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February 13, 2007
9/11 Conspiracy
After George Monbiot rubbished the film Loose Change one of those involved has a piece defending it in The Guardian.
Monbiot also appears oblivious to NIST's failure to explain that,
although fire could not have melted any steel, there were pools of
molten metal under the rubble, and these pools remained molten for
weeks after the collapse;
I haven't been tracking the nutters on this "theory" so I've no idea whether this point has already been addressed, but there's what I think is a pretty simple explanation for those pools of molten metal.
How many other metals were there in the building, other than steel, which could have melted? Not sure that the copper wiring would have done so, at least not for any great length of time. But how many computers and other pieces of electronics would there have been in it? Some tens of thousands at a guess (one or more per person I would think, don't you?). Ever heard of solder? A lead tin alloy with a low melting point? (There would also be significant amounts of gold actually, if indeed that pool of metal were solder: chips contain it and at something like 230oC, 240oC, the gold forms a eutetic alloy with the solder)
Others better informed than I would know whether this is a valid explanation or not so I only offer it as a possibility.
February 13, 2007 in Idiotarians | Permalink
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Yes indeed. A CRT display contains ~4kg of lead - so assuming 10,000 CRTs in the building, that's 40 tonnes of molten lead for you...
Tim adds: Not sure about that number for lead there you know. Lead Oxide in the glass, for sure, but that's what the shielding is, in the glass, not metallic lead. I don't think the temperatures would have been high enough to melt the glass and they certainly wouldn't have been to refine the Pb metal out of the glass. There is other lead in a CRT I agree, but not 4 kg I wouldn't think.
Posted by: john b | Feb 13, 2007 11:15:25 AM
Priceless rubbish. He pleads in evidence that the Manhattan project was kept secret, oblivious to the fact that it was riddled with Soviet spies. He refers to "the law of conservation of momentum" as if it applied to the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy. Tit.
Posted by: dearieme | Feb 13, 2007 11:34:48 AM
Mr Worstall maybe you would like to have a look at this. You really shouldnt talk about a subject without at least doing some research.
http://sanityforsale.wordpress.com/2007/02/11/conclusive-proof-of-911-cover-up/
Posted by: Will | Feb 13, 2007 1:42:48 PM
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7180303712325092501&q=john+gross
incase the link above is broken
Posted by: Will | Feb 13, 2007 1:47:36 PM
"Others better informed than I would know whether this is a valid explanation or not so I only offer it as a possibility."
Pfft! That's no way to weigh into a conspiracy theory, man!
What you need to say is something like:
"I'm not a flying instructor/construction engineer/physics professor but (insert as needed here) sure looked wrong to me!!"
At least, that's what a lot of the loonies...er,'independant thinkers'..taking part in the original post on CiF (which will have the distinction of being the only time I'm ever likely to cheer on Monbiot) had to offer, anyway...
Posted by: JuliaM | Feb 13, 2007 1:53:38 PM
A lot of the myths promoted by the conspiracy theory lunatics, fantasists, paranoiacs and hucksters are debunked in this useful article from Popular Mechanics.
Posted by: Andrew Zalotocky | Feb 13, 2007 2:56:24 PM
Tim is right - in 1967 we lost our home and all our possessions in the Tasmanian bushfires - glass melted, the pressure cooker melted, the water tanks (away from the heat source and full of water half collapsed. The only unmelted metal (I always felt this was a good advertisement) was the inside lining of the slow combustion stove - the rest of the stove melted!
Posted by: Marij Sak | Feb 13, 2007 5:19:55 PM
"A lot of the myths promoted by the conspiracy theory lunatics, fantasists, paranoiacs and hucksters are debunked in this useful article from Popular Mechanics."
Ah, yes. But of course, an editor of 'Popular Mechanics' was called Chertoff. Like Michael Chertoff the Homeland Security chief! You see, it all makes sense....(dribbles).
After all, everything can be explained away if you realise that, if you argue with facts, then you are part of the conspiracy!!!
I just know that the BBC2 documentary to be aired next week will encourage these nutcases, no matter what its conclusions....
Posted by: JuliaM | Feb 13, 2007 5:33:18 PM
Also, be sure to check out the book “Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory” due out in March by Dr. David Ray Griffin.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781566566865&itm=2
Posted by: stinker | Feb 13, 2007 7:55:21 PM
Ah, yes a 'retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology' is just the person to put to shame those engineers at 'Popular Mechanics'.....
Posted by: JuliaM | Feb 13, 2007 8:50:49 PM
More easily demolished is his piffle about conservation of momentum. Anybody worth a GCSE in Physics (or even better, an O-level) should be able to remember the bit about
"Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it."
An external force. You know, like gravity.
Momentum is a product of mass and velocity. You can tell it isn't conserved in the way Mr Dim Sparke apparently thinks it is by picking up a ball and dropping it. The mass doesn't change, but the velocity clearly does.
Posted by: Dr Maybe | Feb 14, 2007 12:40:10 AM
"these pools remained molten for weeks after the collapse"
Really?
And what wonder material was insulating these pools to keep the heat in?
The metal must have flowed out of the flames as soon as it reached melting point, anyone seen what happens to molten candle was when it escapes the flame and starts flowing down the candle?
Posted by: Chris Harper | Feb 14, 2007 5:21:58 AM
...although fire could not have melted any steel...
I'm not sure if any steel in the towers melted so far as to become liquid, but to an engineer this is irrelevant. As the temperature of steel increases, its structural strength decreases significantly (blacksmiths worked this out to their advantage rather a long time ago). The fires in the towers were caused by the combusting aviation fuel, and they heated the steel to the extent that its structural strength decreased, causing failure.
As has already been pointed out, the people peddling these theories are generally not engineers with reputations to protect. They're a geeks' version of the bloke down the pub who sounds off about why Sven lost England the world cup.
Posted by: Tim Newman | Feb 14, 2007 6:55:21 AM
"It is about whether we should accept unconditionally a story which defeats the laws of physics".
But apparently not the laws of metallurgy.
The only metal I have ever heard of that remains liquid once a heat source has been removed, especially after the fire brigade has sprayed a lot of water over it, is mercury. Oddly enough I've never heard of mercury being widely used in the building industry.
Unless the correspondent is refering to the tiny spillage from somebody's antique barometer, I fail to see what on earth this guy is talking about.
As to the film being the most downloaded in history, I thought that honour went to the Paris Hilton porn movie.
Posted by: The Remittance Man | Feb 14, 2007 11:37:37 AM
As for the controlled blast demolition theory; methinks someone's been watching too many James Bond movies and not enough Discovery Channel. Rigging a big building for demolition is actually quite a complicated task.
Even if we assume that this job was done over the one night of 10/11 September it would have taken an army of blasters to rig and wire the WTC for demolition. You'd have thought a night watchman would have noticed a load of big, hairy men in hardhats suddenly arriving on the doorstep.
But let's assume the entire security force was down in the basement playing poker with the cleaning crews. Surely the people who came to work on the morning of the 11th would have asked a lot of questions about the miles of blasting cable linking all the seperate charges together.
Oh and if you leave an unattended blasting rig anywhere near civilians, RM's Second Law of Blasting comes into force: "There is always some nitwit who will unplug some of the wires, given the chance".
Posted by: The Remittance Man | Feb 14, 2007 12:26:01 PM
One point the conspiracy nutters omit is to explain how White House secret keeping went from being unable to cover up a crafty blow-job successfully to keeping public mass murder of their own civilians under wraps - in less than 5 years.
Unless Repulicans under Dubya are really that much more effective than Democrats under Clinton.
Posted by: Andy Cooke | Feb 14, 2007 5:03:08 PM
You know, much as it's fun to poke the loonies on these sort of threads (and I admit to doing it often as I can!), one wonders what the relatives of those on board the flight that hit the Pentagon feel when these mouth-breathers trot out the line 'It was a missle that hit the Pentagon!'...
Pretty sick, I'd imagine. But I suspect the fearless seekers of truth don't worry about them at all...
Posted by: JuliaM | Feb 14, 2007 5:28:54 PM
Looks like we need to take action agains the loonies. This is a virus, and if we kill them maybe we save humanity. I personally saw a plane hit the Pentagon so there.
That janitor is in for a surprise when he gets back home! Homeland Security is not going to take shit!
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