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The Simple Proof of the Controlled Demolition of WTC 7

by Jan 14, 2014Articles, Economic Freedom, Multimedia17 comments

There is a strong tendency for people to reject the simple proof of the controlled demolition of WTC 7 despite an inability to point to any error with it.

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The willingness of people to cling to positions despite a complete inability to support them, or to reject others’ positions despite a complete inability to produce any counter argument to them, never ceases to amaze me. Here’s an example, a discussion I’ve had over the past couple of days with a guy named Joe who wrote a blog post about 9/11. I replied to him to tell him I thought it was a good piece, but in it, he had said that there was no proof that the World Trade Center buildings collapsed due to controlled demolition. Here’s the discussion that followed (we also discussed studies of the WTC dust, but I’ll abridge it to just the WTC 7 discussion).

Collapse of WTC 7

Me: I disagree. For example, here’s a simple proof: WTC 7 collapsed with a sudden onset of free-fall acceleration. Applying the laws of physics, that means that all of the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means that there was no energy available to do the work of buckling the columns as required by the fire-induced collapse hypothesis. In other words, some other force had to act on the columns to make them all suddenly, in an instant, offer no measurable resistance to the collapse of the building.

Joe:The perpetrators are unknown.  The explosive methods employed are unknown.  Who is there to charge with murder?  As a criminal case, it is far from proven.

Me: When you wrote, “It’s not proven.  It’s not provable so far”, I took you to mean there’s no proof it was controlled demolition. This is what I was disagreeing with (the laws of physics are proof of controlled demolition), not that there is no proof of who was responsible. If that was not your meaning, this should be clarified so other readers don’t also misunderstand your point.

Joe:All of that is highly disputed, obviously.  And much of it is highly technical.  Even controlled demolition isn’t provable so far.  It is the most likely scenario.  Not the same thing.  You can make your case, and I can get a thousand other people to refute your case, to their own satisfaction anyway.

Me: What do you mean “All of that is highly disputed”? Free fall isn’t disputed. NIST acknowledges it. And the rest of what I said is merely applying the law of conservation of energy, which is indisputable. You’ll need to be more specific about what part of what I said you think is “highly disputed”.

Joe:Controlled demolition is highly disputed.  It’s actually the minority view, nationally.  The mechanism of these collapses is undetermined.  No one knows who or how.  There is no explanation for these crimes that can hold water.  It’s as simple as that.  That’s pretty much my central thesis as well.  It is unknown, unknowable and unprovable at present because of the cover-up.  It will remain so if people continue to bicker about unknowable specifics and avoid attacking the cover-up itself.

Me: Of course controlled demolition is “disputed” in the sense that people deny it. Nevertheless, we have the simple proof of it, which I’ve already given you.

Joe:And it will continue to be [denied] for the myriad reasons I have elaborated.  You don’t have a perpetrator!  You say freefall speed equals controlled demoition. [sic]  Others say it doesn’t.  They say the weight of the upper portions of the buildings destroyed the lower points and it cascaded.  Neither of you has the actual crime figured out.  That’s that.  And that’s been that for half a dozen years now.

Me: One needn’t know who was responsible to know that it was a controlled demolition.  And they [i.e., “Others”] are demonstrably wrong, for the reason I’ve given you. That would require buckling columns, which would offer resistance. Free fall means there was no resistance. All the building’s potential energy was converted into kinetic energy. Which means there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns. Which means some other force had to act on the columns to make them instantaneously and simultaneously offer no resistance.

Joe:[W]ith large 20+ story chunks falling, the energy to dislodge beams laterally is present. No one can model accurately what happened, and that is what they will argue with your “simple” proposition.  I’ve already explained that I BELIEVE CD is most likely.  That doesn’t mean it is proven or that another explanation cannot account for what we saw.  This is exactly the thesis of my article: you have to know the limitations of your knowledge or it devolves into belief.  I have zero interest in arguing controlled demolition, as it has wasted probably a billion man hours so far and accomplished nothing.

Me: [O]ne more time, free fall means there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns as required by the fire-induced collapse hypothesis. If you wish to dispute that, you are welcome to present an argument. But since free fall is uncontroversial and the laws of physics applied on 9/11, that might prove difficult.

Joe:I guess we can agree to disagree.

Me: No, actually, we can’t “agree to disagree”, because these are not matters of opinion. Free fall is a fact. The laws of physics are a fact…. There is nothing I said in my previous email that can be reasonably disagreed with.

Joe:If you believe so…

Me:I’m curious to know which part of what I said you think is a matter of belief. Are you trying to deny the measurable fact of free fall? Or the applicability of the law of conservation of energy?

Joe:Place two long sticks on top of each other, end to end.  Press down hard on the top of the stack.  Then push until the two sticks collapse.  Let me know how fast they fall.

Me:Argument?

Joe:Argument?  It’s not your role to decide for the world that controlled demolition is settled science.  That’s not realistic, and I wouldn’t consider it strictly truthful.  What you have is evidence.  You do not have a proof.  You don’t even have the basic legal case of a perpetrator, means, motive and opportunity.  You have no idea the names of the people who may or may not have done this, despite a fervent belief that someone did.  It would violate the spirit of my piece to pretend that CD is the only possible explanation, as it is highly contested by many millions of people, engineers and scientists included — who know more about the field than you or I — who are as passionate about the issue as you are.

Me:WTC 7 collapsed with a sudden onset of free-fall acceleration. Applying the laws of physics, that means that all of the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means that there was no energy available to do the work of buckling the columns as required by the fire-induced collapse hypothesis. In other words, some other force had to act on the columns to make them all suddenly, in an instant, offer no measurable resistance to the collapse of the building. 

If you think there’s any error in fact or logic in the above, Joe, you are most welcome to point it out. The laws of physics are settled science. That’s why we call them “laws”. It is astonishing to me that after this lengthy discussion and your repeated denial of this, you have yet to present an argument to support your contention that this is not proof. Saying that many people think fire caused that collapse is not an argument. And once again, we don’t need to know who was responsible to know that the fire-induced collapse hypothesis is falsifiable. Why do I need to point out this fallacy of yours to you twice? You are being most unreasonable.

Joe: I have no desire to debate CD with you at all.  As I’ve said several times.  Write your own controlled demolition paper.  My paper is about disinformation.

Me: You mean disinformation like denying the implication of free fall…?

Joe:I don’t know that free fall means what you say it means.  NIST claimed the opposite.  If you don’t understand what disputed means, then look it up.

Me: Well, Joe, if you aren’t familiar with the law of conservation of energy, then look it up. There is no disputing that free fall means all an object’s potential energy has been converted into kinetic energy, which means there is no energy available to do other work, like overcoming resistance. Free fall means no resistance. Look it up.

Joe:You’re behaving exactly like I described in the article: a believer.  I’m an unrepentant skeptic.  You have not convinced me that you have the one God given handle on the truth, and now you’re throwing tantrums. The AE911 [Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth] catch phrase about conservation of energy can be repeated as many times as you like, that doesn’t mean it explains what we saw, and you’re not qualified to make the final determination.  There’s a zen proverb you may want to look up yourself: he who thinks he knows what he does not know is sick in mind. You are aware that others in the engineering field disagree.  A large load crushing and dislodging supporting columns is another possibility that accounts for rapid collapse.  The load itself is relevant, at the least.  If you don’t understand that multiple explanations exist, and that it is so far indeterminate which one is correct, then I overestimated you.  The point of the article in question is that some questions are unknowable, and I stand by it.

Me:No, Joe, you still are not getting it. The claim that the load of the building crushed the columns is false. We know this because to buckle columns requires work. Yet the mass of the building could do no work because it was in free fall. This is the laws of physics. You can’t debate the law of conservation of energy.

Joe: Are we still doing this? It is absurd to use your paltry knowledge of construction and physics to determine this matter based on what’s available.  This is the most disputed, controversial topic of the modern age, and yet you’re giving me the “with us or against us” treatment. And how much potential energy is stored in 20 stories of trade center tower?  You’ve done these calculations?  This is laughable!

Me: It is not “absurd” to apply the law of conservation of energy to understand objects in motion. And one need not put a figure on how much potential energy the building had to know that free fall means all of it was converted into kinetic energy.

Joe: What is absurd is believing you “applied” anything.  All you did was to repeat the AE911 talking points. Can we keep it real for 5 seconds? “And one need not put a figure on how much potential energy…” The sound of one keyboard backpedaling.

Me: It is not “absurd” to apply the law of conservation of energy to understand objects in motion. And one need not put a figure on how much potential energy the building had to know that free fall means all of it was converted into kinetic energy.

Joe didn’t reply to that. I headed over to his blog and posted the following comment, to make the discussion public:

Me:You write that there is no proof of controlled demolition, but there is. The simple proof is that WTC 7 collapsed at free fall acceleration. Which means that all the building’s potential energy was converted into kinetic energy. Which means that there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns as required by the fire-induced collapse hypothesis.

He approved the comment and replied:

Joe: I’m not going to debate controlled demolition with you Jeremy. You post evidence, not “proof.” Your points are tangential, and do not address the thesis of the paper at all. I could also talk about 100,000 other things somewhat related to 9/11, but the point was to highlight how disinformation works, and how it has derailed the investigations of the September 11th attacks and the movement supposedly demanding new investigations.

So I responded once again:

Me: “The simple proof is that WTC 7 collapsed at free fall acceleration. Which means that all the building’s potential energy was converted into kinetic energy. Which means that there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns as required by the fire-induced collapse hypothesis.”

If you think there is any error in fact or logic there, you are welcome to point it out. But if you cannot do that, then it is unreasonable of you to insist that it is incorrect.

So how did Joe respond? He refused to approve that comment for his readers to see (which I know because he emailed me to let me know it). Incapable of producing an argument to support his own position that it is possible fire caused the free fall collapse of WTC 7 and incapable of pointing to any error in the argument I gave him for why that isn’t possible. Yet he clings to that position anyhow.

My challenge to Joe goes for anyone else who thinks that fire caused (or was capable of causing) the collapse you can view in the video above.

 

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  • RealAmerican8 says:

    You claimed on January 16th that the debris pile was “tidy [https://twitter.com/jeremyrhammond/status/423881429181661184] when in fact, it was not.

    Here is visual evidence that proves otherwise. [https://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/didwtc7fallintoa%E2%80%9Ctidypile%E2%80%9Dinitsownfootpr]

    Who knows what else you’re lying about?

    • [https://twitter.com/jeremyrhammond/status/423890071859625984]

    • This is what I was talking about:

    • Anyone can see for themselves what I was talking about.

    • Now, then, what is your argument? That no CD could ever cause damage to nearby buildings? That since nearby buildings were damaged, therefore the laws of physics didn’t apply that day?

    • [https://twitter.com/jeremyrhammond/status/423890071859625984]

      Anyone can see for themselves what I was talking about.

      Now, then, what is your argument? That no CD could ever cause damage to nearby buildings? That since nearby buildings were damaged, therefore the laws of physics didn’t apply that day?

      • RealAmerican8 says:

        My point was that by ravaging nearby buildings, it wasn’t a “controlled” demolition.

      • Obviously. And my point was that your logic that since nearby buildings were damaged, therefore it wasn’t a controlled demolition, is a non sequitur.

        Once again, WTC 7 collapsed with a sudden onset of free-fall acceleration, which means that all of the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means that there was no energy available to do the work of buckling the columns as required by the fire-induced collapse hypothesis.

      • RealAmerican8 says:

        If that’s the case, then why was there a pause of collapse between the East Mechanical Penthouse collapsing and the rest of the building following suite?

      • I don’t understand what part of what I said you questioning. Global collapse occurred several seconds after the collapse of the east penthouse, so therefore….? What, exactly?

  • yor mom says:

    Haha. Tenacious.
    It’s not only free fall that’s important, but also the fact that it fell symmetrically. I don’t know how “skeptics” are happy with half-assed computer models which show a local collapse and then just accept that the rest of the building will simply pose no resistance suddenly after 1.5 seconds of this internal damage starting.
    Nevermind that column 79 wouldn’t have collapsed due to fire anyway, and that the girders also would not have fallen off of their seating… Even using the most half-baked assumptions in support of the idea.

  • Emile Cole says:

    People seem to think they can, if they talk long enough, explain away the Law of Conservation of Energy. It brings to mind that old saying…. “What’ve I gotta do, draw you a picture?”

    Well, as it turns out, sometimes you really do have to draw them a picture….

    https://aemilius.sosblog.com/

    An Empirically Verifiable Scientific Method Driven Graphical Target System Analysis And Conclusion (really just an exhaustively stated eighth grade homework assignment).

  • Emile Cole says:

    Hi Jeremy, nice to meet you and thanks…. It’s your remark about the willingness of people to cling to positions despite a complete inability to support them, or to reject others positions by producing any convincing counter argument to them…. that really resonated with me when I read it. I had a very similar (albeit lengthier) experience myself. That analysis is actually the product of a two month long exchange I (an eighth grade dropout) had with Dr. Alan Calverd, a veteran PhD research Physicist, in a thread devoted to the topic that I started over at the University of Cambridge sponsored forum TheNakedScientists called “What is Free Fall?”….

    https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=49603.0

  • Emile Cole says:

    Just a note to add…. that same hilariously simple analysis still sits there unrefuted in any way at the end of the six page thread after over three months. No one (particularly Dr. Alan Calverd, PhD) has even managed to openly criticize it, let alone break it. No members have responded directly to either confirm or deny the veracity of it one way or the other, and the problem is clear I think…. If one were to chime in to agree with or confirm the veracity of the information conveyed by the analysis one is essentially at the same time agreeing with the 9/11 Truth Movement…. so no one will do that. If, on the other hand, one were to chime in to disagree with or deny the veracity of the information conveyed by the analysis one would then have to show how some aspect of it is incorrect and why…. so no one can do that either…. hence the ongoing silence.

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