Have you guys seen the makers of Loose change debate popular mechanics? It’s pretty sad, but good entertainment. Here’s part 1 of both -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stVmEmJ666M and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7tMHMQ863Q&feature=related.
The host in the second interview/debate actually talks to them as if they were children, it’s pretty funny, but he’s spot on by addressing them as such. Such ignorant people who sway others to waste their time with all this crap. These aren’t the smartest of the bunch, but they build up followers nonetheless.

Looking back on all this, I totally overestimated the whole movement and its opposition when I first heard about it. In the beginning, I thought hey, maybe they’re on to something. Turns out these people are trying to clash their alternate reality with actual reality, and when they try and use science it always backfires. Their perseverance will be their own downfall.

Of the many passing articles I’ve come by, this one here from last year provides more than enough explanation. As soon as you mentioned lower floor support, psikey, a few posts ago, it rang a bell. I’ll copy/paste a few phrases for those who aren’t interested in reading the whole thing, but the full article is a nice summarization of the whole truther movement and their main claims 10 years later. Here’s a few bits to explain the power behind the collapse part of your argument.

“Each floor of the towers contained over two million kilograms of mass. The gravitational potential energy of a standing tower with twelve-foot floors extending upward 110 stories can be calculated straightforwardly; it comes to over 420 billion joules of energy, or the equivalent of 100 tons of TNT per tower. This energy, which was released completely during the collapses, is more than the energy of some of the smaller nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, such as the W-48 (72 tons TNT) (Sublette 2006).”

“The Twin Towers used a “tube within a tube” architectural design, which provided considerable open office space in the interiors of the Towers. Much of the structural support was provided by a dense grouping of thick central core columns in the interior and the perimeter walls on the outside. When the towers began to collapse, large parts of the inner cores (called “the Spires” in 9/11 Truth circles) were actually left standing, briefly, before they, too, toppled over. The perimeter walls were largely forced to peel outward in large sections, producing the iconic images of Ground Zero with which we’re all familiar. Between the outer perimeter and the inner core, the weight of the upper sections plowed through one floor after another, breaking the floor connection brackets and support columns, pulverizing concrete decks, and gaining momentum and mass with each additional floor failure.”

Read on if you want. I’m happy SI put it online in this case. Although the main claim it addresses is the “free-fall” claim, it also happens to cover this bizarre idea you have, if what you’ve been claiming is that the building should not have collapsed because the bottom was made to hold up the weight. Is that what you’re saying? Here’s the article.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_9_11_truth_movement_the_top_conspiracy_theory_a_decade_later

which means the further down the building you come the more weight had to be supported.  Which means more weight of steel must be put into that level to support what is above but that means that weight must be supported from below

Like I hinted earlier on, what you said there concerns static loads. Bring a dynamic load in, and your “further down the building you come the more weight had to be supported” is irrelevant to a collapse of this nature. So I don’t know what your are trying to say.

Edit: Spelling

Imaginos - 17 October 2012 10:53 PM

http://www.csicop.org/si/show/the_9_11_truth_movement_the_top_conspiracy_theory_a_decade_later

Each floor of the towers contained over two million kilograms of mass. The gravitational potential energy of a standing tower with twelve-foot floors extending upward 110 stories can be calculated straightforwardly; it comes to over 420 billion joules of energy, or the equivalent of 100 tons of TNT per tower. This energy, which was released completely during the collapses, is more than the energy of some of the smaller nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, such as the W-48 (72 tons TNT) (Sublette 2006). This is where the energy required to break columns, pulverize concrete, and expel debris through windows came from.

2,000,000 kilograms is 2,200 tons. The concrete slab outside the core was 600 tons.

But the stee columns at the to were less than an inch thick

These pseudo-intellectual debates of skeptics versus what the skeptics accuse “truthers” of saying is a portrayal of the stupid versus the stupid.

I demonstrated that the distribution of mass down the towers changed the potential energy calculation years ago.

http://breakfornews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=31763&sid=fd03b848bf3b30d5600c78264e973ac9#31763

So if we do not have accurate data on the distributions of steel and concrete down the towers the discussion is not only not scientific it is nonsense.

And that skinny core portrayed in the diagram is not good enough to be called nonsense.  The core was rectangular and its long side was more than 50% the width of the tower and it narrow side was more than 33% of the width.  The core in that diagram is not even 12% of the width.

When the portion of the north tower came down it did not leave the core sticking up through the middle.  In fact since the video shows the antenna coming down first the core had to come down before the outer portion.  So where is that explained?

This 11 year debate reminds me of that Vorlon saying:

Truth is a three edged sword.  Both sides dish out partial truths mixed with lies and rationalizations to justify their beliefs.

Physics is not about BELIEF.

psik

That is like saying you cannot operate on a man you are treating for a severe brain injury because you don’t know how far the fall was, and what the impact force was. Obviously, ridiculous.

asanta - 18 October 2012 03:15 PM

That is like saying you cannot operate on a man you are treating for a severe brain injury because you don’t know how far the fall was, and what the impact force was. Obviously, ridiculous.

So you can come up with absurd analogies.  I am impressed.

It is like claiming that paint ball gun could cause damage to a skull which would normally be caused by a 357 magnum and then objecting to analysing the dispersal of the fragments.  Regardless of what the cause was why should there be any objection to having accurate data on steel and concrete distributions down the buildings since they had to and did hold themselves up or 28 years?

My weak as possible self supporting model cannot collapse itself.  Where is yours that can completely collapse?

psik

asanta - 18 October 2012 03:15 PM

That is like saying you cannot operate on a man you are treating for a severe brain injury because you don’t know how far the fall was, and what the impact force was. Obviously, ridiculous.

What happened Asanta? Did you leave the 3 stooges marathon to use the ladies room and mistakenly wander back into that crazy show down the hall again?

And that skinny core portrayed in the diagram is not good enough to be called nonsense.  The core was rectangular and its long side was more than 50% the width of the tower and it narrow side was more than 33% of the width.  The core in that diagram is not even 12% of the width.

What do the very first words in the diagram’s description on the bottom say? You just had to resist skimming through, looking for inaccuracies to exploit. You’re quickness on the trigger amuses me.

Imaginos - 18 October 2012 10:12 PM

And that skinny core portrayed in the diagram is not good enough to be called nonsense.  The core was rectangular and its long side was more than 50% the width of the tower and it narrow side was more than 33% of the width.  The core in that diagram is not even 12% of the width.

What do the very first words in the diagram’s description on the bottom say? You just had to resist skimming through, looking for inaccuracies to exploit. You’re quickness on the trigger amuses me.

But what has more psychological effect on the reader?  What they see or what they read?  It is propaganda BS.

And if that is what supposedly happened where was the stack of floors in the debris?  When do the pancakers address that obvious question?

And what does scale have to do with the way the top of that core stays up and stuff falls around it which is not what happened to the north tower, and the top of the south tower tilted 22 degrees, with the core presumably, according to the NIST, so how could floors have pancaked out of that into the lower stationary portion.

They talk about the conservation of momentum but fail to mention that a lighter weaker portion of the north tower supposedly forced down a heavier stronger portion.  More BS.  How could they do Conservation of Momentum calculations if they don’t have accurate distribution of mass data?

Is this the original source?

http://www.nmsr.org/34-40_final.pdf

No mention of the Conservation of Momentum there however.  Newton got one mention but Bazant got five.

Why don’t these so called physicists just build a physical model that does what they say?  If it is so OBVIOUS according to them why can’t they duplicate it on a small scale?  He says 80,000 tons of steel but most others say 96,000 or 100,000 tons.  He mentions concrete twice in reference to pulverizing it but he says nothing about the QUANTITY.  Why mention the quantity of steel, even if he gets it wrong, but not mention the quantity of concrete.  No mention ot the tilt of the top of the south tower either.

Gotta jump on those conspiracy theorists when that talk nonsense even if you can’t explain the phenomenon yourself.

This is SO SCIENTIFIC!

[3468]
psik

Atheists are SO SCIENTIFIC

Jesuuus!!! Where are you!? Without you, I don’t understand gravity!! 

Aaah you changed it… 

Notice the time stamp on my edit:

[ Edited: 19 October 2012 11:39 AM by psikeyhackr ]

And the time stamp on your post.

Posted: 19 October 2012 01:00 PM

You are trying to blame me for what now?

You provided a link to someone who supposedly understand physics and supposedly understands mathematics but he gets the amount of steel in a tower wrong and does not specify the quantity of concrete at all.

Now wasn’t the steel supposed to hold up the concrete?  So how can the quantity and distribution of steel down the building be gotten correct without the quantity and distribution of concrete down the building? 

To me it looks like a lot of scientists have made a mess of this 9/11 business and that includes that vast majority who have said NOTHING.

What does this say about the curiosity and integrity of Scientists?

[3506]
psik

You are trying to blame me for what now?

Are you denying you posted that? Because you done it before…. post 115… Just saying…

And the reason the times are off is because I opened the post on the bus, had to put my phone away for a while (on my screen the mistake was still there). When I submitted it, I saw you had changed it =P It just made me giggle that’s all.

Imaginos - 19 October 2012 05:55 PM

You are trying to blame me for what now?

Are you denying you posted that? Because you done it before…. post 115… Just saying…

I posted it and decided to change it when I added text about what the author of that article wrote since I had no idea about his theological attitudes.

What did I supposedly do in 115?

So it’s OK for him to ignore the lack of data on the mass of concrete and let the core stick out the top of the falling portion even though we know that is not what happened.

psik

Now wasn’t the steel supposed to hold up the concrete?

Eh, I officially give up trying to explain it to you. Good luck psikey, I hope you can find a physicist to sit down with and discuss each point you have and give you satisfying answers to your questions, I doubt I can

psikeyhackr - 18 October 2012 04:26 PM

asanta - 18 October 2012 03:15 PM

That is like saying you cannot operate on a man you are treating for a severe brain injury because you don’t know how far the fall was, and what the impact force was. Obviously, ridiculous.

So you can come up with absurd analogies.  I am impressed.

It is like claiming that paint ball gun could cause damage to a skull which would normally be caused by a 357 magnum and then objecting to analysing the dispersal of the fragments.  Regardless of what the cause was why should there be any objection to having accurate data on steel and concrete distributions down the buildings since they had to and did hold themselves up or 28 years?

My weak as possible self supporting model cannot collapse itself.  Where is yours that can completely collapse?psik

Give me your model and I’ll show you how it can collapse by introducing an external force penetrating your structure and weakening it from the inside.
From my recollection your model would collapse from a simple lighted match.

Add the purposeful reduction of structural strength to alleviate stresses from sway. Add 28 years of sway, slowly affecting the structural integrity. Add a “bomb” (exploding fuel tanks filled with very high octane fuel). Add a fire which burned for an extended length of time at temperature well above “softening” point of metal. Add internal combustion of electrical wiring. Add the combustion of anything flammable, such as paper, cardboard, wood, plastic, furniture. Add first the outward pressure from expanding hot air, then the external pressures of cold air rushing in to fill that vacuum (ever lit a match inside a bottle and sucking (forcing) an egg through the mouth of the bottle?).
Add several hours of a combination of these “destructive forces” and the collapse (while unanticipated) is by no means “impossible”.

Where uncontrolled sources of heat are in play, affecting perhaps the very molecular structure of materials, the stubborn assertion of maintaining structural integrity becomes speculative.

Consider this, would there be any point in the life of such a structure that it might fail just from fatigue alone? Unless you can say that these towers would stand strong and tall forever, your denial that it could happen as it did, is speculative at best.

Regardless of the how, is there a dispute that this was an act committed by terrorists?

Write4U - 19 October 2012 06:58 PM

psikeyhackr - 18 October 2012 04:26 PM

asanta - 18 October 2012 03:15 PM

That is like saying you cannot operate on a man you are treating for a severe brain injury because you don’t know how far the fall was, and what the impact force was. Obviously, ridiculous.

So you can come up with absurd analogies.  I am impressed.

It is like claiming that paint ball gun could cause damage to a skull which would normally be caused by a 357 magnum and then objecting to analysing the dispersal of the fragments.  Regardless of what the cause was why should there be any objection to having accurate data on steel and concrete distributions down the buildings since they had to and did hold themselves up or 28 years?

My weak as possible self supporting model cannot collapse itself.  Where is yours that can completely collapse?psik

Give me your model and I’ll show you how it can collapse by introducing an external force penetrating your structure and weakening it from the inside.
From my recollection your model would collapse from a simple lighted match.

My video contains a complete description of the construction of my model.

Let’s see you make it collapse with a SINGLE MATCH. 

Supposedly the north tower collapsed because the fire allowed the top portion to fall one level.  I didn’t use fire in my model I raised the top 4 levels more than a foot and allowed them to fall, 

The paper loops in my model are separated by washers so a fire you start with a match may not spread from level to level.  Go ahead and try it.  Make a video.  I would like to see it.  But I am sure all you are going to do is TALK.

psik

Why do you think you could make a model representing the WTC and its collapse? Especially if you are concerned with every chair, plant, and computer in it adding unaccounted weight.