Hey Version77, Your list of questions is great, why don't you forward it to the people that can make a difference, such as those on the 9/11 commission or other officials. Just try that, and see if you get a response. Hint: Don't hold your breath.
Thank you, too, for your response. Experiment: No Way! An experiment on the required scale is completely out of the question. But I think it is conceivable to try to do a numerical calculation of maximum pressures and interfloor air flows that could be achieved in the tower collapses, taking into account the actual geometry of the towers, as well as what we know about the time scales involved. That calculation would give a better sense whether my, and Turok's much better elaborated, discussion of a scenario for production of the few `squibs' that are seen well below the collapse front is at least conceivable, or is in fact theoretically ruled out. That's all that I meant by backing up my speculation. Ultimately one wants to write some differential equations whose solution will give the air pressure over time in the uncollapsed portions of the building, possibly given varying assumptions about what doors are open and closed. But the real starting point, I think, is just to get rough estimates of the way air pressure evolves with time for the air contained within a single collapsing story, given that you know how the volume of the region evolves up until the windows fail. With those initial numbers one could begin to consider how much of the air might be driven downwards in the collapse of each successive story, versus how much would go out of the windows when they fail. It's obviously a dynamical question, with various, and varying timescales involved -- the whole collapse takes place within a time which is the same order of magnitude as the free fall time, though it is of course, larger than the free fall time, as it must be -- and this gives an average collapse time for each individual story in the building, but the collapse also accelerates as time proceeds. One needs to know the strength of various materials such as the window glass; the actual geometry and resistance coefficients of the possible air flow paths running between floors in the trade center, and undoubtedly many other factors which I haven't yet considered in order to attempt to give any realistic numbers. All of this is hard to do. I'ld certainly want to talk to a structural engineer familiar with the towers before even starting. My intuition is that surprisingly high pressures may indeed be achievable on floors near to the collapse front, and that if a path exists for air to flow to very much lower floors, those pressures could well be transmitted downwards ahead of the collapse. But, to be quite frank: since I would not, not even if my proposed explanation were shown to be impossible, and NO other possible explanation were to be found -- consider the appearance of a few random dust plumes on floors well below the collapse front, which seem to you and to others to look like those that might be produced by explosive devices, to be the smoking gun that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that there were explosive devices involved, I'm simply not going to make the attempt in the first place. Well, I could simply respond that the best a posteriori estimate of the probability of occurrence of an event, given that the event has occurred, is always equal to 1. But that would be possibly impolite. You clearly consider the number to be closer to 0. Of course, I have already admitted above that I have no way of making such a probability calculation in the first place, so I'm certainly not going to play the game, given that I don't have a precise mechanism to work with My answer that the probability is equal to 1 is naturally contingent on my assumption that there were no explosive squibs involved, and that mine was the actual mechanism for producing the dust plumes. My intent was only to establish a possible alternative explanation for the fact that dust plumes or `squibs' appear some 20 floors (or was it 30 or 40 floors) below the collapse front, at some time during the collapse. If I had completed that task then I'ld be more than satisfied. I submit that in fact, the relevant conditional probability calculation for you, if you hold to the conspiracy theory, is the one for the probability that there were explosive `squibs' involved in the first place. And for that question I personally would say you need to look to other determining evidence ... there would have to be quite a few of these `squibs,' in order to collapse the towers. Not just the few apparently visible on lower floors whose appearance you, very correctly in my view, find to be puzzling. I should say that hundreds might be required at a minimum, in order to cut the support at a critical point in the building and initiate a collapse. And then, why is there no evidence at all of remnants of detonators, tape, explosive materials, etc., such as I expect would be easily found in the case of an actual controlled demolition? Recall, too, that in the 1993 terrorist attack there was no difficulty whatsoever in detecting explosives. These `squibs' would need to have been emplaced and wired over a fairly significant period of time, with the work remaining concealed from a very large number of potential witnesses. I think a total of about 100,000 people worked in the towers in total, with around 50,000 being present on average in a typical 24 hour period. Granted, not all of these people would have had the possibility of seeing what was going on. But still, there would be a lot of potential witnesses, and it seems very likely that at least some of these would have been both well informed enough, and in a position to know something wrong was taking place. One can certainly insist that, nevertheless, all of this might have been achieved, but it seems that if things did happen this way, then there must at least have been a very extensive conspiracy among the people who carried it out, and not a single person involved ever spoke up about it, and no hint of the conspiracy has come to light. All of this seems inherently very unlikely to me. So in the absence of real physical evidence for explosive devices, and in the presence of what seems to be a convincing standard story of the mechanism for the tower collapses, which is certainly at least generally consistent with the observed facts, I conclude that the standard story best fits the evidence. Naturally I would consider what the witnesses had to say if I were a juror in court. I don't mean to, and I do not in fact, dismiss the eyewitness accounts wholesale: I simply consider that their accounts are not directly probative of the existence of explosive devices, and that there may be other explanations for what they heard and saw. At best, eyewitness reports of what was heard might be strongly suggestive of explosive devices, only rarely could they be considered probative on their own in a case like this. The reasons are that the scale of this scene is almost unimaginably large in comparison to any one person, and the relevant time scale for hearing the explosions of the `squibs' in question is relatively short: there are certainly not much more than 20 seconds each during which the collapse of each tower takes place. During these seconds, there was certainly a tremendous amount of other noise being produced. This was a very extreme situation. All of that tends to lead to people's accounts being confused, especially if they are not experienced emergency workers. If the suggestion is that there were lots of other, say much larger explosions that weakened the structure, taking place independent of the `squibs,' and previous to the actual collapse, and that it was these that were overheard by witnesses, then I think that the conspiracy theory of the collapse is becoming a bit too overengineered ... too baroque to be likely. It's always necessary in any case to consider the weight that should be attached to any witnesses' testimony in the light of the quality of the opportunity they had to observe the events that they testify about, as well as any special knowledge and experience that they might have, or might need to have to draw conclusions. How many were knowledgeable about explosives, for example? If all of the testimony were combined with solid physical evidence of the explosives in question, then I think it would be a very different matter. Cheers!
do a search, on forbes and rodriguez, both men worked at the twin towers and the first held a position of responsibilty. in a video they talk about a power down before 911...something unprecedented on of a kind event...with drilling, wiring and so on.
i must admit, that i did not know him before i posted the youtube link at all. i just felt he said what sums up my feelings. after your post i googled a little. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky still cannot judge whether he is a liar or a traitor, but if someone with very obvious left orientation does not believe in a conspiracy by people he constantly criticises that sounds not that bad too me regarding his ability to judge as objective as possible. no offense taken ...
dpt i like your style of argument. in addition to your squib comments i ask myself if it would not be absolutely surprising if there were none. i mean the down coming floors MUST have resulted in air pressure below. and i would find it astonishing if the surface of the building would be so tight, that NOTHING comes out. the question is whether something that looks like a squib must BE a squib. i'd say no. cheers.
http://www.thisisbradford.co.uk/new...ls_skipton_audience_of_strange_explosions.php here is a more detailed discussion on it: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=66809 arguments going back and forth. very difficult to judge - at least for me. i think the only solution to this is a public hearing. or however you want to call it. laugh about it. and then think of any other solution. there are not only lunatics claiming something is wrong.
what is difficult to judge? i mean pieces connect together perfectly...especially if u consider that the company that run the drills is owned by marvin bush, u know the wacko's bro.
u wanna hear an explosion? i dont think it can come much better than this: from wtc7: http://www.studyof911.com/video/flvplayer/playmovie.php?video=wtc7_explosion_01.flv