Talk:Collapse of the World Trade Center

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[edit] What is really lacking from controlled demolition section

Is that there is not really any evidence presented strongly against it. I feel the culteral phenomenon of the perception that there was a CD is relavant enough to be addressed here on this page. What needs done however is that the arguments against it need not to be dismissed as trivial, but presented and countered correctly. I think that turning the user to the "Conspiracy theories of 9-11" page when they wish to examine the CD plausability does not aid them whatsoever, it just turns their attention to a list (and for each item, a rationality for believing each item) of possible conspiracies which occured around 9-11. Since this page discusses the realities of the collapse, I feel it would be a good idea to attempt to bring together the arguments for the CD, and then present the rational dismisal of them, instead of arrogantly claiming WE know its not true, thus the reader should conclude the same. DerwinUMD 22:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be just as easy to cite the 1945 incident where a B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building sending it toppling to the ground? Zghost 09:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I was trying to refer more to some of the more controversial points, such as the motlen metal dripping out of the building minutes before the collapse, the near free fall speed, the janitor supposedly hearing a bomb explode in the basement, etc. I think these all can be explained with out a controlled demo, but I think ignoring them is a very dumb idea. DerwinUMD 13:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
The section does link to controlled demolition hypothesis for the Collapse of the World Trade Center.--Thomas Basboll 14:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be safe to assume that the CD page does not deal with nearly as much scientific nor researched opinion, and much more hearsay. Neither does it account for or present dissenting opinions. I think this page had ought to address a few of these issues as they should be addressed. For example. The CD page suggests the presence of molten metal, but never gives any explaination for it - merely assuming that since metal has melted, something very hot has occured. However, if you examine what is actualy being dealt with, it is molten aluminum dripping from the towers, which melts right in the range of the temperatures of the fires in WTC 1 & 2. I think that since this really has nothing to do with a CD, it should still be addressed here. DerwinUMD 18:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Why? It's hardly surprising that a fire hot enough to melt aluminum would melt aluminum in its presence. We know aluminum was present because a plane crashed into each tower. Should we also include evidence of burned paper? Burned carpet? Burned desks? With respect to the collapse, the presence of molten aluminum is meaningless. With respect to conspiracy theories, it's pivotally important because the conspiracy theories depend on the metal not being aluminum. --Durin 19:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, so why isn't that on the page? It is still a fact of what happened, yet the only point about molten metal that I can find is rather lacking in information regarding the fire's temperature. DerwinUMD 04:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Check out Judy Wood's page which provides a color chart for molten aluminum. Compare it to the video that shows the drips and the maximum temperatures that NIST reports could have been produced by the jet fuel and office supplies.Dscotese (talk) 21:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Zghost; the B-25 into the Empire State Building is a completely different circumstance. You're attempting to compare throwing apples at a barn with throwing garbage cans at a doll house. There was a MASSIVE difference in kinetic energy between the two incidents, as the 767's weight traveling at the speeds it was, compared to the B-25's weight and the speed it was flying at, resulted in the 767 having ***45*** times the kinetic energy the B-25 had when it hit the ESB. Further, the design methodology of the WTC and the ESB were dramatically different. In light of these facts, anyone who seriously thinks the B-25 incident sheds any light on the WTC incident is badly deluding themselves. --Durin 13:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories are little better than grossly unqualified opinions and shouldn't be part of a factual article. I urge that any mention of the 9/11 conspiracies be dropped entirely from the entry. The value of the wiki is in its ability to concisely summarize known and/or agreed upon facts for the layperson, and this value is undermined when the wiki becomes cluttered with pet theories or ideologies put forth by unqualified individuals. --FCYoon.

I agree in your assessment of conspiracy theories. Which is why the government's version of events should not be presented here without criticism. Oneismany 19:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Before the claims that a theory makes are accepted, proven, or verified, and before the evidence on which the theory is based is well known and verified, the theory exists. The fact of its existence ought to be documented. These things are true regardless of the adjectives commonly used to describe the theory.
Additionally, the sources that provide evidence that support the theory ought to be credited for that evidence so that if the evidence can be verified as false, the supporting source can be rightfully discredited in the reader's mind, and if it is verified to be accurate, the supporting source can be rightfully credited. The reason for providing sources is so that readers can make their own judgments.Dscotese (talk) 21:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
What ideologies? And who are the unqualified induvidials? The induvidials that doesn't agree with your conclusions perhaps? In diffrence from you, I beleive the value of the wiki is to present pure facts, and not making conlusions, but only presenting as many conlusions as possible that already have been made, quoting the references.
All the fact should be presented neutrally, by looking at the history page It currently looks like you're methodicly sorting out all fact that doesn't support the official theory. And why dismiss theories as "conspiricy theories", shouldn't all theroies be neutrally presented in the same article where they apply?
--CooPs89 22:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The official "theory" is supported by practically the entire Western scientific and engineering establishment. That you don't recognize this makes me wonder about your qualifications to discuss engineering failures. I suggest that citations be limited respected peer-reviewed scientific and engineering journals. "Theorists" not willing to face the scrutiny of peer review should not be referenced on Wiki, except perhaps under the subject of science fiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.103.19.9 (talk) 04:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed personal attack. Please discuss how to improve the article. It is Wikipedia policy not to make personal attacks. Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More than a third of the US public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11

SOURCE: Scripps Howard News Service
DATE: August 2, 2006
BODY: More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.
http://newspolls.org/story.php?story_id=55 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.108.248.76 (talk) 23:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

89% of all Americans don't believe that evolution is real either. Shows you how smart Americans are when it comes to science. 4.143.238.59 07:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)eric

[edit] Article in New Scientist

I just found this article in the New Scientist [1]. In includes what looks like an early formulation of the fire-proofing theory (which is now the received view) and some criticisms of the site cleanup. I.e., something for the history section and the aftermath section. [Quintiere's criticisms of the cleanup are not part of this article. Sorry.]--Thomas Basboll 13:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cartoon airplanes

MONGO, try looking at the information here. An aluminum airplane is not going to glide through a steel/concrete building like it glides through the air. It violates laws of physics, no ifs ands or buts. No planes hit the towers. See here: [2] [3] Complete Truth 06:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

911researchers.com is not a reliable source under Wikipedia policy, so what that site says is completely irrelevant to our purposes here.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 06:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


Also... an airplane isn't going to make a cartoon-cutout of itself in a steel/concrete building. But that's exactly what seems to have happened on 9/11: the aluminum wings seem to have sawed through structural steel and steel-reinforced concrete. This is physically impossible. There's no proof that planes hit the towers. Some eyewitnesses reported missiles, not planes [4]. The government's story is a lie from beginning to end. There were no planes and no hijackers. It was a lie to start war in the Middle East and invoke the Patriot Act. The thugs who did 9/11 are masters at creating propaganda. They plant false/misleading stories to fool people. This includes Norad standing down, Steven Jones and his thermite, and a stand down order by Cheney. There was no stand down order because there was no plane! It's been 5.5 years. People need to face up to what happened and work together to remove the criminals from power. Complete Truth 06:37, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

First: what do you think missiles are made of?: A: lightweight aluminum and soft explosive. An airplane is much denser and stronger. --also has much more energy than a 1000 lb missile. Second: the building was mostly air, which is why the airplane went straight through.



Why do people who don't know the laws of physics keep saying that they are violated? It's cool, though, that the new conpsiracy theory is that the old conspiracy theory is part of the conspiracy to fool the conspiracy theorists. controlled demolition is now a ruse to throw smart people off the track of energy weapons? You do realize that the formulators of these theories make their living off of new conspiracy theories and you can expect a new one every six months or so, right? --Tbeatty 06:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you take a few moments to actually look at the information. I'm sure you know that it's already been proven that the towers were pulverized to powder [5]. Complete Truth 06:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
I've seen it all. But the towers collapsed under their own weight after the steel fireproofing was damaged and a post crash fire weakened the steel. (see the NIST report for the actual science and engineering). Cartoon airplanes don't spew jet fuel all over the occupants. It seems to me to be intuitive that the size of the remaining pieces would depend only on the building height and mass. A massive, tall building would have very, very small pieces. As an example, take two pieces of concrete and drop one from 10 ft onto the other. Both will break into fairly large chunks. Now drop it from 10,000 ft and they will be pulverized. Common sense. --Tbeatty 17:01, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


You wanna talk common sense? Okay. Let's say you're in a car, driving towards a big metal mesh made of structural steel, such as the ones seen in this videoclip. Now.... how fast would you need to be driving so the car would glide into the steel, just like it glides through the air? How fast would you have to drive to create a cartoon cutout of the car in the steel, the way the wings of the 9/11 "plane" did?
There's no evidence that the towers collapsed. They didn't collapse, they were pulverized. Look at the BEFORE and AFTER. Where's the hundreds of tons of steel beams? Each tower was a 1/4 mile tall! On top of that, where's the thousands of desks, chairs, bookcases, computers, xerox machines, water coolers, filing cabinets, doors, sinks, toilets, etc? Whatever sources used on the topic page are obviously not reliable, and that page should be rewritten immediately. Wikipedia is contributing to the propaganda campaign that the government is running.
FYI, 99% of the "alternate 9/11 theory" stuff in the mainstream media is propaganda. NORAD didn't stand down, because there were no planes for them to stand down for. There was no molten metal, Steven Jones is a fraud. How many times has Dr Judy Wood's directed energy weapons (DEW) theory been mentioned in the media? The answer is none. I wonder why? Her Request for Correction to NIST is archived on a US Government website, she's represented by attorney Jerry Leaphart, and not one media outlet picked it up. Why is that? I wonder why Steven Jones has ties to Los Alamos, where DEW are researched? I wonder why Greg Jenkins, the physicist who did the "ambush interview" of Dr Wood, has ties to Los Alamos? I wonder why Jenkins' previous work was funded by the NSA? On 9/11 Dr Van Romero, a demolitions expert said it was a controlled demolition and that the towers could have been taken down with a "relatively small amount of explosives". Take a look at the BEFORE and AFTER links above. Could a "relatively small amount of explosives" have done that? Is it coincidence that Romero made a presentation to DEPS, the Directed Energy Professional Society? Is it coincidence that Applied Research Associates, a founding sponsor of DEPS and a manufacturer of directed energy weapons, was contracted by NIST for the 9/11 report? The 9/11 perps are masters at creating propaganda. Don't you see what's going on? Complete Truth 03:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Your'kidding right? An aluminum can at 300 MPH would simply deform into the mesh holes. Bullets made of lead are deformed by the human body. Lead is much denser than aluminum and the human body is much softer than steel. What happened on 9/11 is more akin to an egg being thrown at a chain link fence. It cracks and goes through and disintegrates. Steven Jones has his own problems as CD didn't happen either but all of these people are in a different universe. So for your edification, I have familiy that was in Manhattan that day and two real airplanes crashed into the two towers. There were no controlled demoltions. There were no cartoon airplanes. You dishonor the victims by claiming this was all made up. I also see that my purely made up consipracy theory below would be believed. I could be rich. Do you attend these 9/11 CT conferences? They had one in my city not too long ago and they only charged the participants $300 per person to hear The Truth.TM --Tbeatty 04:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


Rambling away like that does not make your beleifs so. You need to use scientific analysis. The two photos here and here prove that the towers "went away", and did not collapse. Aluminum cans and bullets cannot be compared with an airplane. But a car can, which is why I used it in my analogy. This photo is further proof of cartoon airplanes. Half in, half out. No break in the building between the engines and fuselage. Pure cartoon. See this article for the newest analysis. You need even more proof? See here. To the left of the towers is the Whitehall Building. To the left of that, according to the CNN shot, is the 19 Rector Street building. However, that building is NOT visible from that location, as proven by the other photo. I challenge you or anyone else to go to Battery Park and prove otherwise. The corporate media broadcasted a cartoon! Here's an article in Technology Review magazine, written one year before 9/11. It details how the military and TV Networks can insert images in live video feed to alter world politics. Complete Truth 21:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


Just so we're clear, 19 Rector Street is to the right of the Whitehall building in the gif on the page you link to (here). In both images in the gif too. 19 Rector St looks like this: [6]. Now, here's a shot from the harbor of 19 Rector Street, the Whitehall Building, and Battery Park: [7]. Here's a broader view: [8]. The building to the left of the Whitehall building looks like it's this building: [9], the Bankers Trust Building at 200 Liberty Street. From Battery Park one can see right the space in buildings from West Street/West Side Highway, so it's not to surprising that 200 Liberty Street is visible. It's not all surprising that 19 Rector Street is visible, because the only thing between it and Battery Park is the entry for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which is at ground level. Oh, that and it's in both the "suspected" picture and the "debunker" picture. But then, so is the Bankers Trust Building, it's just behind the trees. It's called parallax. Look it up. Might try google maps to, so you can pull 19 Rector street from somewhere other than your... JetGoodson 07:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
See the NIST report for the actual science and engineering.
See the NIST WTC FAQ, referenced in the article, for some glorious nonsense. NIST says about the glowing liquid puring out of the side of WTC 2: "This flow lasted approximately four seconds before subsiding."
Then watch this (warning: graphic content!) yourself and make your own conclusions about the accuracy of what NIST is saying.
I also love this portion:
"Question: Why did the NIST investigation not consider reports of molten steel in the wreckage from the WTC towers?
Answer: NIST investigators and experts [...] found no evidence that would support the melting of steel in a jet-fuel ignited fire in the towers prior to collapse."
Well, that doesn't answer the question, but nice smoke bomb, anyway. Thanks, NIST. "Did you see an elephant?" - "No, we didn't see any pink flying elephants!"
"NIST considered the damage to the steel structure and its fireproofing caused by the aircraft impact and the subsequent fires when the buildings were still standing since that damage was responsible for initiating the collapse of the WTC towers."
Translation: NIST had already made up their minds about the cause of the collapse before they even began searching for evidence. Who needs the scientific method anyway?
I'd rather believe the zaniest conspiracy theory than burdening my credulity with this sort of bovine manure. Aragorn2 23:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My own pet theory to make money

I have a theory that a new government weapon that creates seismographic events brought down the towers. This explains why the the siesmographs matched the collapse exactly. It was tuned to resonate with buildings the height of the World Trade Center. The airplanes were a ruse to throw people off the track. The Government put out the Controlled Demolition theory to make the Conspiracy Theorists look like loons. But I have discovered the True Events of 9/11. Shortly after this test on 9/11 the U.S. attacked a village in Iran and more recently a Tsunami in the south pacific. How else do you explain the timeline of events: 9/11, Iran, Indonesia? How can I sell my story to True Believers to get rich? I could write a book and hold conferences around the country (charging about $300 for admission). P.T. Barnum would be proud. --Tbeatty 17:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

No Tbeatty you are completely wrong, I have a source that shows that one airplane was responsible for all four attacks. [10] Good luck on the lecture circuit though. — MichaelLinnear 19:13, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
The President Bush airplane called Air Force One? Was he reading about the pet goats for while on the airflight? Ha ha. Babalooo 04:02, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
You have your facts fauxed (as Jim Fetzer said live on FOX news). The seismic readings match that of much smaller buildings. Dr Wood shows proof of this in her paper on her site. "Collapse" is not a descriptive word for what happened. The towers did not collapse, they were pulverized, as shown in the BEFORE and AFTER images I linked to above. Yes, the airplanes were a ruse to throw people off track. Yes, the government put out the CD theory to make those "who have open minds" look like loons. Our culture has been brainwashed into thinking that certain things are crazy. The brainwashers use the term "conspiracy theory" to do the job. Americans have been duped into thinking that anything associated with the CT term is crazy. Anyone who continually uses that term is still brainwashed. The fact is, there is no proof to back up the government's version of 9/11. Yet the public buys whatever the corporate media spews out hook, line and sinker, just like a conspiracy theorist. Complete Truth 04:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
The alleged government seis-mo-matic™ technology is a hoax - the effects have been revealed to actually be gold-seeking river dwarves. Peter Grey 04:14, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Let me get this straight: The government used a directed energy weapon (from space I presume?) to destroy the Twin Towers and kill thousands, using both an elaborate mainstream story and a false flag conspiracy theory to throw people off track, yet you have figured it out. And are able to promote The Truth with no repercussion? Why isn't your (and Judy Whatshernames) house a smoldering mass destroyed from space and disguised to look like a crack pipe accident? --Tbeatty 04:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
No, it wasn't the government, it was criminal elements within the government. A big difference! It might have come from space. The organization that I mentioned above, Directed Energy Professional Society, put out their first newsletter one year before 9/11. The newsletter opened with the following: "Lasers in space, lasers in the stratosphere, lasers on and over the battlefield - we're at the beginning of an evolutionary new wave of weaponry." Interesting opening, isn't it!! But the beam weapon might have come from an airplane or helicopter. There aren't a lot of these people, so they just can't kill every threat. Judy Wood's student Michael Zebuhr was killed last year. Not only was he a 9/11 researcher, but he did experiments with Dr Wood to prove that Steven Jones' work was faulty! (Check out her website for the information.) A few weeks ago, someone at Virginia Tech managed to kill over two dozen people using a small gun that could only hold 17 bullets at a time. Some of those killed were engineering professors. Guess who got their PhD in Materials Engineering Science from V-Tech? Complete Truth 04:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
What happens with the 4 airplanes if the ones who hit the towers and Pentagon and other crash are not real? They took off and just go away? All the people inside who leave and never come back. Where did they go to? Babalooo 05:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Excellent questions. Flights 11 and 77 were not listed in the BTS database. They were phantom flights and never existed on the morning of 9/11. The other two did, but no one knows what happened to them. All four flights were "reported" as being extremely underbooked. Many names are suspected to be fictitious, but some were definitely real (i.e. news media person Barbara Olsen). Complete Truth 05:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Are you familiar with portal and wormhole technology? As to what dimension they are in now... — MichaelLinnear 05:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Are you familiar with portal and wormhole technology? Not myself personally, but you can find wormhole engineers in the Yellow Pages™. Peter Grey 16:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
If you examine the lists of passengers, posted many places, it appears that the total count of all passengers on all 4 flights just happens to be very close to the seat count of one full boeing 767. I have not been able to find another flight as underbooked as any of those 4. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.212.59.41 (talk) 17:17, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

Complete Truth, your delusions run deep. 9/11 had nothing to do with rogue government operatives, directed energy weapons or any other of your flights of fancy. A group of us in New Jersey who live just across the river from "Ground Zero" have, after years of analysis and debate, cracked the case wide open. Here's what happened: a group of disgruntled special effects specialists who had worked on the 1998 remake bomb Godzilla ran amok and designed/implemented the mass illusion we call "9/11". After the film was panned by all major critics and failed to even recoup expenses, these specialists found themselves out of work and the laughingstocks of Hollywood and New Zealand-based effects studios. Two of them (whom I will not name at this time) literally went insane and formulated a plan to bring chaos to the U.S.-- chaos for the sake of chaos. They built incredibly lifelike models of the World Trade Center and, aided by some CGI, filmed the sequences we are all familiar with, including the building collapses. That's right-- the WTC is intact today, underneath a holographic shell projected by the group. As soon as my colleagues and I complete our personal security arrangements, we will be stepping forward with all the evidence. Forget Bush and Cheney, forget Skull & Bones and the Illuminati. There are few forces on this planet today that can compare to angry special effects specialists bent on chaos. JDG 10:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WTC 7

The WIKI states that WTC 7 collapsed due to debris damage from WTC 1 and 2 combined with "widespread fires". I have examined many photographs, videos of WTC 7 and can not find any evidence of widespread fires. It appears that almost none of the windows were broken, and only a few (2 or 3) offices were on fire at any time until the collapse.

NIST has still not released a document on WTC 7's collapse, as of 04/2007.

What happened to WTC7? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.212.59.41 (talk • contribs)

Perchance were these photographs all taken from the north side of the building? Peter Grey 12:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the assertion that WTC 7 collapsed due to "widespread fires". The reference cited was not a final report on WTC 7 and did not mention widespread fires. The NIST draft report predicted in December, 2006, to be released in early 2007, has not, as of June, 2007, been released. I also removed the assertion that diesel fuel from the tanks in WTC 7 contributed to the collapse, because 1) the reference cited did not say so, and 2) the reason for the collapse is still unknown. I moved the entire WTC 7 collapse section up so that it follows the description of the other towers' collapses. I renamed the "collapse of the two towers" section to "collapse of the twin towers" to help clarify that not two, but three, WTC towers fell that day. Pmocek 08:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reversion without discussion is a violation of Wikipedia policy

See the section NPOV. Discussion first, then consensus, then reversion or no reversion. This will not become a revert war. Oneismany 23:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Let it be noted that the NPOV tag was removed without discussion on the grounds it was "misleading." Oneismany 01:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

It was already noted in the edit summary. Pablo Talk | Contributions 02:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I've added a section to a WP help talk page on how to deal with this problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dscotese (talk • contribs) 01:45, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

Whoa. "The hypothesis [of controlled demolition] is pursued mainly as part of larger conspiracy theories about the events of 9/11"? And the hypothesis that the building collapsed due to fire is not part of a conspiracy theory, i.e. the government version of events? You really must wonder how weak a point of view has to be if it will not begrudge any suggestion that other points of view are equally valid. The video testimony of the collapse of WTC7 is widely available on the internet and comes from major news sources, and it might legitimately support more than one hypothesis. Therefore I am sticking an NPOV tag on this article. Oneismany 19:08, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Other points of view, such as that of unqualified amateurs misinterpreting video, are not equally valid. Peter Grey 05:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I have placed an NPOV tag on this article.
Against Peter Grey, with specific reference to Wikipedia advice on WP:NPOV:
This article as it stands attempts to evade WP:NPOV policy through misleading use of a POV fork - that is, creating a new article about a certain subject (the controlled demolition hypothesis) ... 'to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. This is generally considered unacceptable. The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major Points of View on a certain subject are treated in one article.'
  • Because the controlled demolition hypothesis is definately a viewpoint considered by a significant minority, including the former professor Steven_Jones, a 'prominent adherant' - it should be included in the one article. Lectures have been given at universities and conferences around the United States on this hypothesis. Moreover, Steven_Jones recently had a recorded debate with Leslie_Robertson, the structural engineer who designed the World_Trade_Center (listen to the Podcast or read the Annotated Transcript).
  • Let the facts speak for themselves. Persons interested in the facts of the collapse of the world trade center would surely be interested to hear of the research of Steven_Jones, a 20 year professor of physics specializing in the physics of steel. Especially since Steven_Jones has spoken at universities and multiple conferences on the specific alternative hypothesis (videos of him speaking are available from YouTube) and has debated live with Leslie_Robertson (listen to the podcast).
  • Fairness of tone must not be violated. Has the fairness of tone been violated? And what has happened when reviewers try and improve the fairness of tone? The frequent revisions on the history page - many simply improving the tone in minor ways - are further evidence that the neutrality of this article is in real dispute.
(Those of us who trust and hope the government hypothesis is reliable, let us nevertheless provide the most reliable links to other hypotheses on this very same page - for example, the two major points of view of 911 scholars. Let us be aware of any persistent and coordinated efforts to quickly remove other hypotehses. A simple litmus test of the neutrality in this article will be use of the word 'hypothesis', the absence of the word 'conspiracy', and links to the 'good scientific research' of Steven_Jones.)
(Given the political significance of this article, people must be aware of misinformation (incorrect information) and disinformation (deliberately incorrect information). A good summary of this information issue, clearly relevant to contributors of this Wikipedia article is available from the Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Misinformation.)
[removed per policy on biographies of living people] Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
There are no facts supporting the controlled demolition hypothesis. To present facts that supposedly support controlled demolition in the article would be dishonest. Pablo Talk | Contributions 02:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
The towers were pulverized. This is not hypothesis nor theory, it is fact, and is supported by ALL the evidence. Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Collapse is a question of structural engineering, not folklore; buildings do not fall down by consensus. The demolition hypothesis is a hoax, based on disinformation. It is not just wrong, it is demonstrably wrong. Peter Grey 03:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
The towers did not collapse, they were pulverized. Try looking at the simple evidence before making such ridiculous claims. Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


The 9/11 scholars are anything but that.--MONGO 05:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Some of the so-called "scholars" are government plants. Look at Judy Wood's evidence for the obvious truth. Complete Truth 18:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Of course they are, teh ebil gooberment is always out to get poor people like you . laff--ChaplineRVine(talk ¦ ✉) 22:04, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Sure...sure they are. She has a conspiracy theory just like the scholars do.--MONGO 18:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
On the subject of collapsed buildings, I always consult dental experts. Pablo Talk | Contributions 19:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reminder

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Collapse of the World Trade Center article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. RxS 04:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Exactly how do we discuss improving the article without discussing the article's subject? Oneismany 02:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
You discuss how the article should be written and what it should include...you don't discuss how one or another theory makes sense or doesn't make sense based on your own observations and calculations. That's original research and doesn't belong here....RxS 04:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Total progressive collapse theory

The article's section on the total progressive collapse can be improved by pointing out shortcomings of the theory that contradict the laws of physics. Oneismany 02:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

For example, the total progressive collapse theory does not adequately explain how the momentum of the collapse accelerated because the force of gravity, the rate of change of momentum, is a constant with respect to altitude and mass. Oneismany 02:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Are there any reliable sources that make that point? Pablo Talk | Contributions 02:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Steven Jones, "Revisiting 9/11/2001 --Applying the Scientific Method," Journal of 9/11 Studies, May 2007, p62.[11] It's called the Law of the Conservation of Momentum. Steven Jones is a prominent adherent. Oneismany 05:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
The acceleration of gravity is constant. Rate of change of momentum is not constant when the mass is not constant. Jones' paper applies the scientific method selectively. Besides, 'total progressive collapse' is an idealization. Peter Grey 06:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC) (I think most people are 'adherents' to conservation of momentum.)
The acceleration (rate of change of velocity) due to gravity is constant. The force of gravity is the rate of change of momentum. The force of gravity is F = G \frac{m_1m_2}{d^2} is proportional altitude and that is why velocity increases identically regardless of mass or any increase or decrease in mass. The force of gravity over distance falling increases less for more mass and more for less mass. The rate of momentum increase is greater for lighter objects and lesser for heavier objects, that is why two similar objects of the different mass fall at the same velocity. Point out where Steven Jones uses the conservation of momentum selectively. Oneismany 06:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
No original research...thanks.--MONGO 06:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Since when is basic physics original research? Besides WP:NOR applies to the article not the talk page! Oneismany 06:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
The talk page is here to help us make the article better, not as a place for you to soapbox.--MONGO 07:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Right. And we can make the article better by pointing out that peer-reviewed articles have argued that the total progressive collapse theory does not preserve conservation of momentum or conservation of energy. Oneismany 07:16, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Where are these peer reviewed papers?--MONGO 07:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Here.[12] Here.[13] Here.[14] Oneismany 08:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Ha...for a minute, I thought you were serious--MONGO 09:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Jones makes appeals to intuition, and does not provide any calculations contradicting structural failure. I think the confusion comes from But with no explosives (the "official theory") and the law of conservation of momentum, material below the roof - including intact steel columns - must significantly slow the motion of the roof., p. 72, which is asserted without proof or a definition of 'significant'. Jones refers to conservation of momentum with respect to an intact building (which of course would not have collapsed in the first place). Peer review is review of scientific theory by other scientists, not of propaganda by other charlatans. Peter Grey 14:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
We are only editors, it is not for us to make a judgment call as to who are scientists and who are charlatans, nor what is science or what is propaganda. The same criticism can be directed toward Bazant et. al. who propose that the rate of change of momentum increases but do not adequately account for the increased force. Oneismany 22:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Who is or is not a scientist with respect to structural failure is decided by the engineering profession. Peter Grey 02:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
The reference desk would be better suited to learning fundamental physics. Peter Grey 14:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah, good idea. Thanks! Oneismany 22:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Currently, the article contains this passage:

While the NIST report analyzes the initial failure mechanism in detail, it does not address the subsequent total collapse of the WTC towers. An early analysis[21] explains that the kinetic energy of the upper portion of the building falling onto the story below exceeded by an order of magnitude the amount of energy that the lower story could absorb, crushing it and adding to the kinetic energy. This scenario repeated with each successive story, crushing the entire tower at an ever-increasing pace. While it is the most widely held view among engineers[22], it has been been criticized for ignoring the resistance of the underlying structure, which may have slowed a progressive collapse much more dramatically and even prevented it altogether.[23]

I've read this a few times, and it doesn't make any sense to me -- the first sentence looks like a truism (yes, this is what happens when a structure collapses), but the second sentence seems like borderline gibberish ("ignoring the resistance of the underlying structure"?). Are they just trying to say that there's a minority that thinks the building was stronger than the majority does? This is just "truthie" physics, isn't it? The article is relatively free of that stuff, it would be nice to see this passage go as well. -- Doom (talk) 01:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to make it represent Cherepanov's criticism of Bazant in the Int Journal of Fracture. It could probably be improved. The idea is precisely to make it clear that progressive collapse is a non-trivial explanation of the totality of the collapses (not a truism), i.e., that there is a discussion about whether or not it is correct. Perhaps it would be better to describe the progressive collapse in greater detail (dynamic loads, buckling of columns, etc.) and then say that others have argued that such a collapse would take much longer than the collapses actually took, and might not even get started.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "The best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence."

This quote with regard to the collapse of WTC7 from section 5.7 of the the FEMA reportWorld Trade Center Building Performance Study [15] is relevant to the topic and deserves to be included in the article. The article is unduly vague about the conclusions of the FEMA report and we should include more detail. The report goes on to say, "The collapse of WTC 7 was different from that of WTC 1 and WTC 2. The towers showered debris in a wide radius as their external frames essentially "peeled" outward and fell from the top to the bottom. In contrast, the collapse of WTC 7 had a relatively small debris field because the facade came straight down, suggesting an internal collapse." These details should be included in the article. Oneismany 06:56, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pools of metal

has there been an explanation for the pools of molten metal under the towers? 69.11.120.151 16:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe that it was caused by the bombs in the subbasement when the central column was blown. I have found Zeitgeist (http://zeitgeistmovie.com/) very informative in the depth of the governments deception. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fido488 (talk • contribs) 21:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Knowledge of WTC collapse

Rudy Giuliani has flip-flopped since 2001 on his story of whether he knew of the coming Twin Towers collapse.

Editor User:DBaba gutted a bona fide statement by a commenrcial newspaper and by a commercial TV station. Such gutting of documented statements is POV. Dogru144 23:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed Dogru144's "contribution". http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/search/label/Rudy%20Giuliani and has a concise explanation towards why this "flip flop" is nonsense. Wasted Time R 03:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The fires were bad enough to totally weaken the supports?

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones." Ladder 15: "Chief, what stair you in?" Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower." Ladder 15: "Floor 78?" Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."

[16]

Perhaps he was mistaken. Kevin77v 08:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

That was one floor. Multiply it by the number of floors. then add in the structural damage. --Tbeatty 08:41, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
The firefighter is reporting what he is seeing at that moment in time in a stairway on floor 78. I don't see a reason to think he is mistaken about the number of pockets of fire he is observing at his location. Floor 78 was the lower boundary of impact damage; parts of floors 77 and 78 were hit by the tip of the wing of flight 175. Apparently the wingtip didn't hit the stairway from which the firefighter was reporting. The bulk of the fire and damage were above floor 78. Weregerbil 09:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Graphic Images Warning Tag?

I don't know if wikipedia has a Graphic Imgages Tag or not, but I feel that there might be a need for one on this page. A lot of people still are effected by the footage and pictures shown about this disaster, and some of the pictures (The woman in the gash picture) kinda made me feel uneasy. So i think someone should add that tag or make it. Thanks 02:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion over the 707 impact study

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, however, was unable to document the study reported by Robertson and FEMA.

Can someone rewrite this so it's clear? What does this mean? Does it mean that the 707 impact study could not ever be located, so it may not have existed? Or it was hallway speculation by some engineers and not a rigorous study? Tempshill 14:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

  • This refers to an apparent analysis done in February/March 1964 by the Port Authority. It was mentioned in a 3-page document from the Port Authority -- a letter with attachment dated November 13, 2003 from John R. Dragonette (Retired Project Administrator, Physical Facilities Division, World Trade Department) to Saroj Bhol (Design and Engineering Department, PANYNJ) Here's what NIST says:

Buildings are not designed to withstand the impact of fuel-laden commercial airliners. However, Port Authority documents indicate that the impact of a Boeing 707 flying at 600 mph and possibly crashing into the 80th floor had been analyzed during the design of the WTC towers in February/March 1964. While NIST has not found evidence of the analysis, the documents state that such a collision would result in localized damage only, and that it would not cause collapse or substantial damage to the WTC towers. The effect of fires due to jet fuel dispersion and ignition of building contents was not considered in the 1964 analysis. Loss of life in the immediate area of aircraft impact was anticipated, but loss of life from fire and smoke was not considered.

NIST found nothing that actually documented this analysis. What Robertson says is from his own recollection, regarding analysis and consideration of a plane crashing at 180 mph. Don't think any documents of this have been found either. --Aude (talk) 15:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Impact diagram incorrect

The diagram showing the impact locations on the towers has an error. According to Building of the World Trade Center "The core in 1 WTC was oriented with the long axis east to west, while that of 2 WTC was oriented north to south." The diagram in this article shows both building cores oriented the same direction.

[edit] Suggestion to keep Conspiracy Discussion Confined to 9/11 Conspiracy Page

And keep this page scientific. People with no background in engineering or science have no business passing off conjecture as encyclopedic fact. Conspiracy "evidence" belongs in the 9/11 conspiracy page, not here.

130.134.81.16 21:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC) (Aerospace Engineer)

I have to disagree. Although Wikipedia shouldn't become a battle ground for conspiracy theorists, such situations are unavoidable.I think we should keep the theories 'confined,' so to speak to their appropriate places. In a perfect world we would not have to make a mention of it. Despite this, because (regrettably so) such a large amount of people happen to believe or suspect the theory of controlled demolition, there should be at most a mention of it, perhaps accompanied by a summary of the theory. We must be especially vigilant and careful to make sure this section of the article remains factually based, small and concise, and it should for the most part be a redirect to the conspiracy page.

Any other mention of the controlled demolition theory within the article, or of its implications would be inappropriate and should be removed.


As for the talk page, I think any kind of discussion regarding the conspiracy theories is very much inappropriate. In my opinion, the warning tag placed at the beginning of the discussion page should be separated by a space from the other tags, so as to stand out more, and should also be the first tag that appears. The talk page should be used specifically for discussion of the article, not its subject matter. [And no, none of us except engineers really have a right to talk about it :)]

--Chopin-Ate-Liszt! 20:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Amen, brother.--Beguiled 22:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)


The best way to improve the "Collapse of the World Trade Center" article is to remove it. It's based on fabricated evidence (aka "lies"). The towers did not collapse, they were pulverized. The structural steel was turned to dust. Again, the best way to improve the "Collapse of the World Trade Center" article is to remove it. Complete Truth 00:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Wtc-photo.jpg Gee, is that the structural steel. Complete Truth, shut your pie hole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.15.105 (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
You are a single purpose, pro-Judy Wood, revert/POV warrior. This project would benefit greatly if you discontinued editing 9/11-related articles. Thanks, Pablo Talk | Contributions 01:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

My use of a descriptive term is being interdicted by certain individuals. The tone of this article is heavily biased in favor of the official party line.Djg2006 17:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Controlled demolition: conspiracy theory? Or hypothesis?

Casting the controlled demolition hypothesis as a conspiracy theory injects POV by branding it (and its adherents) as something kooky, beyond the pale. The "conspiracy" aspect of the hypothesis is peripheral; the hypothesis itself is the central point. Peterhoneyman 01:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Which theories? There are many conjectures - some are legitimate hypotheses, some are genuinely "kooky" and some are outright disinformation. "Hypothesis" is not a suitable word for folklore-based speculation that has already been disproven. Peter Grey 02:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] bin Laden Section

The original words "Although its authenticity was initially questioned" indicates to readers there is no longer any dispute so I changed them to "Although the translation is contested" and included a cite from a RS. Tom harrison reverted it with the comment "rm - belongs with conspiracy theories". Before another revert, a cite is needed to prove the translation is no longer disputed or such a revert is extreme POV at best, especially considering the dissenting view is from a more reliable source than the source of the original translation. I suggest that if the translation is disputed the entire section could probably be deleted as irrelevant. If the section is to stay then it must be NPOV and not give the impression that the White House translation is the only one and undisputed. Wayne 08:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Since Tom harrison was asked to come to talk and/or provide a cite for his claim he has now reverted twice more without the courtesy of an explanation. I can no longer assume good faith and ask that he refrain from vandalising the section. Wayne 03:07, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:South WTC Collapse.jpg

Image:South WTC Collapse.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 08:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert on this, but the fair use rationale seems to have been added to this image by mistake. According to the image page, the owner of the copyright has given permission to use it. There is no need to invoke fair use and the solution seems to be just to remove the rationale.--Thomas Basboll 15:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Was there ever any debate?

I just noticed this sentence in the section on the investigations:

Interviewed by the BBC in October 2001, the British architect Bob Halvorson correctly predicted that there would be "a debate about whether or not the World Trade Center Towers should have collapsed in the way that they did."

Did he really correctly predict those debates? I haven't found very much discussion in the engineering literature. The closest I've come is the (apparently) mostly ignored criticisms by Lane, Quintiere, Cherepanov, and Bailey. If we can document some discussion about whether or not the WTC should have collapsed the way it did then let's do that. Otherwise we may have to delete this sentence.--Thomas Basboll 06:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Why the sentence and not the word "correctly"?--Pokipsy76 09:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure the sentence is informative enough if he was wrong.--Thomas Basboll 09:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV check needed

I haven't had much time for Wikipedia recently, and not able to undertake detailed review of this article at this time. Soon though I should (maybe in the next week or two), as the way some thing are worded are problematic. I have tweaked the section about progressive collapse, which said things like "is widely regarded as the most plausible hypothesis" and contradicted that with "So far, only one rudimentary paper has been published". And the part about "not take much longer than it would take a free-falling object" is not adequately explained. The WTC7 section also desperately needs to be reworked. I'm happy to do that, ASAP when I have the time. For now, the article should be tagged, warning our readers that the article is problematic. --Aude (talk) 08:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. I'd very much like to see the excellent work on WTC7 over the 7 World Trade Center article influence this article. (I understand the reluctance simply to move it, though it still seems to me to be the most natural way of organizing the material.) As to the "is widely regarded" and "only one paper", I think it did look a bit odd, and I've tried to correct that. It can be reliably documented, however, both that most engineers endorse progressive collapse and that very little has been done to demonstrate it. The most common explanation for this is that once the "simple" overload calculation is done, no further argument is needed.--Thomas Basboll 09:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Aude...for instance, the entire section and even including the section heading "Anticipation of aircraft impact" is POV...the section is written as though the collapse is extremely odd, and worded to indicate that not only were the buildings built to withstand fires but also aircraft impacts...but nothing is mentioned which indicates they were built to withstand BOTH incidents, one right after another...possibly because that scenario was not ever examined as a joint event.--MONGO 14:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd be carefull with that MONGO as the architect for the WTC said the buildings were designed to withstand both the impact and the planes fuel load. Considering most of the fuel load was ejected and actually burnt outside the buildings it would only feed conspiracy theories to make too much of it. Wayne 18:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't really understand MONGO's concern here. The issue he emphasizes is well-developed in the section and based on solid sources. It concludes, as MONGO does, that there is little evidence that the joint-event scenario (or even the aircraft scenario alone) was properly considered.--Thomas Basboll 07:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
No one knows if "most of the fuel load was ejected and burned outside the buildings"...the fact that the buildings were burning is obvious by the smoke they produced, which was easily seen by all. I find that section and a number of others to be slightly, but not egregiously POV.--MONGO 17:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Lets look at the NIST findings. NIST estimated that 3,000 gal. of fuel burnt outside the building and 7,000 gal. inside (which started the fires). The jet fuel took, at most, a few minutes to be completely burnt and the effects of the fires it started were negligible according to NIST. Now lets look at statements by the designing engineers and documents predating the attack which confirm that engineers considered the effects of an impact by a 707 jetliner travelling at 600 mph and the ensuing fires caused by 23,000 gal. of jet fuel (A paper released on February 3, 1964), the calculations alone take up 1,200 pages. (According to NIST each plane only held around 10,000 gal. when they hit). This means the buildings were supposed to withstand not only a larger impact (a 707 @ 600 mph impacts with more kinetic energy than a 767 is capable of) but fires caused by twice the amount of fuel. According to engineers in documents dated February 13, 1965 the towers were over designed by a factor of 16. This means that more than 90% of the columns (this includes both core and perimeter columns) would need to be severed to initiate a collapse (less than 25% actually were). So the collapse really does look odd when compared to what the buildings were designed for. Obviously some factor was involved that was not taken into account. What factor caused the collapse we will never know unless it is investigated. Shall we add these details to make it more NPOV or leave it as it is? From your "knowledgeable" comments it seems it is not POV enough yet to suit you. Wayne 03:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
We already know what caused the collapse of the towers. We don't need to wait for any investigation; such investigations have already taken place. Pablo Talk | Contributions 03:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Dang. I missed it. I thought the NIST report was the investigation. Please give me a link to the other investigation thx. Wayne 04:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
I never said there were any other investigations (I probably should have written "investigation" instead of its plural form in my previous comment). Based on your earlier comments, you might need to read WP:SOAP and also WP:OR. Pablo Talk | Contributions 04:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Wayne, let us know when you discover what other things made the buildinsg collapse...as of now, the only factual evidence is that the combined effects of high speed collision by wide body jets and the subsequent fires brought the buildings down.--MONGO 05:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
It looks like there is some useful information about the design of the WTC in Glanz and Lipton's City in the Sky, which we should probably make use of in this article, since it is one of the few books on this subject. They also mention the studies Wayne refers to. But as far as I can tell NIST's "couldn't find the documents" remains the last word on the matter. (I can't imagine Glanz and Lipton had already found what NIST later couldn't find.) BTW, the question here is not whether or not the aircraft impacts brought the buildings down, but whether, given the impacts, they came down against the expectations of their designers. The answer, I think, is: NIST refuses to "speculate" about that.--Thomas Basboll 07:55, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
The collapse *is* extremely odd. To my knowledge such a thing has never happened anywhere before or since. The view that the collapse was caused by fire is only a theory, and one which has not been proven. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.96.161.52 (talk) 14:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
according to bažant, the decisive factor was the scraping of insulation, not anticipated at the time of design, without which the collapse would not have occurred.
Bažant, Zdeněk P. (2007-05-27). "Collapse of World Trade Center Towers: What Did and Did Not Cause It?". 2007-06-22. . Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. Structural Engineering Report No. 07-05/C605c Retrieved on 2007-09-17.
Peterhoneyman 16:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
As MONGO said, NIST concluded that "the combined effects of high speed collision by wide body jets and the subsequent fires brought the buildings down". What they didn't do was give a reason why. NISTS computor simulations could not make the buildings collapse so they based their findings on the fact that they did fall and this indicates a factor which NIST never fully investigated. It's not my OR as it's in the NIST report which I recommend that Pablothegreat85 read instead of relying on the summary. NIST couldn't find the reports but what they did find was a written summary of the report (dated 1964), copies of emails confirming details and the recollections of the engineers who wrote the original report. Wayne 16:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Bažant's paper while ok covering the collapse is still speculation in regards to fire damage as NIST never found enough columns affected by heat and even said the fires were negligable. Losing fireproofing was obviously a factor but to what extent? The fact remains that the towers were designed to stay standing even after losing most of their columns ("live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs" ENR, Feb 4, 1964). In fact they were designed to lose ALL the columns on one side of the building and have the columns on the other side support the entire structure. Wayne 17:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, it didn't work out the way the engineers planned then.--MONGO 05:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
That fires could significantly weaken huge steel girders is possible although it seems very unlikely in the context of experience to date. (Have any buildings anywhere had modifications made in the light of this new possibility?) - However there is absolutely nothing so far as I am aware to eliminate the theoretical scientific possibility that they gave way due to localised explosions, either caused by unrecognised accidents or by deliberately planted explosives. Either scenario is possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MegdalePlace (talk • contribs) 19:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV check needed (continued)

"BTW, the question here is not whether or not the aircraft impacts brought the buildings down, but whether, given the impacts, they came down against the expectations of their designers." -- Thomas Basboll

I don't think you have looked at the available videos and photographs enough. (1) The second plane approached the south tower, making a dramatic, last-minute correction. (2) A white-looking light, apparently emanating from a pod under the right wing of the plane, was reflected on the south face of the building. (3) An explosion ripped out the facade on the east face of the building, on the same level the plane was about to hit. (4) The plane hit the south face of the building, just to the left of the white light, sending a fireball out of the east face of the building. According to a group of pilots who have viewed this video, the flash was too bright to have been caused by burning jet fuel, which isn't that explosive. One professional pilot subsequently refused to fly unless his airline certified that none of the insulation in the plane had been replaced by explosives. He hasn't flown since. The plane apparently missed most, if not all, of the core columns. (5) The building burned, at low temperatures, as evidenced by the black smoke, for about a half hour. Material which has been alleged to be molten iron is seen flowing down the side of the building. (6) The top of the building suddenly tilted to the west, as if all of the core columns on the level the plane hit, had just been severed. One of the photographs of the building at this stage should be included in the article. (7) Just before the top of the building would have fallen over to the west, pyroclastic clouds of pulverized concrete and other materials shoot into the sky above the roof of the building. (8) The top floors of the building, minus their former concrete floors, are forced back over the center of the building and compressed together in one action, visible through the dust. (9) The dust cloud covers the falling building as pieces of steel are ejected laterally. Military demolition experts identify some of the lateral ejections as "demolition squibs," or "mistimed explosives," and explain why they could not have been caused by compressed air. The building subsequently collapses straight down, but the floors do not "pancake," as all of the concrete is now missing on all floors, having apparently been pulverized and ejected laterally. Some engineers, some military demolition experts and others begin to suspect controlled demolition. (10) Firemen describe streams of molten "steel," like "lava," flowing underneath the building during clean-up, six weeks later. (11) Chunks of formerly molten metal, the size of a car, are found in the rubble and termed "meteorites." (12) Analysis of formerly molten metal indicates that it was not structural steel, but purer iron with trace amounts of potassium, aluminum and sulfur. (13) Experiments indicate that molten aluminum, poured on rusty iron, does not produce an aluminothermic reaction. (14) Experiments indicate that liquid metal from an aluminothermic reaction, falling on wallboard, does not become contaminated with sulfur. (15) Experiments indicate that molten aluminum contaminated with various colored materials remains silvery in color as the contaminants float off and burn. (16) Experiments with samples of WTC dust reveal that passing a magnet over a zip-lock bag of dust separates out a black powder. (17) This powder is discovered to consist of tiny spheroids of iron-rich metal, similar to the formerly molten metal, and in some cases, hollow balls coated on the inside with sulfur. These experiments are duplicated by several physicists at various institutions. (18) Firemen comment that there are no typewriters, computers, desks, chairs or anything else in the rubble larger than half of a telephone keypad. (19) Very few bodies are found in the rubble, but tiny pieces of people who have been blown apart are retrieved from the roofs of neighboring buildings. (20) Osama bin Laden is accused of being behind the events, which he denies, criticizing them. (21) A completely phony "Osama bin Laden Confession Video" is allegedly found by unidentified military personnel in a large city in Afghanistan. The speaker on the video is obviously NOT Osama bin Laden, but has obviously been dressed and made-up to resemble him from a distance. He uses rhetoric unlike that of Osama, and ignores issues Osama cares about. His voice does not sound like Osama's. Everything on the tape alleged to be a "confession" has been added by English translators and does not appear in the Arabic voice track. (22) None of these factors are explained by NIST, FEMA or the OCT Commission. (23) Scientific theories indicate that a thermite variation called "thermate" -- has been ignited during the collapse, sending tons of thermate residue into the air as liquid, where it hardened into tiny balls, in some cases forming around bubbles of gaseous sulfur. (24) These theories do not explain how the concrete was pulverized, without further theorizing. The theories do not explain what kind of explosive ejected the pyroclastic clouds above the roof of WTC-2 just prior to the collapse. The theories do not explain what explosive or other force caused the top floors to compress together over the remains of the WTC rather than toppling into the street. (25) Conspiracy theories develop to explain what appears to have been a controlled demolition carried out by unknown individuals and to be blamed on Osama bin Laden to "justify" attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq for which our troops had already been pre-positioned. The theories involve members of the U.S. military, the CIA, the FBI and related private corporations as well as the Canadian Air Force and Secret Service, British intelligence, the Pakistani ISI, the Mossad and the Spanish government.

Wowest 09:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I am aware of these other issues (and I believe they are dealt with adequately in this and other WP articles). I have looked very closely at the material you mention. What I meant was that in the section MONGO raised doubts about the issue is whether or not the buildings behaved as expected.--Thomas Basboll 12:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
The buildings appear to have behaved exactly as expected up to a certain point in time. The planes hit them. They survived. The kerosene burned, at a fairly low temperature, as evidenced by the black smoke, and went out. They survived. A fireman said that the remaining flames could be put out with two hoses. Then, the buildings were subjected to additional stresses for which they were not, and could not have been designed. They fell, of course. Wowest 15:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Giving the conspiracy theories their own section over-emphasizes their importance. The link in the side navigation template is appropriate. Tom Harrison Talk 13:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

With the publication of Keith Seffen's paper, the conspiracy theories seem to have become an explicit part of the engineering debate (only to be refuted of course). I'm not against removing the section, but the information in it will then have to be moved into the relevant parts of the article (not just left in the navigation template). The model for this would be the way they are dealt with in the 7 World Trade Center article.--Thomas Basboll 16:17, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
does anyone actually have seffen's paper? i have written him twice asking for a preprint, but i get no reply. however, bažant's forthcoming paper, which is available in preprint also addresses itself directly to CDH rebuttal.
Bažant, Zdeněk P. (2007-05-27). "Collapse of World Trade Center Towers: What Did and Did Not Cause It?". 2007-06-22. . Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA. Structural Engineering Report No. 07-05/C605c Retrieved on 2007-09-17.
Peterhoneyman 16:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Items (1) through (24) are not conspiracy theories. They are observable or documented facts, not adequately represented in this article. You only have to look at the right photograph or video. Item (25) is a factual statement about conspiracy theories.

Wowest 15:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

No they aren't.....most of those items are non-scientific impressions, assertions, unproven experimental results and/or opinions. They do not belong in the article...period. To include them would be to corrupt the very idea of an encyclopedia and NPOV. RxS 15:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course they are. By the way, everything in Wikipedia is an assertion -- a linguistic commitment to present evidence. Excluding them totally corrupts NPOV. A declaration, such as "four no trump" or "I now claim this stinking desert in the name of the Kingdom of Spain forever" of "I now pronounce you man and wife" is a different matter, not requiring evidence, but we are not talking about that sort of statement. We're talking about observable phenomenon, although we do need to jump to a conclusion to determine that, in fact, the emperor has no clothes.
Evidence exists to support every assertion I made. Let's start with the first one.:
(1) The second plane approached the south tower, making a dramatic, last-minute correction.
Is that an observable fact which can be seen on several videos, or not?
(By the way, wouldn't this whole enterprise be better if we had a way to include videos, as on youtube? Or, do we have it, and I'm just not aware of it?)
Wowest 15:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, [17] assertion: a positive statement or declaration, often without support or reason In any case, what Wikipedia is full of is reliable sources and verifiable facts...something your list has very little of. It's full of random facts, opinions, unproven experimental results and yes, unfounded/unverified assertions ("apparently emanating from a pod under the right wing of the plane" for example). None of it belongs here and this is not the page to be arguing over pods some people say they have seen in videos. RxS 16:59, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] All 'Explanations' Too Controversial

The fact is that the collapse of the WTC buildings has not been properly explained. The explanations provided by NIST and FEMA are not engineering fact - they are hypotheses. And they are not supported unanimously in the structural engineering community. See for example www.ae911truth.org (architects and engineers for 9-11 truth). The NIST analysis only attempts to model the towers' behaviour up to the moment of initiation of global collapse. The FEMA study was poorly funded and staffed by 'volunteers' many of whom could not be said to be without political affiliation. Forensic evidence from the site in the form of structural steel was not well managed. Nothing I have said so far should be in any way contentious. This being the case, I think Wikipedia should limit itself to a detailed description of the collapse sequence, including a detailed timeline linked to eyewitness testimony, step-by-step description of the collapse, the nature, development and movement of the clouds, the movement of larger fragments into the space above and around the falling buildings and an analysis of the debris field. Links can be provided for the 'official' and 'alternative' views of WHY this happened. CarbonUnit2 19:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

model the towers' behaviour up to the moment of initiation Obviously. What other kind of modelling would one do? There's no controversy about how a failed structure behaves. Peter Grey 23:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Au contraire - there is a multitude of different failure modes that one could envisage for a structure this large and complex. Many of them would look very different from what was seen. If you don't have a credible model with realistic numbers for the collapse sequence itself, can you claim to have explained anything?. By the way, I'm not advancing an alternate or 'conspiracy' theory, just pointing out that the official account is based on investigations which fail to meet many basic criteria of good forensic science. In fact, what we think of as the 'official' account (specifically the 'explanation' of the tower collapses) is largely the work of PBS/Nova and Popular Mechanics magazine.CarbonUnit2 02:09, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
[T]here [are] a multitude of different failure modes but once failure has happened there are not many options for collapse (i.e. down), particularly for a building of this size and geometry. Peter Grey 13:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
NIST details the mechanisms leading to the initiation of collapse. thereafter, as bažant makes clear in several (peer-reviewed, authoritative, and archival) papers, the kinetic energy transferred by the falling upper portion exceeds by an order of magnitude the absorptive capacity of the story below. consequently, it must also collapse. and so on. in other words, the mechanics of the building dictate that once collapse begins, progressive collapse is inevitable. critics are free to question or reject this explanation, but to do so credibly, they must identify a flaw in bažant's mathematical and engineering analysis and propose an alternative that stands up to scientific and engineering scrutiny. without that, the NIST/bažant explanation is incontrovertible. Peterhoneyman 04:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
the flying spaghetti monster is not a fact, it is a hypothesis. Peterhoneyman 01:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
no, it's a parody. That's not a hypothesis.
Wowest 04:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
i was being sarcastic. i apologize. Peterhoneyman 04:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't agree with adding too much about conspiracy theories to this page nor do I agree with all that Wowest has put forward. However it is important to sort out fact from fiction. It is obvious that many editors are either POV or have not read the sources they are quoting as they keep incorrectly saying everything is proved. The NIST conclusions are a theory not supported by experimentation. NIST could not get the towers to collapse in simulations so they eventually left out a critical structural component (the Hat Trusses) from the next set of simulations to make the towers fall. As I said before the flaw in Bažant's analysis is that the fires he used were entirely speculative with no supporting evidence and his mathematical and engineering data while correct followed on from that. In both cases they worked backwards speculating on the events needed to get to the end result witnessed. They may possibly be correct but equally possibly they are not. This is why so many experts are calling for a proper (scientific) investigation. For doing this they are dismissed out of hand as conspiracy theorists without ever supporting one. Wayne 05:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Where are these so many experts at? I haven't seen any experts come forward and offer any other evidence that contradicts what has already been examined. The puzzle isn't going to have every single little miniscule piece fit...the preponderance of the evidence is well documented by NIST and it's not like this is an event that that can be cross examined precisely since no other similar event has ever happened. Don't forget that you are leaving out the a major portion of the equation...more than 200,000 pounds of airliner was added to the floors that were impacted.--MONGO 06:31, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Why do they need to offer evidence? The problem they are complaining about is lack of evidence. Also an excellent proposal you make..."it has never happened before so there is no need to investigate it properly". There is no "preponderance" of evidence for any theory whether that be official or conspiracy. What has the weight of the aircraft got to do with anything? The towers were designed to have a load factor in excess of 10. This means it can support 10X the weight and in fact, according to the engineers they over engineered so that they could actually support 20X. I suspect a 767 weighs slighly less than the WTC. Not to mention that the towers were designed to survive a much heavier aircraft lodging in it. According to the chief engineer it could survive multiple impacts and I suspect he does not mean impacts by Cesnas. Wayne 07:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
BTW heres clarification on my mention of "heavier aircraft" ... The towers were designed to survive a 707 weighing 328,000 lb. The 767 that actually hit weighed 200,000 lb (after subtracting debris ejected from building and fuel used before impact according to NIST). Wayne 07:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Where did you get the numbers for the weight of those planes? According to the Wikipedia pages on the 707 and the 767 (which are adequately sourced), your numbers are wrong. Also, you can't use the estimated weight of the plane after impact as the weight for the 767. The relevant weight is the weight of the aircraft on impact. Pablo Talk | Contributions 08:27, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
i agree that the weight of the aircraft is irrelevant. the specific mass of the WTC (mass per unit height) was on the order of a million kg/m. Peterhoneyman 13:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Peterhoneyman -- Bazant's theory was debunked by Gordon Ross, ME
(Master of Engineering, I believe) in an earlier version at
http://www.911blogger.com/node/9154/print
Looking at Bazant's paper, I see a lot of assumptions (which could
be fine), and a lot of math which I certainly can't follow.
Reminds me of the time, as a college freshman, when I did NOT
have time to finish a proof on a math final, so I faked it. I
started from the bottom and the top, and in the middle, on one
side, wrote "completing the square...." I never learned whether
I would have gotten the "A" anyway, but I got it that way. If you
cannot follow the math yourself, you can't trust it, but the math
is only a model anyway. The model predicts the behavior of the
real-world phenomenon. To prove it, you need a repeatable
experiment. I only see Steven Jones doing actual experiments.
The academics supporting the OCT are just creating computer models
and tweaking the data until they get the results they were paid for.
189 licensed architects and engineers disagree with Bazand et al.
and Gordon Ross ME isn't even listed among them, so make it 190.
Gordon Ross is listed here:
http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html
and so is his website.
 :-)
MONGO - these experts (189 architects & engineers) are at:
http://www.ae911truth.org/joinus.php
Also, if it's true that "the preponderance of the evidence is well documented by NIST" then it's the part of the evidence they ignore that troubles some of us. If you go to the ae911 truth home page, you can look at the multi-media explanation for free.
Also, WAYNE! Hi. If you go HERE:
http://www.captainsherlock.com/
you can get a download link, a user id and a password, all
on one page, so you can download "Captain Sherlock Solves 9/11"
(or whatever they call it). Captain Sherlock is a composite
person made up of a group of pilots. They make a few points,
including one I THINK you current do not agree with. They
get a little too artsy and pretentious, but I think it's worth
the time. At the end, when all you have is music and images of
flowers in a garden, there is no more "meat" following that, if
you get as bored as I did.
Wowest 09:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
i followed the suggested link. was that page really written by someone with a master's degree? it is mere hand-waving, without a shred of credible engineering on it. (and would someone please buy that man a spell-checker?) drawing lines on photographs then pointing and shouting is not debunking. let me know when gordon ross, m.e. has submitted his work for peer-review and published it in an independent journal. (and please let me know when ae911t reaches 1% of the size of the 133,000-member ASCE.) in the meantime, i suggest you study bažant's recent tech report Collapse of World Trade Center Towers: What Did and Did Not Cause It?. you will have to put up with the math — that is the language of science and engineering — but there is much to learn from that paper (and that man). Peterhoneyman 12:53, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
These POV pushers don't want to accept the facts, they want to try and add junk science to the article. They use minimalist information that is not based on the evidence to try and say that the known evidence is incorrect, or that a new investigation is needed...the underlying purpose of this is to try and add conspiracy theory nonsense to the article...enagaging with them in long term debates is a waste of time.--MONGO 17:36, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Firstly I remind you of civility and good faith. "We", as in NPOV editors, do not argue the evidence is incorrect but that lack of evidence makes the conclusions incorrect and that this fact requires an adequate investigation to disprove conspiracy theories. Unfortunately it is true that enagaging with POV editors in long term debates really is a waste of time but the hope is that open minded people will help put conspiracy theories to bed, or accidentally prove one. Wayne 08:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not exist to experiment in original research, nor do these talk pages exist for others to waste our time with silly notions about what they think happened. The "we need a new investigation" crowd is almost always those that support conspiracy theories. There isn't anything that is incorrect about NIST's research...it was conducted by hundreds of engineers and consultants. I really do suggest if people want to use this website to chat about the event rather than write a better article, then they go find a blog.--MONGO 18:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

At this point I will simply reiterate my point that ALL EXPLANATIONS of these collapses are at this time highly controversial and therefore none of them should be presented as fact. Thanks to all contributors to this thread for so dramatically illustrating this.CarbonUnit2 20:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bazant and/or Seffen

Peterhoneyman has replaced a reference to a forthcoming paper by Keith Seffen with a reference to a paper by Zdenek Bazant that has been submitted to the same journal but has not yet been accepted. The advantage of Bazant's paper, as Peter points out, is that it is available online. The advantage of Seffen's, in my view, is that it has been peer-reviewed and accepted. We do, of course, have to take a press release from Cambridge at its word, but I think that it passes WP:RS. The sorts of things we are reporting here are, to my mind, covered adequately in the press release. I would prefer sourcing them to the peer-reviewed paper.--Thomas Basboll 15:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

bažant's tech report also meets the WP:RS standard. (i expect both papers will be published in j engrg mech within a few months.) but i am not comfortable citing a paper that i can not get my hands on. if no one has read the paper, i don't think we should reference it. Peterhoneyman 02:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd still say there is a difference between a submitted and a forthcoming paper. But you may have a better sense of whether or not J Eng Mech will accept Bazant's paper than I do. Like you say, in a few months this won't be an issue in either case. Perhaps we could reference just the press release for now along with Bazant's paper? Surely it (or the BBC's coverage of it) count as a reliable source of knowledge about research into the collapses.--Thomas Basboll 07:44, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
i don't know whether j engrg mech will accept bažant's paper, but there is nothing wrong with citing a tech report. i don't put much stock in secondary sources; even the claim that seffen's article has been accepted for publication is second hand. Peterhoneyman 13:00, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Secondary sources are used throughout WP (and this article). For our purposes here, they are fine and conform to WP:RS. That doesn't mean you (as a reader of the article) have be satisfied, of course. But I think that Seffen's results (and especially the background that the press release presents) is informative and credible. It does have to be presented as "forthcoming", of course, and it was.--Thomas Basboll 13:36, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
i view the press release and bbc article as (fairly) reliable sources about the paper's existence and its pending publication. but as to the content of the paper, proceed with caution: none of us knows what's in the paper; i don't view the press release or bbc article as reliable sources about that. Peterhoneyman 22:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
But isn't the BBC piece just a common example of science journalism? It tells us what a researcher has discovered (specifically, the residual capacity of the WTC towers) and why he set out to discover it (to refute conspiracy theorists). Like I say, we rely on sources like that all the time.--Thomas Basboll 05:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
it all depends on what seffen's paper actually says. i made a third request for a preprint yesterday. grumble. Peterhoneyman 16:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Thomas Basboll: I think the 'earlier' BBC report gives more insight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7SwOT29gbc Wowest 18:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

i remain disappointed in my attempts to obtain a preprint of seffen's paper. i suppose it is understandable: i have read on some truther blogs the nasty letters accompanying their requests, so i guess he is just placing all preprint requests in the circular file. but this leaves us with no way to verify what he has done. as far as i am concerned, we lack certainty that the paper has been accepted anywhere, submitted anywhere, or even written. under the circumstances, i don't think it is appropriate to cite seffen's mythical paper. Peterhoneyman 19:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

i think we should stop referencing seffen. he is not distributing preprints and has not answered my multiple (very polite and proper) email requests. the press release gave someone else's email address for preprint requests; i wrote three times (again, politely) and got no response. something is fishy here. Peterhoneyman 15:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been looking into this myself and found this interesting bit of info on Seffens Cambridge published papers webpage.
"K A Seffen,"Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Centre: a Simple Analysis", (2007) ASCE Journal of Engineering Mechanics, in press"
Problem is that it says the paper is in press but the ASCE apparently has not heard of it. I did find a mention in an Irish newspaper (Seffen is Irish) that the paper is due to be published by ASCE in February 2008 (it's a monthly journal so why so late?) so we need to wait till then before risking a mention. My guess it's a paper Seffen wants to write and Cambridge messed up by assuming it was already written. All media mentions seem to use the Cambridge press release (or a source that used it as their source). Then we have Seffens position as senior lecturer at the University (which gives his "paper" added weight), according to this it is only a temporary appointment due to the unexpected resignation of both the Master and Senior Tutor at the same time. Wayne 18:09, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think anything is necessarily fishy here (though this wouldn't be the firsty hasty press release in the history of science). I think it is fine to wait for the publication of the paper before putting it in. BTW, I can't find any mention of Seffen in the current version of the article. Am I not looking in the right place?--Thomas Basboll 19:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
actually, it is not mentioned in this article. over to CDH; cheers! Peterhoneyman 19:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Yep. I just followed Peterhoneyman here to put my 2c in lol. Seffen should be removed from the CD Hypothesis article then (for now)..... and lets not mention him here either. Wayne 19:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bazant is incontrovertible?

Without "an alternative that stands up to scientific and engineering scrutiny," says Peterhoneyman, "the NIST/bažant explanation is incontrovertible" (above). Well, ref 26 refers to a paper by G. P. Cherepanov that claims (in a journal that Bazant serves on the editorial board of) that the progressive collapse hypothesis does not square with the observed facts. It also provides an alternative (fracture waves) that has passed peer-review.--Thomas Basboll 15:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

How can an educated person such as yourself believe such crap?  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 16:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
To be fair, he used the word 'claims'. Looks more like bringing up a verifiable fact (that a paper has been written on this, and passed peer review) than 'believing crap'. Skittle 13:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
i downloaded cherepanov's paper (and a followup: Cherepanov, Genady P.; Ivan E. Esparragoza (January 2007). "Progressive Collapse of Towers: The Resistance Effect". Int J Fract 143 (2): 203-206. Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/s10704-007-9060-y. ) today, skimmed them both. i intend to give them a close read later this week, but until then, i don't have an opinion on whether they are incompatible with bažant. Peterhoneyman 02:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
I've just finished reading several papers supporting progressive collapse and noticed a problem. They assume a "typical" load rating for the towers of 3. In fact the towers were over engineered according to the builders to have a load rating of >10. Is there a reason for using "typical" instead of the actual (apart from the typical needing 4 times less damage to initiate a collapse)? Wayne 05:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
You're forgetting the towers were compromised by having many of the columns destroyed and the fires severely weakend many of the floor trusses...the additional weight of the aircraft was but one of many contributing factors.--MONGO 05:46, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
The weight of the aircraft is completely insignificant. What is 100 tons compared with 300,000 tons? The example commonly given as a model for understanding the aircraft impact is to push a pencil through the screen part of a conventional screen door and notice whether the door falls down. But what evidence is there, MONGO, that, say, the twenty minute low-temperature fire in building two weakened ANY floor trusses?

Wowest 15:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

The towers were designed to survive losing 90% of their support columns. According to NIST WTC 1 lost 12%, WTC 2 lost 34%. I will accept the statement NIST made on it's own investigation "We are unable to provide a full explanation of the collapse". Supporters of the official theory conveniently overlook that NIST did not actually investigate how or why the towers collapsed but only the events leading to a point before the collapse. In it's official reply to Dr Steven Jones criticisms, NIST stated it's conclusions are based almost entirely on visual evidence of the collapse rather than scientific models because "the computor models are not able to converge on a solution". Wayne 10:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I don't think so...I have read every paper I have found which discusses the building's capacity to support itself and nowhere has it stated that the building was designed to remain standing if it lost 90% of it's support columns. The vast majority of structural studies that were done and implemented involved the ability of the strutures to withstand severe winds, such as those that occur during a minimal hurricane.--MONGO 17:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
You need to research to find stuff. It was the architects and engineers who designed the towers who said that. In fact they also said that the towers could lose the core columns and most of the perimeter columns and the perimeter columns on one side could still support the structure on their own. This is because each perimeter column could support 2000% more than their load rating. BTW.. Todays news headline "The NIST Admits Total Collapse Of Twin Towers Unexplainable". Wayne 04:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
A) you are talking about static loading. Falling floors are dynamic. b) what temperature do you think the load rating was calculated at and c) saying that something could support more than their load rating makes no sense. It's like saying a 1 gallon milk carton can hold 10 gallons. d) as I recall, it's the opposite of what you said. The tower could withstand losing it's perimeter, not it's core. Again, static forces only, not dynamic. --DHeyward 05:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
No, the designers did not say that the towers could lose 90% of their support columns and remain standing; nor is it true that the perimeter columns could support 2000% more than their load rating. And that "headline" you speak of is nothing more than the usual willful and deliberate misinterpretation that conspiracy fantasists apply to anything that does not fit their fantasies. In reality, the NIST smacked down the Request for Correction submitted by Morgan Reynolds, Kevin Ryan, etal, and conspiracy fantasists have cherry-picked one sentence out of that smackdown in a lame attempt to spin it into something entirely inconsistent with what was actually imparted. It's sad, really. Jazz2006 01:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
i agree. here is the sentence that was picked out: "As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse." and here is the previous mention to which it refers, which explains why the NIST computer models were not run past the point "where the buildings reached global instability": "At this point, because of the magnitude of the deflections and the number of failures occurring, the computer models are not able to converge on a solution." representing this as an "admission that the total collapse is unexplainable" is a lie. concluding that NIST is "implicitly acknowledging that controlled demolition is the only means by which the buildings could have come down" is another lie. it has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of the NIST report or the CDH; these are lies, spread by liars. Peterhoneyman 03:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dead External Link

In the NIST Report section, more specifically in the subsection called "Scope and limits", the link in footnote #51 is dead and a search at the Wayback Machine generates no matches. Jazz2006 00:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biased Censorship by Admin "Fram"

TheEmac 14:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

This is what "Fram" is continuing to remove.

ALL information is factual and correct and referenced when necessary.

TheEmac

The 911 Commission Report states that the South Tower (WTC 2) collapsed in 10 seconds.[1]

The more recent NIST[2] Report states that the estimated elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground

after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately
11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2.[3]

The height of the Towers at roof level was 1,368 feet.[4]

The distance an object will fall in 10 seconds in a vacuum, absent of any frictional drag, is 1607 feet. [5]

The Towers were NOT in a vacuum.

please review the section titled "Comparison of Collapse Duration with Seismic Record" starting at the bottom of p. 12 in
Your references dispute your content. From the reference for time of building colapse:
From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.
-Improbcat 15:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cherepanov "agrees" with Bazant?

I don't think we should say that Cherepanov and Bazant agree about the collapse times, and that their models agree with the seismic records, without saying they disagree about the mechanics of collapse.--Thomas Basboll 14:55, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

cherepanov's collapse model predicts a duration of 73% greater than free-fall. the difference is probably due to oversimplification in his model; in particular, he assumes mass is distributed uniformly. bažant's model is more precise, and more accurate. so far, so good — they both predict a collapse time greater than free fall, and are in reasonably close agreement with one another and with the LDEO observations. cherepanov then goes on to develop his fracture wave mechanism to explain why the towers collapsed in free fall, which he asserts without citation. the LDEO data moots cherepanov's theory. Peterhoneyman 15:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Cherepanov's paper is published in a peer-reviewed journal while the LDEO data is cited (and interpreted) in a working paper. Data can't (for our purposes) render a disagreement that Cherepanov insists on (and has gotten through peer-review) moot. Also: as I read Cherepanov a more realistic assumption about the distribution of mass would slow the modeled collapse still further. More importantly: as he point outs, his calculation doesn't even take the resistance of the structure (only its mass) into account. Finally, in his footnote he says that once safefy factors are also taken into account "progressive failure [is] absolutely impossible". Cherepanov was being imprecise but in a commonly accepted way. Like NIST, he obviously meant "the buildings collapsed essentially in free fall with the lower portions apparently providing almost no resistance". The disagreement is about whether this (shared) observation conflicts with the "progressive collapse regime". We should report that disagreement in the article.--Thomas Basboll 06:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
cherepanov says: The comprehensive data of the collapses collected in many reports of NIST evidence the free fall regime of all collapses on September 11, 2001. Evidently, the WTC towers were disintegrated at the very beginning of each collapse. the remainder of his paper uses fracture waves to explain that phenomenon. but if the free-fall assertion is invalid, then the fracture wave theory does not apply. (moreover, it suggests that fracture waves did not play a role in the collapse.) the disagreement between cherepanov and bažant amounts to the duration of the collapses. do you want to add a section on collapse time? Peterhoneyman 15:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

(back to left)Peter, I think you are forgetting that Cherepanov claims to "prove that the collapse in the regime of progressive failure is much slower than the free fall even if we ignore the resistance of the underlying, intact structure" (page 288, my emphasis). By "much slower" he means at least 1/3 the accelaration, which means it would take 73% longer. But, like I say, the underlying structure still hasn't been taken into account.

Bazant and Verdure say that "the collapse duration could not have been much longer (say, twice as long or more) than the duration of a free fall from the tower top." NIST says that "the building section above came down essentially in free fall". And Cherepanov (rightly) summarizes this as a general consensus about the "free fall regime" of the collapses. In fact, they appear to have taken about 50% longer than free fall (consistent with Bazant and Verdure's definition of "not much longer"). But Cherepanov's calculations show that even positing a very unrealistic structure (essentially no structure) the collapses would proceed at less than half the acceleration of free fall and would take at least 73% longer.They in fact took at most 53% longer. Cherepanov says that "the collapse in the regime of progressive failure is much slower than the free fall" (p. 288); Bazant and Verdure, like I say, say that "the collapse duration could not have been much longer than the duration of a free fall". This is why I say that it is not "free fall" as such that they are arguing about. It the question of whether or not it would take much longer than free fall. Cherepanov and Bazant (and NIST and Seffen) agree that it didn't take much longer. They disagree about whether it should have.

I am not at all against writing that the collapses took about 50% longer than free fall. I am against suggesting that this jibes with Cherepanov's model of progressive collapse. To repeat: he says it would take 73% longer if there were no intact structure underneath (just the mass of the floors). And he also says that once that structure is factored in (with its safety margin), a progressive collapse is "absolutely impossible" (note 1). We simply can't have Bazant and Cherepanov sourcing the same claim about the match of "model" and "calculations" in the engineering literature.--Thomas Basboll 14:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of mainstream sources from controlled demolition section

A long list of sources that support the received view (NIST's) of the collapse of the WTC cannot be used to support the claim that mainstream engineering scholarship has "rejected" CDH. Leaving them there would be tantamount to saying that the Chicago Manual of Style has "accused" Kaavya Viswanathan of plagiarism, i.e., using the CMS as a source of the claim that she has been accused of plagiarim (because she has in fact been accused of doing what (we think) the CMS (would) call(s) plagiarism). See Wikipedia's policy on the synthesis of published material serving to advance a position.--Thomas Basboll 07:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't see how the example you provide about Kaavya Viswanathan has anything to do with removing information that is referenced and accurate regarding the collapse issue. I'll look it over again, but I hope you can explain it to me why that section was so vastly reduced.--MONGO 07:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay..I guess what you are saying is that these sources don't say anything about whether CD happened or not and therefore, can't really be used as fodder to support an anti-CD discussion...correct me if I am wrong.--MONGO 07:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
That's about right. Here's what I had just written before the edit conflict: To my mind, the section was not vastly reduced. Rather, a long list of references that did not reject controlled demolition were removed as sources for a sentence that said that "the theory was rejected by ... mainstream engineering scholarship". Those sources only "reject" CDH on the line of reasoning explicitly barred by WP:SYNTH). The CMS would no doubt see Viswanathan's work as an example of plagiarism, but, as a matter of fact, it doesn't mention her. Likewise, these engineers would no doubt reject the CDH, but, as a matter of fact, they ignore it.--Thomas Basboll 08:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cooperative research as external link

If you look at the external links, it's a pretty rag tag bunch of sites, most of them are not RS at all. Nor should they be. RS doesn't really apply in this section (certainly hasn't so far). So we need a better argument than "conspiracy drama" to bar it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

We can certainly amend and or remove any links that are not reliable. Biased sources or those that mislead have no reason to be here at all.--MONGO (talk) 02:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
CR is not especially biased; the page I've linked to is a perfectly good resource. I would of course never use it to source a claim in an article but it could easily be used to locate reliable sources. Much like a Wikipedia article. (We link to them, but we don't use them as sources.) BTW, what gives you the idea that CR is biased or misleading in this case?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
No reason exists to link to less than completely accurate sources, highly regarded and as being peer reviewed and published or publishable. See [18]--MONGO (talk) 02:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't see anything in WP:SOAP that says you can't link to less than highly regarded and peer-reviewed/able sources. But I note that WP:LINKS explicitly says that "sites with ... meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article" should be linked and "sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources" should be considered. (CR is nothing like the things listed to be avoided.) I think policy is clear here: Cooperative Research is a perfectly good external link.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 17:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I disagree...please cease interpreting policy to suit your needs.--MONGO (talk) 20:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
What part of the policy on soapboxing do you think linking to CR violates? And in what way is my interpretation of the guidelines on external links mistaken?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 00:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I have restored the CR link and editing the links section. I am of course still open to discussing it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I took it out again. It's merely a website that cherry picks refs to support a view that is not altogether anywhere near accurate. It's also bothersome to see their donate link at the top left of their website...donate to what?...their pockets? Sorry, we're not in the business of providing a link to their fund raising efforts.--MONGO (talk) 18:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Do we agree that CR is very much like WP? Like WP, users provide CR's content and, like WP, CR asks for donations. As far as I can tell, CR does not cherry pick: it just gathers most of the press coverage on a given topic together and organizes it chronologically.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
As an object of comparison consider the link to Z-Axis [19], which arguably advertises a piece of software. I think there are good reasons to keep that link because the animations are of obvious interest to readers of this article regardless of the business interests of Z-Axis. We want to inform readers, and the CR link provides a useful overview of media coverage regardless of possible ulterior motives at the History Commons project.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:44, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
If Mongo can't accept CR because "It's merely a website that cherry picks refs to support a view that is not altogether anywhere near accurate' then we need to get rid of Popular Mechanics and other similar references as they can be accused of exactly the same thing in regards to this subject. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You have to apply the same standards to everything regardless of which side it supports. If you also want to only allow links to "peer reviewed and published" references then we will be left with maybe 3 links for the whole page. Please try to be NPOV instead of concentrating on debunking and throwing out anything that you personally don't like. Wayne (talk) 09:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Cooperative Research is not a reliable site. Even in the links section, we need to include the best quality sources. The cooperative research timeline seems to word things in a misleading way with many weasel words. For example, on the timeline concerning United Airlines Flight 93, scroll down to where it says "(After 10:06 a.m.): Witnesses Report Lack of Plane Wreckage at Flight 93 Crash Scene". It seems they are selectively choosing quotes and sources to imply something that the references really don't support. For example the timeline only quotes Frank Monoco, "If you would go down there, it would look like a trash heap. There’s nothing but tiny pieces of debris. It’s just littered with small pieces" The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reference supporting a "lack of plane wreckage" also says quotes Jeff Phillips "There was one part of a seat burning up there, that was something you could recognize." [20] Cooperative Research, given its anonymous nature and the way it puts sources together, is not a good reliable source that we should include here. Not even in the external links section. --Aude (talk) 18:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

While I think this is way too detailed a discussion to have to settle the question of an external link, here's the context of Phillips' remark:
"It didn't look like a plane crash because there was nothing that looked like a plane," Barron said.
"There was one part of a seat burning up there," Phillips said. "That was something you could recognize."
"I never seen anything like it," Barron said. "Just like a big pile of charcoal."
It is clear that the burning seat (part) is presented as the exception that proves the rule, namely, that there was nothing there that resembled what observers expected of a plane crash (i.e., there were only few recognizable airplane parts). CR is not cherry picking here, they are choosing representative quotes to illustrate a point that the source is emphasising.
Like I say, I don't think we need to have the discussion at that level. We don't have to fact-check our links. They don't have to qualify as reliable sources. The list of victims and the CameraPlanet video are not RS either, but perfectly informative. So is the research done by CR.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
What? I thought we were here to write a factual and reliable encyclopedia...if that is not your mission, then you're on the wrong website.--MONGO (talk) 18:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
You seem to be disagreeing with me about something completely different. I don't see any ambiguity in WP:LINKS. It says we should consider the inclusion of "sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources". That's what we're doing now: considering it. There is no need to raise any doubts about anyone's mission when having that discussion.
CR's objective seems to be to find every mainstream media source (and some official documents) that report on whatever topics they are interested in. It clearly contains "information about [the collapses] from knowledgeable sources". It would do so even if examples of the sort of cherry picking that Aude is driving at could be found. In the case he mentions, however, I don't think CR has displayed any bias or infidelity to the source.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

So far, I haven't found above a constructive argument that would link CR with a Wikipedia policy that it allegedly violates. Thus, the conclusion for now should be to include it. It's a very well organized RS news database on the topic, nothing more.(I really don't know how one can be finding a Conspiracy Theory in the site construction itself... unless at the same time he's finding it in the RS news sourced there.) salVNaut (talk) 15:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:EL, etc. are written to cover a broad range of articles. If we are looking for standards to apply to this article, then we should apply only the highest standards in hopes of achieving featured article status. Why FA? Given the amount of world attention given this subject, there is no reason to aim for less. If we wanted the reader to wade through a bunch of crap, we would just provide a link to Google's search results. Instead, we should seek to include only those external links which best assist the reader in understanding the various aspects of this particular topic, and we should frame this discussion along these lines. Rklawton (talk) 15:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

  • I can't imagine this article ever being more than it currently is with so many conspiracy theory POV warriors camped out here. But I do agree that the only references this article needs are those that are completely factual.--Beguiled (talk) 02:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV Edits?

Mongo has made what I consider POV edits. I did leave some edits he made that were borderline legitimate but these below were too POV for me to let go. See here for context.
1. Mongo wants to include "but not necessarily those that involved aviation fuel".
This sentence is irrelevant as NIST concluded the fuel fire was minor. It is covered elsewhere in the artical and serves no purpose here other than to reinforce the OCT view.
2. Deletion of mention that NIST accepts that the WTC were designed to handle an aircraft impact.
It is relevant as the next sentence says that building codes have no requirement that buildings handle an aircraft impact. Without qualification this implies that neither did the WTC so why can't it be mentioned?
3. Severe editing of the engineering artical in the critism section on the grounds that it is a conspiracy theory.
The source is a peer review publication with referenced critism supported by experts speaking in their field of expertise. It does not qualify as an "alternative" theory and makes no claim regarding support of any CT.
4. Deleting the qualifier "Though they did not investigate controlled demolition" to the sentences claim that NIST rejected CD. I said i would remove it if he could show that they did investigate. Mongo said in the edit summary that "NIST didn't investigate it because it is nonsense". A case of "I don't like it"? No qualifier makes it falsely give the impression to the reader that NIST did investigate.
I'm open to legitimate reasons for the edits. Wayne (talk) 04:25, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, what I saw was that Wowest did a wholesale revert because "Jet planes don't use "aviation fuel (obsolete)" they use jet fuel.)" Ridiculous.
I think it's only fair to say that NIST didn't look into CD because there was no technical reason to and didn't feel it was worthwhile, not because they didn't "like it". So if you're gonna say they didn't look into it, then we should say why (as they explain it) and not leave it to interpretation. RxS (talk) 04:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
My edit summary was accurate..they did not have unlimited time and or budget to examine the ridiculous.--MONGO (talk) 09:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
What is the OCT view?--MONGO (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
What does Wowest's revert have to do with anything? He was only restoring the page to it's original state and didn't need to say anything in the summary. I was probably not clear above. Mongo made the first edit which included all 4 of those items in a single edit and his summary made no sense as he claimed he was reverting a conspiracy theory. If Mongo is concerned that NIST didn't feel CD worthwhile to investgate then say so in the artical instead of leaving the text to read as if they did investigate before rejection. Wayne (talk) 13:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Blindly reverting is not ok, and reverting without comment (as you suggested he is justified in doing) is edit warring at it's worst. This is an encyclopedia anyone can edit and he does not own this article (nor do you). Let me me repeat, "and didn't need to say anything in the summary" is completely mistaken. RxS (talk) 14:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Mongo had already had his edit reverted 3 or 4 times so it was obvious there is a dispute and from experience the summary tends to be neglected more often than not after a few times by everyone. If you want to critisize him for it then have a go at Mongo as well for his "informative" original summaries. Instead of "reverting (to Mongo) because there is no consensus", is it not normal to leave the original version if a major edit is disputed and the editor is not willing to compromise even when shown to be in error? It seems strange to me that the original, and in some cases long standing, text suddenly needs consensus while the new mass edit doesn't. Wayne (talk) 14:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Fact is that the 1964 analysis did not consider the effects of fire, due to jet fuel and burning of office building contents. Mention of that belongs in the section. Also, the wording of the section in the version by WLRoss, saying things like "passive fire protection is designed to allow for the burnout of all building contents without collapse." is not needed. The fires on 9/11 were not ordinary fires, burning only building contents. There was also jet fuel, and don't forget all the columns severed and other structural damage. --Aude (talk) 17:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
The burnout issue is noted in NIST report and is currently being discussed in the WTC7 investigation. I don't have access to the PDF right now (slow connection) but I don't think there are any facts about the 1964 analysis that say that the fuel and fires were not considered. In 1993, in any case, Skilling said that they expected most of the damage to be caused by the fires that would follow the large amounts of jet fuel that would enter the buildings. BTW, I wrote the stuff you are attributing to Wayne.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 17:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that listing all the things the NIST didn't invistigate is helpful to this article. They probably didn't investigate UFO intervention, either, but listing that fact here does nothing to improve article quality. Rklawton (talk) 18:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What does that have to do with this [21] proposed change?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 19:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fire protection and anticipation of aircraft impacts

This has nothing to do with CT/OCT debates. Read the relevant sections of the NIST report (which I have sourced with page numbers for easy reference) and explain how I am getting the facts wrong. My aim in making these edits, line by line, with detailed explanations in the edit summaries, was to get the fire protect issues and aircraft impact issues as clear as possible. My edits simply deserve more than "rv CT" ... even if I have misunderstood NIST.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's talk about these issues one at a time, not as question of pushing the article towards or away from CTs.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:43, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In examination of your "improvements"...well...here's the diff which I just reverted...you changed:
  • But NIST was unable to find any further details about the study and stated that without the original calculations which were used to render such conclusions, any attempt to compare the performance of the buildings to design expectations would be "speculation". In examining the collapse of the towers, NIST also stated that, "No building code in the United States has specific design requirements for impact of aircraft, and thus, buildings are not specifically designed to withstand the impact of fuel-laden commercial aircraft."[6]

to

  • Unnable to locate the original calculations, NIST declined to comment any further on the document. While buildings are not designed specifically to survive commercial aircraft crashes, NIST found documentation that "clearly indicates that the Port Authority recognized during the design stage the possibility of an aircraft impact."[7]...
that is a huge change...from the buildings not being designed to withstand the impacts to that they did recognize they could be subject to aircraft impacts...sorry, wikipedia is not a soapbox.--MONGO (talk) 09:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
  • You say NIST says the "the buildings [were] not desined to withstand the impacts" but if you look at the quote you can see that's not what NIST says. Your understandable misreading of that sentence is exactly what my edit was trying to avoid. NIST says that buildings in general are not designed to withstand them but that the WTC towers did in fact specifically take such contingencies into account.
  • The important fact that no building codes required this is preserved in my version. Before my edits, the section seems to end by having NIST contradict both Skilling and Robertson. My version simply gets that section of the NIST report right.
  • The version you propose says that NIST says that "any attempt to compare the performance of the buildings to design expectations would be 'speculation'. But that is not what NIST says would be speculation. NIST says any further comment on the content of a report they couldn't locate would be speculation. (The version you are defending misquotes the NIST report.)
  • You have also removed (by reverting rather than editing) perfectly good information about fire protection. Please read the parts of the NIST report we are talking about and propose corrections.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 09:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I see...so you are suggesting that removing the part about speculating...is accurate? Is there a problem with that word? They took into account that the buildings could be hit by an airplane, but I know what you're getting at...and this is simply a twist on the same old news...no...they never anticipated that the buildings would withstand high speed imapcts....they never even looked at that possibility when the buildings were being designed since...they considered (at best) a low speed impact by an airplane on takeoff or in approach for a landing...one that would be flying less than 150-180 mph. Please stop soapboxing conspiracy theories in serious articles.--MONGO (talk) 09:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
No, you don't know what I'm getting at. On page 71 of the report in question, NIST writes "Without the original calculations of the original aircraft impact analysis, any comment on the document would be speculation." The sentence you are defending in effect quotes NIST as saying "any comment on the topic would be speculation." That's a pretty straightforward error. Please tone down your rhetoric and read the sources we are arguing about.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:04, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
No, I don't think you know what I am getting at either, Thomas.--MONGO (talk) 10:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I doubt our failures to communicate interest the other editors working on this article. Did you have anything to say about the article content and the sentence about "speculation"?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:16, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I did...already...above.--MONGO (talk) 10:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
We are talking about the corrects of a quotation. You have not done anything to show that your interpretation of what NIST dismisses as "speculation" is the right one. Please do.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A number of mischaracterizations?

Could Luke please list them?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

MONGO mentions the main problems above. His wording wording, while not perfect, seems more in line with the sources to me, without engaging in unfounded extrapolation. On that note, the New Civil Engineer article seems to have been misrepresented. It should explain that the requests were refused because NSIT had not developed the visualizations. The wording was also POV and undue WEIGHT—naming the scientists which the NSIT supposedly refused. For further reference, here is the text of the article from Factiva:

6 October 2005 New Civil Engineer English © Copyright 2005. Emap Construct Limited. All rights reserved.

News

WORLD TRADE Center disaster investigators are refusing to show computer visualisations of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers, NCE has learned.

Visualisations of collapse mechanisms are routinely used to validate the type of finite element analysis model used by the investigators.

The collapse mechanism and the role played by the hat truss at the top of the tower has been the focus of debate since the US National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) published its fi ndings (NCE 22 September).

NIST showed detailed computer generated visualisations of both the plane impacts and the development of fires within WTC1 and WTC2 at a recent conference at its Gaithersburg HQ. But the actual collapse mechanisms of the towers were not shown as visualisations.

University of Manchester professor of structural engineering Colin Bailey said there was a lot to be gained from visualising the structural response.

"NIST should really show the visualisations; otherwise the opportunity to correlate them back to the video evidence and identify any errors in the modelling will be lost, " he said.

University of Sheffield professor Roger Plank added that visualisations of the collapses of the towers "would be a very powerful tool to promote the design code changes recommended by NIST."

NIST told NCE this week that it did not believe there is much value in visualising quasistatic processes such as thermal response and load redistribution up to the point of global collapse initiation and has chosen not to develop such visualisations.

But it said it would 'consider' developing visualisations of its global structural collapse model, although its contract with the fi nite element analysis subcontractor was now terminated.

A leading US structural engineer said NIST had obviously devoted enormous resources to the development of the impact and fi e models. "By comparison the global structural model is not as sophisticated, " he said.

"The software used has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgement calls.

"This doesn't mean NIST has got it wrong in principle, but it does mean it would be hard to produce a definitive visualisation from the analysis so far." Dave Parker

Document NCENG00020051006e1a60000a

Cool Hand Luke 10:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I'll take that as a "per MONGO" revert on the first section. Thanks for drawing attention to the other problem. I hadn't noticed that those changes were part of the diff between the two versions.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
My main issue is that the revision selective quotes a lengthy document to make the NSIT sound sinister. The quote choices are particularly revealing. For example, the italicized snippet about adjusting the models until they lead to collapse. Unless you have a good secondary source, it seems odd to pluck this line out of the document. To my understanding, complex physics models often have to be tweaked, so you should instead find a good source that criticizes their methodology in regards to their adjusts. Otherwise, it's just an uncontextualized quote plucked from a lengthy document. Cool Hand Luke 10:59, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, yes, I think we agree on that. My concerns are about the fire protection and aircraft impact stuff (see below).--Thomas Basboll (talk) 11:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, this diff is helpful. There was a lot going on in the earlier reverts. I don't know anything about the building code subject, so will probably stay out of the discussion, but it seems strange that the Port Authority's consideration of an aircraft is being highlighted. As MONGO points out the aircraft they contemplated would have been traveling at landing speed. Cool Hand Luke 11:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, I think we have agreement. Actually, MONGO is emphasizing one engineer's recollections (Robertson) over another that actually appears to be more credible. This is from the Seattle Times article (a source in both versions): "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there." NIST was able to document the existence of the study Skilling refered to (positing a plane going 600 mph, not one landing in fog) and found no trace of the study Robertson recalled. Given the cause of the collapses, it isn't strange at all that everything we know about the design of the WTC towers in re aircraft impact is being noted (in a specific section devoted to it). I'm going to revert to my version for now (that way the page numbers of the relevant passages are more easily available.)--Thomas Basboll (talk) 11:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I deleted "the italicized snippet about adjusting the models until they lead to collapse" myself a while back as it comes from another source. Nist themselves admitted they adjusted the models until collapse occured and that is a problem because the parameters they eventually used exceeded the visual evidence they had (both photographic and eyewitness). That is probably better off in the CT page than here. Wayne (talk) 13:53, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fire protection and aircraft impact

I've created this version to highlight the points on which we disagree. I still don't see any specific mischaracterizations. But all the sources are there in my version (the one prior to the self-revert), so let's hear it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Let's stop editing and discuss instead

There is a lot of confusion right now. I would suggest not making any more changes, and dicussing the issues. This section is not getting better. I think we need to agree about the actual claims. (1) Were aircraft impacts considered? (2) What kind of plane, how fast? (3) Was the fuel and fires considered? (4) What sort of fire protection was applied? Things like that. The section is pulling in too many directions on each of these points right now. But as far as I can tell there are uncontroversial answers to all of them.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 19:42, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

In regards to (3), for example, it would be worth deciding what the relation of the June 2004 progress report is to the final NIST report (2005) in questions about the content of the 1964 study. What did NIST ultimately conclude could be said about the anticipation of fuel fires? Also, how do we reconcile this with what Skilling said. The 2004 progress report is obviously not "in line" with Skilling, who claimed that it was precisely the fuel and the fires from it that would be so devasting (albeit not structurally).--Thomas Basboll (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

This is getting rediculous. The artical has been relatively stable and now we are getting editors popping up all over claiming they are deleting POV edits. You guys are feeding the conspiracy theories by censoring content that has mostly been on the page not only for months but is incontrovertibly factual material. I dont care how stupid you think CT's are NPOV treatment must come before your own views even if they vaguely suggest problems with the OCT. Wayne (talk) 04:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm withdrawing from this dispute until the new year. At least three different edits are being treated as one at this point. There has been no real discussion of the substance of any of them. I'll try some of them again (on the talk page first) one at a time.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 15:04, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
I just checked the current version against Dec 19 and it had a sentence missing (which i added), a sentence with the last few words missing so that it made no sense at all (I added the end of the sentence) and an extra sentence that had been edited in after the dispute began (I left this in to avoid further dispute). Except for that extra sentence I didn't touch the section reads the same as it did before the very first of Thomas's edits. If others are prepared to wait till the new year, I'll wait as well. I hope we can work something out then that satisfies everyone. Wayne (talk) 10:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I've tried to make the section make sense. (The tension between Skilling and NIST on fuel fires made the section incomprehensible.) Other than that, I remain out til the new year.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "World History-Americas" articles. I believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article if the below issues are addressed. I have made several corrections throughout the article while reviewing it. Please address the below issues within seven days and the article will maintain its GA status. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted. If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Here are the points that need to be addressed:

  1. The lead needs to be expanded to a few paragraphs to better summarize the article. See WP:LEAD for suggested length and guidelines. (I'm sure it can be improved, but it lives up the guideline now.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 23:38, 29 December 2007 (UTC))
  2. The weasel word tag in the "Fire and aircraft potentials" section needs to be addressed. I see there is a current discussion to address this, and I hope it concludes well. (The weasel words have been removed. --Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC))
  3. "After the 2001 attacks, Leslie Robertson, who had participated in the structural design of the towers, said that the towers had in fact been designed to withstand the impact of the largest airliner of the day, the Boeing 707-320, in the event one was lost in fog while searching for an airport at relatively low speed, "like the B-25 bomber that hit the Empire State building in 1945"." This statement needs an inline citation right after it since it includes a quote. If the statement is from one of the sources in the same paragraph, just use the <ref name="xxx"/> after it. (Fixed. --Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC))
  4. "unable to find any further details about the study NIST stated that without the original calculations which were used to render such conclusions, any further comment would amount to "speculation"." An inline citation is needed for the end of this sentence as well. (Fixed.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC))
  5. "It has been suggested that "the twin towers were in fact the first structures outside the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airplane" (Robertson, 3/2002; FEMA, 2002, pp. 1-17)." Convert the information in the paranthesis to an inline citation. (Removed sentence. The quote is already in the section.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 09:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC))
  6. The two images in the "Impacts of airliners" section should be arranged differently, as text shouldn't be sandwiched between two images. Consider moving one image to the prior/next section or move them both to the right. (This wasn't easy, and still isn't perfect.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 23:38, 29 December 2007 (UTC))
  7. "Some believe said dust are the impact charges placed to demolish the tower by insiders. This explains the freefall speed of these extremely rigid towers." Both of these statements need inline citations. (This has been removed. --Thomas Basboll (talk) 22:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC))
  8. "In answer to the question of whether "a controlled demolition hypothesis is being considered to explain the collapse", NIST says that it "would like to determine the magnitude of hypothetical blast scenarios that could have led to the structural failure of one or more critical elements."" This needs an inline citation after it. (I paraphrased instead, in line with the best source we have, which was already in the paragraph.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 00:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC))
  9. "The scope of the NIST investigation was limited to "the sequence of events from the instant of aircraft impact to the initiation of collapse for each tower."" Add an inline citation. (done. --Thomas Basboll (talk) 00:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC))
  10. "As stated in the report, it "includes little analysis of the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached and collapse became inevitable." (p. xxxvii, fn2)" Convert the source into an inline citation. (done. --Thomas Basboll (talk) 00:01, 30 December 2007 (UTC))
  11. "The fire left two firefighters dead from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning." Add source. (This wasn't a relevant fact and I've removed it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 23:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC))
  12. "Demolition of surrounding damaged buildings was continuing in 2007 even as new construction proceeded on the World Trade Center's replacement, the Freedom Tower." Single sentences shouldn't stand alone. Either expand on the statement or incoprorate it into another paragraph. There is another occurrence right after this one (also, the heading "The debris smoldering fires" should be removed since it only has one sentence in it, unless it can be expanded). Go through the article and fix any other occurrences. (Done. --Thomas Basboll (talk) 22:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC))
  13. This isn't required for the article to keep its GA status, but some of the references should be converted from the url to including some of the parameters within the templates at WP:CITET (such as author, title, publisher, access date, etc.).

Altogether the articles was an interesting read and is well-sourced throughout the majority of the article. All of the images are fine as well, it's good there are so many Commons images. If the above issues are addressed within seven days I will pass the reassessment of the article. The majority of the above issues shouldn't take too long to fix. I will leave messages on the talk pages of the WikiProjects associated with this article to help drive editors to this article to share in the workload. If you have any questions or when you are done, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Good job so far and happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 00:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

This article still suffers from a NPOV issue or two and it might be awhile before they can be cleaned up. I can't see how it can be rated as a GA with these issues and will try to detail them over the next few days.--MONGO 00:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused. This is the "reviewed version". Surely the current article is "better" than that (in every respect that these criticisms, including MONGO's, touch on)?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:28, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
The standards for good articles, as well as featured articles, have increased substantially since then. Articles that passed as featured articles in 2004 or 2005 most likely would not even meet good article standards today. That's why we have featured article review and people involved with WP:GA come around and check articles. They even came around and removed the Crime in Mexico article, which I worked on in June 2006. It passed then, the article hasn't changed that much, but GA standards have and the article was recently removed as a good article. Given the concerns above on this talk page, as well as general concerns about the neutrality of the article, I don't think it meets GA standards now. I don't have time, myself, to work put the time into it until at least after the new year or maybe not for an month or two, due to health problems and other real life priorities. --Aude (talk) 20:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
OK. Thanks for the clarification. Given the rising standards and the apparently minor problems (present situation excepted!), I think we can give each other a pat on the back. Great work, everyone. Happy New Year!--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
It still suffers from a lot of weasel words and POV issues...seriously..this article isn't even close to GA material yet. I'm not sure in it's present form it has much chance of maintaining a GA status...but I don't set those standards, which are generally still way below the featured article expectations...--MONGO 10:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Let's have a look at those POV issues. There's a section that's labeled as problematic in this regard now, and about which a discussion is going on. What weasel words are left?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 11:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I'll try and list them in the next few days..holidays and all are somewhat sidetracking.--MONGO 11:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Good job on addressing the above issues. I'm still going to leave the article on hold until the issue concerning the POV words/report is addressed. If you guys need some more time to finish it with the current holidays, feel free to take your time. This could probably use some feedback from multiple editors, so there's no rush. Once the issues are completed, let me know, and I'll pass the article. Again, good job so far. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 03:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Has the NPOV issue been addressed yet? --Nehrams2020 (talk) 19:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
No, not yet. This article is still very off balance. I recommend you not promote it at this time.--MONGO 20:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
How about some input on the items you think "off balance" so something can be done about it. Wayne (talk) 05:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the thing for me to do is set aside some time to see if this article can be more comprehensive and better written. I'll comb through the article and work on cleaning up the many areas that need help yet. I expect to start in a day or two.--MONGO 09:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA sweeps review: failed

Although many of the issues I raised were addressd and I left this article on hold for several weeks, the main POV issue still has not been addressed. Because of this, I have delisted the article according to the requirements of the GA criteria. If the issue is fixed, consider renominating the article at WP:GAN. If you disagree with this review, you can seek an alternate opinion at Good article reassessment. If you have any questions let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 00:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Technical question (page numbering in recurrent refs)

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to easily refer to the same source but on different pages? We have this problem throughout with the NIST report (and the GA review above hits on it). As I understand it we can't just use the "ref name" option. So we'd have to cut and paste a very long template every time we use it. It'd be great to agree on one way of doing it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:53, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't WP be able to alter the template (or have a separate one) to allow an optional "P.X" to be included in the "(x)" that indicates the ref? For example (I'm not comp literate so...) -ref name="xxx"/"P:x"- = (9 P:17). Wayne (talk) 09:50, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Robertson

Is Robertson's study really relevant? It is only a single source claim with no third party evidence of existance. Skillings earlier study is documented and involves a larger, faster aircraft so whatever Robertson concluded is irrelevant unless it reached a different conclusion. Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson were the lead engineers responsible for structural strength while Robertson was only the lead engineer for minimising wind sway (The WTC was the first skyscraper Robertson ever worked on). We have two studies that give the same conclusions so shouldn't we just mention the existance of Robertsons in a single sentence (if at all) and detail the verified one by a more senior engineer? Wayne (talk) 11:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that Robertson's report as published in 2002 by the National Academy of Engineering is not relevent? As noted in that report at top, he is named as the "The lead structural engineer..."[22], so I am either confused why they would refer to him as something other than what he was, or it was simply a mistake on their part. Was Skilling the lead engineer...perhaps he was of the construction phase, but not the design phase it seems.--MONGO 11:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I think the article in the Bridge may have gotten "lead" wrong, but not necessarily. He says he was the "titular leader" of the team that went to New York, but it seems clear that Skilling was his boss and would have known the design at least as well (in fact, he was probably ultimately responsible--it was his contract--so he may have had a better overview of all the studies). Wayne: do you have another source, or are we discussing different interpretations of the same article (in The Bridge)? This short piece [23] just puts them on the same level as "the engineers" for the project. Have a look at the current version. Isn't it pretty balanced?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
"They" are not really refering to him as anything specific as he was one of many lead structural engineers (I counted more than 10 that held that title). They just didn't mention of what. Robertson himself wrote that artical and secondly it was written in 2002. The info I used came from engineering magazines mostly from around the time the WTC was built. I found very few mentions of Robertson with the most notable mention being that he was a "young, up and coming" engineer working on his first high rise building. Making him overal lead on his first job doesn't make sense and if that was the case why did no engineering publication mention it before 2001. He had at least four other engineers as his superiors. The only references I found to what Robertson's primary role in the construction was, was that he was in charge of structural design for sway minimisation and he designed the damping system. Robertson himself admits this in your quoted 2002 artical, quote: "Our contribution was to make the closely spaced columns the fundamental lateral-force-resisting system" or in laymans terms...make the existing structure sway less.
You still have not addressed why Robertsons study is relevant as per my concerns. Wayne (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
It is published via a reputable organization, namely, the National Academy of Engineering and it is recent and is based on his recollections of the issues. If you can find something from Skilling et al regarding this information or similar that is also recent, that would be helpful.--MONGO 10:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You are missing the point. It is a question of undue weight giving substantial POV. Recent has no bearing on inclusion as Robertson is making no "recent" claims but recalling past events.

  • Robertson and Skilling both did studies.
  • Skilling's study was in early 1964 and Robertson's in late? 1964.
  • Skillings official study is documented to have exceeded 20,000 pages. While Robertson made no claim for length, it is doubtful it exceeded a few dozen pages as he admitted he did the study unofficially "to satisfy his engineer's curiosity".
  • Skillings study has third party proof of content while Robertson's is a single source claim.
  • Skilling's original study was destroyed in the collapse of WTC1 and a possible copy destroyed in the collapse of WT7. Robertson could not remember what he did with his study.
  • Skillings study used a more extreme model and included the expected fires although it is unknown to what degree.
  • Robertson's study used a lesser model and excluded expected fires.
  • Both studies reached the same conclusions.
    Giving undue weight to Robertson (as the article wording currently does) leaves the reader with the impression that his is more reliable than Skillings study. I tried to address this bias by including what Robertson said about his own study but you reverted it by saying it was not in the source (which you couldn't have read because it clearly is in it). That both studies reached the same conclusions makes Robertson's own study irrelevant as the official study should trump his unofficial one. Wayne (talk) 02:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV dispute at "fire and aircraft potential"

MONGO's summary of the edit that added the tag says: "section written commenting about NIST and then offerring refutation of NIST...slanted to give more credence to CT crowd". I don't think the section refutes NIST: what claim of NIST's does the section claim is false? As to the "slant", well, the CT crowd does stress that the buildings were designed to survive what happened on 9/11 and this section says that something along those lines is true. But something along those line is true. We could avoid slanting it by saying "No one had ever considered the possibility that a plane might crash into the WTC," which would give the CT crowd less ground to stand on. But it would be false. (On the narrow question of jet fuel, NIST has not determined that no one had considered it. It found at one point found that one of the design studies probably did not take that into account. But it did not carry that finding into the final report, as far as I can tell.)--Thomas Basboll (talk) 21:33, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I only have one POV concern. The undue weight given to Robertson. Someone altered a line to read "the documents pertaining to the relevant studies" which implies multiple studies or that these documents included Robertsons study when the source actually says the documents cited by Skilling. Also nothing is mentioned that Robertsons study was a personal one (not official) with him holding the only copy that he later lost. I'm not saying to use those words but the original quote by Robertson regarding this study gave the correct weight to this but MONGO reverted it, according to his summary, because the quote was not in the source. Strange because I copy pasted the quote directly from the source. Wayne (talk) 01:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
BTW. If facts "give credence to the CT crowd" then that is too bad. Facts should not be presented in a way to avoid this as this is called POV. I'm sure there are also a lot of facts in the artical that "give credence to the official theory crowd", do you want to reword to avoid that as well? The facts should speak for themselves. Wayne (talk) 01:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the sources again, it seems to me we can say (1) the WTC designers tried to anticipate the effects of aircraft impact, (2) they determined that the building would survive the worst thing they could think of, (3) 9/11 was worse than that, but (4) they were not able to model the impacts very precise and the buildings may have collapsed even if hit by a slow-moving 707. After all, the decisive effect was the fires, and they had not developed a model of the fires that would result from the crashes. (I think we can read Skilling as saying that they assumed the structure would be damaged only by the impact. The majority of the lives would be lost -- they simply assumed (not modelled) -- by the fires. They did not expect the fires to have an effect on the structure. And I think NIST supports this reading.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 22:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Just a reminder

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Collapse of the World Trade Center article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject. RxS (talk) 22:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Basis of Controlled Demolition Hypothesis

RE: this edit I have discussed this issue with Arthur Rubin and he explained that *his* reason for deleting my addition of one basis for the hypothesis (molten metal in the rubble) was some arithmetic discrepancy between a Steven Jones paper and a "mainstream" newsletter. I judged this as a poor reason to remove the information, but a good reason to point out the discrepancy wherever it might be appropriate to do so. Several other editors have also removed this information, but none have offered a reason.

As they should have opened a discussion on it and have not done so, I figured I would open it here. Dscotese (talk) 01:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You've refused to explain why that more-or-less reliable source is the basis for the hypothesis. We need a source for that assertion. (Whether or not your source is accurate is irrelevant to whether it should be included, and I apologise for bringing up the matter.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 04:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Good point, except that it is a basis, which is what I wrote (though perhaps not the basis, so i agree with you there). But you got me thinking why I singled out that one, and I see that it is because that's the one that I remembered - but that's maybe a little too POV, so I changed it, as you see. If you have suggestions on how to make the references less awkward, that would help. I thought it a good idea to direct readers to the structural engineer article referenced by the Jones paper, but feel free to remove it, if the first reference seems enough. Dscotese (talk) 05:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conspiracy Theory

Why is controlled demolition listed as Conspiracy Theory when all of the official theories are conspiracy theories as well. This is not neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.31.41.67 (talk) 17:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Because not all theories which involve conspiracies are conspiracy theories. In the same way that not all flukes are flukes. --Haemo (talk) 04:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Well in this case you should try to change the lead of conspiracy theory.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 08:08, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Does anyone know ...

the weight of the aircraft and one tower? Would that not be basic information for the article? 100TWdoug (talk) 05:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality dispute at fire and aircraft potentials

The neutrality dispute tag is almost four months old. Is someone going to try to fix it and/or explain why the tag is there?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 19:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I tried cleaning it up but it really doesn't belong. It's a red herring. It circuitously tries to imply that the building should still be standing after being hit by fuel filled airplanes. That's not the case so it's just best to remove it as it adds nothing to the "Collapse of the World Trade Center." --DHeyward (talk) 04:35, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
You would remove the whole discussion of how the WTC was designed to deal with aircraft impacts and fires from the article on its collapse (which was caused by aircraft impact and fires)?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't do that. Relevant design details are in the sections that accompany the description of the collapse. Putting in a snippet about specific details that weren't relevant to the collapse is undue weight and also WP:SYN as no reliable source has cited any of those design details as contributing to the collapse. It is core to some of the CT theories however so prominent display adds weight or doubt where they should be none. --DHeyward (talk) 15:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can see, there is no discussion of whether the buildings were designed to handle aircraft impact and the resulting fires (i.e., the things they in fact showed they were unable to handle) in the section on the actual collapses. Correct me if I'm wrong. Surely this article should answer the basic question of whether the buildings performed as had been expected by its designers. (That's not the same thing as whether they have been cleared of the charge of a flawed design.) I don't really want to talk about whether this issue pulls the article towards or away from CTs. I don't care very much about that. I just think the question is interesting and the reliably sourced answer to the question is informative.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 16:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
It's in the opening paragraph and more detail is in the sources. "it declared the WTC design sound and attributed the collapses wholly to extraordinary factors beyond the control of the builders." What your asking to include is not relevant to this topic. Imagine a small 40 year old Peugeot getting in a front end collision with a 50 ton Lorry at 120 mph. The Peugeot is completely destroyed and you want to talk about whether the front bumper was designed to withstand a 5 mph bump and whether it performed as expected. It's not relevant nor would it be discussed in the accident report. The article discusses the relevant aspects of the design as they contributed to both the structure standing for such a long time and what eventually contributed to the collapse. --DHeyward (talk) 17:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
No, we are talking about whether the total collapse of the structure (not the "bumper") was to be expected. The article can explain, based on those sources, what exactly the "ordinary" (predicted, controllable) forces were and how much they were exceeded. That's all the section does, in fact. It explains that the building had been thought to be able to survive at least a slower moving plane (Robertson), perhaps even a faster moving plane (Skilling), and that what went wrong as far as design goes (and for which the designers could not be held responsible) was that no one really knew what the fires would do to the structure.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 19:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
And that's pretty much what this other section says. --DHeyward (talk) 22:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
This section mentions the hat truss. Along with "The light construction and hollow nature of the structures", which is mentioned in "The fires" it would seem (on your argument) that we can do away with any discussion of the design. But we are not trying to save bytes here. It is natual to have a section that explicitly answers the question, "Were the buildings designed to survive anything like what happened on 9/11?" Even if the content of the section has to be entirely rewritten to say what you are suggesting, namely, "The buildings were not designed to survive impacts and fires like those on 9/11. They not only performed adequately; they performed better than expected," a section on designing for aircraft impact is relevant. I don't think it should say that, of course, but let's agree that a section about it is perfectly in order. If they had collapsed during an earthquake or hurricane, similar reasoning would apply. Did the designers think of that? If they had been hit by a 4 ton meteor, I would be more likely to accept your Peugeot comparison.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 04:12, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The design elements relevant to the collapse is discussed as the article progresses. The relevant design elements are determined by the reliable source. Your question is explicitly and unequivocally answered "it declared the WTC design sound and attributed the collapses wholly to extraordinary factors beyond the control of the builders." Earthquake and hurricanes are natural events. Any investigation into a collapse due to earthquake or hurricane would likely include detailed desgin investigations about the assumptions made for those events. This event was extraordinary and it simply wasn't a main investigative lead by the sources for the article. Where the design details were relevant, it was included in the reports and is included in the article. Your belief that they are more relevant than the investigators believe is not a criteria for inclusion. BTW, It wasn't a 4 ton meteor though, it was two 380 ton meteors traveling at 600 mph. It is Original research (WP:SYN) to assert or link individual studies on fire survivability or surviving aircraft collision damage when the reliable sources explicitly says that it was combinations of fire and structural damage that caused the structral failure. The reliable sources reviewed the documents that you cite and proclaimed "the WTC design sound and attributed the collapses wholly to extraordinary factors beyond the control of the builders." It is not clear to me how that section's relevance is supported by reliable source. For example, the reliable source says that white paper on the aircraft collision in the 1960's only leads to speculation. The articles "discussion" on this point shouldn't occur as the reliable sources have said that such a discussion is "speculation". A section on how the WTC was designed for aircraft collision might be relevant on the WTC construction article, but as it relates to the 9/11 attacks, the reliable sources have simply said it's not relevant because of "extraordinary factors beyond the control of the builders." Implying that it is relevant by creating a section is WP:SYN and Original Research. --DHeyward (talk) 06:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
The NIST (subreport 1-1, page 71) says, that NIST found documents that "clearly indicate that the Port Authority recognized during the design stage the possibility of an aircraft impact on the tower." The same report has a section heading "Aircraft Impact" (p. 70). I can't find any reference to that anywhere else in this article. The FEMA report makes even more of this: "The WTC towers were the first structures outside of the military or the nuclear industries whose design considered the impact of a jet airliners." Since they are also the only structure to be completely destroyed by such impacts, that's an interesting historical note. It is nowhere else in the article. And it is not even in the Construction of the World Trade Center article. In both cases, the aircraft impact scenario is presented along with the standard concerns (wind, etc.) Once the fact that such impacts were considered, it is necessary to go on to explain the limits of those considerations (as they were made in the early 1960s). Yes, you're right, I missed some zeros on that meteor (I was thinking of the Sean Connery movie).--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Everyuone recognized the possibility of an airplane hitting the building since airplanes hitting buildings had happened before. That's not the problem with that section. That section implies that the consideration that an airplane might hit the building and designing it so that it might withstand an attack like 9/11 are related. That is clearly not the case and the reliable sources are very clear that it is not the case. Relating them is original research through a synthesis of material. The NIST report, which is much more detailed than this article explicitily did not explain the limits of the consideration of the airplane impacts scenario becuase it would be "speculation" and it wasn't particularly relevant to the collapse. --DHeyward (talk) 13:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

(Back to left) That's not what NIST said would be "speculation". The NIST report refused to "speculate" about the content of a particular document that they could not locate. Also, this section didn't actually make the connection to a 9/11-type event. The only sense in which I made that connection was in the sense that we are talking about "getting hit by an airplane" in both cases. But I think we've gotten somewhere: the B-25 incident, as the precedent that got WTC designers thinking about airplane impact, could nicely introduce this section. What we need is a section about the way the design anticipated the unlikely event that (in an extreme form) actually brought the towers down.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of fire and aircraft potentials section

DHeyward has gone ahead and removed the section. Here's what it said:

The WTC towers were designed to survive major fires and fireproofing had been incorporated in the original construction. More was added after a fire in 1975 that spread to six floors before being extinguished.[3]
"No building code in the United States has specific design requirements for impact of aircraft," writes NIST, "and thus, buildings are not specifically designed to withstand the impact of fuel-laden commercial aircraft."[7]In the 1960's, the WTC's engineers had considered the consequences of aircraft impact but not the fire as little was known about the effects of such a fire and no fireproofing systems were available to counter that type of fire. [8] [9] FEMA described the modeled aircraft as weighing 263,000 lb (119 metric tons) with a flight speed of 180 mph (290 km/h). This was a slower and smaller plane than those involved in the actual impacts of 9/11.[3] The National Institute of Standards and Technology, found it difficult to document how the buildings were designed to anticipate aircraft impact.[10][11]


NIST found a three page White Paper, dated February 3, 1964, summarizing a 21,000-page study of the effects of a Boeing 707 carrying 23,000 US gallons (87 m³) of fuel hitting the buildings at 600 mph (1,000 km/h). The study found that the buildings would not collapse in the event of aircraft impact. But NIST noted that "the effect of fires due to jet fuel dispersion and ignition of building contents was not considered in the 1964 analysis."[12] Without the original calculations which were used to render such conclusions,[13] NIST said, any further comment would amount to speculation.[14]

I doubt there is consensus for taking all that information out. If this doesn't add to our understanding of (the background of) the collapses, then the whole design section would go on the same argument. Obviously (to me) it's relevant. Like site-cleanup, the investigations, etc. So I suggest a quick poll:

[edit] Straw poll (keep or delete)

  • Keep: Much useful information about how the buildings were expected to behave. Very relevant.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete The relevant structural information is provided in the account of the collapse. Bringing up CT arguments like the building was fireproofed and designed to withstand airliner impacts, even if done in roundabout ways, doesn't serve the article. It's clear the buildings weren't designed (or expected) to withstand the impact and subsequent fires and the structural details that led to the collapse are covered in their relevant sections. A separate section on tangential items that are not relevant but cloud the real mechanisms is WP:UNDUE. Information about the 1960 design elements of the towers can go in the main World Trade Center article or a construction of the world trade center article. But as the NIST pointed out, the 3 page white paper leads only to specualtion and, like the NIST, we shouldn't comment on it in this article which is dedicated to the facts.--DHeyward (talk) 07:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Precisely as DHeyward has expressed. The buildings were designed to temporary allow egress of occupants after a low speed impact by a large airliner, the kind of low speed impact that was expected if an airliner was on it's approach and or takeoff speed, not a speed in excess of 500 mph. No buildings could be expected to perform any better than the towers did under the situation that occurred on 9/11. This is besides the point and continued POV pushing by Basboll will be dealt with. We've had enough of tenacious editing on this subject.--MONGO 09:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Hopefully it will be dealt with promptly ANI.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I hope so as well...We have had enough of tenacious editors who are single purpose accounts here solely to promote their POV's.--MONGO 10:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: The section is relevant because it is discussing the primary cause of the collapse. MONGO's answer is an excellent example of why it should be kept. If MONGO, who has read the article, still gets so many facts wrong then maybe the section should even be expanded. BTW..sections should not be deleted before discussion. Wayne (talk) 13:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep: I haven't still understood the point of this proposal since:
    1. Obviously the informations cannot be considered "not relevant" with respect to the subject of the article
    2. The implicit suggestion "CT arguments=bad" is pointless, we do not chose the informations according to the POV we want or do not want to be pushed, we insert all possibly relevant things
    3. If you really think that the information has been given in a POV way which "cloud" the reality you can try to adjust it without deleting the section
    4. Yes this article ir about facts and what you are suggetsing to remove is indeed a fact.
    5. As far as I know every change from previously estabilished versions of the article cannot be made without consensus: you first must have consensus and then you can delete. This means that we actually have to keep the section untill consensus is to remove it.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Agree with Dheyward here. This section is a red herring. I don't think it can be reworked or reworded to resolve the neutrality problem. --Aude (talk) 18:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
    Are you suggesting that it is completely impossible to give that information about the project of the buildings while being NPOV? Isn't it strange that an true and correct information cannot even in principle be given in a neutral way?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 18:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
    Not at all since the information is already in the article. What relevant information is missing? --DHeyward (talk) 19:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
    I'm sure that all that information you want to delete is not present elsewhere and it seems to me *obviously* relevant.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 20:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
    Again, what relevant information was deleted? --DHeyward (talk) 06:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
    Every single word that you want to delete.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 08:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep ... the information is interesting and relevant, it seems to me. In stead of deleting sections, it would be a better practice to present an alternative wording for such a section on the talk page, and discuss first. In friendship, but formally, I hereby warn Dheyward and Aude to adhere to wikipedia policy and to act as constructive and consensus-seeking as possible.  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 11:34, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep (but improve). See comments below. Jgm (talk) 12:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per MONGO. Jtrainor (talk) 18:34, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. The article is "Collapse of the World Trade Center", remember. Please explain why its being fire-proofed is "not relevant" one more time? I honestly don't follow the argument. Nigel Barristoat (talk) 15:54, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep "Per" DHeyward: if NIST looked at this, this article should report it too supplying more sources. Question: Is it so that "a fact" is defined for the purpose of this article as "what NIST have found"? salVNaut (talk) 21:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion (to keep separate from poll)

At the Dec 18, 2007 NIST advisory committee meeting about WTC 7, Charles Thornton (a member of the committee); raised questions about "the way that American architects and structural engineers design buildings with spray-on fireproofing. I think you are basically coming out with a conclusion that maybe it does not work." This ties the collapse of the WTC directly to design issues about fireproofing.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Not to answer the (wholly unspeculative) question of whether the WTC designers intended to build a structure that would survive aircraft impact, given the circumstances, strikes me as very odd.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Taken out of context...a quote that is taken out of context to try and promote a fringe view. If indeed no one thought fireproofing worked in most scenarios, they wouldn't still be fireproofing structures.--MONGO 10:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Nope. It's in exactly the right context. It's part of what we know about the WTC collapses and about how that knowledge is being discussed by experts. I wouldn't put it in the article, mind you. It's just the minutes of a meeting. But it does help us to understand the issues. NIST has already proposed changes to building codes. And Thornton is raising a much more serious possiblity: that 9/11 showed that we have radically rethink the resistance of steel structures to fire.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 10:25, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Whatever...it is peripheral and has little to do with the collapse itself.--MONGO 10:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
If you think that the quote "try and promote a fringe view" there is no point in discussing tecnicalities like the problem of the "context" with someone having such extremistic positions.--Pokipsy76 (talk) 17:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
It's completely out of conext. That question was about the design practice of using a time rating for fire proofing on individual components vs. looking at the system as whole. At the time fire proofing was done on individual components for a "2 hour rating". What was being questioned was whether each component should be looked at individually or whether the system should be looked at as a whole as is currently done with wind testing and earthquake testing. The question wasn't about whether spray on fire-proofing is effective or not. It certainly didn't tie the WTC collapse to design issues about fireproofing. In fact the system evaluation could easily lead to less fireproofing in certain areas. It's simply a different method that has evolved with technology. None of these recommendations for changes in building codes have ever come back as something that would have prevented the collapse and implying that these changes would have changed the outcome in any way is misleading and disservice to the reader. --DHeyward (talk) 17:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree that this is out of context and a red herring. --Aude (talk) 18:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
The larger context of these questions (if you go back about a page in the minutes) is how to design a building for "burnout without collapse", which is to say, how to make sure the building remains standing even if there is no intervention (from sprinklers or fire fighters). These people are trying to figure out what they can learn about what happened to WTC 7 to avoid it happening to other buildings in the future. The mere fact that the structure was damaged and that there were many fires, does not explain (to Thornton) why it collapsed. There may very well, he says, be something wrong with how architects think about fire protection. All I am saying with this is that a section on fire protection design of the WTC is in its place in this article. Red herring?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Complete Red herring. There is no technology that exists that allows burnout without collapse. Those recommendations were explicitly rejected and these sidelights about future building technologies are not relevant to the historical article on the WTC collapse. If we passed building codes requireing anti-gravity floor suspensors and fire-proof jet fuel it would have no relevance to the historical discussion. Reliable sources say the buildings performed beyond what could be expected. Implying anything else is nonsense. Secondly, this section that was removed talked about airplanes which has nothing to do with WTC7. The report you quote is about standalone fires and just the building contents being burned out, not a structure that has its fire-rated compartments and its structure damaged by an airplane and has tons of flammable liquid dumped into it. These are apples and oranges (Twin Towers and WTC7) and this type of misleading red-herrings is another reason why this section should remain deleted. --DHeyward (talk) 19:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Do we agree at least that on page 4 the sentence "Not all buildings are expected to remain standing after burnout" suggests that some buildings are expected to do so. The so-called "frangible" buildings (which cannot sustain burnout) are things like residential homes. They will, as it were, burn "to the ground". But buildings like WTC 7 are good candiates for "the performance objective of burnout without collapse" (page 3). Now Sunder (that's who's fielding the questions, as I recall) does note that "the science has not evolved to the point of designing to meet [this] performance objective". But he's not saying that whether or not WTC 7 could have survived burnout (under ordinary conditions) is a red herring.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 19:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
"The implicit assumption is that when there is a situation where the sprinklers do not function, there would be burnout of the building contents without collapse" (page 3). Sunder says that the the design of WTC 7 may call that assumption into question but, again, it tells us what the performance objective was. The idea that "There is no technology that exists that allows burnout without collapse" doesn't seem right. A combination of protected structure and compartmentalized floor plans is generally assumed to work.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 21:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'm coming into this as an outsider to the personalities and possible motivations involved (I made some edits on this article a couple of years ago but have not been following it closely). I don't think this section is particularly well-written, from the puzzling section title to some tortured wording, non sequitir paragraphs and a few statements that just ring oddly (a twenty-*thousand* page study on one particular scenario?). However I can't see where it pushes any particular theory or POV. A section discussing the original design points for the buildings and the factors considered relevant to a major impact or fire seems perfectly appropriate in an article about the collapse of those buildings. My vote above reflects this view. Jgm (talk) 12:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the section needs work. I've never understood the title. My suggestion was: "Fire protection and anticipation of aircraft impact". It might be better just to make that two sections.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:35, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I say delete the entire article and start over...the entire article reads the way one would expect it to read if a conspiracy theorist wrote it.--MONGO 04:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Dear MONGO, your comment sounds disruptive im my ears. You had better start a new article in your userspace, and don't bother us with proposals to delete this one until you have some better version completed to replace this one. I wish to formally warn you to adhere to the purpose and policy of Wikipedia, in stead of lingering around pushing your POV.  — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (speech has the power to bind the absolute) 06:48, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I refuse to enter this breach again. I have listed it at ANI.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:24, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
Update: it has been sent on to arbitration enforcement.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 09:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fire and aircraft potentials

I looked at the POV-tagged Fire and aircraft potentials section and made some changes in the order of the statements [24] which I think adequately address the POV issue. The problem appeared to me to me to be a to-and-fro between facts apparently supportive of the official reports, and facts which invite further inquiry. By combining the sections on design and assessment, and placing them in what I believe to be a more logical order of development, I think that appearance of POV dispute is resolved. Guy (Help!) 17:50, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. There is no POV issue with the section. I'd like to call it something like "Anticipation aircraft impact and fires". Any takers?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
No, it doesn't need its own separate section. There are no "facts that invite further inquiry" because the reliable sources have established that no further inquiry on those facts are necessary as they were covered in the report. In fact, saying that it deserves further inquiry without a reliable source that says it deserves further inquiry is the main problem with these articles and the central theme in the CT arguments. This section should be dissolved and the relevant design details included inline to where they are appropriate. Highlighting differences between FEMA and NIST and specifically calling out the memories of designers as somehow significant as a section when this isn't the case in the report is undue weight and synthesis. This is an encyclopedia article, not a separate design report. --DHeyward (talk) 23:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "As with all modern skyscrapers..."

Is is true that all modern skyscrapers are designed to survive aircraft impact? They will, of course, survive the impacts of small enough planes. But are all of them really designed with that possibility in mind? As I understand it (and as NIST explains), the WTC were the first to be specifically designed to this end. Any thoughts?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

This might be a good question for the reference desk. RxS (talk) 20:36, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I haven't tried that before. Could you file it? I'll reword the sentence on the safe side for now.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] "No building code in the United States ..."

This sentence seems out of place:

However, "No building code in the United States has specific design requirements for impact of aircraft," writes NIST, "and thus, buildings are not specifically designed to withstand the impact of fuel-laden commercial aircraft."

It would work better at the very beginning of the paragraph. But not in the current version where the fire protection issues are mixed in. (I like the way that reads, however, so I'd prefer not to change it.) Are there objections to just removing this sentence? While it is true, it does not apply to the WTC (as NIST and this article explains), so it's a bit unclear what it's doing here. Ideas?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 21:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have moved the sentence up into the first sentence.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Size of the fire and aircraft impact section

I think it looks pretty good right now. I'm sure much more can be said on the topic, however, so I've added the material to the WTC construction article. In the interest of stability, I would suggest making any expansions over there first, and thinking of the section here as a summary of the section there.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Referencing convention

Wayne's recent edits have used a very sharp way of referencing the NIST report, which makes the text in the editor very tidy, and makes it very easy to locate the correct report and page. His refs say simply:

NCSTAR 1-6, (p lxxi)

I would propose:

NCSTAR 1-6, p. lxxi.

But that's obviously a minor point. The important thing is that it is much easier to read than:

Lew, H.S.; Richard W. Bukowski and Nicholas J. Carino (2006). Design, Construction and Maintenance of Structural and Life Safety (pdf). NIST NCSTAR 1-1 Pages 70-71. National Institutes of Standards and Technology. Retrieved on 2007-10-15.

Which has alot of unnecessary information (like the retrieval date) because of the use of a template. What's even worse is the inline citation:

<ref>{{cite web| last =Lew| first =H.S.| authorlink =| coauthors =Richard W. Bukowski and Nicholas J. Carino| title =Design, Construction and Maintenance of Structural and Life Safety | work =NIST NCSTAR 1-1 Pages 70-71| publisher =National Institutes of Standards and Technology|date=2006| url =http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-1.pdf| format =pdf| accessdate = 2007-10-15}}</ref>

We can easily list all that information in the reference list and let the refs take this simple form. What to you think?

[edit] WP:SYN

It hasn't been established through a reliable source that any material in "Fire and aircraft impact" is related to collapse in more than just a passing comment in the main narrative. For example, the history of fireproofing or it's thickness was pretty much irrelevant in the analysis. The study of landing aircraft crashing into the WTC lent nothing to the investigation and didn't change any perceptions about the design. It's not that these tidbits aren't true, or reliably sourced. But by including them, the article gives the reader the impression that these facts are relevant to the "Collapse of the World Trade Center". They aren't. And their prominence at the beginning of the article and their separation into a separate section is a WP:SYN violation as well as an Undue Weight concern. --DHeyward (talk) 05:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

This is an encyclopaedia article and therefor it needs to be more informative than if it was published as a fact sheet. As far as aircraft, fireproofing and fires are concerned people have many misconceptions and an ecyclopaedia has a responsibility to include not only what did but also did not cause something to counter this. For example there is confusion over what aircraft was considered (if at all) and there is a belief the fireproofing was inadequate etc. This is born out by the edit war in this article last year where many editors tried to prevent mention of the aircraft detailed in (WTC lead engineer) skillings 1964 white paper because it conflicted with Robertson's memory (a young engineer working on his first highrise who was not involved in the WTC structural calculations) and meant an event that exceeded the 911 impact had possibly been allowed for (and they used the same arguments you just did). The facts are relevant to avoid undue weight given to misinformation such as "an aircraft was not considered" or "the fireproofing failed" etc. The section mentions that NIST found the fireproofing was not a factor in the collapse and made no comment on relevance of the aircraft so the section is informative but nuetral and does not imply anything. Wayne (talk) 06:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a compromise would be to merge it into the design section, simply saying "Though the WTC towers were designed to survive aircraft impact, engineering knowledge about the effects of events like those of 9/11 was limited at the time." The main article on the construction of the WTC now has all of the information we've got here. BTW, I don't think the beginning of an article is necessarily "prominent". In this case, it's like starting a historical article with a "background" section. It's the lead that is prominent.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It should be inline with the relevant pieces then, and not a separate section that raises doubt about whether the structure should have withstood the fire or the impact. No reliable source raises any doubt whatsoever. --DHeyward (talk) 07:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Can you be a bit more specific? What do you propose (then we can compare the alternatives)? I would think a sentence saying that "the WTC towers were designed to survive the impact of jetliners" belongs in the design section (since that is also where the link to main article is, with more info). I still don't think section raises any doubts. It simply reports NIST's reflections. I think we take WP:SYN too far when we refuse to make any effort to understand the relevance of particular facts. There is a reason these reflections are in the NIST report. The same reasoning applies to this article.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

DHeyward, in your edit summary you talked about "synthesizing a conclusion". Is it something that you think the section implies? Or is the conclusion explicitly stated somewhere in the section as it stands? We could, for example, add a sentence like "In any case, owing to their extraordinary character, the events of 9/11 have not caused engineers to rethink the way buildings are designed for aircraft impact." I don't have a source for that. But I do think it is true and that a source could be found. That is, one way to fix this may simply be to explicitly deny the implication you think (I don't really) this section suggests.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it's not the conclusion in the section, it's the conclusion even having that elaborate section implies. We have a narrative section where we describe the aircraft hitting the buildings. That's where the previous account of an airplane hitting the building analysis should go. None of the reliable sources question the building design. Having a section that implies there might have been a building design concern is therefore synthesis. The 707 analysis can be one sentence here in a different section. Any section or sentence that implies there might be blame with the design or construction is fringe. It's implying that the fault of the collapse lies away from the terrorists that committed the act and is not mainstream or even a suitable alternate view. No reliable source has maintained such a view.
“ A Boeing 767-200 is 48.5 m (160 ft) long and has a wingspan of 48 m (156 ft), with a capacity of up to 62.2 (-200) or 91 (-200ER) m³ of jet fuel (16,700 or 24,000 US gallons).[20] The planes hit the towers at very high speeds. Flight 11 was traveling roughly 700 km/h (440 mph) when it crashed into the 1 WTC, the north tower; flight 175 hit 2 WTC, the south tower, at about 870 km/h (540 mph).[6] In addition to severing a number of load-bearing columns, the resulting explosions in each tower ignited 38 m³ (10,000 gallons)[3] of jet fuel and immediately spread the fire to several different floors while consuming paper, furniture, carpeting, computers, books, walls, framing, and other items in all the affected floors. The force of the explosion from the initial impact in 1 WTC traveled through at least one express elevator shaft all the way down to the lobby floor, blowing out all of the windows and leaving a number of people injured. An aircraft impact event was studied at the time of design but the capability to conduct rigorous simulations impact, the ensuing fires, and the effects of fires on the structure is a recent development. [25] ”

--DHeyward (talk) 13:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hold on, now. No such implication is made, and, like I say, we can make that explicit if that is a worry. The same would go for the open floor plans. Yes, it has been suggested that a more traditional distribution of the office space could have had an effect on the outcome. (Just as NIST suggested that if the fireproofing had not been knocked off the steel, the buildings might have survived). But that does not mean that the designers, and not the terrorists, are in any way to blame. Of course not. The designers could have, but did not, anticipate a terrorist attack. But the fact that it was terrorists who are to blame is not at all in question. My main argument for keeping this section is that it answers a question that perfectly reasonable people might well ask: had anybody thought of that? They had? Really? Why did they collapse then? And the answer is that the effects of the fires may not have been properly understood (by anyone) at the time. As Robertson points out ... in fact, Robertson's talk is a great indication of the relevance of these questions. He says staight out: we considered the aircraft impacts but did not know enough about the fires.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Then put it inline to the narrative like the example I showed. It doesn't need a separate section. Nor does it need extreme detail which rightfully belongs in the construction article. --DHeyward (talk) 15:22, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
This past discussion may provide some perspective. The version referred to is this one, which looks a lot like what DHeyward is proposing. The problem with it, as I pointed out at the time, is that it is at odds with the facts as NIST tells them (though not as FEMA tells them). I think that's what led to presenting it as a "design issue" rather than a simple fact about the impacts themselves (i.e., that they exceeded design expections. It not really clear that they did, though the designers may have be excused for not getting the modeling right.)--Thomas Basboll (talk) 15:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
But again, highlighting this minutae as if it's a relevant detail that had anything to do with the collapse is WP:SYN. If there was a serious discrepancy that changed the course of the investigation it would have been noted. It didn't. It is not Wikipedia's place to highlight these items as if they were relevant. Find a reliable source that says the difference between FEMA and NIST estimates in their reports of the speed of the 1964 707 impact study was of any relevance to the collapse and we can include it. But it's not so we shouldn't even mention it as if it is controversial (or create the controversy by highlighting it) because it is misleading. It could be a typo, it could be different recollections, etc, etc, but it's not even important enough to correct or point out these minutae discrepancies because they have no bearing on the final result. --DHeyward (talk) 19:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the discrepancy isn't important. If the article could just present the NIST version (the towers were designed to survive the impact of a 707 going 600 mph) then I would happy. I've been working on the assumption that Robertson's lesser scenario had to be mentioned for balance in order to achieve consensus.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
PS I forgot to put in a link to the earlier version in my comment above. It may help to keep in mind that this section has evolved from the second paragraph of this section on the impacts themselves. The question has been how to replace FEMA's account with NIST's. There was some resistance to just doing away with the "lost in fog looking to land" model, as I recall.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Slight difference is that the design was analyzed for the impact, not designed with the impact up front. regardless, it's a small inline narrative sentence. I like my sentence because it conveys the findings of both FEMA and NIST without putting any significance to the figures or details since they aren't noteworthy enough to carry in an article the size of a Wikipedia article. "An aircraft impact event was studied at the time of design but the capability to conduct rigorous simulations impact, the ensuing fires, and the effects of fires on the structure is a recent development." is all that is necessary and belongs in the section noted. --DHeyward (talk) 21:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
But that is all already in the section. You want to say the same thing but remove all the detail that supports it. Doing that leads to people losing context and promoting wrong ideas. For example those that know what FEMA found in regards to the aircraft study would (and some editors here still do) dismiss what NIST found as truther propaganda. To leave out the detail differences is extremely POV and unbalanced. Wayne (talk) 03:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Wayne is right about the details (though I don't think it would be a POV concern). It is possible to say something true, detailed, and sourced, by giving the specifics of the modelled airplane. The reason to "a 707 going 600 mph" is preferable is that it allows the reader to decide for themselves whether that means "An aircraft impact event like that which occured on 9/11 was studied ...." (which would be OR for us to say). Unfortunately, I think Wayne's also right about why leaving FEMA out is a problem. It is too detailed but it is more likely to remain stable.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 04:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to put the facts in their proper context with their proper weight. People who know what minutae differences exist between FEMA and NIST are not coming to Wikipedia for answers. We can put the references to those sources in the "See Also" so the extremely curious can find it. Basically all that needs to be said is that the aircraft study at the time of design lacked the capability to conduct rigorous simulations of impact, the ensuing fires, and the effects of fires on the structure. That's the big picture. That's what all the reliable sources are saying in their reports. Focusing an entire section on the various minutae by different agencies that didn't even think it was worthwhile to resolve or address the minutae of discrepancies is exactly why we have WP:UNDUE and WP:OR. By including this stuff and highlighting it in its own section, the article is synthesizing a controversy that simply doesn't exist in the reliable sources. The proper place for this level of construction detail is in the Construction of the World Trade Center. But details about fireproofing materials and their various minutae of installation and the changing specification when the reliable sources clearly say it wsan't an issue in the collapse is WP:SYN. Details and discrepancies about an aircraft simulation in the 1960's during the design phase when the reliable sources clearly say the results of any simulation would be worthless in the context of the actual incident. This is wiki so we can link any reference to the original building design to the Construction of the World Trade Center article. But don't synthesize controversy. If the reader walks away with the impression that there is a major discrepancy between FEMA and NIST or that the fireproofing and impact simulations were significant in any way, the article is incorrect. The current version leaves that impression. --DHeyward (talk) 06:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I propose we move the disputed section to the construction article (I've already copied it there, but I think what we've got here now is an improvement. I'll take care of that part.) We then add the following to the design section: "The designers had considered the effects of the impact of a passenger jet, and believed the structures would remain standing in such an event. But they lacked the ability to properly model its effect on the structures, especially the effects of the fires."--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

(This discussion continues below)

[edit] Cherepanov'

Not reliable in this context. He is a single voice. Refuted many times by every other source. HEre's a start. Cherepanov's analysis is complete garbage. It's never been cited by any scientific papers and it needs to be removed. Wikipedia shouldn't be his first and only citation. --DHeyward (talk) 07:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It is a scientific paper. And as Bazant's response shows, is being discussed. It is a standing disagreement in the literature. I'm not saying Cherepanov is right (and I won't even get into what I think of his website!). But the editors of the journal (Bazant is a regional editor) obviously did not think they were wasting their readers' time with it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
PS. Wikipedia doesn't count as a citation in any index I'm aware of. I haven't checked any of the references in this article in the Science Citation Index. Are you suggesting that published, but uncited, work should not be mentioned? (That's a much higher stander than WP:RS has today. It is actually not an altogether bad idea ... if uniformly applied.)--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:08, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Of course they didn't. It's a pay for play journal. You pay and they publish. It's an awful reference and it's WP:UNDUE to include it here as anything even approaching an alternate scientific view. It needs to be removed. It's a fringe theory. --DHeyward (talk) 13:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't know that about the journal. If that's true (how do we determine this?) you don't need to invoke WP:UNDUE. WP:RS will do.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 13:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
UPDATE: I've looked into it now. I have no reason to think that the International Journal of Fracture [26] is anything but a well-respected, highly specfialized journal. In the "mechanics" subject category, the Science Citation Index ranks it #69 in terms of impact factor and #16 in terms of total citations. It is published by Springer, which is a prestigious academic publisher. It also counts Bazant among its regional editors. Finally, I have found nothing in its submissions procedure that involves payment. It's not my field, so others may be able to add to this picture. But for now I am very skeptical about DHeyward's claim that "it's a pay for play journal" and would publish "garbage".--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
PS. The sentence in question was added after this discussion.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:01, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Springer has a pay for play option as they are a for profit publication house and have an open source option for a fee. Leaving aside the journals credibility for a moment as the publisher seems to have other crediblie journals, Cherepanov's theory is a "walled garden" theory that is not subscribed to by anyone else. Even his fundamental premise that there is such a thing as a "fracture wave" in solids has only been referenced by him. Accordingly, this single, unsupported source is not subscribed to by any other scientists. It is not referenced in any way. No investigative body has read this paper and invited Cherepanov to speak. I don't know the rules for the Internation Journal of Fracture but I suspect that since this was developed on the theory of Fracture Waves, of which Cherepanov is the only subscriber and therefore the only expert, it was accepted on that basis. Either way, this particular theory has no basis for being in a wikipedia article because it's not a significant viewpoint of the scientific community. --DHeyward (talk) 06:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Cherepanov's ideas have been mentioned (dismissed) by Bazant both in the conference notes you mention and in the Bazant and Verdure piece. That piece also admittedly dismisses CD in the same terms (which, I think, would be your best argument for not putting it in this section). However, unlike CD, the theory has been published in a relevant scientific journal and, unlike CD, Bazant has taken it seriously enough to respond to it at a conference. We've made progress anyway: we've gone from "garbage in a pay for play journal" to minority view in scientific community. So we're at least back to WP:UNDUE as the relevant policy. I'm going to have a look at the reception of Bazant and Zhou in the engineering literature (I was suprised to discover recently that the paper is not mentioned in the NIST report; please correct me if I'm wrong--I just did a quick search). On that basis we can weigh the two views.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
PS Keep in mind that the IJF paper does not argue for the fracture wave theory (though it does mention it). It simply presents a prima facie argument against the received view. It is that criticism, not the theory of fracture waves, that has been peer-reviewed and is part of the discussion. The section we are talking about does not present fracture waves as a serious alternative to progressive collapse.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
We don't have to mention bazant and zhou either. The NIST is adequate. Zhou and Bazant's paper are referenced numerous (one paper was referenced 38 times)[27] with overwhelming majority independant of the autor. Cherepanov has been referenced 0 times outside of himself. His is not a minority scientific opionion, it is the opinion of 1 person without any backing of the scientific comunity. The article supposedly compares the two theories (progressive collapse and fracture waves). Since this is the fracture journal and Cherepanov's field is in fracture and no experts have subscribed to his progressive collapse analysis (or his theory of fracture waves either generally or as a mechanism of collapse), I think we can safely dismiss this from the list of minority views. Bazant responded to Cherepanov in the same way that NIST repsonded to the conspiracy theories. It doesn't make them credible, however. There was certainly no need to publish the refuation in a journal since no scientist accepted Cherepanov anyway.--DHeyward (talk) 07:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
NIST has no theory of progressive collapse. We cannot describe the 16 seconds that followed collapse initiation without Bazant & Zhou. Google is a good start, but its not yet a citation index. The Science Citation Index gives us 13 references to that paper. 1 is Bazant and Verdure and 1 is the Bazant and Zhou's own addendum. Only three or four of the remaining papers actually cite the paper in order to discuss progressive collapse (most recently Seffen). It's simply a very small discussion in the literature, in which Cherepanov figures as one position (how many people in all are even discussing this in the peer-reviewed literature? A dozen? Half a dozen?) I think I've shown that Bazant responded more seriously to Cherepanov than to CD.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
And neither Cherepanov or CD have any place in this article. The reason there is not wider discussion is because NIST/Bazant is encompassing. There are not a lot of peer reviewed papers on Newton's laws anymore either. --DHeyward (talk) 18:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I am arguing that Cherepanov deserves a mention specifically on the issue of PC. CD only deserves a mention as a notable CT. And the details of Bazant's collapse hypothesis (the only one on the table) deserve to be explained.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Near Freefall" (again)

We've bee through this a few times. DHeyward has now removed the (admittedly) long and (somewhat) torturous specifics of the collapse times and reduced it to (what I agree is) its essential core, namely, the buildings collapsed at "near free fall". Leaving the specifics in, however, have, I think, had a stabilizing influence. The 9 and 11 seconds figures are somewhat low estimates, as I recall, (more conservative accounts say 12-16 seconds) but it depends on what, exactly, is being measured (the first thing to hit the ground or the fall of the roofline). Any one else have any ideas?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

NIST FAQ says 9 and 11. --DHeyward (talk) 07:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I know, but Bazant (in his refutation of demolition theories) pointed out that those figures cannot be compared with a free-falling object dropped from the tops of the buildings. If that is the touchstone for "free fall" then the collapses probably took about 15 seconds (about six seconds longer than free fall). I'm not disagreeing with you, and if it were up to me alone your version would stand. My concern is that it will be perceived as slanted in the direction of demolition theories and will therefore become a point of contention. Bazant's more detailed analysis does not disagree with the NIST faq. It just elaborates the reasoning behind it.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Then we don;t have to mention free fall speed at all. Just the times is adequate and they support the NIST and Bazant gravity induced collapses. --DHeyward (talk) 15:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
That seems to me to be straightfowardly less informative than the status quo. The fact that the underlying structure provided an insignificant amount of resistance to the fall of the upper sections is one of the most interesting things I've learned from studying the collapses. I would have been greatful to WP if it had told me that straight out when I read it the first time.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Those items are fine. the trap is that we shouldn't be writing from the perspective of refuting or supporting the CT/CD point-of-view. When we talk about the collapse time, it seems we are speaking in code when we add percentage of free fall time.. Then the next piece of code is adding some trivial detail that either supports or rejects another fringe piece. It then becomes bloated with minutae. The fall time isn't controversial unless you are coming from a certain point of view where it has been made a cornerstone. We don't need to feed them or refute them. I'd just as soon ignore the code speak of "free fall" or comparisons to Controlled demolition or discrepancies in the timing of the collapse, etc, etc. --DHeyward (talk) 21:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll have a look at it again. There is also Seffen's recent paper. All in all, I think engineers are looking into the speed of the collapses. They are not doing that just to refuse CDers. I'm going to re-read the Seffen paper and get back to this.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 04:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Why is it important for the article to discuss the speed of collapse compared to free fall? Are we trying to tell the reader something important about that? If so, can we please spell out what that important thing is; after all, an encyclopedia should not use vague language which lead the reader to incorrect conclusions. If there is no important thing, why make the comparison? Making vague hints in the hope that the reader becomes more ignorant do not belong in an encyclopedia. The colour of the Moon is comparable to the colour of cheese, hint hint nudge nudge. Weregerbil (talk) 06:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
To my mind it's just informative. Before 9/11, I didn't know that the lower part of a building provides virtually no resistance to a dynamic load (i.e., the weight of the building when falling). I'm not an expert, but there would be nothing wrong with saying, "The moon has the colour of cheese because ... " and then something about the surface of the moon and the way light is reflected off it. Surprisingly, the surface of the moon is actually the colour of asphalt, I'm told, but "looks like" cheese at that distance in direct sunlight without an atmosphere, or something. That's the reason to characterise the collapses as "near free fall", just as NIST does.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
PS (more seriously) The moon article says: "The moon appears as a relatively bright object in the sky, in spite of its low albedo. The Moon is about the poorest reflector in the solar system and reflects only about 7% of the light incident upon it (about the same proportion as is reflected by a lump of coal). Color constancy in the visual system recalibrates the relations between the colours of an object and its surroundings, and since the surrounding sky is comparatively dark the sunlit Moon is perceived as a bright object." That's pretty much like saying, "The towers collapsed at near free fall speeds, despite being undamaged under the impact area. While they were designed to support enormous static loads, they provided little resitance to the moving mass of the sections above the floors where the collapses initiated. Structural systems respond very differently to static and dynamic loads, and since the motion of the falling portion began as a free fall floor through roughly three floors (12 m) the structure beneath them was unable to stop the collapses once they began."--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
(ec) If the purpose of the description is to say "the speed of the collapse shows that a lower part of a building offers so-and-so much resistance to collapse", and that is the intent we want to convey to the reader, can we say that then? With sources of course. So that the reader isn't left guessing as to the purpose of the "free fall" statement. ("Leaves the reader guessing" being what, to me, appears to be poor writing for an encyclopedia.) The word "near" appears subjective; how many percent slower is "near"? If the comparison to free fall, or to Asafa Powell's speed at 100m, or to some other benchmark is made, the relevance of that particular comparison should be explained. Weregerbil (talk) 07:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Bazant & Verdure are pretty clear about what "near" means: not twice as long. I've been trying to find a good statement about exactly how little resistance the structure offered. Actually, I'm still trying to understand it. It comes down to that difference between static and dynamic loads. One strategy I considered at one point was to explain to the reader how much more the moving mass "effectively" weighed when it hit the lower section (after falling 12 m) than it did when it was just sitting on top of it. I have a feeling Bazant and Zhou answer that question in their discussion of "overload", but I haven't been able to translate it into lay terms (i.e., I don't really understand it). The calculation of "effective weight", meanwhile, before impact (i.e., without making any assumptions about what is going to absorb the weight) is (surprisingly!) impossible. If something weighs 10 pounds and falls through 10 meters, there is no way (that I've found) of saying how heavy it would "seem" to a scale when it impacts without describing the properties of the scale. If someone could tell us how many times stronger the buildings would have had to be to survive on 9/11 that would also be an nice way of explaining it. I haven't found a statement about that.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 07:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Such a calculation exists and is a point of dispute. The buildings columns according to the white paper were overdesigned. Unfortunately the white paper was not found until after Bazant published. The white paper said the columns could support some 6X more dynamic load than Bazant calculated caused the collapse. Wayne (talk) 16:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I think what you are looking for is Potential Energy (energy in a falling mass). There is no accepted figure for the WTC. FEMA give 4 x 10^11 Joules while the ASCE give the PE as 3 x 10^12 Joules (10X higher). The weight of the WTC was around 500,000 tons (includes contents and people). Each floor thus weighs around 4,500 tons. The columns were designed so that each intact floor could support 2,000% more. For example Skilling in a 1993 interview discussing a terrorist attack stated that if 50% of the columns were lost, the remainder could still support the entire total weight of the building even if they were all on the same side. Part of the interview can be found here. I'll see if i can find the whole thing. Wayne (talk) 17:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that the object has no potential energy (relative to the frame of reference, of course) when it is resting on the ground (or, in this case, when it is resting on top of the column section it will run into. Nor is the structure "absorbing" energy when the system is stable (i.e., before the collapse initiates). My question has been: surely the towers could have been made to buckle simply by putting a sufficiently heavy object on top of it. Bazant seems to be arguing that once that happens, the whole thing will go, two or three floors at a time. Maybe I can put it this way: how many times heavier that usual would the top twenty floors of one tower minimally have to be in order to cause what happened on 9/11. And how many times heavier was the moving section effectively when it hit the undamaged lower section of floors?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question in one sentence: It would need to be 200 times heavier and according to Bazant the moving section was 2 times heavier.
It's not a question of how much heavier but the energy of the collapse. Undamaged columns could support up to 200 times more than the weight of the entire building before collapse would occur. Although considered a RS Bazants paper by itself is not reliable as an answer because it was written and published within 40 hours of Sept 11 and was based on what the author knew of the WTC rather than any evidence such blueprints or damaged steel from the site. The paper also has many obvious mistakes. For example Bazant calculates the energy of the collapse by assuming 100% of the energy of the floors impacted directly on the floors below (including the weight of the pyroclastic flow outside the footprint) and doesn't deduct the energy required to pulverise the material in the first place. Bazant calculated energy equivalent to 2 times the buildings weight initiated the collapse when the construction specifications themselves called for 5 times. The paper also doesn't make a distinction between fire temperature and steel temperature which is a very significant ommission that invalidates his paper on it's own. Tests have shown that subjecting steel beams to 1200 degrees will only raise the steels internal temperature to 360 degrees which is supported by NISTS findings, Bazant on the other hand assumes the fire and steel temperature is the same. The paper is a good starting point but should not be used as a primary source. We know what started the collapse but no one knows why it continued past the damaged section because NIST stopped investigating at that point. There may be no evidence of CD but there is evidence that there was a major structural failure that has not been addressed yet. Wayne (talk) 03:29, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The layman (or WP reader) is likely to relate mainly to "the bigger they are, the harder they fall". So idea is to explain that every meter the section falls freely (through the collapse zone) it becomes "effectively" heavier, until it becomes unsurprising that the lower section, which was originally designed to support the dead weight of the top section (in any weather), could not "catch" it. I'll read Bazant and Zhou again. I think 2 times sounds low (can you quote the passage in B&Z where they say that?). And the 200 times overload was arguable part of the sales pitch for the design. It may have been inflated. Still thinking. My aim here is write a nice little piece of explanatory prose like that stuff about the colour of the moon.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 14:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Two was an estimate on my part. The actual figure Bazant calculated was 6 times but he was using incorrect data. With corrected data the result is 2 times the design code but the WTC was actually way over code so the real overload according to Bazants own equation (assuming the engineers did not lie) is only 1/2. Bazants findings, which he calls "crude order-of-magnitude estimates" are as follows: the total release of gravitational potential energy
P = maximum force applied by the upper part on the lower part
h = height of the initial fall of the upper part = 3.7 m
m = mass of the upper part of North Tower = 58x10 to the 6 kg
g = gravity acceleration.
mg = design load capacity (building code specifications 5X. NOTE: mg for WTC was 20X).
C = 71 GN/m (assumed based on all the buildings columns being identical to those on the impact floor and unbraced. The columns actually increased in strength from top down and all had cross bracing)
Overload = P = 1 + square root (1 + (2Ch/mg) = 31 (or six times the building code requirements)
The overload is actually double this when the floor collapsing first impacts but that lasts a fraction of a second and then the 31 applies. Bazant and Zhou point out that this is approximate because they have no data and are estimating values for the buildings (the paper was written the day after the buildings collapsed). As an explanation of why he doesn't include some data in his calculations Bazant says:"we are not attempting to model the details of the real failure mechanism but seek only to prove that the towers must have collapsed and do so in the way seen". Bazant also says: "Once accurate computer simulations are carried out, various details of the failure mechanism will undoubtedly be found to differ from the simplifying hypotheses made. Errors by a factor of 2 would not be terribly surprising". Building codes require supporting an overload of 5 however it was found that the WTC had been designed with an overload factor of 20. Using 20 instead of 5 in the equation gives an overload of around 9 instead of 31 which means not enough to allow the collapse to continue past the floors with damaged columns. That last sentence is my OR but the rest is from Bazants paper. Wayne (talk) 17:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm having a hard time following this. Maybe this will help me: What number indicates the force Bazant says the lower section could have survived? And what number indicates the force that Bazant says the top section actually imparted to the lower section?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Bazant is not clear on actual values as he admits it's speculation based on his experience with other buildings. The building code requires columns on a floor to support 5x more than the weight of the entire building and he used this for the WTC. This is all the columns on a floor combined not individual columns so it requires we have no damaged columns and thus is only relevant for the floors beneath the damaged section. Bazant found that the "force the top section actually imparted to the lower section" was 31x more. Assuming the engineers were truthful in that the WTC was actually 20x you have to divide Bazants results by around 3. Any result under 20 means the collapse will slow down and eventually stop. A result over 20 means the collapse continues to the ground but Bazant also gives no explanation of why the core also collapsed. While the building would collapse, a substantial section of the core should have remained behind as the building dropped (some of the core did briefly remain but then collapsed). Wayne (talk) 04:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why you have to divide Bazant's 31 by 3. It seems to me you just have to multiply his 5 by 4 (to get the 20). So you have the maximum survivable force at 20 (times the building's weight) and the actual force at 31 (times the building's weight). What am I not understanding? --Thomas Basboll (talk) 05:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
mg = design load capacity (mass x gravity). Bazant assumed mg=5x while it was actually mg=20x. Using this revised figure in the calc: Overload = P = 1 + square root (1 + (2Ch/mg) = 31, reduces the answer to around 9 (because 2Ch is divided by mg). Wayne (talk) 06:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
But doesn't that correct the calculation on both side of the equation? Bazant compares the 31 to the 5, concluding that the impact was 6 times more forceful than the buildings could handle. On the basis of one adjustment in the values, we now bring the 31 down to 9 and the five up to 20, concluding that the impact was only half as forceful as the buildings could handle. Am I right so far? All we've done is made the buildings stronger, but we're making adjustments on both sides of the equations. I'm still not quite getting it. But I'm vaguely grasping that its because, for the purposes of the calculation, the buildings didn't get 4 times stronger but 15 times stronger. Is that right?--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Think of it like dropping a golf ball on a sheet of paper. It hits the paper and slows briefly before tearing through. It then increases speed until it hits the next sheet of paper and the cycle continues through 100 sheets. The average energy is Bazants 31. Now we use stronger paper. The ball still hits the first sheet with the same force but takes a fraction of a second longer to tear through. It has lost some energy so although it still speeds up it hits the next sheet at a slightly lower speed. The cycle still repeats but only until the speed reduces to a point where it no longer has the energy to tear through so it stops. The starting energy (weight, speed etc) is still the same for both but the average reduces for the stronger paper. Bazants equation works out the "golf balls average". The paper has a design load capacity. If the calculated average is higher, then the golf ball will effectively never stop but if the average is lower then it will eventually stop. Wayne (talk) 18:06, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

So, according to Bazant, the top section fell 3.7 meters at a time, each time coming out of the buckle ("tear") with a little more energy than it had when it caused the previous buckle ("tear"), but of course less than it had just before it hit this one. It then free-falls another 3.7 meters. The strength of the columns determines how much energy is subtracted in each step. And the distance of the fall determines how much energy is added. So increasing the strength of the columns means both decreasing the average energy produced and increasing the average energy required to bring down the tower completely. I.e., you could increase the strength of the paper or decrease the distance between each sheet in order to stop the golf ball. Is that right? I think something like this explanation needs to go in the section on progressive collapse.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Basically that is it. It is a lot more complicated as you need to account for the air resistance, floor contents (an empty floor has less resistance than one being used for storage etc), temperature etc etc etc. It may not sound like it makes much difference but even 0.06 of second for each floor (which is what Bazant calculated was the delay) adds up to 5 seconds slower than free fall for the building which is why there is so much debate on the free fall speed. This debate is not a conspiracy theory and is a legitimate question of why the fall speed was what it was and doesn't need CD to explain it. Unfortunately the CD theory can never be debunked because the only evidence that could refute it 100% (the steel) doesn't exist any more. Wayne (talk) 03:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're missing some of the dynamic forces and failures. If I am following what you are trying to say, it seems to imply that as a bulding fell. it would rapidly reach a terminal velocity basically in the collapse of a single floor. Also, it seems to imply that controlled demolition of a building would never work as blowing the supports of any building would simply have fall a single floor and the it would be supported by the floor above it. Also, it seems that a necessary consequence of design and your explanation, higher building would be more difficult to bring down and an infinitely tall building would be impossible to bring down because as the ratio of the floor to floor space to the height of the building becomes a smaller value, the ratio of the energy of the falling building to the static load rating of the columns approaches 1. This is obviously not the case as buildings are demolished all the time.

[edit] (convenience break)

The problem is that static analysis is inadequate to describe the failure during a dynamic event such as collapse. There is the physical phenomenon of dynamic snap through where a critical dynamic force is applied to a structure it will buckle. The problem as I see with the analysis of "pancakes" and each successive floor is that it's not clear that strcuture failure will happen floor by floor. A dynamic impact at the 80th floor may weak or buckle the 3rd floor (or any floor) supports because of the existing static load and the critical dynamic load that creates the snap through condition so doing the analysis with 80th floor at 20x static load is irrelevant if the 3rd floor is only 5x. At that moment, the structure above the third floor is now collapsing at free fall. So the trigger is the heated columns losing their strength and suffering elastic deformation, this causes a collapse to start at the upper floors, but subsequent collapses and impacts may happen throughout the structure and it's dynamic. I don't think it's simply a 80,79, 78, etc, collapse. Rather, it could be 80, 3, 55,2,5,6,7,8, etc. or any random sequence. Once the failure goes dynamic, it's practically free fall as it collapses through each weakest link. Bazant's analysis goes in sequence because if it is strong enough that it still collapses in sequence, that means it will fall in any other scenario (there are no "still standing scenarios" if the sequential collapse scenario is satisfied and this is somewhat intuitive). For your analysis to be correct, the 20x load overdesign would have to be throughout the building. I suspect that it might be 20x at the upper floors but not at the lower floors since the structures would need to be unecessarily massive and expensive. That leaves a dynamic snap point weake3st link somewhere between the ground and the impact. Once the top floors go, that weakpoint goes and the collapse progresses. --DHeyward (talk) 05:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

This is very interesting, and very instructive ... it should go in the article. First, it would be useful (using Bazant and Verdure) to say that the progressive collapse failure mode is very similar to controlled demolition. (As DHeyward says, if PC doesn't work, then neither could CD. CD, in one sense, is just an artificially instigated PC.) But I do think we have to go with Bazant's theoretical 80, 79, 78 sequence. If that sequence could be shown to stop, then investigators have some explaining to do (in the ordinary scientific mystery sort of way), and they might discover that DHeyward's sequence could explain what Bazant's could not. That is not where we are today, however. The progressive collapse section can only present Bazant as the received view and peer-reviewed criticism of that view. I'll start drafting something today. And I'll post it to a new section below for discussion.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 06:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
In the sense that both CD and PC use gravity as the collapse mechanism, they are similar. The analysis by Bazant and NIST already show that. My interpretation is just from reading Bazant. I haven't seen the 20x data that was presented earlier but I suspect tht here may be a 20x piece of data that is being misused/misapplied. But it's all completely irrelevant as there doesn't seem to be a reliable source that makes the claim the WTC should still be standing. --DHeyward (talk) 08:46, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I really want to stress that NIST does not offer an analysis of progressive collapse (again, please correct me if I'm wrong, citing a page ref). We have mainly (perhaps only) primary sources in the engineering literature to base our account of how the buildings collapsed to the ground. One of the reasons for this is that many (perhaps all) of the "popular" accounts are irrelevant because they are based on the FEMA theory. Among the relevant primary sources there is a reliable source (Cherepanov) that "makes the claim that WTC should still be standing" if, that is, PC was the only possible mechanism. (Properly speaking, everyone claims they know why it collapsed, not that it should still be standing.) I'm still looking for an account of the WTC PC collapse in a structural engineering textbook. It can't be long before one comes out. If anyone bumps into one, please let us know.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 09:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
No, pancake theory is/was not just about floors (columns at these floors) failing in some sequence. It was about floors failing _inside_ WTC, loosing their connection within perimeter and center core columns, pancaking inside the building (primarily) which was supposed to cause the loss of integral stability and to allow complete collapse of the whole structure. NIST did investigated how easily could have floors disconnect from perimeter columns when heated by fire (the famous real word burn-down tests with anti-fire foam applied). This theory is no longer supported by NIST (ref NIST report and NIST FAQ) and by no one else in engineering community, I guess.
On the other hand, the random failure scenario which DHeyward proposed is most close to Cherepanov "fracture wave" where stress travels all way through a structure of a building and results with failures at random points. This theory, however, does not explain dustification of upper, and lower, parts of the building (Bazant theory fits better here with his crush-up, crush-down phrase). Please don't forget that everything: columns snapping, stress traveling along the building, dustification, upper floors contributing their weight to crush zone; everything results with energy dissipation. The question is if all those factors can be reliably accounted for. (Bazant is criticised for not including energy dissapation due to dynamic properties of core structure above and below the crush one) salVNaut (talk) 18:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, there are no reliable sources that say the bulding should be standing. NIST did finite element analysis up to the point of collapse. I suspect that the reason is it was not necessary to continue beyond that. They did some very detailed calculations of loads and strenghts on the structure and redistribution of the load. In any case it is not necessary to describe it in the this article as all the reliable sources say it collapsed after it went dynamic. There are no reliable sources that claim otherwise. Incidentally, my explanation had no relation to a fracture wave at all. A fracture wave supposedly has complete destruction after the wave front. Mine was more like a hammer and a chisel. Or a crushing of an aluminum can. Also, keep in mind that the building load would not have been evenly distributed at each impact point. Once it went dynamic, I suspect there were leading edge sections that transferred the whole upper load to the impact point. This would cause immediate failure to that point. There is no longer an evenly diustributed load that was the case in the static analysis. OIn any event, none of this belongs in the article. --DHeyward (talk) 19:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I still think your explanation was closer to "fracture wave" beacuse it is based on the assumption that stress caused by collapsing upper part of the building is "passed" down through the structure and result with failure somewhere (aluminium can is a good example, once first kink shows up, why and where other kinks are formed?). In some The things to consider here would be: what is the "passing below" ability of each floor (until it fails); how much energy is lost during this transaction (building structure is more like a sponge (up to some level of stress) rather than an ideal solid).
"...very detailed calculations" which they themself acknowledged had to be tweaked away from real-world test data to obtain the collapse scenario. The were condemned much for not revealing anything about their simulation in the article published in NewCivilEngineer (D. Parker, “WTC investigators resist call for collapse visualisation”, New Civil Engineer, November 1, 2005. Online)
I think that the bottom line here is the statement by NIST: "we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse". salVNaut (talk) 19:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure if we are on the same page about what "fracture wave" is. I once made an experiment that showed, what I think is, a fracture wave. I was once playing subconciously with a plastic rod, of length about 40cm, by bending it one way and another (it was quite flexible). Suddenly, I bent it too much and it snapped... in 5 places at once, leaving me with 2 small pieces in each hand and 4 other pieces flying all around the room. I was wondering with my friends why it happened so. What we've found out that all those pieces were of the same length. We concluded that after reaching a tipping point, the stress was released by forming a fracture wave along the rod, snapping it to pieces at amplitude points. salVNaut (talk) 20:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Fracture waves don't belong in the article. But a good description of what happened to the structure after the collapse initiated does belong here. It has to be based on realiable sources, of course. But it also has to be comprehensible to the average reader. We can't just say that the collapses began and then didn't stop. We can't just say that the underlying structure offered no resistance or that the force of the top section was "enormous". We have to explain the sequence Bazant describes. And we have to do that because that's what is currently known about the collapses.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 22:08, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

DHeyward is correct but has simplified too much. The most efficient way for CD to work is to blow the basement columns and thus make the load exceed the design load capacity that way (each floor that collapses has maximum load) and you now have bottom up demolition. Taller buildings are harder to bring down and if tall enough almost impossible as you suggest but what is now done is to also blow the columns on every 20th floor. You still get a bottom up collapse but it is helped by "mini" collapses which serve to increase the overload as energy from these accumulates. To get a top down collapse like the WTC you still have to blow the basement (the movement at the base reduces resistance for every floor above) but around 2/3 up you take out multiple floors which increases speed (= force) past the design load capacity because of the greater distance traveled. This is dangerous though because you lose control of the debris (it falls from a height rather than being produced at ground level.
The columns from ground to the 66th floors were indeed massive. They were much larger than in higher floors being 5 foot thick and cross braced with 6" thick struts. The size then gradually reduced with height so that, for example, the columns on the impact floor of the south tower were twice as thick as the columns on the impact floor of the north tower. Bazant didn't know this and in his calculations assumed they were the same size for the entire building. In fact NIST didn't know either and based all their calculations on smaller columns (around 2 foot thick) that were free standing (not braced) and also stated that only the 4 corner columns of the 16 core columns were larger when in fact all 16 were the same even larger size. NIST based their calculations on the WTC architectural drawings which did not show column sizes and had a different arrangement of columns than what was actually built. The mistake was not discovered until the original WTC blueprints were found in 2007 although they should have realised considering the number of photos of the construction that exist. This does not support a CD explanation (unfortunately it doesn't dismiss it either) but it does indicate that a proper study of the collapse should be conducted as NIST is flawed. Wayne (talk) 14:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Solution to the WP:SYN dispute?

The discussion has arrived at this proposal of mine:

We move the disputed section to the construction article (and older version is already there). We then add the following to the design section: The designers had considered the effects of the impact of a passenger jet, and believed the structures would remain standing in such an event. But they lacked the ability to properly model its effect on the structures, especially the effects of the fires.

Note the link to the construction article. Please voice your approval or disapproval. I'll implement it in the morning if there is consensus.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 15:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Straw poll

  • Approve (undecided) Wayne makes a good point (thinking).--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Reject I will approve if that last sentence is dropped or modified. It is OR as NIST specifically said such an assumption is speculation. Perhaps replace the word "but" with "NIST speculates that". Wayne (talk) 17:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Robertson and his "engineer's curiosity"

The NYT Mag article that Wayne's footnote refers to sheds some light on our discussions. At that time (in Sept of 2002), journalists were apparently still looking for a kind of scandal in the design of the tower. According to Glanz and Lipton, the 600 mph impact study was an exageration: "no study of the impact of a 600-mile-an-hour plane ever existed" (I don't know if you all have access, but here's a link [28]). The Port Authority had (it seemed to Glanz and Lipton) simply made it up. They base this assessment mainly on their conversation with Robertson. "'That's got nothing to do with the reality of what we did,' Robertson snapped when shown the Port Authority architect's statement more than three decades later." (Probably the three page "white paper" mentioned in this article?) Robertson's reaction, and the Glanz and Lipton's coverage of the issue, might fittingly go into the "history of the investigations section". In fact, maybe that's a way to put this issue to rest. As a matter of historical fact, there was a controversy about this. I'll read the article again and see if I can put something together.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 18:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The Port Authority attributed the white paper to Robertson which is what upset him as he didn't know it existed and thought the PA had made it up. NIST printed a copy of the white paper in their report (NCSTAR 1-2 p302) and it specifically states 600mph. The white paper also says the mathmatical calculations alone cover 1,200 pages of the full report. Possibly moving that whole section to "investigations" would be a good idea. Wayne (talk) 04:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)