Morgan Reynolds and Rick Rajter Release Their No-Plane Paper

[firecoins]

I think UFOs struck the North and South towers. Those UFO's oddly looked like commercial aircraft that had been abducted earlier that morning. Strange:hypnotize

[twinstead]

I think not only did no planes hit the WTC, but that 911 never happened at all, and in fact the WTC were never built at all, and were not built with a huge steel core.

I demand a return to the original and true skyline of NY.

[firecoins]

I demand a return to the original and true skyline of NY.
with or without the Indians? for 99 cents I can supersize!

[Trigood]

Trigood, there are some faulty assumptions in that paper. The weight of the aircraft is far overstated: 450,000 lbs is the max. takeoff weight. The actual weights were about 280,000 lbs, according to NIST (I'm rounding off these numbers). The fuel loads, at about 9,000 gallons, were less than half the maximum. The impact speed on the north tower is about the same as stated at 440 mph, but much higher on the south tower, at over 550 mph.

There is no indication that the steel in the standing towers melted, as the paper states. The steel, especially in the lightweight floor trusses, only had to weaken, not melt, to precipitate the collapses.
Oops, thanks Gravy. I did say "I'm going to look at it more carefully," but I should've done that before I recommended it!

However, neither of those two numbers affect the main point of my paper, which was that the Reynolds paper is full of crap!

Those two numbers only affect two side-calculations I did, namely:

(1) The PE of the plane would go down by a factor of 280/450 or 0.62, so instead of being 0.6 gigajoules, it would be about 0.37 gigajoules. This is minuscule compared to the PE of the upper portion of the towers, above the impact zone. I've previously calculated the PE of, for example, the upper portion of the north tower to be about 200 gigajoules. Hence, the PE of the plane turns out to be not all that significant, and the exact number doesn't really matter.

(2) Energy in the jet fuel would go down by a factor of 9/20 or 0.45, so instead of being 2600 gigajoules, it would be 1200 gigajoules. This, of course, would not change the fact that the jet fuel energy dwarfs the KE of impact energy, at 4 gigajoules. (This is a point that Mackin does correctly make, by the way: "One can see that the impact energy of the jet is negligible compared to the energy content of the fuel.")

But the slight adjustments required here do not change the main point of my post, which was that both the energy of (1) the planes' impact on the towers (KE) and (2) the jet fuel in those planes was, as stated in the First Law of Thermodynamics, conserved in the plane/building system following impact. Namely: (1) the planes' impact caused major damage (in the form of "work" as a physics concept) to the beams, structural members, and fireproofing, and (2) the jet fuel energy (which even with correcton above, dwarfed the impact KE) created fires which did considerably more damage.

The corrections above, therefore, have no impact on my shredding of Reynolds' basic premise, which is that the only thing that caused the planes to lose KE was the initial impact with the towers as reflected in the deceleration visible upon initial impact.

Clearly, Reynolds ignores the entire interior of the towers in making that faulty assumption. As someone here previously said, Reynolds would only have a chance of being correct if the towers constituted an entirely empty shell.

And even then, he would be wrong, as he makes another basic error. The deceleration of the remainder of the plane, as the nose dives into the building, is no indication of the final state of the plane once it penetrates that outer shell. (In actuality, of course, it would no longer be a plane.) The soft aluminum shell of the plane would not transfer impact forces immediately back to the tail of the plane. Think of the steel beams (of the outer shell of the tower) as knives impacting the butter of the aluminum; the tensile strength of the aluminum is not strong enough to convey the force of the plane to the other side of its structure, just as the bottom part of the butter stick doesn't "know" that a knife is cutting the upper part of the stick. Same basic concept.

So, on (at least) two counts, in the case of his KE/deceleration argument, Reynolds is wrong.

[StoneWT]

The only thing that I remember was that Inplane site, they analyzed those flashes at impact from 4 angles and I remember there was something with an anomaly under the plane.

Even Dr. Greening has raised questions to NIST about the flashes...


9-11 Conspiracy Fact & Fiction (http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_1253.shtml)


"It's the Flash, Stupid!" In the video 911 In Plane Site, Dave vonKleist claims to have found the smoking gun: a bright flash that can be seen in a slow-motion viewing of video footage at the very moment that the noses of the jetliners crashed into the buildings, or a split-second before impact. In his website essay, "It's the Flash, Stupid!," vonKleist asks, "What caused the flash?" He answers: "There are four possibilities that come to mind: a) a reflection; b) sparks from the fuselage striking the building; c) static discharge; d) some type of incendiary (bomb or missile)." VonKleist quickly disposes of a, b, and c and settles on a missile as the only logical explanation.

General Partin says vonKleist omits the most obvious explanation. "It's very simple," he told The New American, "When the noses of the aircraft hit the buildings, you have a bright aluminum flash, the same as we saw at the Pentagon. That's obvious to anyone familiar with physics, chemistry, and what happens when aluminum hits a structure at a high rate of speed." And the proof of that analysis, the general points out, is in vonKleist's own video. "If you watch just a few frames after the nose flash, you'll see two smaller aluminum flashes as each engine strikes the building. That's all it is."

There's another major problem with the "missile flash." According to vonKleist, the missiles were fired from a pod on the belly of each of the jumbo jets. But, if that is the case, where is the flash from the ignition of the missile; why is there no missile exhaust flare seen on the video? Where is that flash?

[Trigood]

I think that the reason so many engineers lied about kerosene melting steel is that, in the beginning, a lot of witnesses were reporting "molten metal" and "molten steel" and "molten steel dripping off the ends of beams" and so on. They had to come up with an explanation fast.

It was the truth movement that began pointing out that this is impossible, which led to the abandonment of the "fire melts steel" theory.
I totally shred Reynolds's main argument on KE and deceleration, which you've been asking someone to do, and you totally ignore it and focus on some other area of the Mackin paper, irrelevant to the impact KE discussion. Hmm.

See my above post where I shred a second aspect of Reynolds's argument, namely that the deceleration of the back of the plane has anything whatsoever to do with the KE lost on impact.

Yes, I recommended Mackin's paper without totally reading it; my bad because some of his numbers were off and he talks about "melting" steel. Obviously, no one believes that happened, or needed to, for collapse to ensue. I'm not sure why he mentions it, but that one error and his slightly off values for the plane's weight and fuel load do not change the basic correctness of most of his science (as far as I can tell; I don't understand the impact force calculations, so I can't comment on those).

Look at the diagrams in this paper. They perfectly match what so many JREF's imagine. The top part of the building falls down on the intact lower structure, which acts like a sledgehammer and powers down through the lower floors. The problem, of course, is that this bears no resemblance to observation.
This, from someone who can't even be sure he saw planes going into the towers.

[TruthSeeker1234]

More proof (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/fugitives.htm) that you're full of [rule 8]: [For stating the bin Laden is not wanted for 9/11]


How does it feel to be so consistently wrong?



from the FBI site:

Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.

[TruthSeeker1234]

I totally shred Reynolds's main argument on KE and deceleration, which you've been asking someone to do, and you totally ignore it and focus on some other area of the Mackin paper, irrelevant to the impact KE discussion. Hmm.

See my above post where I shred a second aspect of Reynolds's argument, namely that the deceleration of the back of the plane has anything whatsoever to do with the KE lost on impact.

Yes, I recommended Mackin's paper without totally reading it; my bad because some of his numbers were off and he talks about "melting" steel. Obviously, no one believes that happened, or needed to, for collapse to ensue. I'm not sure why he mentions it, but that one error and his slightly off values for the plane's weight and fuel load do not change the basic correctness of most of his science (as far as I can tell; I don't understand the impact force calculations, so I can't comment on those).


This, from someone who can't even be sure he saw planes going into the towers.

Perhaps I can help us communicate a little more effectively. You misunderstand the importance of looking at decelration. Energy is not "spent" causing deceleration. Rather, deceleration is a symptom of energy being spent. A moving object which transfers energy must lose speed, in proportion to the energy transferred.

Thus, it is not appropriate for you to consider the energy sinks, and add them to the deceleration. Looking at the deceleration, by itself, is a way of totalling the energy sinks. The amount of energy spent will be directly reflected in the amount of deceleration.

Now, on "seeing" planes. Yes, we all saw the plane hitting the south tower. I also saw real live dinosaurs at Jurrassic park. I also, just today, saw a magical changing label on the football field that said "3rd and 7" with an arrow and lines.

The question is whether it was faked in real time. I admit this would be very difficult and risky. I am not at all convinced that the no-planers are right. Not at all. I'm just be a skeptic. In the tradition of James Randi.

[defaultdotxbe]

Now, on "seeing" planes. Yes, we all saw the plane hitting the south tower. I also saw real live dinosaurs at Jurrassic park. I also, just today, saw a magical changing label on the football field that said "3rd and 7" with an arrow and lines.

yes, you and i saw them on tv, some there are some people, who for some reason, live in new york, many of them were in manhattan, and they saw the planes with their won eyes

how was that faked?

I'm just be a skeptic. In the tradition of James Randi

ha

[Gravy]

TS has now made three of the top four dumbest posts I've ever seen.

By the way, TS, do we really need to remind you that James Randi rejected your delusion that you are a skeptic in his tradition?

Are you proud of your stupidity? You seem to be.

[boloboffin]

from the FBI site:

The alleged terrorists on this list have been indicted by sitting Federal Grand Juries in various jurisdictions in the United States for the crimes reflected on their wanted posters. Evidence was gathered and presented to the Grand Juries, which led to their being charged. The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice. Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Who's the first person under that list of fugitives, TruthinessSeeker?

Osama.

And from Osama's very own page...

An additional $2 million is being offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association.

Hmm, airplane pilots and air transport associates are offering $2 million themselves for Osama's capture. I wonder why that is...

Your implication that Osama is not wanted in connection with the September 11th attacks is asinine. Your continued insistence on this point shows an obstinate streak that belies your own claimed "openmindedness" on these issues. I will continue to assume that you actually believe the FBI isn't looking for Osama because of the 9/11 attacks, but it would actually be more charitable to your intellect to attribute this obstinance to a regretable sense of humor.

[CptColumbo]

TS has now made three of the top four dumbest posts I've ever seen.

By the way, TS, do we really need to remind you that James Randi rejected your delusion that you are a skeptic in his tradition?

Are you proud of your stupidity? You seem to be.

He's made the top ten, but has a long way to go to beat this from geggy:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1604118&postcount=1882

[Trigood]

Perhaps I can help us communicate a little more effectively. You misunderstand the importance of looking at decelration. Energy is not "spent" causing deceleration. Rather, deceleration is a symptom of energy being spent. A moving object which transfers energy must lose speed, in proportion to the energy transferred.

Thus, it is not appropriate for you to consider the energy sinks, and add them to the deceleration. Looking at the deceleration, by itself, is a way of totalling the energy sinks. The amount of energy spent will be directly reflected in the amount of deceleration.
I literally do not know what you're talking about. I did not consider energy sinks, whatever they are. I merely calculated the energy that the plane delivered to the tower in terms of (1) the plane's potential energy (the energy the plane encompassed as a result of its height above the ground), and (2) the fuel on board. These calculations were merely to show conservation of energy (First Law) and how the plane's impact contributed to tower collapse. It was an illustration of how the whole event (crash and collapse) was one event in the time/space continuum and was to counter your assertion that the energy of impact could not impact the collapse. I was merely trying to show that, although the actual impact energy did not go into the actual collapse energy directly, the impact of the plane had other energetic results. Those calculations did not relate at all to my deceleration argument.

Now to return to that deceleration argument: Here is a further explication of the butter = aluminum analogy scenario. This scenario encompasses both of my objections to Reynolds's deceleration premise, but especially the latter that I discussed in the response to Gravy (i.e., that deceleration of the back end of the plane on entry constitutes the only loss of KE that can be attributed to the initial impact*):

Imagine a knife, standing upright on a stand, blade pointing outward and immobilized. This knife is not going to move, nohow. (This knife represents a massive steel column on the outside of the tower).

Then imagine throwing a block of soft butter (representing the aluminum fuselage of the plane), at the knife. Imagine some immense force propelling the butter thru the knife blade. The back "end" of the butter block will not decelerate significantly prior to being cut by the knife. Nevertheless, the block of butter will have a certain amount of KE on impact which shall be lessened by the impact.

Now imagine a whole bunch of knives lined up with blades outward (representing all the beams on the outside of the tower), and a large block of butter being thrown with great force at them. Again, the back side of the butter block will not significantly decelerate on impact of the front side of the butter block. Nevertheless, after passing thru the knives, the butter block will be significantly changed by impact. In fact, it will be cut into a lot of smaller pieces, each with a smaller KE (which is a direct function of mass). These smaller pieces will each be significantly more susceptible to loss of KE because their size is so much smaller and they can thereby be impacted and slowed much easier.

Thus, the lack of deceleration of the back end of the butter block (the airplane) cannot be taken as any indication of the final state of the butter block (airplane). In the same way, Reynolds is wrong to assume the same about the airplane.

There are two issues here: The final structure of the butter block and its KE. The butter block will be dashed to a lot of smaller pieces by passing thru the knives. The sum total of the KEs of these pieces would be hard to determine (same goes for airplane parts after passing thru the wall of the tower). One might say, initially, that the sum of the KEs of the pieces might approximate the initial KE of the butter block. However, each of these pieces will lose KE much more easily than would the overall structure. Issues of entropy enter here. I don't claim to understand all the math, but clearly disorganized pieces flying in all directions are easier to slow down and stop than a large and complex structure flying in one direction.

In other words, Reynolds takes no account of the tensile strength of the aluminum fuselage of the airplane (soft butter is just a good example of a material with little tensile strength). Nor does he consider the change in velocity and mass of the pieces into which the initial impact of the plane will render it.

Now for the first argument I made in my post to you: Imagine all sorts of other features (knives, tools, etc.) standing up behind the knives. The butter block pieces (which resulted from the initial impact with the knives) will quickly, during impact with those other features, be cut into a million pieces. The exact KE of each of those pieces will be unknown, but it can be guessed that as the butter block breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, they will lose KE much more rapidly (KE varies directly with mass).

The same goes for airplane pieces breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces by impacts with floors, steel beams, walls, heavy electrical equipment, etc. etc.

Now, on "seeing" planes. Yes, we all saw the plane hitting the south tower. I also saw real live dinosaurs at Jurrassic park. I also, just today, saw a magical changing label on the football field that said "3rd and 7" with an arrow and lines.

The question is whether it was faked in real time. I admit this would be very difficult and risky. I am not at all convinced that the no-planers are right. Not at all. I'm just be a skeptic. In the tradition of James Randi.
Others have answered these as well as I could.

*ETA: Actually, Reynolds makes the ridiculous assertion that the initial loss of KE on impact merely with the side of the tower (as reflected by deceleration) represents the total loss of KE in the plane's entire impact with the tower, but let's be generous. Also, I deal with this issue in my second argument.

[Crungy]

I am not at all convinced that the no-planers are right.

Baby steps. Baahhhbbee steps. Wasn't that dude a musician too?

[TruthSeeker1234]

I literally do not know what you're talking about. I did not consider energy sinks, whatever they are. I merely calculated the energy that the plane delivered to the tower in terms of (1) the plane's potential energy (the energy the plane encompassed as a result of its height above the ground), and (2) the fuel on board. These calculations were merely to show conservation of energy (First Law) and how the plane's impact contributed to tower collapse. It was an illustration of how the whole event (crash and collapse) was one event in the time/space continuum and was to counter your assertion that the energy of impact could not impact the collapse. I was merely trying to show that, although the actual impact energy did not go into the actual collapse energy directly, the impact of the plane had other energetic results. Those calculations did not relate at all to my deceleration argument.

Now to return to that deceleration argument: Here is a further explication of the butter = aluminum analogy scenario. This scenario encompasses both of my objections to Reynolds's deceleration premise, but especially the latter that I discussed in the response to Gravy (i.e., that deceleration of the back end of the plane on entry constitutes the only loss of KE that can be attributed to the initial impact*):

Imagine a knife, standing upright on a stand, blade pointing outward and immobilized. This knife is not going to move, nohow. (This knife represents a massive steel column on the outside of the tower).

Then imagine throwing a block of soft butter (representing the aluminum fuselage of the plane), at the knife. Imagine some immense force propelling the butter thru the knife blade. The back "end" of the butter block will not decelerate significantly prior to being cut by the knife. Nevertheless, the block of butter will have a certain amount of KE on impact which shall be lessened by the impact.

Now imagine a whole bunch of knives lined up with blades outward (representing all the beams on the outside of the tower), and a large block of butter being thrown with great force at them. Again, the back side of the butter block will not significantly decelerate on impact of the front side of the butter block. Nevertheless, after passing thru the knives, the butter block will be significantly changed by impact. In fact, it will be cut into a lot of smaller pieces, each with a smaller KE (which is a direct function of mass). These smaller pieces will each be significantly more susceptible to loss of KE because their size is so much smaller and they can thereby be impacted and slowed much easier.

Thus, the lack of deceleration of the back end of the butter block (the airplane) cannot be taken as any indication of the final state of the butter block (airplane). In the same way, Reynolds is wrong to assume the same about the airplane.

There are two issues here: The final structure of the butter block and its KE. The butter block will be dashed to a lot of smaller pieces by passing thru the knives. The sum total of the KEs of these pieces would be hard to determine (same goes for airplane parts after passing thru the wall of the tower). One might say, initially, that the sum of the KEs of the pieces might approximate the initial KE of the butter block. However, each of these pieces will lose KE much more easily than would the overall structure. Issues of entropy enter here. I don't claim to understand all the math, but clearly disorganized pieces flying in all directions are easier to slow down and stop than a large and complex structure flying in one direction.

In other words, Reynolds takes no account of the tensile strength of the aluminum fuselage of the airplane (soft butter is just a good example of a material with little tensile strength). Nor does he consider the change in velocity and mass of the pieces into which the initial impact of the plane will render it.

Now for the first argument I made in my post to you: Imagine all sorts of other features (knives, tools, etc.) standing up behind the knives. The butter block pieces (which resulted from the initial impact with the knives) will quickly, during impact with those other features, be cut into a million pieces. The exact KE of each of those pieces will be unknown, but it can be guessed that as the butter block breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, they will lose KE much more rapidly (KE varies directly with mass).

The same goes for airplane pieces breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces by impacts with floors, steel beams, walls, heavy electrical equipment, etc. etc.




Now consider your butter through knives example. Except there are two rows of knives, one behind the other. The butter hits the first row, and passes, just as you describe. After hitting the first row, the butter has been divided into pieces matching the distance between the knives, but is still travelling very fast, because it did not decelerate very much at all, as you describe.

Now the butter encounters the second row of knives.

What happens?

[Gravy]

Now the butter encounters the second row of knives.

What happens?

This.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/8790454ce985cf9d1.jpg

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/8790454ce9862185f.jpg

[TruthSeeker1234]

Does anybody have a link to the video of the plane impact that shows the stuff coming out the back side? I know I've seen it and I can't find it. It shows both the approach of the plane and the ejection.

Appreciate.

[einsteen]

What I remember is that they analyzed it was something before the real impact but it's a CT movie of course... I've made a mistake I thought Greening asked that question but it was NIST who asked that a long time ago and Greening gave some public comments, this is the article that explains the metal collision events I believe

http://www.mms.gov/tarprojects/405.htm

[Bell]

Does anybody have a link to the video of the plane impact that shows the stuff coming out the back side? I know I've seen it and I can't find it. It shows both the approach of the plane and the ejection.

Appreciate.

Google video or YouTube

Go and find it yourself! For once...

[chipmunk stew]

Their numbers show exactly what one should expect--immeasurable deceleration of the tail of the plane even as the nose decelerates rapidly.

Remember that video I showed you?

As soon as the impact begins, the front of the plane decelerates rapidly, but the violence of it decouples it from the rear of the plane, which has not yet measurably experienced the impact.

All but the smallest fraction of the deceleration of the tail happens not from compression against the front portions of the plane, but from impacting stationary objects (i.e., the building).

The animations here ( http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/cmh/simulation/phase3/ ) give a good insight into the dynamics involved.
:bump4 for Ace, because although this concept has been described in several ways by several posters, Ace still demonstrates that he doesn't understand it.

[chipmunk stew]

Now for the first argument I made in my post to you: Imagine all sorts of other features (knives, tools, etc.) standing up behind the knives. The butter block pieces (which resulted from the initial impact with the knives) will quickly, during impact with those other features, be cut into a million pieces. The exact KE of each of those pieces will be unknown, but it can be guessed that as the butter block breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, they will lose KE much more rapidly (KE varies directly with mass).

The same goes for airplane pieces breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces by impacts with floors, steel beams, walls, heavy electrical equipment, etc. etc.
Now consider your butter through knives example. Except there are two rows of knives, one behind the other. The butter hits the first row, and passes, just as you describe. After hitting the first row, the butter has been divided into pieces matching the distance between the knives, but is still travelling very fast, because it did not decelerate very much at all, as you describe.

Now the butter encounters the second row of knives.

What happens?
Oops. Guess you should have read the whole post.
Now for the first argument I made in my post to you: Imagine all sorts of other features (knives, tools, etc.) standing up behind the knives. The butter block pieces (which resulted from the initial impact with the knives) will quickly, during impact with those other features, be cut into a million pieces. The exact KE of each of those pieces will be unknown, but it can be guessed that as the butter block breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, they will lose KE much more rapidly (KE varies directly with mass).

The same goes for airplane pieces breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces by impacts with floors, steel beams, walls, heavy electrical equipment, etc. etc.
To make the analogy more complete, imagine that the butter is deforming and breaking some of the cutlery during impact.

[uk_dave]

Oops. Guess you should have read the whole post.

To make the analogy more complete, imagine that the butter is deforming and breaking some of the cutlery during impact.


So you mean, some of those heavy bits of debris such as engines and landing gear would somehow become detached from the rest of the lightweight aircraft structure after impact with the perimeter columns and then somehow continue their journey into the building, destroying other structural elements as they crash through, whereas the lightweight elements of the disintegrating aircraft would crash less effectively against internal elements of the structure as their mass was insufficient to carry them through the building now that they are unconnected to the heavy elements?

Now, if that isn't a raging clue........

[Trigood]

Now consider your butter through knives example. Except there are two rows of knives, one behind the other. The butter hits the first row, and passes, just as you describe. After hitting the first row, the butter has been divided into pieces matching the distance between the knives, but is still travelling very fast, because it did not decelerate very much at all, as you describe.

Now the butter encounters the second row of knives.

What happens?
It depends on how far apart the rows of knives are, whether the two rows of knives match in distance between knives, how fast the butter is traveling initially, and with what orientation toward the row of knives.

If the butter is not initially traveling perpendicular to the row of knives, it would not hit the second row in any defined fashion, and the second row would simply break it up into smaller pieces.

If the butter was initially traveling perpendicular to the row of knives, it is conceivable that some of the pieces would travel thru the second row of knives relatively intact. However, many of the pieces would probably go awry somehow, shearing off in different directions due to minute imperfections in the knives' orientation that would lead to deflections, and thus would be cut into by the second row of knives as well.

Gee, that was an interesting intellectual exercise. If you're implying that it has anything to do with what happened on 9/11, though, you're sadly mistaken. There were not only the outer beams of the towers for the planes to go through.

What is also interesting to me is how Reynolds makes an argument that is logically (as well as scientifically) falacious: He uses certain visual evidence (measuring deceleration from the video of the plane's impact) to (try to) disprove other visual evidence (plane impacting tower). As another example, he uses certain visual evidence (a plane not seen exiting the other side of the tower) to, once again (try to) disprove other visual evidence (plane impacting tower). In other words, some visual evidence, taken on its face, is used to prove that we shouldn't take other visual evidence on its face. It's all very Byzantine and sort of hurts my head to think about.

But, all in all, pretty fun and easy to debunk.

Someone should write a paper refuting Reynolds, claiming that the plane really did exit the other side of the tower, but it was masked using cloaking technology (or some such). That would be taken to prove that Reynolds is wrong and there really were planes.

Have to say: :D

[Trigood]

So you mean, some of those heavy bits of debris such as engines and landing gear would somehow become detached from the rest of the lightweight aircraft structure after impact with the perimeter columns and then somehow continue their journey into the building, destroying other structural elements as they crash through, whereas the lightweight elements of the disintegrating aircraft would crash less effectively against internal elements of the structure as their mass was insufficient to carry them through the building now that they are unconnected to the heavy elements?

Now, if that isn't a raging clue........
Good points. Reynolds completely ignores the breakup of the plane, which begins upon initial impact with the side of the tower, and continues as the plane continues to insert itself into the tower. This is why economists are not supposed to do physics. :)

[uk_dave]

And physicists probably make lousy economists...just imagine them trying to explain 'overheating the economy' or 'balancing the budget'...phew! :D

[beachnut]

Now consider your butter through knives example. Except there are two rows of knives, one behind the other. The butter hits the first row, and passes, just as you describe. After hitting the first row, the butter has been divided into pieces matching the distance between the knives, but is still travelling very fast, because it did not decelerate very much at all, as you describe.

Now the butter encounters the second row of knives.

What happens?

TS found dead at failed 600 mph butter experiment. He was still holding a knife.

[uk_dave]

He never specified the temperature of the butter.....we all know that stuff won't spread at anything below 90f

[The Demon's Head]

The "no planes theory" is really hurting the efforts of The Truth Movement.

[Anti-sophist]

The "no planes theory" is really hurting the efforts of The Truth Movement.


Not really. Only to truthers, anyway. The only difference between the holoplanes/beam-weapon/tom-cruise-scientology-hex theories and the thermite theory is that one has a bunch of pseudomath and pseudoscience hiding the underlying pure crazy.

[maccy]

The "no planes theory" is really hurting the efforts of The Truth Movement.

Welcome to the forum The Demon's Head. I'm assuming you are sympathetic to at least part of the truth movemnt, so here are a few suggestions for posting here:

1. Familiarise yourself with the sites listed in the links page (http://forums.randi.org/local_links.php?catid=17) if you haven't already done so

2. Pick a subject to discuss and try and stick to that subject as much as possible; don't sidetrack into other subjects unless they are directly related; be methodical

3. to avoid repetition, use the search function to find threads that already address your subject - bump them or quote from them if you still have something to discuss

4. don't assume anything about the political views of the people here, or their reasons for arguing the way they do

5. political arguments are best taken to the politics forum

6. don't confuse arguing about the general plausibility of a hypothesis with arguing about the specific evidence of a phenomenom; for more about what I mena by this, see this post: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.p...99#post2098499 (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2098499#post2098499)

7. lastly, try not get sucked into personal disputes, posters can use some pretty blunt language in discussions, but in the main they are attacking the ideas; try and stick to reasoning and evidence. You can report serious personal attacks if necessary.

Once again, welcome!

[The Demon's Head]

Thank you for the welcome and your good intentions.

If I gave off the impression that I am sympathetic to part of the Truth Movement, then I am sorry about that. I do not support the Truth Movement nor do I concur with their many theories.

However, there are a few things that I am skeptical about.

[maccy]

Thank you for the welcome and your good intentions.

If I gave off the impression that I am sympathetic to part of the Truth Movement, then I am sorry about that. I do not support the Truth Movement nor do I concur with their many theories.

No need to apologise, I was just guessing.

However, there are a few things that I am skeptical about.

I look forward to discussing them.

[The Demon's Head]

The theories such as "the no planes" theory proves that there wasn't a massive conspiracy within the U.S. government.

[LashL]

bump

[beachnut]

It seems to be clear: This person isn't insane. Why do we find him, who took a strong position against workers rights for all of his career, now as "a part of" a grass roots movement attacking other members of it and presenting absurd theories on FoxNews?

There has to be a better explanation than "nuts".

functioning nut

extra nutty

nut case who lost job, but x-employer kept his secret!

nut case who talks

He is nuts, so nuts is the best we can give him on 9/11. He has a web site and has consistently been nuts. Write to him, he will talk about it; 9/11 that is. Do not use facts and he will in turn not use facts; he is a just talk guy like David Ray Griffith, Charlie Sheen, and Alex Jones.

nut who keeps being nuts, he is a nut, he also believes a beam weapon was the source of energy to destroy the WTC.

So he is nuts for ignoring the gravity stored energy that did the destruction of the WTC.

[A W Smith]

functioning nut

extra nutty

nut case who lost job, but x-employer kept his secret!

nut case who talks

He is nuts, so nuts is the best we can give him on 9/11. He has a web site and has consistently been nuts. Write to him, he will talk about it; 9/11 that is. Do not use facts and he will in turn not use facts; he is a just talk guy like David Ray Griffith, Charlie Sheen, and Alex Jones.

nut who keeps being nuts, he is a nut, he also believes a beam weapon was the source of energy to destroy the WTC.

So he is nuts for ignoring the gravity stored energy that did the destruction of the WTC.

Nuttier than squirrel sh**

[maccy]

functioning nut

extra nutty

nut case who lost job, but x-employer kept his secret!

nut case who talks

He is nuts, so nuts is the best we can give him on 9/11. He has a web site and has consistently been nuts. Write to him, he will talk about it; 9/11 that is. Do not use facts and he will in turn not use facts; he is a just talk guy like David Ray Griffith, Charlie Sheen, and Alex Jones.

nut who keeps being nuts, he is a nut, he also believes a beam weapon was the source of energy to destroy the WTC.

So he is nuts for ignoring the gravity stored energy that did the destruction of the WTC.

I think that Childlike is trying to imply that the US Government is sufficiently concerned about the "Truth" movement to employ counter-intelligence operatives. The thing is, to spin an old joke, there isn't really any intelligence to counter.

By the way, her avatar isn't her - and, therefore, she could be a he.

[The Demon's Head]

Does anyone concur with me that the 'no plane' theory proves there was no massive conspiracy within the U.S. government?

[Architect]

Does anyone concur with me that the 'no plane' theory proves there was no massive conspiracy within the U.S. government?



I'll concurr that the "no plane" theory proves there is no brain inside some US (and Australian) citizens' brains, if that helps.