BBC/Cambridge 9/11 Hoax exposed

[spiv]

Brian, we will have to agree to disagree here. I have my own beliefs, which is why I am a member of this forum. However, let it not be forgotten that I, and a few others, are writing to a Senior Lecturer at the Cambridge University Engineering Department, a man who I regard as being highly intelligent in a very highly regarded University. I will afford him the proper respect, and I will not prejudge his mathematical analysis until it has been released and we can all study and critique it.

That does not, in my opinion, mean that I am "giving credence to the notion that there is a possible gravity collapse scenario explanation". I don't believe there is, but what I am happy to give credence to is the fact that a very highly educated and qualified man in a very respectable University says he has done some mathematical calculations. So let's not get hysterical here.

[brian]

spiv, no lets not.

The simple fact of the matter is you do give credence to the notion with what you say -

"..I also do not rule out the possibility that he may have cracked the explanations as to just how three towers collapsed the way they did, two from the top down and one from the bottom."

You are effectively saying the impossible may be possible.

We have far more than enough sh.t from "highly educated" people from "respected" institutions to worry about etiquete here.

If he is highly educated and has looked at the reality of the collapse he is a fraud - simple as that.

And, any institution that peer reviews and backs such a fraud is worthy of no ones respect.

That is how I see it.

[xmasdale]

So let's wait and see if this engineer or the university come up with anything before writing to them in disrespectful language. I wrote a reasonable e-mail of enquiry to Dr Seffen a couple of months ago but received no response. If I had written a disrespectful e-mail people would have argued that I got no response because I was being disrespectful.

[outsider]

[Bongo]

Brian, I have to agree with Spiv on the above, despite any emotional ties, there is a right way to prove a point and a wrong way.

Dr K Seffen deserves to be heard like anyone else and even though I personally believe that I will be able to demonstrate that his paper is not worth the parchment that it is written on (as his conclusions as published by the BBC contradict the findings of my own research), we must enter into a dialougue in order to ascertain which point of view holds more credance. It must be added at this point however, that Dr K Seffens reluctance to enter into this proposed dialogue is beginning to suggest that he has no confidence in his paper or his argument. I suggest that only he can address this criticism?

As for the BBC article, there are quite clearly, two opposing viewpoints on this subject and for the BBC to run an article which blatantly promotes one view over the other is unquestionably in stark contrast to the requirements of their own charter, which requires the BBC to represent all views in a fair and un-biased manner.

I support Spiv's patience and thoughtful approach to this issue and hope that we can continue to work to entice some debate on this issue from Dr Seffen, the University of Cambridge and from the BBC.

Regards,

Brian

[brian]

Ian Neal, where did the email you received come from?

It seems odd that no one has had a response to the various emails if they could have been answered with the date of publication.

bongo, I am at a loss to grasp the mentality here. We know a gravity collapse in the manner of the WTC buildings is literally impossible so why treat it otherwise?

If we cannot agree on that then we are frankly wasting our time.

To approach it by giving to those - that would use their credentials to obfuscate the issue - any degree of respect only serves to undermine our objective.

We know why NIST et al will not debate their work in public - they do not have a leg to stand on. So why even give the slightest credence to what is just another lickspittle willing to use theoretical mathematics to shore up this tottering edifice?

By all means do as Gordon Ross has done and show the flaws in any paper that is produced but lets not open our minds so much that all our brains fall out. Impssible is impossible.

[Bongo]

Brian Said:

[outsider]

[Reflecter]

WinterPatriot appears to have yesterday obtained the paper for download

http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/11/keith-seffens-progressive-co llapse-of.html

[spiv]

Well done WinterPatriot. This paper seems to rely very much on the findings of Zdenek P. Bazant and Yong Zhou.

The start of the Bazant & Zhou paper states "The 110-story towers of the World Trade Center were designed to withstand as a whole the forces caused by a horizontal impact of a large commercial aircraft (Appendix I). So why did a total collapse occur? The cause was the dynamic consequence of the prolonged heating of the steel columns to very high temperature. The heating lowered the yield strength and caused viscoplastic (creep) buckling of the columns of the framed tube along the perimeter of the tower and of the columns in the building core. The likely scenario of failure is approximately as follows.

In stage 1 (Fig. 1), the conflagration caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures apparently exceeding 800°C".

Now forgive me if I'm wrong here, but there is a great deal of evidence to show that the levels of heat around the impact areas just could not have reached these levels, such as the person who was photographed standing in the impact hole waving for help. So It seems that Seffen's paper may have fallen at the first hurdle here, reliant as it seems on Bazant & Zhou.

See http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/bazant_jem/bazant _zhou.html

Perhaps those scientific and engineering brains in the 911 movement can analyse this and spot any errors.

Also please let us know, if tall buildings like this can be so easily 'doomed to collapse', just why are the millions of people around the world who live, sleep and work in such buildings not being ordered to leave immediately on safety grounds, and why this sort of building is still being built.

It beggars belief.

[kbo234]

I haven't read this carefully myself yet, having only seen it at 2am this morning before going to bed, but I posted the attachment to Frank Legge in Australia. Here is his first reply, opened this morning:

Hi Kevin,

No doubt other people will provide detailed refutations of this ridiculous paper. All I will do is point out that the argument fails in the first paragraph. "... the storey immediately below bears the brunt...".

That is an assertion which is about as stupid as any that you could think up.

Firstly, the storey immediately above the impact zone will take half the impact, equal to the impact below.
Secondly, many storeys will absorb the energy. This is the central feature of Gordon Ross's work - how anyone could be so brazen as to ignore this is beyond belief.
Thirdly, even if we allow that collapse will occur it is impossible that it will happen in the observed manner. The region above the impact area was hot, so hot that it would collapse they say - and the region below was stone cold. If one region is on the point of collapse and the other is at full strength, which will collapse when the impact occurs?

Simple really. Perhaps someone should go on the attack and contact the JEM. If they had an honest review perhaps they won't publish, or perhaps they would publish the review.

Regards
Frank

[spiv]

I've started reading this paper, and Dr Seffen seems to have ignored totally the situation regarding just how did the massive top segments of the two towers initiate their descent. He only seems to have picked it up following descent.

As for WTC7, nothing of his paper even starts to touch on that collapse!!

[Sinclair]

As pointed out by spiv, the paper relies on/references the paper 'Why did the World Trade Center collapse?' by Bazant and Zhou, which was first published on 13th September 2001.

[spiv]

I believe that one fundamental reason why Dr Seffen's paper is flawed is that, as I have mentioned before in this thread, although he is dealing with the mathematics of the collapse, he has ignored the initiation of the collapse. Using his party balloon analogue, he has used more and more force with his lungs, until eventually that force (and corresponding air pressure) overcame the resistance of the balloon rubber.

Putting this analogue into context of the WTCs (all of them, including WTC7 which he has ignored), this would be like a huge hand descending from the sky and pressing down on the roof of the building, exerting more and more force, limitless force if need be, until the steel gave way (plasticized). We have all seen a similar scenario in the Monty Python sketch, but with a huge foot stamping down. But there was only a limited finite force available before collapse, which was due to the mass of the top part of the building(s) pressing down under gravitation pull. So I believe that Dr Seffen has done his calculations looking at this from the wrong side. He should have looked at resistance of the steel support columns, and how these would have been compromised by any energy, such as heat from the so called 800oC fire, which, of course, we know couldn’t have been that hot due to the survival of fire-fighters and others from the building, and also those trapped waving for help from the gash caused by the crashing plane.

Thus he is unable to use his “Maxwell Construction”, as it is unlikely that his building would collapse, unless he can demonstrate that the steel supports were sufficiently weakened. Looking at his figure 1 of his party balloon, on page 26, his graph is in error, as he should be plotting resistance against time, with the initial force of the top of the building a constant horizontal line drawn somewhere below the resistance (otherwise the building would have collapsed as soon as it was built), and the line of resistance dipping below the horizontal line denoting force.

Putting Dr Seffen's analogue a different way, imagine how much breath he would need to blow up a copper or steel pipe, which was sealed at one end. He would not have enough force in his lungs.

So no wonder he thinks it would be an everyday occurrence that these massive buildings simply collapse at free-fall speeds, this is true, providing you have an unlimited force pressing down on the roof, a great hand descending from the sky!!

I believe his paper is flawed, and we should be pointing this out to Cambridge University.

[Graham]

[spiv]

Oh dear, another critique of Dr Seffen's paper, one by a mathematician.

See http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/2007/11/keith-seffens-wtc-col lapse-folly-not.html

Not looking very good for Dr Seffen nor the esteemed Cambridge University.

[chek]

While the arguments on that blog seem reasonable on the face of it, we are also being asked to take a lot of expertise on trust.

Before doing so, the source of that request seems to be relevant before any hasty judgements are made.
Even more so when it's possible to hear what you want to hear.

http://truthaction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2434&postdays=0&postorder =asc&start=0

[spiv]

[chek]

[spiv]

Yes chek, lack of absorbency is a good way of putting it

I’m still studying the chapter entitled “Dynamical Model of Collapse”, which has to be read in conjunction with figure 4 at the end of the paper. It would appear that Seffen’s model is that the top floors above the “initiation” floor (the crash area) are falling as a complete and uncrushed mass (the length L in diagram b (part descent) is the same as in diagram a), yet lower floors are being crushed as the “crush front” moves down. So how come there seems to be no crushing factors built into the upper floors? Surely if two cars collide head on, the front of both cars are crushed, due to an action and an equal and opposite reaction.

Furthermore, no factor seems to be taken into account for any loss of mass being ejected laterally, or crushed into dust which then is dissipated into the air? I did see this, didn’t I? Indeed, I thought I saw tons of it. It is not an 'insignificance' which can be ignored for mathematcal purposes.

Dr Seffen appears to have done some fine looking calculations for a real “pancake” type collapse, which I understood has been discarded by NIST/FEMA/911 Commission, and here was I thinking that these mathematical models should take aboard factors which are observed, otherwise they are not models of what really happened. It’s like a mathematical model of the behaviour of a car at high speeds, ignoring the fact that there is no air in any of the tyres.

Cambridge University is also starting to look rather silly, as they have attached their name to this paper. See http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/press/dpp/2007091001

[Bongo]

I have requested confirmation of the authenticity of this paper from Tom Kirk at Cambridge University.

Regards,

Brian.

[KP50]

[QuitTheirClogs]

The following was my simple "conservation of energy" analysis from about a year ago.

For a falling object to fall at near freefall speed, it must convert nearly all its potential energy to kinetic energy; and without giving up much of its energy to any other body. The only point at which it gives up significant energy is when it comes to rest at ground-level.

NIST’s assumption that the lower 80 (100) stories provided effectively no resistance, is equivalent to saying that there was effectively no energy transfer from the falling material. For this to be true, the lower stories would have to be extremely fragile (and somehow accelerate out the way of the falling material).

But even if we accepted this “extremely fragile” assumption, it does not account for the massive amount of energy required to pulverise vast quantities of concrete and to laterally eject debris at the observed velocities; nor does it provide a mechanism by which these observations could happen.

I was (and still am) stuck with doing a simple analysis because it’s a very long time since I last did any equations; but I’m puzzled as to why it needs to get any more complicated than that.

Please let me know if there’s a flaw in my analysis.

And moderators, please move to a separate thread if this goes off at too much of a tangent.

[spiv]

KP50, no, there is no reference to any tilting of the top part of one of the buildings.

Quittheirclogs, I would agree with the sentiments of what you are saying. Potential energy of the top part of the building prior to initiation of the collapse is converted to kinetic energy as it starts its descent. Just after the start it has both potential energy (Pe)and kinetic energy (Ke), and, ignoring such things as air resistance (we can as the slowing down of a 20 storey part of a building by air resistance would be negligible) until this descending storey meets another mass, then Pe + Ke = Constant.

Of course, I'm ignoring here the slowing effect of any so called "weakened" steel in the columns at the floor where the collapse starts. Indeed, Dr Seffen has ignored any explanations as to just how the collapse started (and he readily admits his paper only deals with the collapse itself, not any initiation), prefering to use the highly dubious paper of Bazant & Zhou, which, I understand, was presented not long after 911.

As soon as the falling top stories hits the floor below, some Ke would be transferred to the floor below to get it to also collapse with the upper floors. Some energy would be used in smashing up some or all of the steel and concrete, after all, we did witness huge amounts of ejecta. Dr Seffen has completely iignored this.

In addition, to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so some of this ejecta, I contend, could be assumed to be from the top floors. Think of two similar cars crashing head on, would one or both cars' front be smashed in? Dr Seffen has also ignored this, in his model the top part of the building is in effect smashing its way through the lower floors, creating a "crush front" yet not being damaged or losing any mass itself, all it is doing is 'collecting' the floors below and continuing to descend to the next floor, etc etc. Now even this would be difficult, as the steel in the top portion of the building was, I understand, not as substantial as the steel in the lower floors as the upper steel columns had less weight to support. Therefore collision damage to the top part would be far more than to the bottom part. Think of a car hitting head on with a tank, which vehicle would be more damaged?

In other words, Dr Seffen's paper is a mathematical model of a perfect "pancake" collapse but without any "pancaking" of the top floors, and is far removed from what we all actually witnessed. Of course, I have to be slightly careful at this point, we only believe this to be his paper, as officially it has not yet been "printed".

I've e-mailed him with these points, including asking him to confirm it is his paper, but, as is usual from him with all my e-mails sent these past four weeks, he has not even acknowledged my letters.

Thus I contend that the paper is ridiculous, it does not even start to model what we all saw, but, the main problem is, this paper has already gone out to the world, and the Government propaganda machine (the BBC and others) has already printed out to the masses how Cambridge University has cracked all these "conspiracy theories" and so all we "theorists" can now go home with our tails between our legs.

Actually, I take the alternative view. If some fine brains in a very prestigious British University are unable to demonstrate why the Towers collapsed at near free-fall speeds (and his paper does not even start to address WTC7 ) then this becomes another argument towards something other than plane crashes, burning fuel and weakened steel bringing down those buildings at close to free-fall speeds!!

Furthermore, in my own opinion, Dr Seffen in collaboration with Cambridge University appears to be complicit with the deception and continued cover up of the mass murder of 911, and they have a bit of explaining to do.

[Bongo]

I fully agree with Spiv, the paper is a pile of junk.

We still have to have the papers authenticity confirmed but if it is genuine, then if this is the rubbish that one of our so called premier universities is putting out then we should start to worry for the future.

Some initial points...

1. No distinction is made between column sizes on each floor. (ie. The lowest floors were able to carry much more load than the upper floors).

2. No loss of mass allowed for in material ejected laterally. (ie. As mass was ejected laterally, the entire original load of the building would have been gradually relieved on each subsequent lower floor).

3. No lateral movement at all was considered (despite photographic evidence that this infact happened). Indeed no structural analysis using genuine data for beam and column specifications was carried out.

4. As Spiv said, the "crush front" presented in this paper (ie the base of all the floors above the impact zone) is essentially presented as a solid object which is not affected by lateral forces, does not break up and has some mythical magnetic property which attracts each lower floor to it's underside (becoming part of this solid block) before moving down to the next floor.

I have still to carry out a full study of the paper once I have obtained clarification of it's authenticity, but it strikes me as being no more than myself writing a paper to prove that I can become invisible... as long as I make an assumption that my physical mass (Bm) = 0.000 (Zero)

Regards,

Brian.

[spiv]

Oh dear, Dr Seffen's paper appears to contain a mathematical flaw. Ignoring the greek subscript “lambda” - for typographical reasons, in Eq. 12 we have P* = p* mg. But three lines above Eq. 18 it "morphs" P* = p*m. The factor g (gravitational acceleration) is missing!

Can't say for certain this is significant at the moment - still studying the paper. However, such a paper certainly HAS NOT BEEN READ BY ANYBODY who understands the meaning of the symbols. A student like myself can see the error.

Have referred this to a mathematical physicist ( http://arkadiusz-jadczyk.org ) to confirm, see http://laura-knight-jadczyk.blogspot.com/

[imgstacke]

If one were to carefully pick their postulates, they can prove anything, even the impossible.

Please see Gordon Ross's paper refuting NIST and Bazant at the Journal of 9/11 Studies:
PDF - NIST and Dr. Bazant - Simultaneous Failure
Gordon Ross, ME

[chek]

[outsider]

Just a thought....do any of you reading this thread know if we have any 9/11 Truthers in Cambridge? If so, if they could make the contact known to those of you who have emailed or written to Seffen, and they could send the contact copies and the contact could present them to him in person (perhaps at one of his lectures?). It would be nice to embarrass him in front of his students.

[QuitTheirClogs]

High school physics proves towers were demolished
9eleven.info
Rinf

This is an alternative presentation of the conservation of energy argument.