thermite or no thermite? – the saga of the red-gray chips
the controversial red-gray chips found in the dust from the destroyed WTC towers. Are they thermite? or just primer paint?
In 2006 a physics professor from BYU, Steve Jones, made a public appeal for samples of dust from the destroyed WTC towers. As a result he received several such samples, which are all detailed in Harrit et al below. On examination of the samples Jones claims to have noticed small iron spheres and tiny chips, red on one side, grey on the other. For obvious reasons these latter became known as the “red-gray chips,” and they would end up generating considerable controversy.
This is our first look at the complex imbroglio that is the saga of these “red-gray chips”. We’re initially setting out a brief summary of the principle sources of information – viz the Harrit et al paper, the Millette study and Harrit’s rebuttal of the primer paint suggestion. We’re uploading copies of these documents here and making them available for interested readers to do their own study. Just click on the inks below to download the PDFs.
So, the major documents in the case are as follows:
1: Harrit et al(2009): Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
Allegedly peer-reviewed (some have queried this), and published by the Open Physics Journal, this paper was authored by three BYU physicists (including Jones, the original finder of the chips), a professor of chemistry, and others. It claimed that the tiny “red-gray chips” found in abundance in the dust from the WTC collapses exhibited inexplicably high energy and other indications that pointed to them being unignited “thermitic material.”
Thermite in its broadest sense is a mix of iron and a “fuel” (often aluminium) that creates a powerful pyrotechnic used for such things as welding and in various other military and civilian capacities. The question of its historical use in controlled demolition has become controversial, mostly as a result of this paper. Linear thermite charges are available for use in controlled demolition, and thermite has apparently been used in the demolition of other buildings such as the Skyride Tower in Chicago in 1936.
Whether one accepts its use in modern controlled demolition or not, however, thermite is profoundly not a substance that ought to be present in normal building material. So, if its presence in the WTC dust can be established, this would be an overwhelming case for additional and intentional foul play on 9/11 over and above the hijacking and crashing of the planes.
Harrit et al went further and claimed the fine-mixing of the elements in the red-gray chips was consistent with “nano-thermite fabricated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere.”
2: Millette(2012): Progress Report on the Analysis of Red/Gray Chips in WTC Dust
This study was commissioned by Chris Mohr, a self-confessed non-scientist and proponent of what he called the “natural collapse” theory. Mohr commissioned EPA scientist James Millette to reproduce the experiments done by Harrit et al. Millette in his capacity with the EPA, had previously been engaged in analysing samples of the WTC dust in connection with public health issues. Given this background some have questioned his impartiality and suitability for Mohr’s study. Harrit et al refused to give Millete samples of their own red-gray chips, so there is some controversy over whether the red-gray chips examined by Millette were really identical to those examined by Harrit et al. These problems have never been resolved.
Mohr claimed in 2012 that the Millette study would soon be “published in a peer-reviewed journal”, but to date this has not happened, and all we have are the “progress reports” issued by Millette in 2012. Mohr also released a video backing up the Millette study, but that video has now been taken down or made private.
Millette’s initial but unpublished findings were that the red-gray chips were “consistent” with primer paint (the WTC primer paint used on the steel girders was indeed red), and showed no evidence of being thermite or even energetic.
Millette’s failure to publish as promised has raised obvious questions about his faith in his own conclusions.
It probably should also be said that the EPA ’s work on the safety of the WTC dust – unconnected with the thermite question, but with which Millette was associated – has been the subject of allegations of fraud by Cate Jenkins. We must emphasise that no such allegations have been made in connection with his work on the red-gray chips however.
3: Harrit(2009): Why the Red/Gray Chips Are Not Primer Paint
This was produced by Harrit in 2009, and not as a rebuttal to Millette. It was not published in a journal to our knowledge. In it Harrit claims the primer paint was identified in the NIST report and its known chemical composition is markedly different from that of the red portions of the red-gray chips. He also claims the primer paint is thermally much more stable than the red-gray chip and – unlike the chips – shows no tendency to ignite fiercely at 430c.
* * *
These are the main sources of we know about in connection with the red-gray chips and the thermite question. If we have missed anything important please let us know. We’ll be looking at some of these claims and the background to them more closely in future articles.
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@Oystein
If the case for the red gray chips being primer paint is so strong why didn’t Millette publish his findings in a peer-reviewed journal as he said he would in 2012? Why has no one else ever published a definitive paper proving the case?
I am not Millette’s keeper, and have never spoken to him directly, so I can’t give you a definitive answer. At the time, his main occupation was running a lab as general manager, and he had other, money-making projects and customers. So I guess this issue fell deep down low on his list of priorities. In the meantime, I hear he has retired – don’t know what his interests and priorities are nowadays.
Perhaps you think that this issue is important? It isn’t. Harrit et al was published in an obscure vanity journal with zero adademic impact. It’s results are believed only by a tiny, fringe of society, within which only a tiny percentage is from relevant science disciplines or professions. This is not making waves in the forensic community!
Besides, what would a journal publication change? Would you accept that he refuted Harrit et al? Would Harrit et al accept it? Or would they, and perhaps you, not continue to cry that he was in bed with the government and must a patsy, a shill, whatever?
Harrit a co-authors are all aware of his work. So is Richard Gage and AE911Truth. None of them have ever dared addressing the content. I think they KNOW that Millette has destroyed Harrit et al already – no publication necessary.
Oh Ok, I get it. Chris Mohr paid Millette to try and refute the Harrrit et al paper – because it wasn’t important.
Millette worked on doing just that for over a year – because it wasn’t important
Chris Mohr promised a high profile article in a peer-reviewed journal – because it wasn’t important
And they both totally failed to deliver on all promises, not because they couldn’t prove the red gray chips were primer paint, oh God no – they just kinda lost interest because it was all so unimportant.
It’s almost funny. It kind of reminds me of an Aesop fable, something about a fox and sour grapes.
If only it really wasn’t so important, however, that traces of nano-energetic particles have been found in the WTC dust . . .
What’s wrong with Mr. Oystein’s mode of argumentation, anyway? I will state it as simply as I can: Mr. Oystein looks at one spectra presented in the form of a graph produced by one XEDS sample, and he compares that with another. If the graphs are radically different, he concludes form the difference between the graphs that they cannot be of the same red-grey chip or even of the same material composite because otherwise they would be similar or very close to identical. This is wrong. Each red-grey chip is an amalgam of various molecules and elements, and these are not distributed at every point in the exact ratios throughout the red-grey chip. Here, in one tiny area of the red-grey chip, you will find a lot of iron-oxide, but maybe little to no aluminium, so far as one XEDS sampling goes; there, you will find a lot of elemental aluminium, but maybe little to no iron-oxide, so far as another XEDS sampling of a different area of the chip goes; everywhere, perhaps always a trace of this or that will turn up.
XEDS sampling does not mean sampling the entire red-grey chip all atonce, but rather to examine one tiny bit of it, mapping the spectra of that tiny area in graphic form for us to inspect. Each XEDS sampling trial will generate, on average, different snapshots, so to speak, some even wildly different from others, but each graph, although on occasion wildly different from others among the snapshots taken, will be of the SAME chip.
You cannot therefore, as Mr. Oystein does, point to an XEDS graph and say that that is not of the same kind of red-grey chip as that of another graph because the graphs are obviously different. Erroneous assumptions, as Oystein constantly reminds us, do indeed lead to erroneous conclusions.
Haha OMG you are a hoot 😀
If what you say were true – that XEDS doesn’t give strong hints to tell whether two specimens are the same or different materials – then using this method to identify the material that a specimen is made from would be useless and incompetent.
Of course not even Harrut et al were THAT incompetent. Only you are.
It is rather obvious that they scanned a larger portion of the respective surfaces for Figures 7 (chips a-d) and 14 (the MEK chip). This is implied when they explain:
For chip a: “a focused electron beam was placed directly onto the different particles, and the XEDS data were collected. By placing the beam on a cluster of plate-like particles, the spectrum in Fig. (11a) was generated. The spectrum in Fig. (11b) was acquired from a cluster of the smaller bright faceted grains.” (page 12/15)
For the MEK-chip: “Prior to soaking the chip in MEK an XEDS spectrum was acquired from an area of the red-layer surface. The resulting spectrum, shown in Fig. (14). … Focusing the electron beam on a region rich in silicon, located in Fig. (15e), we find silicon and oxygen and very little else (Fig. 16). … ”
Here, you learn that the XEDS operator can choose to focus the electron beam on a small region of interest, or to scan the specimen more broadly.
Besides, the obvious point of Figures 6 and 7, each of which show the four very similar XEDS scans of the four chips (gray side, red side) is to convince the reader that this XEDS similarity proves the chips are the same material. Do you disagree?
You know you are talking way over your head, and it shows. Why do you embarrass yourself publicly?
“Haha, OMG.”
Yes, that is pretty much the only reply that you can muster in defense of your mistaken assumption. However, no amount of condescension or sneering changes the fact that neither you nor anyone can deduce whether one or two very different physical objects comprise the source from which two widely different XEDS spectra have been generated. Yet your entire line of reasoning hinges on this assumption, precisely and exactly as you once again recapitulate it even here as a rebuttal to a clear and succinct invalidation of the pivotal assumption on which your entire line of reasoning hinges. But I am the one talking over my head. Yes, of course.
🙂
Since everyone can see that I did not JUST reply with the laughter, but padded my sneer with arguments which, once more, you failed to quote and then properly address, I am sure any honest and intelligent reader can and will make up their mind as to who is out of his league here.
Tell me, have you ever looked at XEDS charts before? Do you know what they plot on the x- and y-axis, without looking it up? Do you at least know what it is that XEDS measures? How would you figure out what element a peak would be associated with if it weren’t already labeled by someone else or the software? We all know of course that your HONEST answer would have to be “have no idea”. And that would be all anyone would need to assess whether or not you are talking out of your arse. Now let’s see if you make that conscious choice to lie 🙂
Please. Are you arguing that if I scan a red-grey chip at location A and then scan at location B, at a given intensity, I am guaranteed to have two highly similar XEDS graphs?
No. Strawman. Remember I asked you not to erect strawmen, Why did you, once more?
I am arguing that you have no fucking clue about XEDS, as evidenced by your not answering my questions – without looking up the answers:
1. Tell me, have you ever looked at XEDS charts before?
2. Do you know what they plot on the x- and y-axis, without looking it up?
3. Do you at least know what it is that XEDS measures?
4. How would you figure out what element a peak would be associated with if it weren’t already labeled by someone else or the software?
But don’t be sad, you are in good company: Harrit certainly had little to no experience with it when he “lead-authored” the paper, and I know David Griscom, the peer-reviewer, had no own experience and only a vague idea about it. Jones was new to it. Only Farrer was actually an expert here – he’s the one who did most of the XEDS work, and it appears to be good quality work. By the way: Farrer thinks that Millette’s chips (remember: epoxy, kaolin, hematite pigment) look exactly like the ones he studied.
You don’t want to get into “straw man” bullshit. I say to you that I have refuted your line of reasoning. What is your primary claim? It is this: by looking at two different XEDS graphs, you are able to tell us whether the graphs are of one sample or from two different samples, of one type of composite or of two different types of composites. I say that you can’t if all you are basing yourself on are the graphs as such. You, not I, brought up the glaring differences between the XEDS graphs in the Harrit et al. study, as if this were pivotal to your argument. I say that if this is what you did — and that is what you did — you have based your entire case on your misunderstanding of the purpose being served by the particular XEDS graphs being presented by Harrit et al. in their study.
Now you want to shift the conversation away from what the significance of an XEDS graph may be — which is the central hinge of your reasoning — to how well or not I understand these graphs. What is the relevance of the one to the other, Mr. Oystein-lets-keep-the-debate-focused-on-the-issue-at-hand?
So again:
If I scan a red-grey chip at location A (or a point that we can label “1”) and then I scan the same red-grey chip at location B (or a point that we can label “2” and that is not the location A (which we might also label “1”), at a given intensity, am I or am I not guaranteed to have two highly similar (or to all intents and purposes, ‘identical’) XEDS graphs?
Remember: we are discussing XEDS spectra and their accompanying graphs and what a person can reasonably be able to deduce about the object sample underlying these graphs.
“I say that you can’t if all you are basing yourself on are the graphs as such.”
This is not true – you essentially don’t grasp how XEDS is done.
If you were correct, then Harrit’s not finding Zn or Mg in the XEDS of chip a (Fig 7a in the Harrit et al paper) wouldn’t even prove that the chip isn’t Tnemec, because you would have to argue that perhaps that particular graph was from a small spot where there was no Zinc Chromate pigment and no grain of talc – and YOU would have debunked Harrit’s stupid whitepaper!
Alas, your hero Harrit seems to think (and he is correct!!) that that XEDS graph is representative of the elemental composition of chip a’s red material.
And the same is true for Fig 14, the XEDS of the MEK chip: This is from scanning a larger area of that chip, while Fig. 16 to 18 were done by focussing on smaller spots – try reading the paper some time, and try reading my comments for comprehension, I already explained this.
This debate is useless because obviously you have not the first clue about XEDS! Or else, you would have at least tried to answer at least one of my questions:
Tell me, have you ever looked at XEDS charts before?
Do you know what they plot on the x- and y-axis, without looking it up?
Do you at least know what it is that XEDS measures?
How would you figure out what element a peak would be associated with if it weren’t already labeled by someone else or the software?
You will not answer the simple question at the end of my comment, will you?
Are you not going to answer my questions? I asked first 😉
The answer to yours is:
It depends.
On how large the “location” is, and on the properties of the material scanned. And this depends on the competence of the operator, and what he knows about the material e.g. from electron microscopy images (e.g. SE or BSE) on an appropriate scale.
Fig. 7 was done by a competent operator, Jeff Farrer. He did the same thing for the freshly-cut red surfaces of four different chips, and yes, they turned out highly similar, indicating that YES, you are “guaranteed” (very likely) to get the “identical” (similar) XEDS graph from two locations A and B of the same material if you know the fuck how to operate your stuff. If all XEDS readings were all over the place all of the time, then obviously, the whole method would be next to useless.
However, if you know your material is heterogeneous on some level (which the red materials, as any paint, clearly are), and you focus on a spot that is not much larger than the individual particles, then NO, you will not get the same reading.
Now look at Fig 14 again – Harrit present this as “XEDS spectrum of red side” – not a spot, simple “red side”.
On the other hand, they explain that Fig. 16, 16 18 are focused on spots with concentrations of individual elements of interest.
Are you telling me they did Fig 14 on a small spot?
By the way: Not showing SE or BSE images of the MEK chip before soaking in MEK, and thus showing size and shape of the pigments in it, is in itself a major blunder. Not showing where in a BSE image a given XEDS chart was recorded is another blunder, which the peer-reviewer ought not have let pass if he had any experience with the method. All this shows that the work on the MEK chip was not done by an experienced operator (such as Farrer) but by a noob, probably Jones or perhaps Farnsworth.
The answer to my question is, in your words, “It depends.”
Translating that into the terms which framed my original question, we get something like this: there is no guarantee that two highly similar (or to all intents and purposes, ‘identical’) XEDS graphs will be obtained from a single red-grey chip, or from a single batch of such chips even if the chips are to all intents and purposes similar or “indentical.”
Consequently, you cannot look at two XEDS graphs, taking nothing else into account, and confidently assert that if they are different, they are linked to two entirely different sample species.
Now to become tediously repetitive, but in the interest of driving the point home:
Therefore, that the XEDS graph of figure 14 in the Harrit et al. paper is different from the XEDS graphs ((a) throug (d)) of figure 7 in the same paper, that can in no way become a self-sufficient presumption that we are dealing with a different sample species or indeed — apart from having been told by those that handled the red-grey chips — that it is an XEDS sampling of a red-grey chip different from any that was used to generate the data for the other XEDS graphs represented in figure 7.
Why?
Because in fact one object, or one sample species comprised of different objects, can generate vastly different and varied XEDS spectra and graphs.
Thus, it is the graphs taken as a whole — as when the overall data generated is used to create ‘physical distribution maps’ (as on p.18., fig. (15) of Harrit et al.) of the elements as they are fixed in the structure of the object being scanned with X-ray — that characterize the object or sample species being studied and examined, and most emphatically not any one graph (or data set) taken in isolation.
Thus your claim that the XEDS graph of figure 14 of the Harrit et al. study is sufficiently different from all other such graphs in the paper — (graphs used by the Harrit team to no other purpose than to typify for readers what on average best represented what they found) — as being conclusively in that difference a composite entirely different from all of the other chips sampled for XEDS scanning is logically spurious.
Since this is the ground of your entire argument against Harrit et al., and it is nothing but fallacious in both logical and empirical terms, your entire argument collapses. You have nothing with which to argue against Harrit or the Harrit team.
On the off-chance that anyone might want to get a handle on the Harrit et al. position relative to that of “Oystein’s,’ some interesting pieces, I thought, can be found here:
http://911debunkers.blogspot.ca/search?q=oystein
You may also want to keep this in mind:
“Magnesium was never observed, which is another element characteristic of the primer paint (Table 1).” Niels Harrit, “WHY THE RED/GRAY CHIPS ARE NOT PRIMER PAINT,” p.6.
https://offgraun.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/redgraychipsarenotprimerpaint.pdf
That is to say, none of the XEDS graphs to which oystein refers to butress his claim that Harrit et al. are dealing with paint primer as pertains to what he refers to as the MEK sample show any trace of magnesium, which Harrit et al. assert is a signature element in primer paint. I’ll leave at that for now, knowing that Oystein will be thrilled at once again being re-engaged.
As for myself, my position remains what it is: unless and until the Harrit et al. study is replicated for verification by a qualified team of independent researchers, it remains for the time being the last word on energetic residue found in the WTC dust.
“Magnesium was never observed … what he refers to as the MEK sample show any trace of magnesium”
This plainly FALSE. Here is, again, Figure 14 of Harrit et al (the very MEK-soaked chip):
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i328/MikeAlfaromeo/ActiveThermiticMaterial/ActiveThermiticMaterial_Fig14.jpg
There is a peak between Zn and Al at 1.25 keV – that is the K/K-alpha level of Magnesium. It is not conceivable that the XEDS software would not automatically label such a clear, distinct signal – it is more likely that the authors deliberately removed the label “Mg”.
And again, here is Steven Jones own XEDS chart of Tnemec primer from a WTC column:
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i328/MikeAlfaromeo/ActiveThermiticMaterial/StevenJonesPresentation1/JonesPrimerPaint-2m48s_bottomright.jpg
You can see here that the same small, but clear and distinct peak at 1.25 keV is now labeled “Mg”. (Both, by the way, also have a peak for K (potassium) at 3.3 keV, that is missing its label in Fig. 14).
Furthermore, Fig 17 in Harrit et al, the XEDS of some spot in the same chip after XEDS, has a small Mg label, Fig 25 has it unlabeled, Fig. 26, too, which are both residue from burning chips.
Harrit is either incompetent in reading XEDS, or lying, or both. I must put it this clearly.
“magnesium, which Harrit et al. assert is a signature element in primer paint”
I have informed you several times now that this assertion is FALSE!
Only SOME primer paints have SOME Mg – for example Tnemec, which contains some Talc (magnesium silicate hydroxide), while others do not. Specifically, the LaClede primer on the WTC floor trusses did NOT contain any Mg. It is therefore plainly and unequivocally FALSE to assert that “magnesium is a signature element in primer paint” – it is NOT a signinature AT ALL for example in the LaClede primer paint on the WTC floor trusses!
Do not repeat that FALSE claim ever again, or you will be found out a definite liar!
“until the Harrit et al. study is replicated for verification by a qualified team of independent researchers, it remains for the time being the last word on energetic residue found in the WTC dust”
This is utter stupidity.
The problem with the Harrit et al paper is not the data. The data is relatively fine as it is.
The problem is their incompetent or fraudulent interpretation of the data. The data actually contradicts the conclusion of “active thermitic material”.
If you repeat the study, you will likely get similar data – but that would not strengthen Harrit et al’s claims, for they would repeat them same faulty or fraudulent interpretation!
Another key problem is that the test protocol that Harrit et al documented is essentially incompetent. The data is good enough to refute their conclusion, but not quite sufficient to make a clear case for a better one (paint). Millette did a much more competent job – he identified several ingredients directly using competent methods such as TEM-SAED (which identifies crystal lattices and thus the minerals) and FTIR (which gives you fingerprints of functional chemical groups). He thus positively identified kaolin clay and hematite as pigments, epoxy as vehicle, in chips that have XEDS signatures and micro/nanostructures identical to chips a-d (figures 5 to 11). This, along with Harrit’s belated revelation that at least chip a also contains a trace of Strontium, corroborates the identification as LaClede paint.
In this context it is most interesting that the Harrit et al team writes in the paper that they did FTIR tests and would publish that data soon – but they never did! Why not? Why are they hiding that data?
Also, co-author Jeff Farrer has done TEM work – we know that he, too, found strontium – but he never published that data! Why? What did he find that must remain hidden away?
Jones tried to corroborate the single data point that appears to point to at least a trace of elemental Al: He used a method called XRD – and FAILED to find elemental Al! Again, none of that data was ever published – why?? It is ethically a MUST to publish all data, even and especially data that does not yield a positive result! Not doing so may in itself be scientific malpractice!
Jim Hoffman explains a few things about the spectra contra Oystein’s reading, here.
&
John-Michael Talboo and Steve Weathers contra Oystein’s reading, here.
That is funny they don’t show any real evidence of elemental Aluminum fuel.
Remember no one found a fuel in these supposed thermite, and you probably have microspheres in your pocket right now.
Ha. Ha. Ha. Do have another look, there, Carroll. I know that a while back you said something about having trouble with your eyesight since at least one experiment having gone wrong on you. You want to pay attention to figure 17, eh.
I can see the unsubstantiate claim quite nicely, thank you go find a scientist who can find some actual proof of elemental Aluminum, that’s what you have to do, the burden of proof is on you and Harrit.
You both fail to meet the burden of proof of claim!
Here is one of the best books on energetic materials.
Chemistry of High-Energy Materials
https://books.google.com/books?isbn…
Thomas M. Klapötke – 2012 – Preview – More editions
This work should be of interest to advanced students in chemistry, materials science and engineering, as well as all those working indefense technology.)
I did a calculation once, you would have to have Between 350,000 To 400,000 separate charges,
before you would expect to find one chip residue, in 1000 tons of dust from these supposed electric matches,
There fore to equal the amount claimed by Jones & Harrit, you would have to have millions of charges, the buildings would have had to been stuffed with enough explosives to send them into orbit!
Yet not one detonation wave was heard.
But according to you, there is no elemental aluminium in any of the red-grey chips Harrit et al. examined. Except that there is and in ratios to iron oxide that suggest ‘human engineering.’ But now, instead of deferring to that ‘fact,’ which until now you’ve been denying, you want to talk about something entirely unrelated to the matter at hand as though it were pertinent. Carroll, your attention is so fragmented, and exposition so incoherent, that I cannot take you seriously anymore, although not that you suggestion about ‘igniting’ the red-grey chips in an inert atmosphere is not a good suggestion.
By the way, coming back to the iron microspheres, they are important: if the red-grey chips were only primer, then igniting them would not produce any microspheres. But they do, exactly as Mark Basile independently corroborated, eh.
False the chips contained carbon and steel, so combustion of said chips in oxygen would either way create microspheres from the heat of Iron burning in air causing some carbon to reduce some iron.
As we already discussed in the Chips at Sandia National laboratory.
Norman wrote:
“Jim Hoffman explains a few things about the spectra contra Oystein’s reading, <a href="http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/thermitics_made_simple.html#chemical_composition"<here.”
Let me quote the beginning of the section Norman refers to directly:
”
2. Chemical Composition
The red layers contain abundant aluminum, iron, and oxygen…”
Shows that Hoffman does not know how to read and assess XEDS data – he is most certainly WRONG.
To prove my assertion, here is Mark Basile’s XEDS analysis of a red-gray chip that he later showed to react rapidly when heated to unknown temperatures on some steel strip:
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i328/MikeAlfaromeo/ActiveThermiticMaterial/MarcBasilePresentation/Basile_39_30_Chip13_XEDS.jpg
Basile is the only truther “scientist” who has attempted to quantify the elements in the red material (Hoffman hasn’t, Harrit and Jones haven’t). As you can read, the Al peak turns out to represent under 2% by weight Al, and there is under 3% by weight iron. With 2.6% iron, the theoretically possible thermite content is limited to about 5%. This would under the most ideal conditions (perfect 100% reaction) provide 5% of 4 kJ/g = 0.2 kJ/g of heat to the heat release of the red layer. Since there is also a gray layer, and the gray layer will usually have more mass than the red layer, the thermite contribution – assuming that all the Al and Fe are formulated as ideal thermite – would practically provide much less than 0.1 kJ/g.
But Harrit et al measured from 1.5 to 7.5 kj/g! This immediately means that some 98% or more of the heat release was NOT from the thermite reaction! In terms of chemical energy, the red material contains insignificant Al and Fe!
(Besides: SInce Hoffman wrote his faithful crap in 2009, he did not write “contra Oystein”; more realistically, I wrote “contra Hoffman”).
Talboo and Weathers wrote a very verbous response in March 2011. I find much of it incoherent, and have spotted them making the same FALSE assumptions I have pointed out several times, and which you, Norman, have yet failed to address, such as the claim that “we do know that if the chips really were primer paint flakes the Mg (and Zn) would be abundant”. <– Please, Norman, acknowledge without further ado that this claim is FALSE, as you know by now that a) There are WTC primer paints without any Mg and Zn and b) Harrit, in his stupid whitepaper, grossly overstated the proportion of these elements in dry Tnemec due to a serious of egregious mistakes. There is no use continuing this debate if you can’t address this issue straight and honestly. Now.
Once you have acknowledged you understand that Harrit made a few big mistakes, and have resolved not to make these FALSE statements ever again, I’d ask you please to rebut any of my arguments in you own words. You may use short, sweet quotes from any author you like, but I’d expect you to show some understanding by writing mostly in your own words.
Alternatively, this would be the time to admit you don’t actually understand any of the arguments and are merely believing, on pure faith, Truthers because they are Truthers like you.
No. You imagine that I fail to address your points. But I point other readers to sources that adequately refute your arguments and that I do not need to paraphrase, since I can refer readers directly to the sources themselves, which happen to better express viewpoints with which I wholly concur.
So please do refute the sources to your satisfaction. Discriminating readers can decide for themselves which contending viewpoints most likely better approximate a correct interpretation of the ‘experimental’ data at hand.
Each point that you contend has not been answered is in ‘fact’ answered by Harrit’s short paper on the primer paint issue, as well as the articles and the webpage I cite as references.
I hear your argument quite clearly. The problem, as I see it, is that you do not understand the scanning ‘method’ of XEDS. You argue as if the sampling is of the chip as a whole, when in fact it is of a very small and localized area of the chip at one time. The chip itself is not uniform in its composition, so that different XEDS(s) of it will produce different spectra, i.e., different graphs. And it is the synthesis of these ‘different graphs’ which by a process of deduction yields an understanding of the “probable” structure, on the whole, of the chip under examination. That, my friend, is your blind spot.
Sorry off topic but if you wish to take break from looking TEM iron/AL matrix .
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Sept11DustReport.pdf
and
Mark Basile Project Status – August 2014.pdf
http://aneta.org/911experiments_com/articles/mark_basile_project_status_august_2014.pdf
Dr. Cahill Iron in atmosphere surges.
http://911truthout.blogspot.com/2014/08/wtc-microspheres-better-hta-arson.html?q=TEM
and Fordham university seismic station charts for 9/11 .. or FBI listening to Audio Tapes about 9/11 high temperatures..
Another issue note with regard FOIA releases so far..
No higher resolution exists of Second Plane from FOIA Releases. Please create a bill like JASTA to get those higher resolution video released with the plane this time.. Thanks
https://youtu.be/MlaYuf83s7o
“…the sources themselves, which happen to better express viewpoints with which I wholly concur.”
Ok, thanks for admitting you can’t express your viewpoints yourself. I usually assume this means you don’t actually understand what you try to discuss.
Now, to refute an argument, you’d need to refer to a particular argument, e.g. by quoting (a relevant part of) it, then writing the refutation (or providing the relevant part of a source of as quote).
You still fail at that.
Also, Norman, you have yet failed to address the claim that “we do know that if the chips really were primer paint flakes the Mg (and Zn) would be abundant”. <– Please, Norman, acknowledge without further ado that this claim is FALSE, as you know by now that a) There are WTC primer paints without any Mg and Zn and b) Harrit, in his stupid whitepaper, grossly overstated the proportion of these elements in dry Tnemec due to a serious of egregious mistakes.
Please look up at the top of the thread for an expression of my very own viewpoint, refuting your position root and branch.
There are plenty of serious problems in the Harrit et al paper “Active Thermitic Material found…” of 2009. They boil down to: The conclusions of the paper do not follow from the data; rather, the data actually contradicts the conclusions.
I will discuss the several problems in separate posts.
DSC DATA SEVERELY LIMITS MAX. THEORETICAL THERMITE CONTENT
According to the discussion of DSC data, four random red/gray chips proved to have specific energies of 1.5, 3, 4.5 anf 7.5 kJ/g. The average of these values is 4.125 kJ/g – slightly more than the theoretic maximum of pure, perfect thermite reacting perfectly. The literature on nanothermite, some of which Harrit et al refer to, cites more typical practical values for experimental nanothermite in the vicinity of 1.5 kJ/g. Thus, the chips are almost 3 times as “energetic” that actual pure nanothermite.
This is proof positive that at least a part of the observed heat release came from reactions other than the thermite reaction! Indeed, the paper itself “suggests” that the organic matrix added to the heat release: “We suggest that the organic material in evidence in the red/gray chips is also highly energetic” (page 27). This formulation is strange – for the lead authors must know that OF COURSE practically every organic polymer that is not halogenized (contains lots of F, Cl or Bromine) is MUCH more “energetic” than thermite – typically, their specific energies range anywhere from 15 to 40 kJ/g. For example epoxy, a common paint binder known to have been the binder of at least one WTC paint (the LaClede shop primer on the floor trusses) releases 20 kJ/g – five times as much as the theoretic max for thermite, and 13 times as much as experimental nanothermite.
Now, the chips are red and gray, and the authors understand that the gray layer is mostly just iron oxide and probably almost inert: “The gray layer was found to consist mostly of iron oxide so that it probably does not contribute to the exotherm, and yet this layer varies greatly in mass from chip to chip.” (page 19).
The paper describes the two layers as of roughly the same magnitude of thickness (“Thicknesses vary from roughly 10 to 100 microns for each layer (red and gray)”, page 9). We may assume, as a first approximation, that on average, red and gray layer were equally thick, and thus red and gray material was present in roughly equal volumes.
The density of iron (hydr)oxides is typically a bit over 5 g/cm^3.
The density of most organic polymers is near 1 g/cm^3. The inorganic particles in the organic matrix make up only a small proportion of its volume (difficult to estimate, but hardly more than 20%); it can be shown that the density of the red layer will be hardly more than 1,5 g/cm^3.
From this follows that the chips are, by mass, roughly 75% inert gray layer, 25% reactive red layer.
From this follows that that the specific energy of the red layer alone is four times that of the entire chip, or 16.5 kJ/g on average – 11 times that of empirical nanothermite!
Now consider that much of the mass of the inorganic particles is silicon – there is as much silicon as aluminium, judging from figures 7 and 11! – which either does not participate in any thermite reaction or provides less energy (Si could react with Fe2O3, or SiO2 with Al; both reactions are less energetic than the normal thermite mix of Al+Fe2O3) and thus presents an additional burden.
In fact, it can be estimated from the XEDS spectra that the total mass proportion of Fe and Al in the red layer is so low that no more than 10% of the red layer’s mass could theoretically be present as thermite educts.
What this boils down to when you crunch the numbers is this: The release of 4 or more kJ/g specific energy from a red/gray chip with substantial proportions of gray iron oxide, flammable organic polymer and relatively little Al can only be explained if >98% of that energy release comes from burning the organics on air, and less than 2% from the thermite reaction.
It is not possible that these 2% would be able to generate extraordinary temperatures amid the presence of so much organic matrix reacting to gasses and carrying off heat rapidly.
This is proof positive that almost all the effects observed in the residue must be explained as those of an organic matrix burning on air.
For example, it is conceivable that the organic matrix is cracked to smaller compounds such as CO or benzene. Both would be able to reduce iron oxide at least partially.
For example, the “spheroid” in Fig 21 (which to me looks more like a snowball) may actually be a lump of hematite pigments (the Fe2O3 grains that are seen in Figure 8) concentrated in a speroid lump of soot (mostly pure C).
By the way: Epoxy ignites close to 430 °C…
The third paper in the article above (Harrit(2009): Why the Red/Gray Chips Are Not Primer Paint”) commits a number of terrible mistakes.
I try to be brief:
1.) He assumes there was only one primer paint formulation on the WTC steel (Tnemec Red/99); and he assumes that there was only one kind of red-gray chips, as could be identified by elemental composition (that represented by the four chips a-d in Fig. 7 of the Harrit et al “Active Thermitic Material”) paper.
Both assumptions are WRONG. This immediately kills the paper, for the logic of the paper goes like this:
“I compare A with X. A is representative of all chips, and X is representative of all paints. A is different from X, therefore A is not paint”
Suppose we were not talking about dust particles, but about cars: We find some object at a crime scene and want to figure out if is a car. Let’s say that it is a VW Beetle. We know that Toyota Priuses are cars, and they characteristically have large battery packs and an electric drive. The object that we find at the scene doesn’t have these, therefore it isn’t a car.
You see immediately what’s wrong with this scenario: Not all cars are Priuses! Conversely, not all car-like objects at the scene need to be Beetles.
In the reality of WTC dust, there are actually at least SIX different kinds of red-gray chips, of which those in Fig 7 represent only one: These are rich in the elements C, O, Al, Si and Fe – and none other (miniscule traces of others) – and Al and Si characteristically appear in almost equal amounts. Then they have a chip shown in Fig 14 that has a very different elemental fingerprint: In addition to the five elements listed above, it has very significant Ca, and significant Zn, Cr and Mg. Harrit et all explain this away as “surface contamination”, but don’t show evidence for this speculation. Thirdly, they present the ignition residue of a chip in Fig 15, which is high in Ti – an element not significantly present in the chips shown previously. Fourthly, the text mentions other chips with significant Cu and/or Ba, which were not present elsewhere. Fifth, there is the peculiar multilayered chip with significant Pb, again an element not seen elsewhere. Sixth, there is a chip where the gray layer is entirely different by being made up of hardly anything but carbon instead of iron oxide. That’s at least six different types of chips, and Harrit compares only one of them to Tnemec Red primer. He is correct that chips a-d (Fig 7) do not fit the Tnemec recipe – but the chip in Fig 14 (which they soaked in MEK and thus allegedly separated elemental Al) does!
At the same time, there was more than one paint formulation on the steel of the Twin Towers: Tnemec Red (with Zinc chromate, talc, calcium aluminates…) was painted on the external columns, but the LaClede Steel Company’s own shop primer was on the floor trusses! And that recipe contains only significant C, O, Al, Si, Fe, where Al and Si (aluminium silicate) can be assumed to be Kaolin clay, which has equal amounts of the two! LaClede primer also has trace amounts of Strontium chromate – and here comes the burner: Harrit’s paper reveals more detailed data on chip 7a – it contains traces of both Strontium and Chromium! These red-gray chips are a very good match for LaClede primer paint!
2.) The Tnemec primer recipe that Harrit cites first lists the percentages of pigments (Zinc: 22%, …), then the percentages of the several organic “vehicle” (binder etc) ingredients. He overlooks an simple and important fact: Both groups separately add up to 100%: The several pigments add up to 100%. and the vehicle ingredients add up to 100%. Harrit misses this, and assumes Zinc is 22% of the mixed wet paint! This is quite false: In a typical primer paint, the total pigments are only around 30 weight-% of the wet paint. Thus, Zn would be only about 30% of 22% = 6.6%. Similarly, he overestimates the amount of solvents that evaporate when the paint dries. This evaporation increases the pigment content in the dried paint, but Harrit overestimates the factor, and multiplies the already 3.3-times too large Zn content by too large a factor. Consequently, he grossly overestimates the amount of Zn in the dry paint, and thinks that the Zn-signal in the XEDS graph is much too small, when in fact it isn’t.
3.) He finds a material data sheet for Tnemec Red from 2003 and assumes that the same paint make had the same composition in 1967 – that’s “courageous”. More importantly, he believes that this MDS is for the proprietary “Tnemec pigment” listed in the recipe, when in fact it is for the wet paint. This MDS lists some Zn, which he adds the already much too high percentage I explained above – when in fact the low Zn content in the MDS is the actual Zn content of the wet paint.
If we correct these three most egregious mistakes, then we must conclude:
A) Harrit’s conclusion that Chips a-d are not Tnemec primer is correct, but he is wrong to conclude they are not paint, as there are other paints that he does not compare with
B) Chips a-d are an excellent match for the LaClede steel primer that was specified for the WTC floor trusses
C) The Chip in Fig 14 is a good match for the corrected Tnemec elemental composition.
The latter point is corroborated by the XEDS analysis that Steven Jones presented at a conference in Australia in late 2009.
In short:
The two kinds of red-gray chips that Harrit et al mostly base their conclusions on are actually good matches for the known paint recipes
The other kinds of chips have not been analysed enough to conclude anything.
Harrit’s paper involuntarily helps to refute Harrit et al’s “Active Thermitic Material”
(Apologies for not closing the “strong” tag properly)
So an “official” attempt to replicate and verify the ‘Harrit et al.” study would be in order, then?
Rule of “So” applies; No! The only thing in order would be for Harrit to feel hotly ashamed for having put out such a stupid paper and revoke it with due apologies. Did you not understand that I explained at length that Harrit(2009): “Why the Red/Gray Chips Are Not Primer Paint” is hopelessly flawed, beyond repair? Or rather, once he were to repair his egregious mistakes (and were aware of some publicly available facts that he was ignorant about in 2009, and may still be ignorant about), the corrected paper would actually help to REFUTE the main paper that had himself as lead author? So if Harrit actually refutes Harrit, why do you feel an additional “official” (what does that word mean in context, anyway?) would be needed?
Have you published your critique of Harrit et al. in a peer reviewed journal? If not, why not?
A) You are here commenting on my critique of Harrit(2009): Why the Red/Gray Chips Are Not Primer Paint – a white paper not published by any journal and not peer-reviewed. Why would I have to publish anything about anything in any peer-reviewed journal to refute a stupid whitepaper?
B) This thread has been set up by the Off-Guardian folks to discuss the scientifc merits of Harrit et al, Millette’s study and the Harrit whitepaper. No qualification is required to participate. It is silly and dishonest of you to ask me to jump through some specific and arbitrary hoop. Do you hold yourself to the same standard? Why do you post here, if you have no peer-reviewed article on the topic to your name?
C) My arguments are valid and my claimes correct, or they are not. They are relevant, or they are not. If you can’t refute them, you can’t refute them.
An argument or a claim is not correct just because it has been peer-reviewed, nor is an argument or a claim false or dubious when it has been written by an anonymous on an obscure blog.
I prefer to judge claims and arguments on the evidence presented and the strength of their logic, not some formal magic.
Can you refute my arguments?
Do you at least understand them?
Have you read them?
Publish them in a peer-reviewed journal. Lets see what other experts in chemical physics have to say.
Thanks for admitting that you can’t refute my arguments. They thus stand unrefuted. 🙂
And unaccepted.
😉
“So if Harrit actually refutes Harrit, why do you feel an additional “official” (what does that word mean in context, anyway?) would be needed?”
A) I have not come across Harrit’s refutation of Harrit et al. anywhere. Do you have a citation?
B) “official” (what does that word mean in context, anyway?)
Gee, I wonder, eh? Everyone talks about the “Official Story” of 9/11. What could the word “official” mean in this context? Perhaps it means to suggest a proper replication and verification of the study by people qualified to do so. What else do you imagine it could mean?
A) You have not come across the refutation only if you did not read my main comment above.
Did you read my comment and try to understand it? It IS the refutation.
The last paragraph of the main comment I wrote on the Harrit whitepaper summarizes the refutation. I’ll try to re-write it for you:
Harrit employed a certain method in that whitepaper in an attempt to prove that a particular paint chip is not a particular kind of paint, and he concludes from this that all the chips are not WTC paint.
However, if he were less ignorant and had actually compared that particular chip not to Tnemec paint but to LaClede paint, then he would have concluded that that chip actually IS paint. Furthermore, if he had compared the XEDS of of the MEK-soaled chip (Fig 14 of Harrit et al) with the Tnemec recipe, and if he had read the recipe correctly (he didn’t, he committed several gross misinterpretations) and then done his math correctly, he would have noticed that that chip quite likely IS Tnemec paint! In fact, Steven Jones has shown the XEDS of actual WTC Tnemec, and it matches well Fig 14!
This is Jones’ Tnemec:
And this is Fig 14, a red-gray chip:
(I hope the HTML works here)
I think the similarities are striking.
Ok, IMG tags didn’t work. Direct links then:
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i328/MikeAlfaromeo/ActiveThermiticMaterial/StevenJonesPresentation1/JonesPrimerPaint-2m48s_bottomright.jpg
http://i1088.photobucket.com/albums/i328/MikeAlfaromeo/ActiveThermiticMaterial/ActiveThermiticMaterial_Fig14.jpg
Yup, I can’t tell the difference. Except that they are, eh.
Do tell! 🙂
Is there something more that I should be understanding, here, other than you are going to insist that they are “similar,” which by definition means they are actually “different,” but essentially both the EXDS(s) of primer paints?
“Is there something more that I should be understanding, here, other than you are going to insist that they are “similar,” which by definition means they are actually “different,””
Yes! You should be understanding how to read XEDS graphs, and why “similar” is not the same as “different”. No two XEDS charts, even of the exact same spot of the same specimen, are ever exactly the same, they are always “similar” at best.
I tell you why I say the graphs above are a good match:
* They have significant peaks for the same 11 elements. This is quite impressive already! (Mg and K are not labeled in Fig 14, but they are clearly there; Ca is incorrectly labeled “C” in Jones’ graph)
* Of these elements, C, O and Ca are the largest peaks
* Fe and Si are strong also
* Significantly (this is a key difference to the LaClede XEDS in Fig that Harrit failed to compare with the right primer), there is much more Si than Al in both
* The Zn-Mg-Al peaks are smaller but more than trace, and in reasonably similar proportions to each other
* K and Cr are closer to being trace
The one major difference is the sulfur peak – pretty large in Fig 14, closer to trace amount at Jones. At the same time, there is relatively more Ca also in Fig. 14. I’d actually find Harrit et al’s speculation that this is due to some contamination with gypsum on the surface plausible: Some of the Ca and most of the S could be gypsum. Remove that, and the two images match almost perfectly.
Now you: Do you disagree that the two materials are very similar in elemental composition? If so – why?
Note that Harrit et al imply a claim that Fig 7 and Fig 14 are sufficiently similar to justify an assumption that they are studying the same material in both cases!
What is your point, Oynstein?
“What is your point?”
Is that really so difficult to discern??
The one (only one) chip in which Jones (Harrit et al) alleges to have found a minute trace of elemental Al, the one he soaked in MEK after producing Figure 14, happens to be a good match, by XEDS analysis, to actual Tnemec primer from the WTC!
And the one chip that Harrit focuses on in his whitepaper happens to match almost perfectly the elemental composition of the LaClede primer that was painted on the WTC floor trusses!
“Oynstein”
Is that misspelling of my nick supposed to be an insult? You seem to use it when you are annoyed and give up even just feigning a rational debate.
So then there was indeed nothing more that I should have been understanding, here, other than you were going to insist that the two EXDS(s) were “similar,” which by definition meant they are actually “different,” but that essentially they were nevertheless both the EXDS(s) of primer paints. How did I know you were going to prove me exactly right? Oh, that’s right, because you already had made precisely that argument and just keep repeating it in slightly different but actually very similar iterations.
“So then there was indeed nothing more that I should have been understanding, here”
If you are contented with not understanding Harrit’s work, their methods, their flaws, my critique of it, well, that’s your prerogative.
One final set of question: This current thread of comments between you and I goes under my main comment which discusses the whitepaper Harrit(2009): Why the Red/Gray Chips Are Not Primer Paint
Did you ever read that whitepaper, yes or no?
And if you ever read it: Did you notice any of the errors that Harrit committed? Particularly any the following errors:
1. Erroneously assuming implicitly that there was only one kind of primer paint in the WTC
2. Erroneously assuming implicitly that all red-gray chips have the same elemental composition when even the Harrit et al paper (“Active Thermitic material”) is explicit that there were chips with several different compositions
3. Erroneously assuming that the percentages quoted for the individual pigments are given for the wet paint, not the total pigments.
4. Erroneously assuming that the percentages quoted for the individual vehicle ingredients are given for the wet paint, not the total vehicle.
5. Erroneously assuming that the Material Data Sheet he used was for the proprietary Tnemec pigment, not the wet paint.
Do you disagree with my calling these five points “erroneous”, or my claim that all five are assumptions that Harrit makes?
Do you understand FALSE promises imply INVALID conclusions? Harrit concludes that “the” red/gray chips are not WTC primer paint. That conclusion must be rejected as invalid. Right?
What I understand is this:
A) Harrit et al. have been accused of having found nothing but primer paint by some for various reasons.
B) Harrit et al. deny that they have found nothing but primer paint.
C) Niels Harrit has written what he believes is a sufficient refutation of the accusation that Harrit et al. found nothing but primer paint.
D) You believe that you see at least 5 false assumptions underpinning Harrit’s refutation of the accusation that Harrit et al. found nothing but primer paint.
E) I know that you are incoherent in your thinking, and no, I will not spend my time pulling apart every absurdity that you spout, as for example, that Harrit implicitly assumes all red chips in the WTC dust to have the same elemental composition while at the same time, as per Harrit et al., explicitly assuming different compositions for the same red chips.
F) Harrit understands chemical physics at a level of insight that you simply do not and cannot, given, on your own admission, your lack of formal institutional training and affiliation. Consequently, you do not possess the technical acumen nor the material wherewithal to systematically analyse either the implicit or explicit failures of Harrit’s work. Only “his” peers posses this acumen and have access to the requisite material means to properly critique and assess his work. Consequently, until some among “his” peers come along to replicate and verify his collaborative study on the grounds of its epistemological and methodological underpinnings, Harrit et al. remain both uncritiqued and unrefuted, “formally” speaking.
G) You may think that you have adequately answered Harrit’s refutation of the “primer only” accusation as well as the essential claims of the Harrit et al. study, but perhaps you have not. You do not strike me as a very systematic thinker, and the comments you have posted do not inspire any great confidence in your vaunted ability to ‘think’ and ‘reason’ systematically. Furthermore, until an empirical replication and verification under laboratory conditions of the Harrit et al. study is conducted and is itself peer-reviewed, nothing about the study has been in fact demonstrated beyond what the study now claims to have demonstrated. “Observation” trumps all “authority.” This is something that appears to be beyond your ken to grasp since you scoff at the idea that this is the only manner in which Harrit et al. can be adequately answered.
H) As was suggested to Frank Greening for his basic failure to understand Newton’s 3rd, you too should go back to school to develop an adequate understanding of the formal institutional trappings of how modern science proceeds. The days of the gentlemen scientists are pretty much over. Not because individual insight does not remain the lynch pin of discovery, but because critical thinking tends to be more effective under conditions of strict systematic contention than isolated ratiocination even if ‘group think’ remains an ever present danger. That is why, despite all of its pitfalls, peer-review continues to be esteemed among scientists as a reliable check against bias and oversight.
Only if in “fact,” through the artifice of an actual and well conducted experiment, it can be demonstrated that “the” red-gray chips are nothing but primer paint. Right?
Yes to A-D
“E) I know that you are incoherent in your thinking, and no, I will not spend my time pulling apart every absurdity that you spout…”
You have not shown where I am incoherent because you have not spent any time trying to pull apart even one of my claims. Therefore you have not shown that they are “absurd” or even just incorrect. You choose, deliberately, to not engage in reasoned debate and to remain ignorant.
“F) Harrit understands chemical physics at a level of insight that you simply do not and cannot”
Irrelevant. None of the five errors requires much understanding of chemical physics at a level beyond middle school – all you need is some readining skills, basic logic and know how to calculate percentages.
“G) You may think that you have adequately answered Harrit’s refutation of the “primer only” accusation as well as the essential claims of the Harrit et al. study, but perhaps you have not. You do not strike me as a very systematic thinker”
You say this out of the blue, without having actually addressed any of my claims. This strikes me as you being uncritical and prejudiced.
“Only if in “fact,” through the artifice of an actual and well conducted experiment, it can be demonstrated that “the” red-gray chips are nothing but primer paint. Right?”
Wrong. The conclusions of any argument are logically invalid if its premises can be shown to be FALSE.
I have shown Harrit’s whitepaper premises to be FALSE. For example just the imlicit assumption that there is only one WTC primer (Tnemec).
Remember the outline of his argument:
“Premise: Tnemec Red is the only WTC primer to be considered
Tnemec Red contains lots of Zinc
Therefore, all WTC primer has lots of Zinc
This one chip, 7a, has no Zinc
Therefore, this particular chip is not WTC primer.
Therefore, by extension, all red-gray chips are not WTC primer”
The Premise of this argument is FALSE: There exists WTC primer without Zn: The LaClede shop primer. You find its recipe on page 157 of NIST NCSTAR 1-6B (page number of the PDF file):
https://www.nist.gov/node/599646?pub_id=101042
The recipe goes like this (rounding to half percents):
71.5% Epoxy Amine and other (binder)
15.5% Iron oxide pigment (55% of 28.5%)
11.5% Aluminium silicate pigment (almost certainly kaolin) (41% of 28.5%)
1% Strontium chromate pigment (4% of 28.5%)
None of these compounds contains Zinc.
Therefore, Harrit’s base premise is FALSE: There exists WTC primer without Zinc, and Chip 7a not having Zinc is therefore not proof that this chip is not WTC primer – there exists at least one primer without Zinc. Harrit’s argument is thus INVALID.
If you understand Logic 101, you will now agree that Harrit’s whitepaper is invalid. No knowledge of chemistry or physics is needed at all.
In addition, I can show that this chip 7a is a good match for LaClede primer. Details written in my blog 4.5 years ago – Harrit and Jones have been made aware of it long ago:
http://oystein-debate.blogspot.de/2012/03/another-primer-at-wtc-laclede-standard.html
Note that the LaClede composition has only 2.5% each of the element Aluminium and Silicon, and yet their XEDS peaks are, if anything somewhat higher, relative to O and C, than Harrit’s. This indicates that Harrit’s chips, too, have no more than 2.5% aluminium.
Note also that Harrit’s whitepaper, in its Fig 5, documents trace amounts of Strontium and Chromium – highly significant, as LaClede primer contains 0.5% and 0.3% of those two elements!
Calm down, Oynstein. You won already. Remember?
Harrit is ignorant? How does your C.V. compare to his?
Be that as it may, you are sure that what Harrit et al. have found is not an energetic residue, but primer. That much I understand. Well, then, shouldn’t someone out in the world recognized as an authority in chemistry, other than Dr. James Millette, assemble a team, replicate the study, fix it where it is methodically flawed, and then tell us whether they have or have not found energetic nano-particles? Is this not a reasonable position to take? Or do we just take you at your authoritative word.
“Harrit is ignorant?”
Yes, certainly 🙂 Regardless of his CV, he is (or at least was in 2009, when he wrote the stupid white paper) ignorant, among other things, of the following facts:
1. That there was at least one red primer paint other than Tnemec on the WTC steel, namely the LaClede shop primer
2. That the one chip he focused on in the whitepaper is a near-perfect match for this LaClede primer paint
3. That the red-gray chips they studied in the Harrit et al paper are actually several different materials, as evidenced by their different elemental compositions; yet he treats them as if they are all essentially the same – all thermitic. Other truther-scientists, including his co-authors Ryan and Legge, have in the meantime conceded that some of the red-gray chips are indeed just paint
4. That the MEK-soaked chip (Fig 14) is actually a good match for the Tnemec recipe he tried (and failed) to translate to elemental composition in the whitepaper
5. That his colleague Steven Jones had analyzed actual WTC primer, with an XEDS signature that well matches the MEK-chip
6. That the material data sheet he used in the whitepaper describes the wet paint, not a proprietary pigment that is merely a small part of the recipe.
Plenty of ignorance for one short paper – and he could be fucking Albert Einstein for all I care with the best CV in the world, he would still be plenty ignorant in the case at hand.
“shouldn’t someone out in the world recognized as an authority in chemistry, other than Dr. James Millette, assemble a team, replicate the study, fix it where it is methodically flawed”
No, silly. A bad study ought not be anybody’s business except the authors’. The aithors should fix their own crap. But first they’d need to acknowledge they produced crap. It’s their claims, the claims are not made out. Hell, even I, a nobody with no training in chemistry or forensics, can point out several of the most obvious flaws!
Shock! You have no training in chemistry? Are you sure? You sound like you know more about chemistry than Harrit and his eight other partners in crime.
Question: why, if a group of scientists say they found the residue of explosives in the WTC dust, is it not reasonable for other equally competent scientitsts to inquire into the matter?
(Now be careful: I used that word again, the “if” word.)
“You sound like you know more about chemistry than Harrit and his eight other partners in crime.”
Well thanks 🙂 But I never claimed anything of the sort! What you insinuate here is a strawman.
All I claim is that Harrit’s whitepaper is stupid and ignorant of important, relevant facts. I provide reasons. If you want to argue rationally, please address my claims and arguments, not strawmen.
“why, if a group of scientists say they found the residue of explosives in the WTC dust, is it not reasonable for other equally competent scientitsts to inquire into the matter?”
I am not telling any scientists not to inquire – indeed I would be happy if some hotshot forensic scientist did this. Well, Millette did 🙂 All you can muster against Millette is some poison for the well – zero arguments, and indeed Kevin Ryan also only poisoned the well and never addressed the actual analysis and data. What a shmock!!
HOWEVER, it is you who keeps trying to convince me that some scientists, “official” ones even (whatever that means!) OUGHT to refute Harrit et al, and in a peer-reviewed journal even. I disagree – the Harrit et al paper is obvious crap, published in a zero-impact journal that absolutely no physical chemist reads (it has been circulated among truthers and debunkers, not among actual physical chemists). I’d feel enormously silly to ask any competent scientist to waste their time on such crap.
So I guess that what you are saying is you want us to take you at your authoritative word that Harrit et al. are a bunch of duffers, and you are not, even if your arguments are somewhat inscrutable and incoherent, on the one hand, and you have no formal education in chemistry comparable to any of the people involved in producing the Harrit et al. study, on the other? Is this what you are saying?
“So I guess that what you are saying is you want us to take you at your authoritative word that Harrit et al. are a bunch of duffers, and you are not, …”
Rule of so again: No! Strawman! I want you to address my claims and arguments and either try to refute them or acknowledge that you can’t refute them!
“even if your arguments are somewhat inscrutable and incoherent, on the one hand, ”
Explain! Quote and address an actual argumant in my original comments, and explain why it is incoherent and inscrutable!
Perhaps you are missing some detail here, a citation there – sure, my comment wasn’t a journal article. If you need any of that, ask, but please ask specifically, and provide reasons for why you need details or citations.
So far you haven’t even begun to scrutinize my arguments.
“and you have no formal education in chemistry comparable to any of the people involved in producing the Harrit et al. study, on the other?”
Yes. So what? What I write is right or wrong, is relevant or irrelevant, irrespective of my or their CV. Do you disagree with this?
“Is this what you are saying?”
Again: No. You erected a strawman.
Try to address my arguments. Do not erect strawmen. Do not poison the well, do not beg the question, do not move goal posts. Simply quote an argument, and address it!
Oystein writes:
Norm replies:
No, silly. A bad set of arguments ought not be anybody’s business except the author’s. The author should fix his own crap. But first he’d need to acknowledge that he had produced crap. It’s your claims, and your claims are not made out. Hell, even I, a nobody with no training in chemistry or forensics, can point out all manner of flaws!
Then why wasn’t the failed Harrit paper corrected by Harrit, the meme micro spheres and ignition mean thermite, is false and that is all the paper stands on!
Jones himself suspected the chips to be primer paint, and Jones couldn’t do science, he could have found that microspheres he searched for in his own pocket they were that close to him all along!
The chips the spheres are meaning less two politically obsessed dimwits who couldn’t do the hard work of science and never proved their hypotheses, because they jumped to false conclusions.
uh huh.
Magnetic toner ink uses microspheres from fly ash from coal fired power plants, as does the magnetic strip on credit cards.
I always suspected the chips to be either credit cards, or primer paint.
The bank data center printed checks and credit cards by the thousands.
I actually sent credit card material oxidized off to get tested, but Oystein’s EDS spectra is a closer match.
The credit card actually had elemental aluminum as a component, I believe as a foil backing to the magnetic strip
Monsieur Caroll, écoutez-moi, la controverse sur les micro-sphères est dépassé depuis Harrit et al. I think I already made the point a while ago, and even left you with a question to which you never bothered to reply.
You and Oynstein (sic) also made your point long ago if somewhat incoherently: Harrit et al. are dumb and incompetent, and you are both hugely smarter than they are, both masters of logic and chemistry; moreover, they only found primer paint until it ignites in an inert atmosphere ( just as others like Denis Rancourt contend that they only found “rust chips” that by themselves flare up at 430 degrees Celcius).
We get it already, get it? We may be slow than the two of you, but not so sluggish that we do not by now grasp the essentials of your “arguments.”
How’s the huge and shockingly revealing email dump coming?
That is up to the admin here, if they do not publish as agreed then I will simply send the data to another site,
I kept my word I didn’t have that many conversations with Jones.
If they don’t publish, give them permission to send the lot to me. I will publish them with relish . . . and maybe also a bit of ketchup . . .
Norman,
“You and Oynstein (sic) also made your point long ago if somewhat incoherently: Harrit et al. are dumb and incompetent, and you are both hugely smarter than they are”
I already told you that this is untrue .- why do you repeat the strawman when I specifically instructed you not to erect strawmen?
I did not say Harrit is stupid – I said his whitepaper is. Even smart people sometimes put out stupid work. There is no shame in making mistakes. There is only shame in not correcting them.
In your case, you pride yourself of misspelling my nickname. That is almost what defines a 9/11 Truther: Choosing to persist in error consciously when corrections are readily available.
@Carroll,
please note carefully that the discussion here is about Harrit’s whitepaper “Why the Red/Gray…”. You talk of microspheres, credit cards, toner, … WHY?!?!?! This is off-topic, a distraction, confusing, incoherent, and plainly unwanted. Please refrain from mentioning things not directly related to Harrit’s whitepaper! Thanks!
“Norm replies: No, silly. A bad set of arguments ought not be anybody’s business except the author’s”
Ad “Tu quoque” to the rapidly growing list of fallacies you commit in this discussion 😉
And note: I DID in fact address the bad set of arguments in Harrit’s whitepaper at length, while you, Norm, FAILED to address my arguments.
You lose the debate by default for not even trying to address any arguments.
Aw shucks. I lost the debate. I concede defeat, then, and retire, bruised and beaten and humiliated and shamed, from this merciless battlefield where only the true titans of reason do remain standing.
Ok, bye, until you are ready to actually address my arguments, rather than put me down personally 🙂
There is no evidence of thermite damage to WTC steel on 9/11. Like looking for gun in a murder by knife, illogical. The Jones/Harrit paper includes a DSC for the dust compared to nano-thermite, and the graphs do not match. The energy level in Harrit/Jones dust does not match the energy levels of thermite. Burning paper or plastics create more heat energy than thermite can produce. Gasoline/jet fuel have 10 times the heat energy of thermite. The office fires in the WTC towers prior to collapse had more heat energy than 2,700 tons of thermite. How much thermite was used in the fantasy version of 9/11.
john spoke, and all went quiet . . . and in the distance, the faint stridulating of one lonely cricket could clearly be heard, it being midday . . .
If the Emails are ever published I have something shocking to add, but that is up to Admin, to publish them with Dr. Jones’s permission, over Ziggi’s who was not a perticipant in the conversation objections.
Steve Jones has given you permission to publish them provided you publish them in entirety. We have told you we will format them for you once you send us the complete collection. So far you’ve only sent some segments with author names removed and in no chronological order. Please send us the entire collection intact and we will publish them as per Jones’s requirement. Until then refrain from alleging anything about their contents please.
I sent you the complete collection as Unedited text files last night did you not receive them or are you bowing To ziggi’s wishes?
We received them this morning.
Admin if you had read the Emails it is probably clear to you why Ziggi doesn’t want the comments about ink toner to be shown.
Effect of Micro- and Nanomagnetite on Printing Toner Properties – NCBI – National Institutes of Health
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › PMC3916107
by M Ataeefard – 2014 – Cited by 4 – Related articles
Jan 19, 2014 – One of the most important ingredients of toner is magnetite (Fe3O 4) which … Iron oxide is the strongest natural magnetic mineral; it occurs in many …
Please could someone just give a workable coherent theory that would involve A thermite or explosive CD, that fits the observed evidence?
I have looked at this from a Science prospective for yesrs but as yet none has been proposed.
All have fallen collapsed in upon themselves.
Great news from AE911Truth:
I just received an email from AE911Truth with the encouraging news that the article, “15 years later: on the physics of high-rise building collapses” by Steven Jones, et al, which was recently published in Europhysics News, the magazine of the European Physical Society, has just exceeded 250,000 online views. In addition, the magazine’s 25,000 subscribers — all physicists in Europe — have received a printed copy in the mail.
The article was also recently published in Off-Guardian here:
https://off-guardian.org/2016/09/07/on-the-physics-of-high-rise-building-collapses/
According to Europhysics News’s metrics, this dwarfs the popularity of the next most read article which has received about 1,300 online views. So it seems that many scientists and engineers are certainly interested in the topic!
AE911Truth are mailing the Europhysics feature to 164 employees and contractors who worked on the NIST WTC investigation, in the hope that this will encourage some of them to speak out.
A PDF of the article can be obtained here:
http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016474p21.pdf
from Steven Jones in response to Carrol Sanders:
Yes, I recall his emails and those of Frank Greening – I would like to see Mr. Sanders release these emails as long as –
1)He releases ALL of the exchanges that include my name on the emails in any way (including cc’s)
2)This would include comments from David Chandler also. Those comments to Greening are remarkable, imho.
I don’t want to see him cherry-picking my comments, as he seems to be doing now.
Sanders wrote:
“To continue the debate I gave my word I would not publish them without Jones permission I did not say I would not discuss them as historical documents.
Jones can free me of that promise if he so choose to do so….”
Well, I don’t recall exacting ANY SUCH promise from Sanders – but as he releases the documents, we shall see, won’t we?
IF I exacted such a promise from Sanders, which I doubt, I now “free [him] of that promise” – Again, as long as he makes ALL the email exchanges available to the public, including comments by David Chandler.
I certainly do not have time to go back to old emails and do this – but he has said he would publish them with my permission, so let’s see him do it!
Je lance le defis.
Steven Jones
I have no problems releasing the entire conversation, in it’s oridginal unedited state, and making it public as long as Jones has no Objection it will however take some time to format it to a form that can be uploaded the invite conversation is stored on one DVD.
You can send us the raw text files if you like and we can format them.
I have sent you the first batch of Emails there are several more I have thousand from multiple researchers, I have to go though, I am only sending those that are relevant to Jones and in my possession.
Some of my other Email respondents have asked for privacy, including some of the NIST researchers that I have had disagreements with I have to sort though them all, and I am removing the Email addresses.
We haven’t received anything from you so far. Send to [email protected]
Admin, he has already provided excuses for his plan to send you the emails edited to his liking. There is nothing in those emails to support his case. These 2008 emails involved speculations by Dr. Greening about Dr. Jones finding spheres from fly ash contamination but Dr. Jones put that idea to an end when he published the nanothermite paper with Harrit et al in 2009, which showed that a red thermitic material found in the dust forms those spheres upon ignition. Blast furnaces are able to form fly-ash spheres because they reach double and even triple the temps of open air fires such as building fires, and those spheres end up as oxides because they are formed via burning/oxidation. If you take the time to understand Harrit et al you will see that the red material forms iron from ion-oxide via the opposite process called reduction, and that this process is called the thermite reaction.
I wont post more comments here but if you have any questions you have my email address. In the meantime you can read all about the Harrit et al study and refutations of the various BS put out by the JREF/ISF so-called “debunkers”:
http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-you-should-make-donation-at.html
Did see a Ziggi anywhere on the list of Emails I already sent did you Admin Jones is OK with releasing the Emails what does Ziggi fear.
And I am trying my best to recover all the emails in their original conversation unedited.
We already established the the false meme, Microspheres mean thermite is false Ziggi.
That should have been Didn’t see Ziggi Admin, voice type messing up on this not so smart phone.
I am still working with only my phone right now.
Hey Ziggi any word on that Mark Basile study, that on the red gray chips, can’t he settle this debate for us?
That was the additional TEM work? To confirm (or falsify) Harrit et al?
No that is the additional testing by an independent Lab Ziggi raised 5000 Dollars to do and never has been done.
Should have taken a couple weeks No word on it in years.
http://www.markbasile.org
Ziggi knows that the 2009 paper by Harrit et al (actual lead author was Steven Jones) suffers from huge problems:
It’s conclusions rest on the internal assumption that all dust chips that are attracted to a magnet and are layered red and gray are essentially the same material – regardless of their elemental composition: They say that some contain copper, or barium, or lead, which others down’t. The chip in Fig 14 has a composition very much different from those in Fig 7, the ignition residue in Fig 25 alone is rich in titanium, etc.
But why shoud we expect that materials with different elemental compositions have the same properties – thermal as well as when tested with methods like MEK-soaking or measuring electric resistivity?
Ziggi is fully aware that some of the paper’s authors later tried to back paddle and suggest that some of those red/gray, magnetic chips are actually really just paint. This raises the question: How can a researcher who tries to replicate the study distinguish the “thermitic” chips from paint chips? The paper gives no answer, for no method other than magnetic attraction and visual inspection for red+gray layers has been applied consistently to the chips that made it into the study!
Ziggi himself has been evading the question for more than a year and can’t answer it:
By what non-destructive method and objective criteria – in addition to selection by magnet and visually seperating red-gray chips – can a researcher (e.g. Mark Basile) who attempts to study the “energetic” red-gray chips, that are alleged to be thermitic, distinguish them from mundane materials such as paint?
This is a disappointing situation! Ziggi has declared himself the gatekeeper of Mark Basile, a chemical engineer for whom Ziggi, along with JM Talboo and Rick Shaddock, has raised $5000 with the promise that Basile would
1. Select magnetic, red-gray chips from WTC dust samples
2. Choose the “best” candidates
3. Send them to independent labs for analysis
4. Publish monthly progress updates once funds are being expended
The problem is: How does Basile propose to choose the best candidates? This would at least require answering the bolded question above, Ziggi can’t answer it, Basile hasn’t answered it, and Jones has provided dishonest answers (e.g., he has said that measuring the resistivity would be a necessary test, when this was definitely NOT done on the specimens shown in his own paper with Harrit).
The money has been raised more than three years ago. No progress has been reported by Basile in more than two years.
It seems inevitable to conclude that Basile cannot distinguish any allegedly “thermitic” chips from mundane primer paint!
So an “official” attempt to replicate and verify the ‘Harrit et al.” study would be in order, then?
The presence of thermite in the WTC dust has not been conclusively proved and won’t be until we get info on whether the chips can go off in an inert gas – ie take their oxygen from the ferrous compound.
Thermite or no, though, the NIST report remains inadequate. For me and many others it’s not a question of competing hypotheses, it’s a question of NIST’s failure to establish the fire-collapse hypothesis as being the most probable. They have not been thorough in ruling out other – seemingly more probable – causes and have not provided adequate data to support their seemingly improbable conclusions.
Too many unanswered questions. Too many unaddressed anomalies. Insufficient explanation of why an unprecedented event could somehow happen – three times – on one day.
I don’t endorse (or dismiss) the thermite claim, but I do support the call for a new enquiry to resolve these problems
I have never had a problem with a new Inquiry, I just have problems with people making invalid claims that poison the well for discussion of the scientific evidence on the historic and tragic events of 9/11/2001.
I refused to sign Jones’s petition because he was not a truthful scientist and I have no faith that AE/ 911 truth are actually interested in true research either.
There is to much intellectual dishonesty that they have promoted, to view them as anything more than a private for profit organization cloaked in a not for profit.
I have absolutely zero interest in slagging off scientists or their motives. I don’t know what was motivating Jones, Harrit, Millette, Sunder or anyone. Only obscurantism( pace CloudSlicer) is helped by diverting into personal attacks. Let’s critique the science and only the science.
There are no “problems”. It isn’t solely NIST, it is also Arup, backed up by the vast majority of actual architects and engineers. The collapse due to fire explanation is — by far — the most probable explanation.
The problem with the present ‘truther’ orthodoxy — the assertion that thermite of some sort was used — is that there is no mechanism given. How do you use thermite to bring down any of these buildings? You require extremely large amounts, and special preparation, to get a useful result. (Harrit’s “hundreds of tonnes” comment in his interview on Danish TV, quickly walked back, would probably bear out.)
Using thermite to burn through the structural steel that the supporting columns were built from would require special preparations (they’re vertical, so the thermite reaction isn’t going to be drawn onto them by gravity). Burning through the girders that comprise cross-bracing wouldn’t do enough to cause a collapse. In the case of the towers, burning through the connections that retain the floors would work — but the floor supports sagging due to fire exposure is a far, far, more probable mechanism: especially as there is visible confirmation of the outer walls being pulled in prior to collapse.
The thermite claim is an extraordinary claim, and as such it requires extraordinary evidence. Not just that it was present, but that it could achieve anything. Harrit’s pile of dust isn’t going to cut it — thermite doesn’t even point to a mechanism.
The only problem with the thermite theory is the current lack of data on the inert gas question. Follow ups are needed. I see not enough data to assert the presence of thermite as a certainty, and yet the red-gray chips remain anomalous. If they are primer paint why did Millette fail to prove it or even to publish? If not primer paint, then what? We simply do not know.
In purely scientific terms the claim of thermite is not extraordinary at all. You seem to use this term subjectively to denote things you find hard to believe, bit this is not what “extraordinary claim” means.
In purely scientific terms the presence of thermite is far less extraordinary than the claim of fire-induced collapse. Because thermite is a known agent of demolition and is precedented, whereas fire-induced collapse of comparable buildings has literally never been recorded before and is therefore unprecedented.
That is NOT to say that thermite is therefore provenly present or that fire-induced collapse is therefore ruled out. I am merely pointing out your incorrect terminologies, and that fire-induced collapse is in point of fact the most extraordinary claim in simple terms of scientific precedent.
Interesting discussion, thanks to everyone for your contributions.
Again, approaching this from the lay person who wants to steer clear of claiming to be sufficiently knowledgeable to adjudicate conflicting claims, I have a few observations/questions for those who claim this level of expertise.
Does anyone know when Steven Jones first claimed that thermite was used to bring down the towers ?
I may be wrong on this point but I seem to recall him making this claim in the weeks /months after 911.
Just wondering if anyone could shed some light on why it took him 8 years (? ) to test his claim ?
If my memory is correct, isn’t this inaction somewhat inexplicable ?
Taking him and his claims at face value, I am trying to imagine how a responsible person who believed he had just witnessed the demolition of the 2 wtc towers using thermite would make no attempt to visit the vicinity of ground zero to gather evidence ?
It is also remarkably omniscient of him to have been able to determine based on viewing videos of the fires/collapse that thermite was involved and then have his suspicions confirmed by testing.
Assuming he has no special knowledge of building fires, structural failure etc., one would assume that the millions of other physicists in the u.s. and worldwide would have been equally well qualified to come to the same conclusion as him, and yet, apparently almost none did or if they did, are all too intimidated to speak out.
Even if they are in Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other official enemy states of the u.s.
Isn’t is also remarkable that Jones was apparently unable to convince a single one of his peers to support his claims ?
Is honesty really such a rare commodity among scientists ?
Jones didn’t enter into the 9/11 debate or make any public statements about 9/11 until 2005.
The thermite claims are based on analysis of the WTC dust, not on watching vids.
Jones has worked with colleagues at BYU and elsewhere to produce the thermite studies. You must be aware he is not the only scientist who has alleged the presence of thermite or questioned various aspects of the official theory.
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, I am aware that he is not the only scientist who has alleged the presence of thermite etc.
By peers here I had in mind his colleagues in the physics/engineering departments at BYU, namely, those individuals who would have been familiar with his 911 related claims while also , presumably, viewing him as a respected physicist with a successful academic career and therefore someone to be taken seriously.
I find it remarkable that apparently not a single colleague from BYU agreed with his 911 claims.
Or if they did, none were willing to go on record with same.
Are honest physicists/scientists really such a rare commodity ?
Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I recalled seeing a video where Jones claimed that his suspicions about the towers being demolished with thermite went back to when he first saw the footage of the fires/collapse i.e. were contemporaneous with 911.
Hence my question about why it took him so long to act on his suspicions.
If indeed he only took an interest in 911 in 2005 then indeed I must be mistaken.
Jones publicly stated that he did not get involved in a he CD theory until after watching Dylan Avery’s 2004 film Loose Change. He watch building 7 fall on that internet film and became hooked.
He first proposed RDX, before thermite, once he was informed RDX would burn off in the fires he proposed nano thermite based on the letter from Lawrence Livermore national Laboratory.
Jones mistook gas pressures work to mean explosives.
Maybe defer further claims or descriptions of what Jones may or may not have done until you have managed to find that email he’s given you permission to publish in full?
Also a reminder that another commenter has asked for a ink to be provided
It is well known that Jones showed scenes from the film Loose change, at his first seminar in 2005 at BYU.
He even publicly stated not in Emails publicly to have Voted for GWB. In 2004 as a conservative Republican.
This has nothing to do with the Email conversations it is history.
In Jones’s own words.
“Personally, when I first saw these videos at WTC7.net and noticed the straight-down
symmetrical collapse of this building, my curiosity was roused as a scientist.12 Of course, you should
observe the collapse yourself and consider if the rapid collapse of the building does not look a bit
strange and worth further scrutiny.”
That was the edited video from Loose Change without the east penthouse falling.
I already pointed out to you that two other BYU faculty scientists were involved in the work on the red-gray chips. There’s little point in asking questions if you don’t bother to read replies.
Thanks for the reply.
Does ‘involved in the work on the red-gray chips’ mean that these BYU colleagues supported his conclusions about nanothermite having brought down the towers ?
Yes, they co-authored the Harrit et al paper cited in this article. The paper btw does not conclude thermite brought down the towers, and this is not Jones’s stated position. The paper cites data that they interpret as indicating the presence of thermite in the WTC dust. It’s precise role in bringing down the towers would have to be determined by further investigation.
please note all the information you have asked for and which I’ve taken the time to provide is available in the article above. Take the time to read before enquiring please.
Thanks again.
Indeed I had missed the involvement of these 2 BYU colleagues.
Heard a lot from Jones, Harrit, Ryan etc. but nothing from Farrer and Farnsworth. But I intentionally don’t bother trying to delve into the scientific arguments for reasons already given.
It is nevertheless remarkable that the videos of the collapse led Jones to suspect the involvement of thermite and further that he was able to confirm same through testing the dust. To me it either implies remarkable omniscience on Jones’ part or alternatively that it was clear to him as a physicist (and therefore millions of other qualified scientists worldwide ) that the collapse could not have been due to plane impacts/fire.
Presuming here that as a physicist he has no particular expertise in building demolition, structural failures etc. and that any forthright and competent physicist ( along with engineers and scientists from a swathe of related disciplines) who also watched the videos of the collapse would have shared his suspicions.
The argument that they do but are afraid to speak out because of the potential blowback to their careers/welfare doesn’t hold up for me as he does not explain the silence of the hundreds of thousands of qualified scientists in official enemy states who should have nothing to fear by speaking out.
Nor does the argument that they would but they are unaware of the evidence as, let’s face it, 911 conspiracy theories have percolated to every corner of our world.
Those who believe that the wtc towers/building 7 were demolished in some form of controlled demolition generally hold the view that this is self evident, and doesn’t require specialist knowledge to conclude, that the evidence for same is vast, equally that it’s clear that NIST is lying/covering up etc.
Given that one would have to conclude that this couldn’t have escaped the governments of Russia, China etc.
And yet , afaik, there is zero evidence of any attempt to use this to blackmail U.S. governments past or present ?
Ok straying off topic here, apologies.
@Jerome Fryer
September 28, 2016
“There are no “problems”. It isn’t solely NIST, it is also Arup, backed up by the vast majority of actual architects and engineers. The collapse due to fire explanation is — by far — the most probable explanation.”
There you go again Jerome, frying up another mess of red herring with generous side helpings of distortion and misrepresentation.
Any acceptable hypothesis must account for all the evidence, but neither NIST or Arup do this, for whatever reason. Instead a great deal of evidence is simply ignored and/or dismissed. That alone is reason enough to invalidate their claims to have ‘explained’ the actual collapses.
The ignored evidence includes: the very high temperatures which persisted for weeks after the collapses and which could not have been due to conventional fires; the presence of molten iron/steel during and after the collapses; sequenced squibs and plumes of smoke in the buildings during collapse; the lateral and high velocity ejection of heavy steel beams and girders from the towers; massive pulverisation of thousands of tons of concrete; and so on.
This is not really a difficult concept to grasp Jerome, so I don’t see why you have a problem with it. Maybe a simple analogy will help:
Imagine this – there is a crime reported to the police and they go to the scene. They find an old lady of 80+ years in her apartment. She’s lying face-down on the floor, with her hands tied behind her back, and she has 6 bullet holes in the back of her head. On the table there is an empty revolver which has been wiped of all fingerprints. Now, there are 4 possible causes of death for a body: 1)Natural causes; 2)Accidental death; 3)Suicide; and 4)Homicide. The police gather the evidence, including eye-witness accounts of gun-shots being heard, and an unknown man running from the building immediately afterwards. The police have a think about it, and decide it was accidental death.
Can you see what is wrong with that analysis and conclusion? Even a child would spot it instantly.
Just to illustrate the point about NIST’s blatant ignoring of facts, their treatment of the issue of molten steel and very high temperatures is clearly shown in this short video:
Eyes Wide Shut: Gross Negligence with NIST Denial of Molten Metal on 9/11
Now do you see the problem?
“The ignored evidence includes: the very high temperatures which persisted for weeks after the collapses and which could not have been due to conventional fires;”
High temperatures are entirely explicable by the fires, and the fires are entirely explicable by the collapse of the towers (while they were still on fire, but that isn’t necessary).
This is why no one in the FDNY found the fires unusual.
“the presence of molten iron/steel during and after the collapses;”
Both parts of that assertion are false. The heat from the collapse and fire was sufficient to make some steelwork glow with heat, but it certainly wasn’t molten. The material seen flowing from the tower was most likely aluminium from the aircraft, and/or other metals with a low melting point. Aluminium glows yellow when heated above its melting point — it does not stay the initial silvery colour.
“sequenced squibs and plumes of smoke in the buildings during collapse;”
There were no “squibs”. What you see is windows blowing out from pressure as the tower collapses.
“the lateral and high velocity ejection of heavy steel beams and girders from the towers;”
This is also entirely expected. No special preparations were made, so the internal structure was not ‘trained’ to collapse nicely — large sections of material were thrust aside, and behaved exactly as you would predict.
“massive pulverisation of thousands of tons of concrete; and so on.”
The towers were very tall, and that locks up a huge amount of potential energy. By the time the lower floors were being collapsed they were being pulverised by an enormous quantity of material travelling at around one hundred miles per hour (close to terminal velocity). Remember also that the concrete used in the flooring was a lightweight material, so unlikely to withstand those conditions well. It comes down to maths: it takes around 0.1 J/g to crush concrete, and there was over 3 J/g of energy available.
It should also be pointed out that the floors did not have to be entirely crushed for the collapse to proceed. They would have come down in large chunks, initially, and you can see this is the case in some of the still photography of the large blocks of material that spalled off from the main collapse (and came down first, because they were then falling at free fall).
What you are suggesting is that all the observed phenomena may have alternative explanation – some more plausible than others. But offering a an alternative hypothesis is not ruling out CD, nor even rendering it improbable.
Watch the video Jerome. There are experts right there (not truthers), examining the strange fused lumps of steel and concrete, talking about the steel being “molten”. The molten steel is well-attested as an observation and Grosse’s flat out denials are unfathomable. Did he not talk to the FEMA scientists who described molten steel? or the firefighters who described molten steel?
If you think the entire potential energy of a falling block is available to pulverise anything it impacts while continuing to fall at near terminal velocity you don’t understand the physics of falling bodies, and presumably you never will since it has all been explained to you numerous times already.
Lose the Banzantian Falling block meme and you might start to understand the Roosd connection failure that occurred in the towers .
The buildings have to begin coming apart inside before movement is observed on the outside.
@Jerome Fryer
September 30, 2016
Thanks, Jerome, for that obfuscating and wild Gish gallop, clearly used to completely evade the central point of my comment, which was this: the official, so-called ‘investigation’ by NIST is invalid because large amounts of potentially pertinent evidence were ignored or dismissed out of hand. Any investigation or inquiry which blatantly ignores evidential data in its analysis, and its subsequent explanations and conclusions, has failed in its performance and should rightly be regarded as worthless and a sham.
It doesn’t matter whether one agrees or not with the proposed results of the inquiry. If pertinent evidence has been ignored or excluded from consideration, then the inquiry was not fit for purpose and needs to be repeated properly.
If the police declare that the death of the poor old lady was accidental (as per my analogy) one may be inclined to accept that result because it comes from ‘authority’, but that does not mean it is correct. It may be, for example, that the police’s conclusion was the most convenient or expedient for some internal or political reason, unknown to the public at the time – [and there are plenty of historical real-world crime examples where this has happened]. But if we were to discover that the police actually ignored factual and eyewitness evidence which may well point at a different cause of death, should we then continue to accept their verdict or should we question it and push for a new, more honest, investigation of the crime?
I don’t really imagine you will be swayed by such arguments Jerome, because you seem to be welded at the hip to the NIST results for some strange reason, and your shenanigans on this thread and others in support of NIST and their fire + gravity collapse hypothesis is now tiresome and increasingly ridiculous. So, in order to alleviate the burden a little I’ve composed a little poem about you:
There once was a Mr J Fryer,
A dyed-in-the-wool Truth denier,
Who considered it wise,
To accept all NIST’s lies,
On the roles played by g and by fire.
Was responding to each of your points. If you had one point, instead of several, then the response would be shorter — so the ‘Gish Gallop’ is on you.
None of your “problems” are in fact problematic. Unrelated accusations don’t address that.
No, you were not “responding to each of [my] points” – you were obfuscating, and you completely evaded my central point about NIST ignoring vital evidence in their so-called ‘study’ and ‘report’ and that this de facto makes it not fit for purpose.
That was the main plank of my argument, and I note that you have just evaded it again in your latest reply above using another familiar technique from your obscurant’s toolbox.
Jerome,
Regarding my point about NIST ignoring the evidence of the lateral and high velocity ejection of heavy steel beams and girders from the towers, you say this:
What the heck does this even mean? “The internal structure was not ‘trained'”!?
The very heavy building components were not trained to suddenly fly out of the building in upward and outward trajectories either, but that did not stop them doing just that,the little rascals!
For the sake of simplicity let’s just focus on this one topic, shall we? Elsewhere on this thread you say that you understand Newtonian physics, so can you please provide a natural reason for heavy beams to be propelled upwards and outwards at high velocities so that they travel hundreds of feet away from the collapsing towers?
Any answer you postulate should fit the observed evidence and comply with Newton’s Laws.
You should learn something about how controlled demolitions are performed.
If you don’t actually know anything about CD, then it’s pretty stupid to be asserting that the WTC collapses were CD.
And once again you evade.
I asked you to justify your statement that –
“large sections of material … behaved exactly as [one] would predict”
– by asking you to explain how beams and girders could experience high velocity lateral ejections, travelling hundreds of feet away from the building. Which physical mechanisms are involved here, which would be capable of doing this?
I myself cannot think of a natural explanation for this behaviour, so I’d be interested to know why you think you can. Please explain.
Nice video it refers to a several violations of the laws of physics, for instance red glowing flowing steel is not possible.
The meteorite mentioned was not molten it was swaged by intense pressure in the rubble pile.
Path subway tunnels and tunnels for cables and piles the ran into the basement of all the buildings acted as ventri tubes pulling air into the pile inducing strong oxidation.
Carbon monoxide is an explosive gas produced in fires in combination with carbon black it can trigger fuel air blasts. Since no detonation waves were noticed or recorded it is most likely that any expulsion not related to pressure events do to collapse would be fire induced fuel air blasts.
Low melt metals like lead and aluminum were found in the rubble pile as solidified melts.
No solidified melts of steel were ever recorded,
There was one beam from world trade 7 that underwent Chemical attack, but that could have occurred in the rubble pile as sulfidication do to any of the many sources of sulfur.
As for crushed concrete, the concrete in the towers was a soft light weight concrete, even before the fires it was known to be epoxy anchor only, and easy to bust during drilling and anchor setting.
After Spaulding in the fires it would have been even softer.
Given that fast acting thermite or explosives explain none of those occurrences in the video what is the point in posting it in this thread?
As Lynn Margulis stated, scientific method requires that you explore the most obvious hypothesis first. As controlled demolition was the most obvious hypothesis shouldn’t that be tested? And when you test that hypothesis do you need the presence of explosives to prove it. Can you not do it just from the way it actually fell, or substantially at least?
Very good point and question. No one can deny the collapse of WTC7 at least superficially resembles a controlled demolition in every observable characteristic, from the initial drop of the penthouse to the perfectly symmetrical implosion at or near free fall. There is no historical or video evidence of any natural collapse that resembles the collapse pf WTC 7 (or indeed i and 2) even slightly. And of course NO historical precedent for comparable buildings collapsing at all (never mind symmetrically at or near free fall) due to fire.
So, yes, NIST ought to have examined explosive demolition as a first probability. Precedent and the observable collapse of WTC7 made this highly likely. The fact they didn’t can speak only of overwhelming incompetence (unlikely) or some form of political interference.
I don’t think we can simply assume controlled demolition on what we have at the moment however. There’s a small chance other factors, including natural collapses of a previously unknown kind could be at work.
This is why we need a new inquiry and some wholesale testing of any remaining steel structures.
Yet no shrapnel damage was ever found, no Monrue’s effect, No detonation waves, and no mushrooming of steel do to thermite cutting under intense loading.
In other words no one saw, heard, or found any evidence Of CD, and Jones & Harrit knowingly left their work inconclusive.
Jones’s and Harrit both knew thermite was self oxidizing, has to contain aluminum, has to produce Al2O3 as a biproduct of it’s oxidation.
So when they didn’t find Elemental Aluminum in the TEM done by Farrer the next logical step, to finger print this so called smoking gun would to have been inert gas testing and then analysis of the results.
So Jones and Harrit may have rushed to publication and it backfired on them.
“In other words no one saw, heard, or found any evidence Of CD, and Jones & Harrit knowingly left their work inconclusive.”
This is patently untrue. There was abundant evidence CD and of explosions and the effects of explosions, along with evidence of the common products of certain incendiaries, such as molten iron/steel pouring from the towers and gathering in pools in the rubble. This is clear from both eyewitness and recorded evidence.
The truth is that NIST actively chose to ignore and dismiss such evidence because it did not fit with their predetermined strategy of concluding a fire + gravity collapse. In other words, NIST’s ‘inquiry’ was dishonest and a sham, and not fit for purpose.
You seem to have no difficulty of accusing Harrit and Jones of ignoring certain crucial factors in their analytical methodology which, you say, therefore invalidates their analysis and conclusions.
So why do you have such a blind-spot when it comes to assessing the work of NIST?
I have disagreed with NIST many times, but I judge everything by logic.
If I hear a reporter state she is standing on rivers of white hot molten steel, then she is either hyping the story for the media or incenerated.
I can not under stand how steel at 1000C would be flowing from the building molten, as I have to heat and have heated steel to 1565C to melt it to do casting.
Thermate would produce Iron Sulfate not iron sulfide, Iron sulfate breaks down at about 350C in air.
What is proposed even by eyewitnesses has to make logical sense. Otherwise it has to be discounted scientificly.
“I can not under stand how steel at 1000C would be flowing from the building molten, as I have to heat and have heated steel to 1565C to melt it to do casting.”
Question: How do you know the metal seen flowing from the building is at 1000C ? Was that temperature measured, or are you assuming it? If it was measured please cite a source.
I agree that if the molten metal was iron/steel then it must have been at a higher temperatures than 1000C. Surely you can concede the point that this may be explained as the result of some (as yet unverified) thermitic reaction(s) taking place within the building?
There’s ample evidence of temps in excess of 1500C. White hot steel, molten steel all reported at Ground Zero. Thermal imaging found temps of up to 2800F in the rubble hot spots. If you selectively ignore the data you’re just affirming your own prejudice.
Was that during Clean up operations, when oxygen cutting was occurring?
Agreed Moriarty,
The molten steel pouring from the building must have been in the region of 1500C, and I’m not sure why Carroll uses the 1000C figure in this context, other than the fact that NIST say that the max gas temps reached in the WTC fires was 1000C.
From its appearance it certainly looks like molten steel and not aluminium as NIST suggest. NIST has not been able to properly explain this pouring metal and have effectively skirted around the problem in typical fashion.
As you say, there is ample evidence of very high temperatures, including persuasive thermal imaging showing temps in the rubble up to 2800F (1538C) which very close to or above the melting point for steel.
So, if we have molten iron/steel and the fires were not hot enough to do the melting, then what was? Looks like we’re back to some type of high temperature incendiary as a likely possibility on this evidence alone.
How do you make thermite react that slowly, you are talking a reaction lasting weeks can you even imagine how much thermite that would require?
The color of the material is yellow, if it were Iron it would be 1000C that is why Steven Jones proposed thermate in the first Jones/ Greening debate in 2005.
Jones believed the sulfur in thermate would !ower the melting point of steel.
Moriarty’s Left Sock wrote: “There is no historical or video evidence of any natural collapse that resembles the collapse pf WTC 7 (or indeed i and 2) even slightly.”
Here are two natural collapses that share characteristics of the WTC7 perimeter collapse – symmetry, suddenness:
1.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6DwUoqzaeI&t=150
Imagine you were watching this looking at the left face from a right angle: That face collapses symmetrically and suddenly after the structure behind it went first. Same as with the WTC7 north face, which dropped after the core had collapsed asymmetrically (east several seconds before west).
2.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwQS8xnaPe4
No comment
Each one is a steel framed building? And each has been determined to be collapsing at ‘free fall?”
Steven E. Jones debunked the free fall claim for the towers himself in his public letter to Woods and Frazer.[citation needed – also who are “Woods and Frazer”? – OffG ed]
Who said anything about the Towers?
That first video raises more questions than provide answers. How tall was this building? What state of repair was it in? (It seems to have scaffolding over one side and to be leaning). Why did it fall down? (the video is making bizarre claims about “mysterious planes”). If this was a steel-framed solidly-built high rise collapsing in its own foot print after localised fires then you need to say so.
I don’t understand why you think those questions are raised. I posted the videos in response to Moriarty’s claim:
“There is no historical or video evidence of any natural collapse that resembles the collapse pf WTC 7 (or indeed i and 2) even slightly.”
This quote does not limit itself to buildings of certain heights, structural materials or collapse cause other than it be “natural”. Asking about fires is your artificial addition.
That building in Nigeria collapsed while it was (aopparently illegally) appened with one or two more stories, which may have overloaded the existing structure. It was not a CD, so it is safe to assume that this total collapse resulted from some initial local failure. And yet: Do you not see how, watching from a position more to the left, the face on the left appears to collapse “suddenly” and “symmetrically”? Moreover, that building drops largely straight down into its own footprint – something that WTC7 did not quite as neatly, after all, significant debris from WTC7 crossed the streets on all four sides and caused huge damage to buildings across the street on two sides. In particular, Fiterman Hall on 30 West Broadway was hit on the roof by WTC7 so badly it had to be torn down eventually. This was NOT a collapse “into its own footprint” in any usefull sense, certainly not in the sense this term would describe actual CDs that are specifically designed NOT to damage surrounding infrastructure (streets…) and buildings!
I would very much appreciate if you could acknowledge the fact that WTC7’s collapse caused very serious structural damage to buildings very clearly outside of its footprint – just so I know you aree devoted to telling actual truth. Thanks
Pyrotechnical Confession and World Trade Center Arson Case 9/11
http://911truthout.blogspot.com/2016/09/pyrotechnical-confession-and-world.html
clear example fire fighting actives by PA..
Escape from Tower One by Marianne Millnamow
Page 28 “I found two men WITH HOSES (not FF) trying to extinguish the blase,
North Tower Stairway A 77th floor 9:00AM.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12497228-escape-from-tower-one
“As controlled demolition was the most obvious hypothesis”
Why do you think that?
Controlled demolition was extremely unlikely, for a multitude of reasons. The most obvious reason being that there is no plausible benefit to be gained from blowing up the buildings (and in particular WTC 7, which had no symbolic value and which collapse caused no casualties).
The reason why CD was the “most obvious hypothesis” has been covered many times and does not need to be said again. Given the fact that NO building of similar construction to any of the WTCs had previously been brought down by fire, the INITIAL assumption had to be that CD was the more probable event. But instead NIST went straight to the assumption of fire-induced collapse.
No building of similar construction has suffered simular damage and simular fire conditions, if there is one please show it?
Note I am aware of all the fires and conditions in those fires as well as the buildings structures.
The safe guards to prevent fire damage, and Chimney effect fires were compromised, please don’t make unsustainable claims.
Even if the claim of uniqueness is true this doesn’t change the burden of proof. The claim that fires brought down the buildings can only be proved if other more probably causes are investigated and ruled out. Neither side can circumvent proper investigation merely by asserting their opinions as fact.
Regardless of whether CD was involved or not the fact that the incidents were unique makes comparison of said events with events that do not match them worthless.
That is not an opinion just a fact.
As for CD, the fact fires are noted, the fact damage to the buildings were noted.
The fact a transit was set on the building and a lean was noted prior to collapse are indications against CD.
The people making the CD hypothesis claim can not propose any valid workable theory that is consistent with observation.
For instance how do you protect charges from fires?
How do you protect charges from shock induced detonations?
How do you detonate said charges?
The CD hypothesis has holes you could fly the milky way galaxy though with plenty of space to spare.
Leaping from no previous total collapse of a steel framed high rise to assertions of controlled demolition is incredibly foolish.
The facts do not point to that hypothesis.
It is far more likely that, as both NIST and Arup found (and several other independent researchers that did partial analysis agreed with) the collapses — all three — were due to fire and the effects on th steel structure. If the buildings had been built differently they would not have collapsed due to fire. A lot of NIST’s work has ended up being put into practice with new regulations for similar buildings, to prevent recurrence of such a catastrophic failure.
Any form of controlled (or ‘uncontrolled’, which would be more accurate given the uneven and highly destructive collapses) demolition would have been entirely unnecessary and incredibly risky. How would you get explosive materials past the security, in the first place? How do you spend weeks to months working directly on the steel work? The extraordinary nature of the claim requires extraordinary evidence, as I keep pointing out.
When you say NIST and ARUP “found the collapses were due to fire,” you seem to imagine these bodies examined all the evidence and determined fire-collapse was more likely. You need to understand they did NOT do anything that rigorous.
What they did was begin with an assumption that fire brought the buildings down and then produce models to “validate” these assumptions.
They explicitly never considered or looked into the possibility of explosives or of any other method of demolition in addition to or instead of fire.
Given that fire had never before (or since) produced such collapses this initial assumption on the part of NIST is inexplicable other than by gross incompetence or political interference.
NIST should have begun by assuming the likelihood of some form of CD and only proceeded to consider fire-induced collapse when it had entirely ruled out that possibility (if indeed it could).
This is why we need a new investigation.
BTW- I agree no one should simply assume CD as a fact. But no one responsible would say that. What we need is a new investigation. That’s all.
Nist’s mandate was to study the Collapse in the interest of public safety, there was no physical evidence at all for CD ever found, there was evidence of fire, fires were directly observed, and reported by Fire Fighters.
The only evidence for CD would have to have come from the steel and would have been spotted easily.
The fact we have so much steel saved, anything unusual, kind of points to the fact that no one saw CD deformed steel in the rubble piles.
They never looked for physical evidence of CD. In science you don’t find what you aren’t looking for.
“So much steel saved”? Are you living in a parallel universe?
“Some 185,101 tons of structural steel have been hauled away from Ground Zero. Most of the steel has been recycled as per the city’s decision to swiftly send the wreckage to salvage yards in New Jersey. The city’s hasty move has outraged many victims’ families who believe the steel should have been examined more thoroughly. Last month, fire experts told Congress that about 80% of the steel was scrapped without being examined because investigators did not have the authority to preserve the wreckage. “ New York Daily News, April 4 2002
Even Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, one of the few people allowed to inspect some of the steel before it was removed said he had no time to really examine it properly.
“Thanks to cooperation of the HSNE recycling plant, I have been able to study the steel from the WTC before recycling. … I wish I had more time to inspect steel structure and save more pieces before the steel was recycled…”
.”http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full02/mar06/astaneh.htm
We currently have less than 1% of the total steel preserved. We have 13 out of 100+ “trees”? Pieces from the base of the core columns that were never involved in whatever it was that melted and bent and twisted the upper storeys.
You think less that 1% is “so much”? You see no evidence of unseemly haste in removing the rest?
And who has even been allowed to examine these tiny remnants?
Yet people with explosives experience were on site since day one.
FBI, NYPD, ATF, all on scene and nothing even noted.
We are asking the wrong questions about 9/11
In 2001, there existed worldwide only about 230 highrises of similar steel-frame design – that’s a very low number. All of these are relatively modern and built to reasonable fire codes, mandating passive and often active fire protection.
None of these buildings, except WTC7, ever suffered the kind of brutal events that happened on 9/11. Most significantly:
– Active fire suppression (sprinklers) were rendered inoperable (risers cut by plane impacts in 1+2, water mains damaged by 1+2 collapses for WTC7)
– Fires started on several floors at once – a rare scenario hardly covered by codes
– Fire compartments broken by massive external damage
Additionally, no active fire fighting was possible – in the twins this was mostly due to the sheer height of the towers – it took firefighters were long to get there. After the collapse of #2, fire fighters were pulled away from attempting to get to the fires.
All these were circumstances that make all three WTC towers stand out as exceptional in the history of highrise fires.
CloudSlicer has asked us to post his comment for him/her:
The commentator going by the name Carroll Sanders has made claims on this thread that he was involved circa 2006/7 in email exchanges with Greening and Jones about the iron spheres, so I did a little digging.
I found a record of such an exchange in which a ‘Carroll Sanders’ is named once or twice by both Greening and Jones. I provide the link below.
I have not yet read the emails entirely, and it may well be that this particular record is incomplete (there may be others out there).
It seems, according to Greening’s emails, that fly-ash from power station boilers and incinerators may contain small spheres, which are created at relatively low temperatures in a complex chemical process, and fly-ash is sometimes used in concrete mixtures. So some such spheres may have been present in the concrete used in the WTC which were then liberated when the concrete was pulverised. They may also have formed to some extent in the WTC fires, but I think that would necessitate Carroll’s postulated chimney-effect fire, which may have happened. And, of course, that does not rule out the possibility that they may also have formed from the use of thermite/thermate substances. There may in fact have been microspheres present in the dust from all three sources together.
Link to emails between Greening and Jones (circa 2007):
http://www.sharpprintinginc.com/911/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=70&MMN_position=186:186
No there would not have been spheres in the concrete, the iron spheres in concrete are magnetically seperated out, of the fly ash, the other metal spheres actually from the use of burning old tiles in the Cement kilns would still be in the concrete.
Those though would be molybdenum and not magnticly seperated, aluminum spheres also found by Jones would be from light switches and other sources.
There is a really good paper on mirco spheres, simple cigarette lighters produce them, as does welding, cutting and grinding.
They have been found in Antarctica, and the Greenland ice sheet.
They are routinely transported by Humands, you can even find medical studies on them being found in human bodies.
One of the dust samples Jones received actually came from a welders apartment, another from a bridge both of those samples had contamination problems, because of expected natural contamination.
I believe though that Jones & Harrit discounted those samples and removed them from the study.
Using microspheres as proof of thermite is highly problematic, aluminum fuel and self oxidation are the only true ways to verify thermite and that is what Harrit & Jones failed to do.
The thing I find very curious about all of these shenanigans Carroll, is this: if you are such an expert on the production of microspheres and their analysis, as well as an expert on the chemistry and correct analysis of thermitic materials, why is it that you have not produced a paper (perhaps with your colleague Greening) which rebuts the Harrit and Jones work and explains where they went wrong?
After all, you say in an earlier reply to a comment by Norman Pilon that you “have been researching this since 2005” – surely you’ve had enough time by now to put thought to paper and have it published.
And if, in reality, you do not actually possess the requisite scientific acumen to do this, why is it that no other expert has done so instead of you during the last 7 years since the Harrit et al paper’s publication, if “Harrit & Jones failed” (as you put it) so badly?
When will the case actually be made for thermite?
This is all known Science everyone that has looked including Jones and Farrer, Millete, and even Mark Basile has not found any elemental Aluminum in these chips.
Why publish a paper on nonsense it would be a waste of time and resources even submitting it.
Let Jones &:Harrit make the claim by doing the work properly before I waste resources on this, Jones & Harrit need to show at least three things to prove thermite.
Elemental Aluminum
Self oxidation
Aluminum oxide residue.
Those are the three components that prove thermite conclusively.
Carroll FBI bomb squad reported extreme temperatures on audio tapes but somehow you missed that news.
Gerry Fornino, FBI bomb technician, says that “heat was 3,000 – 4,000 degrees
N.W.O was talked about by the 9/11 Commission members.. Other confessions about nano tech and new tech weapons have been spilling daily for 15 years.
9-11 Cop Breaks Silence – Israeli Mossad Involvement in Attacks
https://archive.org/stream/9-11CopBreaksSilence-IsraeliMossadInvolvementInAttacks/9-11CopBreaksSilence-IsraeliMossadInvolvementInAttacks_djvu.txt
CNN Reported Second Plane impact before the impact.
Daniel, you do the Gish Gallop – can’t you concentrate on what is actually being debated here? Carroll, in the post you replied to, asked: “When will the case actually be made for thermite?”
And indeed this debate is supposed to scrutinize three papers (By Harrit et al, by Millette, and by Harrit alone) on red-gray chips alleged to be “active thermitic material” by some.
I think it is best if you, too, tried to focus on that, and learn what’s so flawed about the work of Harrit and Jones.
Do you assume that Harrit et al found active nanothermite in the shape of these red-gray chips?
Do you think the red-gray chips are primer paint? Because primer paint that essentially blows up at 430C would be would be pretty bizarre. If not primer paint, then what?
There is no evidence that any of the chips “blow up”. It is not surprising that they burn away fast when heated massively by am extremely hot torch – they are tiny, which means a large surface-mass ratio. You could likely get the same effect when you direct the hot torch at a mustard seed or a small bit of ear wax. However, the DSC traces show that the chips smoulder away slowly (in the course of several minutes!) when heated slowly and controlledly.
Do you make any effort to differentiate the composition and properties of these spheres?Have you compared the ones for the WTC dust with those produced by the various methods you describe? Are you aware of any comparable situation where spheres of the same composition have been created – in the same numbers?
Why did Greening never address the questions of temps that Jones kept asking in those emails?
Any finely divided carbon with high surface area can combust vigorously in air, that includes carbon based epoxies used in paint.
There having even been paint dust explosions in automotive body shops, during sand blasting operations.
Yes, we did.
Frank did answer Jones, but Jones would not allow the answer to be made public.
Frank and myself and everyone working with us wanted the debate public it was Jones and Harrit and the other members of Scholars for truth that wanted to keep Jones’s miraculous non discovery private, confidential, and from public view.
You are still using the same rather dubious and theatrical tactics I mentioned before – viz claiming there is all this massively important evidence you would show us if only you could. It’s inappropriate and manipulative.
May I ask why you agreed to keep the email private if you considered it so important? I don’t think there’s any legal obligation to do so is there?
To continue the debate I gave my word I would not publish them without Jones permission I did not say I would not discuss them as historical documents.
Jones can free me of that promise if he so choose to do so.
Jones’s data is now public, so keeping the debate private and secret nolonger has a purpose other than that I gave my word.
If you can’t verify or support your claims about what Jones or others have said then you should not make the claims. That’s tittle tattle and evidentially worthless.
We’ve passed on some of your comments to Jones. If the emails exist and are as important as you say, why not approach him yourself and ask him for permission to publish? It seems the only ethical way to proceed.
Jones would never reply to me, because I questioned his theories long ago. Publicly.[citation needed – OffG ed]
Just type in my name, Dr. Jones’s name, and you will find information about an article in the Maui Times about early experiments I did on natural thermitic reactions.
I did not know at the time 2005-6 why I could produce them and why in Jones’s experiments he could not.
Not until I read the Sandia article did it become obvious
high surface area reduced Iron was the key, I was using similar conditions and the correct fuels, in the correct environment, to produce the required catalyst, high surface area oxidizing iron with and in molten Aluminum that triggered larger reactions.
Jones was only heating the materials in a high oxygen furnace, and then trying to get them to react.
Carroll,
I’ve searched for the Maui Times article you mention about the earlier experiments you did on natural thermitic reactions, but I can’t find it.
Could you please provide a link?
Many thanks for your help with this Admin.
I’ve read the email exchange. At most one might draw this conclusion about Steven Jones position on the conditions for forming iron micro-spheres: high temperatures, at or higher than the melting point of iron, are necessary, regardless of the fuel source of the heat.
Dr. Frank Greening also contends that if Si (silicone) is an element combined into the spheres, that automatically disproves Jones’s theory of the thermitic origins of the spheres. Jones disagrees because the energetic particulates he looked at both ‘ignited’ and contained traces of Si.
Furthermore, Jones does not claim that all of the iron spherules in the WTC7 dust are of thermitic origin. Some, possibly most, are.
In the course of the exchange, some accuse Jones of ‘withholding’ data. However, Jones clearly expresses the same sort of concern that Harrit et al. have expressed in connection with Dr. James Millette, i.e., that those at hand intent upon the data might be less interested in reviewing it dispassionately than to discredit in the court of a scientifically undiscriminating public opinion both his findings and his reputation. He may have a point, eh.
With respect to the spherules, however, in my opinion, the study by Harrit et al. makes the discussion purely academic.
If nano-energetic particles have been found, does it now really matter what the concentration of spherules having a specific chemical signature might be?
Maybe Jones’s method was indeed flawed, and what he found by way of spherules had nothing at all to do with nano-energetic particles. That may indeed be the case — or it might not be. However, either way, what of it? if after examining the WTC dust, the Harrit et al. team have indeed found signature traces of explosives, what can it possibly matter if Steven Jones’s interpretation of the significance of the iron micro-spherules is accurate or not? The study by Harrit et al. is the stronger suit of evidence and thus completely trumps the whatever controversy there might be about the iron micro-spherules.
Furthermore, as Harrit himself has put it, even the finding of nano-energetic particles is but a ‘footnote’ to the entire train of mutually corroborating pieces of evidence that, taken as together, accumulate into the weight of an incontrovertible conclusion. For example, the fact of free fall of WTC7 constitutes, by itself, sufficient proof that something is amiss; the fact of the lateral expulsion of the heavy structural components of the two Towers is also by itself sufficient proof that something is amiss; — but it isn’t just the ‘free fall’ of WTC7 or the ‘exploding outward’ of the two Towers, it these things plus the findings of Harrit et al. and those of Leroy Hulsey et al. and all of the body of evidence archived in places like the servers belonging to the organization of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth that “make the case.”
As Loop Garou aptly alludes to Mathew 23:24, we need to be careful that we don’t end up spending all of our time straining out gnats while swallowing camels whole as we try to come to terms with the important elements of 9/11.
Why don’t you ask Jones to release the other half of the Email debate for public viewing?
I have the entire debate, and he has the right to release it if he wants everything in the open, and to be truthful.
At this point, in my opinion, as I just stated in my foregoing comment, The “microspheres” debate is neither here nor there. For the claims by Harrit et al. definitively eclipse it in order of primary relevance and importance. In other words, it is a pointless waste of time to dwell upon iron spheres regardless of whether Jones was right or wrong at the time that the debate “raged” if signature traces of ‘explosives’ have been found in the dust — no? That Harrit came along, it seems to me, made that entire conversation irrelevant. What now needs to happen with respect to Harrit et al. is that the study be independently replicated and corroborated or disproved. Full stop. If disproved, the spheres might once again become a relevant and pivotal focus of debate. Until then, I think we can all safely put it to be, eh?
What needs to happen is for the expert Harrit to show a fuel source to power a thermite reaction or to print a retraction of the Harrit & Jones paper, as any honest researcher would do.
Are you a Phd, Carroll?
The letters before ones name have no barring on the correctness of the ideas he or she expresses it is the data that counts.
Dr. Linus Paling was a PHD, he was wrong about vitamin C curring colds.
Faraday had no credentials at all, but was one of the greatest scientists of his time.
That isn’t the presumption I’m underscoring, Carroll. If you have a Phd, you are more likely to be in a position to assemble the means to conduct a replication of the Harrit et al. study and then to get that published, eh. So what are your odds?
Do you mean Linus Pauling?
Your spelling, grammar and general presentation do not inspire confidence.
Having said that, I agree Harrit et al have not proved the presence of thermite.
Yes thank you for correcting that, I am sorry trying to work and reply at the same time,
Plus I have minor vision problems from an Aluminothermic reaction that went wrong, I was trying to recreate the conditions of a chimney effect environment inside the towers, when the experiment exploded do to a carbon gas reaction and finely decided iron and molted aluminum was propelled though the air.
If you check the data on Aluminum nano particulate fuels, you will find that particle size, of the Aluminum particles directly influenced oxidation rate of the materials.
There fore Harrit’s own data in finding platelets confirms that the material is not a high speed explosive, it could be used as an electric match, but not to ignite RDX dirrectly, as Jones claimed because it would burn the explosive not trigger it.
To trigger RDX or other nitrate explosives like trinitrotoluene, the material supposed by Harrit and Jones would have to be mixed with copper oxide nano rod thermite, that would provide the shock to trigger the reaction.
As copper oxide nano rod thermite have a burn rate exceeding 800 meters per second and would shock the conventional explosive and trigger a detonation wave.
Monrues effect however would have to be used to concentrate the energy to cut the steel before much damage could be done to the buildings.
Other wise the material found by Harrit is as energetic as strings of pop corn placed on the surface of the steel.
Finding energetic materials is not in itself evidence of crime many materials are naturally energetic.
The only problems with that is Harrit uses the notion that micro spheres produced by these chips that contain carbon and burn in air like carbon, are thermite while Sindia labs points out that carbon can reduce iron at as little as 350C.
That kinda throws a big monkey wrench into the mechanics of what Harrit Claims, and remember no self oxidation, no aluminum fuel, no produced Aluminum oxide was ever found.
I also addressed the finding of SI in Jones’s spectrum it would be produced by some thermates or as contamination in steel which is refined from mineral ores containing SI.
At what temperature does Harrit et al. say their energetic particles “ignited?”
430 C I believe in air.
Thermite ignites at much higher temperatures the ignition is from carbon.
Are you certain that Sindia means to say that the chemical reaction as such does not reach a temperature higher than 350C or that the sol-gel thermitic compound “ignited” at 350C, in the same way that the Harrit particle “ignited” at a specific temperature?
And then what if you are right, how does this “refute” the Harrite et al. study? Is it a replication of the study? If not, then why should anyone care?
The Sandia thermite is the exact type Harrit claims to have found the material was heated to 350 in inert gas, the iron oxide in the thermite reduced to high surface area Iron, when exposed to air the iron oxidized causing the thermite to spontaneously ignite.
Since the compounds are similar just heating the Jones and Harrit chips to the temperature where ignition occurs, 430C Can form reduced Iron microspheres in the chips.
So microspheres in the residue of the Harrit & Jones chips are not conclusive
Proof of thermite as Harrit has stated.
A)
“The Sandia thermite is the exact type Harrit claims to have found . . .”
How do you know this? When was this established? By whom? How? Citation please!
B) Who gives a fuck about iron spherules if what Harrit has found IN the dust is, as you yourself assert it, the same exact type that spontaneously ignited in the Sandia lab? If what Harrit found is like or exactly as Sandia lab’s thermite, then what did he find? Please do answer this one question if not the others.
C) I note that you skirted around my first question in my previous reply. Does the reaction itself evolve at a temperature no greater than 350C or is that the “point of ignition?”
Norman, a quote from Jones.
“Note added, based on comments received 9-9-12 from Dr. Jeffrey Farrer.
1. Dr. Farrer contacted Dr. Tillotson of LLNL regarding the LLNL production and ignition of nano-thermite; Dr Tillotson said the experiments were likely done in atmosphere. After publication of our paper, others have suggested that the experiments in the LLNL publication were performed in an inert atmosphere; so the picture is not clear to us at this time and further contact with the LLNL scientists is advised. It would be best to run studies in both atmosphere and in an inert gas.
2. The DSC run with the ultra-fine aluminum and iron-oxide (which did not ignite in atmosphere) may have been heated to approximately 800 degrees centigrade. Jeff will check his notes.”
The quote refers to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, the very place the accidents Sandia was investigating occurred.
So Sandia was investigating the same Areojel nano thermite Jones believed he had found.
The reduction reaction occurred at 350C.
The oxidation reaction occurred as soon as the heated material was exposed to air.
Dear Carroll,
I’m replying to the comment you made that begins with: “Norman, a quote from Jones.”
I’m trying hard to follow your argument. You are doubtlessly making a point. I need more context to decipher your meaning. You need to elaborate in greater detail.
It is impossible for me to jump, logically speaking, from the Steven Jones quote to the “accident Sandia was investigating” to “So Sandia was investigating the same Areojel nano thermite Jones believed he had found.” Are you saying that samples got mixed up? If so, how? If not, what are you saying?
Too much information is missing for me to even begin to discern the connections that you must have in mind. Please re-write what you are trying to say in a more accessible format.
Going back to my previous comment, lets simplify this exchange and begin with only this:
When you write, the “reduction reaction happened at 350C,” you mean that the iron oxide was, in layman’s terms, broken into its constituent elements, iron and oxygen, and the oxygen combined in this instance with carbon, the reducing agent, the iron oxide being the oxidation agent — right?
Now you seem to be saying either a) that the temperature at which this reaction was triggered was 350C or b) that the peak exothermic temperature of the reaction itself, the maximum heat it gave off, was no more than 350C. Which is closest to your meaning: a) or b), or neither? If neither, then specify exactly what it was that was 350C.
Carroll,
This quote echoes the one you threw at me, but with important distinctions:
Steven Jones is the writer and he is giving advice to someone on how he or she might go about replicating some of the work he and his colleagues did on the WTC dust (worth reading in its entirety, by the way, for anyone reading this comment):
Quote begins:
Quote ends.
Source: http://911blogger.com/news/2012-09-08/letter-regarding-redgray-chip-analyses
A) note that contrary to a claim that have made more than a few times already, namely, that Harrit et al. failed to conduct any DSC trials in an inert atmosphere, Jones and Ferrer (et al.) actually did just that.
B) contrary to your quote, as suggested by persons unknown and to whom Jones is allegedly referring, LLNL did not conduct trials in an inert atmosphere. For good reason: ultra-fine aluminum and iron-oxide powders don’t seem to ignite easily in the absence of an oxygenated atmosphere. So if that isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Harrit et al. paper, we now know why and it isn’t an oversight.
Remind me again how any of this ties into the Sandia National Laboratories incident . . .
Finally, if you can’t cite sources, consider any additional exchanges with me to be at an end.
Norman I am answering your last reply.
The chemical reaction, after ignition produced temperatures of
over 2000C.
The 350C is the drying oven where the reduction reaction occurred.
Jones in 2005 found the 2004 Tillison and Gash letter to the national fireworks convention.
On the Lawence Livermore nation laboratory, Areojel thermite.
Jones found the red gray chips and jumped to the conclusion they were Areojel thermite.
Sandia was investigating the accidents that occurred in the drying oven at Lawrence Livermore national laboratory, involving the same Areojel thermite.
Jones didn’t know that Areojel thermite was worthless as an explosive. Slowest burn rate of any Aluminothermic.
Shock and heat sensitive, used in gun primers, electric matches and fire works.
Norman – Jones tested a thermite he prepared himself not the red gray chips, he found in the dust.
The thermite Jones made himself did not include carbon, therefore it would not ignite in the DSC or in air, below 1400C.
Thermite with carbon will ignite at 430C, in air.
Paint with carbon will ignite at 430C in air.
Areojel thermite will ignite at 430C in inert gas.
Paint chips will not ignite in inert gas, no matter how hot they are.
No inert gas tests on the red gray chips were ever conducted.
[edited for clarity – OffG ed]
Thank you. Now we are getting somewhere. Because it’s late for me, I’ll leave this until tomorrow. But now, I think, I’m both hearing you and understanding you.
Until tomorrow, then . . .
Hi Carroll,
Okay, I see the rationale for why in your mind the Harrit et al. study fails to prove that the red-grey chips were nothing other than primer paint contaminated with carbon.
For you, the definitive test would be to try igniting the chips in an inert atmosphere. If there is ignition, we may have something. If not, then it’s paint.
I’m not entirely convinced that Harrit et al. don’t have what they think they have. Harrit seems to believe that he has answered the ‘primer issue’ to anyone’s satisfaction (see the link above, in OffG’s article). But I do agree, a DSC of the actual red-grey chips in an inert atmosphere would certainly decide things one way or another, and Jones even concurs that that would not be a bad idea.
I think that everyone here agrees, then: the portfolio of experiments by Harrit et al. deserves more scrutiny. That is, it needs to be taken seriously and further investigated. And that is precisely what ‘everyone wants,’ including the Harrit team, as attested to by Kevin Ryan, whose affirmation of this very point I have quoted elsewhere.
Thus the problem is not that Harrit et al. may have produced a faulty study — any scientific study can be faulty and is therefore forever open to being further scrutinized — but that no scrutiny of the study is being formally undertaken by any institution capable of conducting proper and good faith replication and verification. That, and not the study, is the problem.
Do you agree?
Carroll, I’m afraid you are often so incoherent it’s almost impossible to understand what your point is. Your ad hoc grabs of scientific data juxtaposed illogically through your comments are also impossible to evaluate without greater context .
I don’t disagree with your point about the absence of tests in inert gas, and Jones’ comments seem to make no sense, though it’s complicated by questions of exactly how this alleged fine mix “nano-thermite” might behave. If Farrar really got no ignition in inert gas, then where are we?
The calls CAME FROM 904-555-0004.. PDF is a public document.
Betty Ong 904-555-0004
Amy Sweeney 904-555-0004
Barbara Olson 904-555-0004
Barbara was on another flight and still used the same number.
Admin –
I have been trying to post comments, both last night and today, but the system is not displaying them. I have successfully posted comments before, and I have been doiong nothing differently.
Is there something wrong with your comments process?
Well – that one appeared!
I’ll try again with the one I’ve been trying to post today …
watch this space …
Sorry Admin – it just isn’t working. Which is a shame because I’m trying to post a single link to a record of an email exchange between Greening and Jones, which mentions one, ‘Carroll Sanders’ – a commentator on this thread who has been making claims about such an exchange.
My (attampted) comment also includes some notes I made about my own reading of this email exchange, but the overall comment is not long. I don’t know why it’s being blocked.
I’ve tried to post just the link on its own, but the system block it. Weird.
I’ll try emailing the info to the [email protected]
Hopefully you can post it for me?
no idea what might be going on there, you have no comments in the queue
This document may be worth going over. It is a court case that Con Ed brought against the owners of WTC 7, citing structural deficiencies as the cause of collapse following the fire.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1651388.html
This excerpt quotes the FDNY:
There is discussions and opinion presented by Con Ed expert witnesses concerning the fragility of the design.
This case was dismissed, so Con Ed was unable to substantiate their case sufficiently for trial. (I think. IANAL applies.)
No explosives mentioned.
That could be the result of a chimney effect cause by the dislodged elevator doors, rupture of the fuel line to the generators on the roof, or simply increased oxidation of carbon and other combustible materials in the collapses.
Spark plug effect, as I like to call it concentrating oxygen and fuel in the compression zones formed by the collapsing floors as the buildings towers connections fail.
It would have been similar to a cars internal combustion engine, igniting fuel in compressed air.
I stumbled on the phenomenon early in doing fire experiments back in 2006.
J-REF types like Jerome and Carroll hung out for years at the BBC Conspiracy Files blog and comments threads, desperately trying to re-write Newton’s First and Third Laws.
How can some one rewrite Newton’s laws?
The (understand) of the physics is what is in question not the physics.
That was pointed out by many, including PHD physicists.
“The (understand) (sic) of the physics is what is in question not the physics.”
You betcha!
Ask NIST.
What does that even mean?
I think he means that his understanding of the physics is better than anyone else’s.
And that anyone who can’t see, as he himself does, that the destruction of the buildings is all explained by fire-induced gravity driven collapses, has therefore not understood the physics.
Hi Carroll,
Your points and theories are interesting and certainly worthy of addition to the ‘debate’ here. I have a somewhat naive question – can you explain (based on your theory that rather than explosives, the bolts / girders failed in WTC7 causing overall collapse) how it would be possible for all the connections to fail simultaneously so as to initiate such a rapid collapse? Why wouldn’t the resistance offered by lower floors slow the collapse ( below floors on fire). I am aware of reports of buckling of building prior to collapse… Cheers
The east penthouse collapses that weight crushed the lower transfer trusses, the interior of the building then falls towards the damaged side kicking out the facade as it spreads and impacts it from below.
That causes the top of the building to fall into the now empty space with no resistance to collapse.
Thanks – how did the east penthouse collapse exactly then, as it was a long way above the fires?
A chimney effect in the shaft of the dislodged elevator reported by Mr. Jennings.
I only signed up to the ISF (former JREF) a few days ago, specifically to ask about input into this series on Off Guardian, after being prompted to do so by the editors (or one editor, or moderator if those are different people).
I have never seen any of the BBC series. My guess would be that it is shoddy ‘infotainment’ packaged as science reporting. The BBC are incredibly sh*t when it comes to reporting science, as a general rule. (The YouTube blogger I posted links to elsewhere, Miles Powers, has taken them to task for histrionic horsecrap posing as science reporting.)
Newtonian physics does not require any modifications whatsoever. There is sufficient energy in each system, and sufficient explanation by way of leverage, torque conversion, and transfer of momentum, to explain all of the physical events that occurred on 9/11. (I am not very good at the areas of physics that cover the nature of light and other sub-atomic stuff, but I understand Newtonian mechanics fairly well.)
You should stop trying to add to the ‘conspiracy’ element, “marc”. We are in disagreement over facts and explanations. There is no reason to assume that you aren’t some form of paid government stooge, sent to make foolish comments to add to the potency of the ‘conspiracy theorist’ label — outside of the reasoning that this bun-fight is simply unimportant (as are ‘truthers’) from the point of view of officialdom.
To my mind, the biggest problem about the Harrit et al. study of the WTC dust is that it has not been replicated but studiously ignored. It’s not that it was shoddy work or that it was not peer reviewed or improperly published or published by a disreputable publisher, and so on. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with the work as such.
The failure is that of the academic community as a whole, purely and simply, that is to say, that in particular the university chemistry departments the world over haven’t risen to the challenge of verifying the work, either demonstrating the veracity of its results or proving them false or inconsistent, which for technical reasons they might well be, albeit unlikely.
The paper was published in 2009 and apparently circulated broadly. There has been no response but a deafening silence. To my mind, this is telling. What it tells has nothing at all to do with the claims of Harrit et al., but emphasizes the taboo on seriously investigating any matter relating to 9/11 that runs the risk of exposing facts that may run counter to the official narrative. If there is a scandal about the paper at hand, that is it. 7 years and everyone pretends that it simply does not exist.
Kevin Ryan is a hundred times right**: