The Obligatory 9/11 Thread Part II

[Weaver]

Psikey - quit saying that people cannot build the models to prove you're wrong.

We choose not to because we don't want to waste time doing it. However that doesn't mean they cannot be built. In fact, YOU are welcome to build it, video it, and prove that we are wrong - if you think this is so important.

I've described what I am pretty sure will prove your claims wrong - a self-supporting structure that collapses when 15% or less is dropped from above - using dowels, spaghetti and washers. You are more than welcome to build it, and to ask me for more details on exactly what I'm envisioning. Hell, if I think you are really interested in investigating this I might spend enough time to come up with a sketch.

But don't think - or continue to assert - that I don't build because I CANNOT - it's because I know it's a waste of time; that even after I build and video a successful model you and others like you will just shift the goalposts or nit-pick irrelevant details (like the exact weight of the floors, or the 1000m/s used in a different model), and that even after you've been shown multiple times how and why you are wrong and barking up the wrong tree, you'll still continue to repeat the same bullshit over and over.

[Dudely]

Kat, he's taking you for a ride.

At 1000 m/s.

All of you people who dish out all of this TALK about a gravitational collapse but then can't build a physical model that can do it are obviously failing to take us on a ride that matters.

psik

I decided to give a shit. Took me 5 minutes:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NZtBL1PjMk[/youtube]
It's even CALLED "Demolition - Top Down".
You can clearly see that both towers fell by way of a failure point most of the way up the building and collapsed progressively.
I'd say I did one better than a model. . .

Not good enough? Here's another. They didn't even need to use explosives, they just pulled it down close to the top and let the weight collapse the rest of it.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL5bkxS2cFU[/youtube]

Keep in mind if you have objections such as how they are not analogous to the WTC that is irrelevant. You asked for any model. Well there you go!

A sideways progressive collapse for good measure. I'll leave the link and not make my post needlessly long.
Again, no explosives used at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIsE8CkZI6U

[Kat Dorman]

I decided to give a shit. Took me 5 minutes:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NZtBL1PjMk[/youtube]
It's even CALLED "Demolition - Top Down".
You can clearly see that both towers fell by way of a failure point most of the way up the building and collapsed progressively.
I'd say I did one better than a model. . .

You certainly did do better than a model, but I'm sorry to say I beat you to it:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post695307.html#p695307

He blew it off then, he'll blow it off now. Probably go on and on about TONS OF STEEL and TONS OF CONCRETE, or 1000 m/s impactors. Maybe bring up Piltdown Man again. Then chide you for not making a tabletop model. Whatever it is, it will take him a lot less than 5 minutes.

Please notice that even though "I beat you to it", I wasn't the one who introduced the video to psikeyhackr. In the post following the one I link above, I wrote:

I decided to "View all comments" on the youtube link above and search for "psik" and, sure enough, he's already seen the video:

Well it looks like that video proves Bazant is wrong because the top falling portion is being destroyed as it destroys the portion below. But that does not look like a steel frame building.

The variation in distribution of strength & mass is greater in a skyscraper more than 1000 feet tall.

Try finding the total weight of a complete floor assembly, 205 foot squares. Those things that may or may not have pancaked. ll that talk and we don't know what they weigh after EIGHT YEARS. LOL

LOL, yeah. Now I know what your next goal post move is, having already seen a building collapse that unequivocally meets your challenge to a 'T".

QUOTE: "But that does not look like a steel frame building."

and

QUOTE: "The variation in distribution of strength & mass is greater in a skyscraper more than 1000 feet tall."

Well, to hell with your model then. Paper loops and washers DO NOT look like a steel frame building. Your model does NOT have the variation in distribution of strength & mass of a skyscraper more than 1000 feet tall. Your model is disqualified by your own stated criteria.

Therefore, EVERY time you ask for a physical model to prove my assertions, I will ask you for the same since you haven't made any.

His response?

OH WOW! That was so funny and impressive.

Like I haven't seen that before and before and before. It is posted by so many people thinking they are refuting something.

How many times have I said 15% or less falling on the rest?

They dropped 3 stories through a height of 2 stories. The building looked less than 16 stories tall. So if it was a 15 story building it was 20% falling on 75% allowed to drop through 13% of its height.

The north tower was 14 stories falling on 95 stories through 1 story of empty space SUPPOSEDLY. So 12.7% onto 86% with less than 1% of the height to fall.

So now you know what nitpicking bullshit he's going to use to disqualify your offering of AN ACTUAL BUILDING COLLAPSE, but somehow his dick-high paper loop model is NOT disqualified.

But my favorite retorts are these:

But that does not look like a steel frame building.

Neither does your dick-high model, psikeyhackr.

But how is the mass distributed in a building over 1000 feet tall versus something less than 200.

Hahaha!! How is the mass distributed in a building over 1000 feet tall versus NOT_A_BUILDING less than FIVE FEET TALL?

Bullshit double standards.

[Kat Dorman]

But don't think - or continue to assert - that I don't build because I CANNOT - it's because I know it's a waste of time; that even after I build and video a successful model you and others like you will just shift the goalposts or nit-pick irrelevant details (like the exact weight of the floors, or the 1000m/s used in a different model), and that even after you've been shown multiple times how and why you are wrong and barking up the wrong tree, you'll still continue to repeat the same bullshit over and over.

Exactly. If anyone built the building in the video and then turned around and destroyed it all at their own time and expense, he would've disqualified it for being 20% dropped instead of 15%, and for not being 1000 feet tall, and for not being steel framed.

None of which he applies to his own model.

No one is stupid enough to waste time on a model when even a BUILDING COLLAPSE is disqualified.

[econ41]

...No one is stupid enough to waste time on a model when even a BUILDING COLLAPSE is disqualified.

Even more specific - what is the point of a model when you can analyse the real thing?
...however psikey manages to keep the ambiguity going on "it does/it does not represent WTC" - and a lot of people play along with it which falls right into the trap of his trolling.

[Kat Dorman]

...No one is stupid enough to waste time on a model when even a BUILDING COLLAPSE is disqualified.

Even more specific - what is the point of a model when you can analyse the real thing?

The problem arises if the provenance of the collapse is in dispute. Then it must be the case tested against knowns, rather than a case to be tested against. If it is known or presumed to be known that the real thing is a natural (impact/fire induced) collapse, then it is a superlative data source. psikeyhackr does not presume a natural collapse, therefore would reject a tower collapse as an exemplar of such.

...however psikey manages to keep the ambiguity going on "it does/it does not represent WTC" - and a lot of people play along with it which falls right into the trap of his trolling.

Yes, it's quite blatant when you look at his reasons for rejecting one of the buildings in the above videos. Simply applying the same criteria rejects the model he's been peddling far and wide for a couple of years, by a huge margin. Am I to believe he doesn't see the contradictions in his stance? Itty-bitty washers and loops on a voodoo dowel is OK but a small part of a building crushing the rest is not? Fucking amazing.

[econ41]

...Itty-bitty washers and loops on a voodoo dowel is OK but a small part of a building crushing the rest is not? Fucking amazing.

Yes - and take care - it was not "crushing the rest" it was "causing the rest to fail/fall apart" ...whatever but not "crush".

[Kat Dorman]

Dis-integration.

'Crush' is a verbal tic.

[econ41]

...If it is known or presumed to be known that the real thing is a natural (impact/fire induced) collapse, then it is a superlative data source...

...actually it is only in the artificial world we enter when we enter into debate with truthers and certain semi-sceptical individuals where the fact of no demolition is not an acceptable starting point. The "semi-sceptical" being those who assume implicitly (and would probably never admit) that their 9/11 world view is limited to the technical domain of mechanisms, structures and "observables".

You are aware of my preference to completely separate the domain of physical technical activities from the domain of socio-political activities. What happened to the buildings separated from who did what if you prefer. The two are separable as illustrated by my commonly made comment "The explosives dont care who bought them, who placed them or who fired them...etc". The practice of conflating socio-political aspects onto technical may simply be a lack of clear thinking. But it is also a commonly deployed truther trick. Claims such as "The Official Explanation is full of holes" is a typical example - when used by people who decline to specify what parts of the official story they claim are holes thereby inferring everything is wrong. The main technical matters of no demolition at WTC, it was that plane at Pentagon and it was not a shoot down at Shanksville being the main technical points which are not in serious question. Yes I know that some folk cannot separate "big picture" items from lower level details but that is just another aspect of limited reasoning skills.

...psikeyhackr does not presume a natural collapse, therefore would reject a tower collapse as an exemplar of such....

I doubt that psikey would be so explicit - the discontinuities in his 9/11 world view being what they are except we cannot even be sure of that.

...Simply applying the same criteria rejects the model he's been peddling far and wide for a couple of years, by a huge margin. Am I to believe he doesn't see the contradictions in his stance?

You are not supposed to notice.

[psikeyhackr]

Psikey - quit saying that people cannot build the models to prove you're wrong.

Well they certainly haven't built a model to prove that they are right.

I'll say what I want. No one can PROVE I am wrong in saying it until they build a model the completely collapses due to 15% of its top height and 15% or less of its weight being dropped on the rest.

We are supposed to be impressed by videos of BUILDING collapses where it is impossible to accurately determine the number of stories in the buildings much less the height. I could probably alter my model to make it collapse completely. I could drop 18 washers down on 15 paper loops from whatever height was necessary to achieve complete collapse.

That would prove WHAT?

A model gives the experimenter control and repeatability. The videos of buildings with collapse ratios completely different from the WTC and nowhere near the height of the WTC are meaningless. The distribution of strength has to change with the height. So those approximately 20 story building would be similar to the top 20 stories of the WTC. The mass distribution in the 20 stories would not be similar to that of the entire height of the WTC.

My model is built AS WEAK AS POSSIBLE. That is NOT how real buildings are constructed. The loops at the bottom are 3 times as strong as the loops at the top. Can you provide any strength ratio information on any of those buildings in your videos?

That is just video bullshit to go along with your verbal bullshit.

psik

[Weaver]

Psikey - quit saying that people cannot build the models to prove you're wrong.

...

Can you provide any strength ratio information on any of those buildings in your videos?

That is just video bullshit to go along with your verbal bullshit.

psik

Who are you talking to? I have not posted any videos in this thread - ever.

[Kat Dorman]

Well they certainly haven't built a model to prove that they are right.

That's correct. There is no need to build a dinky model when there are collapsing buildings offered. Your inability to accept DEFEAT has nothing to do with the veracity of what's been offered.

I'll say what I want.

That's obvious. It need have nothing to do with physics or reality, but you'll keep babbling, for sure.

No one can PROVE I am wrong in saying it until they build a model the completely collapses due to 15% of its top height and 15% or less of its weight being dropped on the rest.

That's your criteria. Fuck your criteria. You've already lost this argument long ago.

We...

Is that the Victorian 'we'? Who's 'we'? Except for Galaxian, no one here seems to be impressed with your modeling or claims.

...are supposed to be impressed by videos of BUILDING collapses...

Impressed? No. It would be reasonable to understand that a BUILDING is closer to a BUILDING in every way than are paper loops and washers.

...where it is impossible to accurately determine the number of stories in the buildings much less the height.

It may or may not be impossible to get this information. You don't know by looking at it but that doesn't mean it's impossible. One thing I know for sure from just looking at it, though, is it's a lot more than crotch high!

I could probably alter my model to make it collapse completely. I could drop 18 washers down on 15 paper loops from whatever height was necessary to achieve complete collapse.

I've already posted my prediction for the minimum drop height required to crush all your loops with the upper/lower split you already have. Long ago. You ignored it. Perhaps because it's embarrassingly high, and has no bearing on the towers.

That would prove WHAT?

It would more forcefully demonstrate what is already obvious from your original experiment: Your loops dissipate too much energy per unit of crush displacement to sustain a progressive collapse. The drop height I predicted for total collapse is simply the height required to achieve destruction of all loops in that configuration. The upper block would still be decelerating rapidly throughout the entire collapse. Add one more loop and it won't get crushed at that height.

A model gives the experimenter control and repeatability.

Which is precisely what allowed me to reproduce your paper loop construction and do measurements to estimate load displacement and energy dissipation. Which, in turn, confirmed my opinion that your model arrests because the loops dissipate too much energy in crushing to qualify for a progressive collapse.

The videos of buildings with collapse ratios completely different from the WTC...

I understand you made your upper block larger to try to favor collapse, and so I understand why you'd want a counter experiment to be as small as possible. But what you're saying here is that, had your own model collapsed completely, you'd have disqualified it for being the wrong ratio. Right?

...and nowhere near the height of the WTC are meaningless.

You really need to stop harping on HEIGHT, you with your dick-high model. If you could make supports that were higher, yet only dissipated as much energy as what you have, you could achieve collapse.

The distribution of strength has to change with the height. So those approximately 20 story building would be similar to the top 20 stories of the WTC.

I'd compliment you for getting something right, but perhaps you recall when I tried to explain that very same thing and offered a simple graphic depicting stress as color to illustrate it:



Do you remember the ridicule you heaped on me? I guess it's brilliant when you say it and stupid when I say it. Now that's scientific!

The mass distribution in the 20 stories would not be similar to that of the entire height of the WTC.

Of course, but you've yet to supply a reason why that matters for collapse. If you ever do, please apply that to your dick high model that doesn't even have the mass of one angle bracket in the towers.

My model is built AS WEAK AS POSSIBLE. That is NOT how real buildings are constructed.

No shit, Sherlock. That's why a REAL BUILDING collapsing to completion ought to penetrate your fog but, unsurprisingly, it doesn't.

The loops at the bottom are 3 times as strong as the loops at the top. Can you provide any strength ratio information on any of those buildings in your videos?

Always too fast and loose with your LOLs.

Those buildings were stronger (higher capacity) than your paper loops because they were NOT built as weak as possible. You said so yourself. Now what are you going to say in response to this? (my prediction: NOTHING. Whenever you're shown wrong, you ignore it)

[Kat Dorman]

What kind of hamster wheel are you running here, psikeyhackr?

As weak as possible STATICALLY has no bearing on progressive collapse. Eight months ago, I posted this explanation of why. Excerpt from that post:

Each of these cases represent a support which, while intact, has the capacity to hold a static load of mg with some amount of reserve. None of these supports will fail with a static load of mg, but all will fail and even crush completely if the load is impacting at sufficient (as yet undetermined) velocity.

Case 1 - Smallest static capacity, no net acceleration/deceleration
Case 2 - Medium static capacity, medium downward acceleration
Case 3 - Highest static capacity, high downward acceleration

This runs exactly counter to your mantra about "weak as possible." STATIC is not DYNAMIC. Your paper loops would be off the scale in these comparisons. Let's call it case 0. It would look like this, based on my replication of your loops and their measured properties:



Your case is the only which decelerates. It's a crumple zone. Drop from a greater height, it will penetrate further, but it will always decelerate. The last two cases are the strongest statically, and they will accelerate.

I estimated the properties of your loops above because I don't have a high speed camera and the measurements taken were sufficiently accurate to prove my claim that there is no dropoff of capacity in crushing (like steel columns), but rather an increase.

It's been a done deal for a long time. You either can't see it, or refuse to recognize it.

[Kat Dorman]

If one intends to build a model which can progressively collapse, the closer to case 3 the better. Why is your model off the scale in the other direction, psikeyhackr? Could it be because your intention was to build a model which arrests? That wouldn't be very honest science, psikeyhackr. But, you're right, a documented physical model can be replicated, and I replicated your loops and demonstrated:

- how they are unlike the known properties of ANY supports in the towers
- why your model is destined to arrest
- why your model is inapplicable to the towers, whether or not some apartment building collapse is applicable

[Kat Dorman]

Now, after addressing in detail each and every point once again, and showing that these points were addressed months ago (years, even, if you go outside this forum), watch the response.

Which of these will it be?

- TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE
- as WEAK as POSSIBLE
- Piltdown Man
- 1000 m/s
- >100Hz vibration

?

[Kat Dorman]

...however psikey manages to keep the ambiguity going on "it does/it does not represent WTC" - and a lot of people play along with it which falls right into the trap of his trolling.

This game of a dick-high model proving something where a real building doesn't is extremely obvious. Why doesn't the building prove anything?

- it was about 20% dropping, not 15% (even though the south tower was close to 25%!!!)
- it was not as high as a tower (but much closer than crotch high)

Will he ever address the fact that his own model is disqualified under these same criteria?

Not only that, it WASN'T built as weak as possible YET it collapsed!


One of the things that irks me is, despite literally hundreds of posts on this subject, ALL he has to counter the huge body of argumentation I've put forth is crap like this:

At 1000 m/s.

As if that's the only thing I've done! I've developed multiple analytical models and simulations in a variety of environments, conducted computational experiments of many thousands of extremely varied scenarios, and given hundreds of detailed explanations on all aspects of the physics and engineering mechanics involved in these models.

Out of all that work, psikeyhackr seizes on ONE set of a half dozen experiments to test what happens to the same sort of system with an extremely high velocity impactor. Implying that it's the only thing I've done.

By contrast, the ONLY thing psikeyhackr has done has built a dick-high model designed to be as weak as possible yet arrest. Therefore, I believe I will condense my responses to EVERYTHING he says to this:

"In a dick-high model "

It's called going psikeyhackr on psikeyhackr.

[Kat Dorman]

I see you're on reading these last posts, psikeyhacker. I doubt you'll address a single one of my points or questions. YOU NEVER DO.

Piltdown Man! TONS, TONS, TONS! 15% on 85%! 1000 m/s! Copy and Paste, Copy and Paste - hundreds of forums.

Well, you know what I'm going to say now.

[Kat Dorman]

Just in case there's too much to follow and you're tempted to resort to a stupid LOL, here's a summary of outstanding questions you won't (or can't) answer:

- Had your own model collapsed completely, you'd have disqualified it for being the wrong ratio. Right?
- Had your own model collapsed completely, you'd have disqualified it for being too short. Right?
- Do you remember the ridicule you heaped on me for saying the same thing about load and capacities you just did?
- Those buildings were stronger (higher capacity) than your paper loops because they were NOT built as weak as possible. You said so yourself. Response?
- Why is your model off the scale in the other direction, psikeyhackr? Could it be because your intention was to build a model which arrests?

No A.D.D. excuses. Inevitable evasion will be noted.

[Dudely]

Just in case there's too much to follow and you're tempted to resort to a stupid LOL, here's a summary of outstanding questions you won't (or can't) answer:

- Had your own model collapsed completely, you'd have disqualified it for being the wrong ratio. Right?
- Had your own model collapsed completely, you'd have disqualified it for being too short. Right?
- Do you remember the ridicule you heaped on me for saying the same thing about load and capacities you just did?
- Those buildings were stronger (higher capacity) than your paper loops because they were NOT built as weak as possible. You said so yourself. Response?
- Why is your model off the scale in the other direction, psikeyhackr? Could it be because your intention was to build a model which arrests?

No A.D.D. excuses. Inevitable evasion will be noted.

He actually makes a couple of those exact excuses in this video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXAerZUw4Wc[/youtube]
3:05 he calls a complete collapse a "failure". Not that the models really showed anything useful in the first place.

[Kat Dorman]

3:05 he calls a complete collapse a "failure".

Priceless!

He decreases the story height until there isn't sufficient PE loss in the drop to sustain the collapse. Really is beginning to look like he intentionally designed his subsequent DICK-HIGH model to arrest, since he did the experiment necessary to see what the effect of story height is. I guess it's still possible he could shoot, edit and post a video without ever even noticing the intense irony...

I laughed every time I saw a "TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE" graphic inserted randomly into frames of the video. Maybe that's what he was focusing on instead of the results of the experiment.

Oh, now we'll hear about how these supports were equal strength where the supports in the tower had to be stronger going down. Duh! But where much of the tower collapse really occurred was in the interior floor space, and the supports were fairly constant strength all the way down. No matter. The same thing can be done with constant demand-to-capacity all the way down. Bazant proved it (without violation of Newton's third law) and untold numbers of people who understand mechanics, myself included, have confirmed it.