Physics professor argues against official version of 9/11

I am not rewriting history. I merely made my original posting so that perhaps we could discuss what the professor was questioning in his paper. Is it wrong to question an official version of events?

Certainly the late Ms. Rosa Parks and MLK and others, just to cite them, questioned authority and the "official reasoning" of segregation, for instance.

I find it so very interesting that some members of a supposed higher education forum, wish to ridicule me when I originally posted a link about a professor questioning the official version of 9/11. When decimon made his/her posts, I provided some links to provide alternative viewpoints. Certainly the Zogby poll, which is well-respected, is very interesting concerning the New Yorkers thoughts last year about the official version of 9/11.

I am not promoting any theory, least of all the US Government's official version of 9/11.

All I am saying, is that we should QUESTION everything always. Is not that the point of HIGHER EDUCATION? To question and learn and seek evidence? IS IT WRONG TO ASK QUESTIONS?

Are any members here using the 25 Rules of Disinformation to change the original topic?

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it cost nothing to be a patriot." -- Mark Twain

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success and more dangerous to carry through, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has against him those who benefited from the old system; while those who should benefit from the new are only lukewarm friends, being suspicious, as men generally are, of something new and not yet experienced. In speaking of innovations, it is first necessary to establish whether the innovators depend upon the strength of others or their own...in the first case, things always go badly for them, in the second, they almost always succeed. From this comes the fact that all armed prophets were victorious and the unarmed came to ruin." -- Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 7

"We are descended in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine." -- Dwight David Eisenhower

" The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ..."- Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787, letter to William Stephens Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy

Has anyone here read Dr. Jones' paper? If so, what are your intelligent thoughts about his research?

 

Jacques, you are spamming the forum with the outre. If there is some endpoint to this then why not get to it?

 

Jacques,

If you can with truth, sincerity, and honesty, boldy proclaim that not one single post you have made, has as its underlying motive shaming America, condemning America, blaming America, tacitly supporting the enemies of America, and just generally echoing far left unpatriotic statements about how horrible America is, I will glady apologize for my posts to and about you. Fair enough?

 

Actually, Jacques has done a pretty good job, by and large, of trying to stick to the point, and not making it about personalities. Oh, eventually he did... but, really, when you look at the thread objectively, pretty much only after others did it to him first.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with Jacques. All I'm saying is that even to the last of his posts here, at this writing; and even though said post contained him doing much the same thing to others that they're doing to him (i.e., making it about personalities in this thread, rather than the thread's original subject), he still tried to bring everyone back to the thread-starting topic with his questions: "Has anyone here read Dr. Jones' paper? If so, what are your intelligent thoughts about his research?"

If the answer to those two questions is "no" and then one of:

• "since I haven't read it, I can't really comment," or,
  
• "even without reading it, there seems to me something worth considering in all of it," or,
  
• "even without reading it, it's obvious the guy's a nut,"

or any reasonable derivative thereof; or if the answer to the two questions is "yes," and then either:

• having read it, I think the whole thing bears some looking into," or,
  
• "having read it, it's obvious the guy's a nut,"

or any reasonable derivative thereof, then it seems to me that those are the kinds of responses, and then any meaningful debate which focuses on the topic, and not on those who proffer commentary thereon, should probably be what we all stick to in this thread. Don't you think?

Just a helpful suggestion from a moderator who's now seeing too much low-level personal attacking, and not enough sticking to the point. If you guys think Jacques is full-o-sh_t, then discredit his points, and not him. Similarly, if Jacques thinks other posters here are full-o-sh_t, then he should discredit their points, and not them.

That said, of course there are times when the source becomes relevant... hence the old saying, "Consider the source." And Jimmy attempted to take it there in a perfectly reasonable way by asking if Jacques believed the Holocaust had happened... which I do not believe was a racist thing for Jimmy to have to asked. Had Jacques said he didn't believe it had happened, then, indeed, it might (and I stress the word "might") be reasonable to start pointing out that Jacques is probably full-o-sh_t on the 9/11 thing because, after all, he's a Holocaust denier, for godsake. But, of course, even then, such logic is prima facie fallacy... hence my stressing the word "might."

In any case, it hasn't really gotten to that point yet. Nutty as the whole 9/11 conspiracy thing might seem to some (as it pretty much does to me, I must say), Jacques is in here hitting the salient points, and not taking personal swipes. He's asking those who think he's wrong to tell him so, and why... but without pointing out that he's nuts (or probably so) for bringing it up in the first place. That's a reasonable request on his part... and we should probably do our best to accommodate him... at least until and unless he starts taking personal swipes... which, so far, he's not done... at least not unprovoked. If we think what he proffers is so stupid that it doesn't even deserve a reply, then we should say that, and not that Jacques is stupid for so doing.

 

I said that what that teacher said is rubbish, and I maintain it. The 9/11 terrorist attack is a cow many people without scruples are trying to milk. There cannot be equidistance between the nonsense provided by this individual, a physics teacher, obviously not familiar with failure modes of structures, and the official version given by the authorities (both technical and political). What happens is that after all it is difficult to prove in court that this person has spurious interests, but he should be sued and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Let him explain his knowledge of building engineering and his competency and authority in the field before a judge.

 

No, I haven't read it. I don't really intend to.

First of all, I'm not a structural engineer. I don't think that I could tell the difference between a good argument and rank bullshit in that field.

Second, I have a shelf full of books that I'm intending to read, so I don't really need reading assignments from any of you. I prefer to choose my own reading these days. (That's just about the only "right and privilege" that my degree earned me.)

Being a layman, I think that I'll trust the mainstream structural engineers. That's inherently more credible to me than trusting one heretic and assuming that the rest of the profession is either incompetent or part of some incredible conspiracy.

Admittedly there's a small chance that this guy is on to something, but at this point I think that it's safe for me to dismiss that possibility as too remote to worry about. If he starts convincing a significant segment of professional opinion, then maybe I'll listen up too.

My point is that there are countless remote possibilities out there that I can't totally dismiss but don't really feel like pursuing either. (Ghosts, Christianity, ESP, witchcraft, the illuminati...)

Here's the deal. The events of 9-11 effected some of us very deeply. I was one of them. I think that it's precisely that emotional resonance that attracts the historical revisionists like flies.

They want to feel like they have access to secrets that those in power want hidden. They want to believe that they are privy to things that those of us in the herd don't even suspect.

And perhaps most important, those secrets have to be devastating, they have to be revelations that are so powerful that they will rock everyone else's smug and comfortable little world.

 

Excellent points... and well-stated, too... as usual.

 

I read the report and noted that the author has very little knowledge of explosives, effects of temperature on the structural properties of steel, and building demolition. I do not have the time to provide an engineering rebuttal, but it would make a great class project for an engineering school.

 

Ian,

Have you ever played for a band called Jethro Tull?

 

No - my name is quite common in Scotland

 

Yes it is an insult to a lossed one

yes

who is it to say ? you have been compensated with millions of dollars but you have lost a parent a spouse or a child ....

money can't bring those people back to life .......

i mean we all have financial struggles ....but when one really sees the value of love and they lose it ......

nothing has meaning anymore in life .....

even wealthy people spend their money on addictions .....so they really are not happy people at all.....

it would be interesting to re-enact the 9/11 event with a model plane and a model building ......

the 2 experimental subject items must have proportional mass with earth's gravity as the same life like structures of the US airline jet and large 2 W.T. building ......

Ren-enact the crash with the fuel burning into the similar structure like buildings and see if the physics behind 9/11 works?


anyone have any other ideas about this experiment ?

 

Remember Peter Brady's Volcano ?

Remember Peter Brady's exploding Volcano .......

perhaps , the volcano can help us understand the subject of the building in 9/11 that melted from the airline fuel ....

 

Re: Remember Peter Brady's Volcano ?

Actually there is no need for steel to melt to bring down a building – just heating it to around 1000 degrees Fahrenheit or so for 30 minutes will weaken it to the point where structural design factors of safety become negative. A simplified technical paper on this phenomenon by Tim Wilkinson entitled "The World Trade Center and 9/11: A Discussion on Some Engineering Design Issues" and available at
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.shtml
I have seen buildings that collapsed due to a fire on several occasions including the building where I did my apprenticeship in structural engineering.

 

Professor Jones got put on paid leave.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_4311393?source=rss

 

Distrust of government has been a feature of US settlers/citizens since dissidents first landed here - the original settlers.

 

American's Rights

Maybe it's been due to a healthy diet of the History Channel and the Discovery Channel - but I love a good conspiracy. It is interesting to see how far people are willing to go to "prove" their conspiracies.

There are interesting videos online (about 9-11) that do raise a little skepticism in me. Not much, though. Certainly not enough for me to leave our country and seek citizenship elsewhere.

Can we trust "much" of what's spoon fed to us these days from the media? I think it's reasonable to assume a very intense and determined screening process of news items before they reach public domain. At least the handful of people I've known in the business points to that very fact. Are they truthful? Who knows?!I am not in the business - so I don't know.

Is it reasonable to doubt official versions of stories? Sure it is... In fact, I would be largely disappointed if there weren't rebuttal and conspiracy abounding. Americans love many things - but near the top of the list is a good scandal. We want a government that is corrupt - besides, if we didn't have it...what would make up the fodder that is so common to many online forums these days?

Steven King
The Kingster