Qaeda terror attack on western soil is false flag because it's convenient for your theory.

That the attack was motivated solely by raw hatred can only be believed by the most gullible and brainwashed.

Of course the attacks weren't motivated soley by raw hatred and very few have ever suggested that they were. There are serious and numerous religious and political goals that Al Qaeda seeks to achieve via terrorist activity and guerilla warfare and we are fools if we ignore that reality.

[tanabear]

1) Hijacked planes hit the Towers.
2) Towers collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
3) Falling debris from tower hit 7.
4) 7 collapsed from a combination of damage and fire.
5) Hijacked plane hit the Pentagon.
6) Hijacked plane crashed in Shanksville.
7) Al-Queada is responsible.

Have at it Truthers. Please explain, in detail, any and all errors in these statements.

1) Yes, planes hit the towers.

2) This is an assertion. It has yet to be proven experimentally.

3) Yes. But debris also hit WTC 3,4,5 and 6.

4) This is still an untested hypothesis.

5) Something hit the Pentagon.

6) Or the plane could have been shot down.

7) If Al-Qaeda/bin Laden is responsible then why has this Administration put almost no effort into capturing him. Why are we playing around in that big sandbox known as Iraq?

[uk_dave]

1) Yes, planes hit the towers.
And yet some in the 'truth' movement would have you believe it was holograms

2) This is an assertion. It has yet to be proven experimentally.
It happened.
And anyone who knows about steel framed structures and the vulnerability of steel to the effects of fire knows that it is entirely within the realms of possibility.
And the 'truth' movement has failed to prove that it was impossible.
And NIST has explained how the collapse was initiated.
QED

3) Yes. But debris also hit WTC 3,4,5 and 6.
And in 'truther' world all buildings are constructed identically?

4) This is still an untested hypothesis.

WTC was reached by the debris from the tower collapse and eyewitness accounts talk of extensive damage and fires.
Since WTC7 was not in pristine condition after the collapse of the towers it is logical to consider that the damage it did sustain was the cause of it's collapse.

5) Something hit the Pentagon.
Witnesses saw a plane.
The airline is missing a plane
Debris from a plane was found
Body parts from passengers known to be on the missing plane were found
The fdr from the missing plane was found.
We know what that 'something' was.

6) Or the plane could have been shot down.
Nothing about the debris field or the fdr indicates that the plane was destroyed in the air.

7) If Al-Qaeda/bin Laden is responsible then why has this Administration put almost no effort into capturing him. Why are we playing around in that big sandbox known as Iraq?
If you know where he is there's a rather large award waiting for you.
But OBL was also the titular head of a larger organisation. It is politically expediant to demonise such a head, whereas the individual is not necessarily a danger except as a figurehead. Disrupt or destroy the organisation he is head of and you effectively neuter him anyway.

[gumboot]

Al-Qaeda has no motive for such an attack. The fallout from the attack has been disastrous for their alleged goal of expelling Westerners and Zionists from Muslim lands.


Al Qaeda's goal was to lure the USA into Afghanistan where Al Qaeda could bleed them in a costly counter-insurgent war and bring about their social collapse as happened with the USSR. It didn't quite work out, but Iraq is doing pretty much exactly what Al Qaeda wanted.

[GregoryUrich]

Gregory:

Well, if you are calculating the expulsion of air from WTC 7 the way I think you are, you must be assuming the air inside the building was accelerated (on average) at about 1000 m/s^2. Is this realistic?

That doesn't sound realistic. Maybe I made a mistake in my spread sheet. I'll check it out.

[GregoryUrich]

Gregory:

Well, if you are calculating the expulsion of air from WTC 7 the way I think you are, you must be assuming the air inside the building was accelerated (on average) at about 1000 m/s^2. Is this realistic?

I did find a mistake which actually increased the energies to 28GJ. The accellerations range from 2.26 to 72m/s^2 for the lowest floor (i.e. the first floor to collapse). The lower value being 1m from the perimeter and the higher value being from the center of the core (around 32m from the perimeter). The last floor to collapse has only 0.07 seconds to expel the air resulting in accellerations from 377 to 12,000m/s^2.

I realize that compression starts to become an issue at some point but unfortunately I didn't pay attention in my thermodynamics class. Do you have any hints on how to deal with this (other than going back to school!)? What pressure differential would be necessary to drive that kind of acceleration?

[Apollo20]

Gregory:

I believe the potential energy released by the collapse of WTC 7 was ~ 180,000,000 kg x 9.8 m/s^2 x 94 m = 166 GJ

I would say that the energy needed to expel the air in the building was certainly less than 20 GJ. This is based on a calculation of the work performed in moving an air mass of about 12 tonnes (on each floor) a distance of about 16 meters in an average floor collapse time.

[R.Mackey]

uh, yep. I have to back Dr. Greening here. Energy dissipation in subsonic, nearly inviscid fluid flow (viz. plain air and incompressible) is not going to be terribly high. I'd need to see your back-of-napkin estimates in more detail to comment further. The notion that it could be 70% of the collapse energy is simply not credible.

[MIKILLINI]

Ill take the bait.. 1-7 (except #3) are not 100% provable. We can't see through the Planes or Buildings as they are flying and falling. So who cares what anyone says, theres no photo, video showing terrorists hijacking or flying, and theres no way too look inside the building and determine if explosives were set off or if anything else may have been used and caused the buildings fall besides the provable airplane damage, fuel, fire and falling debris.

So all you have is speculation for your attempt at debunking ?

[GregoryUrich]

Gregory:

I believe the potential energy released by the collapse of WTC 7 was ~ 180,000,000 kg x 9.8 m/s^2 x 94 m = 166 GJ

I would say that the energy needed to expel the air in the building was certainly less than 20 GJ. This is based on a calculation of the work performed in moving an air mass of about 12 tonnes (on each floor) a distance of about 16 meters in an average floor collapse time.

According to my calculation for WTC1, the mass of the top 47 floors for including two heavier mechanical areas, the roof and antenna is 103E+6 kg. No one has shown significant errors in that calculation and the dimensions are pretty similar. I think it would be reasonable to assume that a building completed 15 yrs later would be lighter rather than heavier due to technical advances. The total PE is around 97 GJ, but this isn't a general energy issue.

The dissipated energy is calculated on a floor by floor basis, based on the falling mass and the difference between the measured fall time and freefall. I noticed that I was using older values for the mass so I have updated my spreadsheet. This changes the energy dissipated to around 14 GJ.

Using half the distance and the average collapse time is a significant under-estimate because the energy is proportional to the square of the speed. But even your estimate of 20 GJ, is more energy than is dissipated! And we still have adiabatic compression, plastic buckling and concrete comminution to deal with.

Here's my spreadsheet (http://www.cool-places.0catch.com/docs/calcCollapseWtc7v1.0.xls) if anyone wants to play around with it.

[GregoryUrich]

uh, yep. I have to back Dr. Greening here. Energy dissipation in subsonic, nearly inviscid fluid flow (viz. plain air and incompressible) is not going to be terribly high. I'd need to see your back-of-napkin estimates in more detail to comment further. The notion that it could be 70% of the collapse energy is simply not credible.

See my reply to Dr. Greening. I linked my spreadsheet if you want to take a look at it.

[Apollo20]

Gregory:

I believe WTC 7 was heavier per floor than WTC 1 or 2. There was no need to make WTC 7 lightweight because it was not all that tall. Thus I think WTC 7 was about 180,000 tonnes giving 166 GJ as the available PE.

I suggested an upper bound for the energy to expel the air inside the building would be 20 GJ. My first attempt to calculate this energy actually gave about 12 GJ. This is less than 10 % of the available PE so I see no energy shortfall here.

[R.Mackey]

See my reply to Dr. Greening. I linked my spreadsheet if you want to take a look at it.

I've got the spreadsheet, but I'm having trouble figuring out what you used to compute the air's KE. Are you assuming each floor is a single slug of air accelerated to a given velocity, or more complicated? What velocity?

Again, since the airflow is subsonic and nearly inviscid, you won't see much pressurization, heating, or turbulent dissipation. The air motion is basically an added weight to the inertia of the floors. There is some additional cost to wake formation and some higher speeds as the last bits of air are squeezed out between floors (in the absolute worst case where alternate paths aren't available), but I'm almost certain we're still talking about a small correction.

[GregoryUrich]

I've got the spreadsheet, but I'm having trouble figuring out what you used to compute the air's KE. Are you assuming each floor is a single slug of air accelerated to a given velocity, or more complicated? What velocity?

Again, since the airflow is subsonic and nearly inviscid, you won't see much pressurization, heating, or turbulent dissipation. The air motion is basically an added weight to the inertia of the floors. There is some additional cost to wake formation and some higher speeds as the last bits of air are squeezed out between floors (in the absolute worst case where alternate paths aren't available), but I'm almost certain we're still talking about a small correction.

I calculated the air energy in a separate spreadsheet (http://www.cool-places.0catch.com/docs/calcAirKE.xls) for the first floor and the last floor and then interpolated linearly between them. This reduces the total somewhat.

My rather rough estimate for the air KE was done in the following manner. For each 1m increment from the center, I calculated the mass and required acceleration to move the mass to the perimeter, based on the time for the particular floor to collapse. Then I figured out the final velocities and summed the KEs.

[GregoryUrich]

Gregory:

I believe WTC 7 was heavier per floor than WTC 1 or 2. There was no need to make WTC 7 lightweight because it was not all that tall. Thus I think WTC 7 was about 180,000 tonnes giving 166 GJ as the available PE.

I suggested an upper bound for the energy to expel the air inside the building would be 20 GJ. My first attempt to calculate this energy actually gave about 12 GJ. This is less than 10 % of the available PE so I see no energy shortfall here.

I read through the discription of WTC7 in NCSTAR1-1 again. The floors were normal concrete but they were thinner so essentially equivalent. WTC7 didn't need the strength of the lower half of WTC1 either for gravity or wind. I can't imagine making a building 80% heavier than necessary would be economical.

Your 12 GJ is roughly equal to the total energy dissipated by of resistance of the building. This is where the falltime comes in.

[TheDaver]

Ill take the bait.. 1-7 (except #3) are not 100% provable. We can't see through the Planes or Buildings as they are flying and falling. So who cares what anyone says, theres no photo, video showing terrorists hijacking or flying, and theres no way too look inside the building and determine if explosives were set off or if anything else may have been used and caused the buildings fall besides the provable airplane damage, fuel, fire and falling debris.
Right.

So, in light of this, we have two theories of what happened:
1) Events occurred exactly as they appeared, which is well supported by evidence and extremely likely to be the truth.
2) This is a conspiracy, which has very little evidence which doesn’t require expanding the conspiracy to ridiculous proportions and so is extremely unlikely to be the truth.

Which is a rational thinker to believe?

[TheDaver]

Also note that the official story is backed up by basic physics and materials sciences.

Whereas the Truthers’ story consists of bald assertions that are often easily disproved with basic physics and materials sciences.

[PhantomWolf]

Was the bombing of Phillipines Air Flight 434 a defensive act?

Were the Bali nightclub bombings defensive acts?

Neither of these were carried out by Al Qaeda.

[Mobyseven]

Neither of these were carried out by Al Qaeda.

True. The Bali Bombings were carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah though, which has known ties to Al Qaeda - when it formed initially it basically existed to assist Al Qaeda logistically and financially.

[DC]

True. The Bali Bombings were carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah though, which has known ties to Al Qaeda - when it formed initially it basically existed to assist Al Qaeda logistically and financially.

you belive those man when they admited to be behind the bombings?
do you also belive them, now they say that the CIA was involved? because the 2nd explosion was alot bigger than what they used.

[Mobyseven]

you belive those man when they admited to be behind the bombings?
do you also belive them, now they say that the CIA was involved? because the 2nd explosion was alot bigger than what they used.

I would have been a lot less inclined to believe them had the massive preponderance of evidence not corroborated their claim that they were behind the attack. Seeing as how the massive preponderance of evidence does not point to the CIA being involved, I'd have to say that I don't believe any claim regarding that, and I'd be curious as to what source you obtained that idea from as I had not heard of it.

As for, "the 2nd explosion was alot bigger than what they used," - what, exactly do you think it was that they used? If I recall correctly, the terrorists used an ANFO bomb, which would certainly be more than capable of producing an explosion the size of which was experienced in the 2002 Bali Bombings.