Debating against a 9/11 conspiracy nut

[Dark Primus]

This guy I am debating is one of those who strongly believes the US government was behind the attack. And one of the things he has claimed is using this picture to claim it is liquid steel that is falling from the building. And since the fuel from the airplane can not be hot enough to melt steel it must therefor be thermite, (I think that is the english word for it) that get hot enough to melt steel 4 000 + C.

http://icon.qruiser.com/images/blank.gif

Can anyone tell if it even is steel? I so very much doubt that. I mean it could very well be something else can can have turned into liquid by the heat, perhaps parts from the airplane itself etc.
And he is using info from conspiracy 9/11 youtube videos.

[Alan Bolte]

blank.gif is blank.

[Dark Primus]

Ahh damn See if I can manage to copy it.

Edit: Nope no luck in there.

Update:
This guy is spewing out bullshit and my very limited debate skills is not all that good and every counter I have made so far to his claims he spews out ten more.

One thing he has claimed is:

"Who was responcible for WTC? Marvin Bush, younger brother to the president. And he was also the head of security at the Dulles airport and at American airlines."

"They say there were a lot of fire drills in the months before 9/11."

He brings out all sort of shit to boost the atmosphere of a giant conspiracy. And I so want to bring him down.

[Dark Primus]

Here is another interesting thing:

9/11 was an inside job. That is not a theori it is a fact it was an inside job. Professor Steven E. Jones has tested the concrete or the dust from the remains. And the dust has been tested and showed it has elements of thermite. It melts steel like a hot knife through butter when it reaches the heat of 4500 C.

Now I have looked up on this Professor Steven E. Jones on wiki and found that this man has indeed added a lot of fuel to these conspiracy theories.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones

In the fall of 2006, amid controversy surrounding his work on the collapse of the World Trade Center, he was relieved of his teaching duties and placed on paid leave from Brigham Young University. On October 20, 2006, he announced his retirement. He holds that the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition during the September 11 attacks.

There is alot of shit on this guy.

[bilateralrope]

This should help with the melted steel argument

Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire," says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. "But I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks."

"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.

"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."

I got a friend who bought into the 9/11 conspiracy theories based on two arguments:
1 - Something about the towers having a single core. That's all the detail I've managed to get out of him so far
2 - A plane crashing into the empire state building in 1945, but not causing a collapse. Though it was a smaller plane, he is convinced that the conditions were identical.

So I'll need some help figuring out and debunking the single core argument, along with the details of all the differences between the 1945 crash and the 9/11 ones.

The only other thing that may be helpful is an estimate of the number of people that would need to be involved to set up the explosives in the first place.

[Dark Primus]

Thank you, but I have already showed that to him. But he claims that thermite (which I think is the english word for it) was planted inside the building before the plane crashed into it. Which then melted the steel causing the buildings to collapse.

Now lets see if this works.
http://Jhovy.bilddagboken.se/index.php? ... VycmltZz0x
And he is using this picture to boost his claims that is liquid steel caused from the heat of the thermite.

[bilateralrope]

I've only looked at these briefly, but they may be helpful with the thermite argument:
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

As for the person I'm trying to convince, yesterday I tried to get him to write up all his problems with the official story so that I could research them.

him: i havent bothered to research 9/11 btw
me: I didn't think you would
him: i'm happy to fence sit, tbh
me: ok
me: but if your fence sitting, you shouldn't bring the topic up unless your asking for more infomation
me: could you briefly describe your problems with the official story now so that I can look into them
him: 1) what the fuck happened to the core
2) Jet fuel, regardless of torsion or metal fatigue, might not be able to do that from the temperatures I've read, especially since the fire was restricted to a couple of floors
me: jet fuel may not be able to do what exactly ?
him: Cause the entire building to collapse
him: and if it did, it would do so via torsion
him: which would make it go sideways
me: anything else ?
him: those are my 3 main objections
me: three ?, you only llsted two
him: 3) if it did collapse via distortion, it would go sideways
him: oh and
him: 4) they both collapsed the same way
me: read over what you have written and make sure that you haven't left out anything important

I do have this site and two videos on google video (1, 2) that look useful for but I don't have time to look at them tonight. But the more sources I can use the better my argument will be.

[Adrian Laguna]

-snip link-
And he is using this picture to boost his claims that is liquid steel caused from the heat of the thermite.

*blinks*
Looks like a shop to me. It might not be, but when I see it I can't help but feel some thing's wrong with that image.

[Surlethe]

It's not a shop, or at least there were columns of liquid metal like that running down the side of the building. According to the NIST, it was aluminum from the plane, which melts at the temperatures of the fire.

[Surlethe]

him: 1) what the fuck happened to the core

It collapsed.

2) Jet fuel, regardless of torsion or metal fatigue, might not be able to do that from the temperatures I've read, especially since the fire was restricted to a couple of floors

First and foremost, the temperature of the fire was enough to cause steel to lose 70% of its load-bearing capability. Second, the fire was not simply jet fuel, but was a firestorm, ignited by jet fuel, that consumed all flammables on the many floors it covered.

him: and if it did, it would do so via torsion
him: which would make it go sideways

This is simply false. (Edit: see Appendix II of this paper.)

him: 4) they both collapsed the same way

Given that the same mechanism was at work in both buildings, that's precisely what you'd expect.

I do have this site and two videos on google video (1, 2) that look useful for but I don't have time to look at them tonight. But the more sources I can use the better my argument will be.

Check out this resource.

[Rogue 9]

Thank you, but I have already showed that to him. But he claims that thermite (which I think is the english word for it) was planted inside the building before the plane crashed into it. Which then melted the steel causing the buildings to collapse.

Then tell him to fucking prove it. If he's going to make the extraordinary claim that thermite was planted in the buildings then, to use the old cliche, he needs to provide extraordinary evidence.

[bilateralrope]

I just had another chat session with him. His new claims are:
- core fell too fast/shouldn't of fallen (with no calculations to back it up)
- only one other steel building has collapsed from fire
- FEMA was at the WTC the day before the collapse
- The usual bomb sniffing dog patrols weren't present
- Camers were shut down beforehand

The last three were apparently from eyewitness reports, but I can't be sure if these were quotes taken out of context, witnesses who didn't know what they were talking about, or just made up.

Here is the chat session, the bit in italics is where I quoted something he previously said.

him: hi
Bilateralrope: hi
Bilateralrope: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=119150 < this is the thread where I'm asking for help with your problems with the WTC collapse
Bilateralrope: does Surlethe answer your points well enough ?
him: not as to why all models indicate the core would stand after the floors pancaked
Bilateralrope: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 3263850613 < this video shows something standing for a few secoudns after the collapse
Bilateralrope: would that be the core ?
him: most likely. it should have been able to take it though
him: the fact it collapsed so fast is suspicious
Bilateralrope: even after the steel was down to 70% of its strength ?
Bilateralrope: sorry, down to 30%
Bilateralrope: http://www.jnani.org/mrking/writings/91 ... c144446007 < also, read this
him: it's freaking steel. It should be able to survive an effin fire
him: even at 30%
him: there has only been one time a steel building has collapsed from fire
him: Ever.
Bilateralrope: even though the core was recieving a type of load it was not designed to take ?
Bilateralrope: show me the caluclations to back up this claim of yours
him: IT WAS BUILT TO EAT A BOEING 707
Bilateralrope: and it withstood a larger plane. It was the fire that finished the tower off
Bilateralrope: a fire spreading multiple floors
him: I still think steel should hold at 30% capacity
him: they build towers with redundancoes
him: *redundancies
Bilateralrope: in other words, you don't have any calculations to back up your claim, just faith ?
him: it's insulting to the builders to claim FIRE took out their tower
Bilateralrope: and why didn't you bring this up yesterday ?
him: there has only been one time a steel building has collapsed from fire
him: well
him: I consider repeated experiments
him: to prove that fire can't kill a steel building
him: and you seem to be ignoring the point
Bilateralrope: what experiments ?
him: the various fires in steel buildings
Bilateralrope: be more specific so that I can find out what differes between those fires and the wtc collapse
him: Every time that a freaking steel building has been on fire.
Bilateralrope: I'll look into that
Bilateralrope: do you have any other claims that you didn't bring up yesterday ?
him: nope
Bilateralrope: do you have any calculations to back up:
him: it's freaking steel. It should be able to survive an effin fire
him: even at 30%
Bilateralrope: or your claim that the core collapse was too fast ?
him: I'm sorry, but I left my engineering degree at the office
Bilateralrope: I'll accecpt calculations performed by someone else
Bilateralrope: and you will probably understand them better than me
Bilateralrope: but without calculations, both of those claims are worthless
him: I think my claim of past fires still holds
Bilateralrope: I'll need to look into those fires
him: well it's simple enough; no fire has ever collapsed a steel building, except for the WTC
Bilateralrope: I'm expecting to see differences in the tempratures those fires reached and/or the load above the fires
him: FEMA was at the WTC the day before the collapse
bomb sniffing dogs were not there for the weeks beforehand, when they usually were
him: more evidence
him: the cameras were shut down beforehand
Bilateralrope: if you don't have evidence to back up those claims, they are wortheless and will be ignored
him: no evidence beyond eyewitnesses
Bilateralrope: well show me their statments
him: thats the problem. We're fighting on uneven terms. You have the "official story" which is "evidence"
him: http://wtc7.net/buildingfires.html
Bilateralrope: I havn't used the official report as evidence here.
Bilateralrope: so are you going to actually give me the witness statments, or are you just going to make claims about what they said ?
him: im trying to bloody find them
Bilateralrope: so you took those statments as fact without questioning them ?
Bilateralrope: and then expected me to do the same ?
him: no im putting them forward. On their own they mean nothing
him: because I agree
him: they are nothing more than speculation. BUT. They add weight to my arguments
him: and consider this:
Bilateralrope: only if you have evidence to back them up
Bilateralrope: without evidence they are worthless
Bilateralrope: and if they can be shown to be incorrect, that hurts your credibility
Bilateralrope: so without evidence, at best they do nothing for you, at worst they hurt you

He then started talking about how the Nazi's hid the concentration camps so well that the average German thought that they were just work camps while trying to show that completely covering up a demolition conspiracy is possible. So I also have to ask about how well the Nazi's did conceal what was going on in them.

Some other questions that might be useful if I can find answers to:
- Have any demolition engineers commented on the conspiracy theories ?
- How many people would need to be in on this conspiracy if the controlled demolition actually happened ?
- For how long ?

[Surlethe]

I just had another chat session with him. His new claims are:
- core fell too fast/shouldn't of fallen (with no calculations to back it up)

Simply false. The core fell slower than the rest of the building (you can see this on any of the many youtube videos of the collapses).

- only one other steel building has collapsed from fire

So? How many other steel buildings were hit by 757s, burned for two hours, and didn't collapse? The fact is that any comparison with another steel building is almost certainly false because of the extraordinary circumstances present on 9/11.

Also, WTC7 collapsed because of fire. But he probably thinks that it was brought down by explosives, too.

- FEMA was at the WTC the day before the collapse
- The usual bomb sniffing dog patrols weren't present
- Camers were shut down beforehand

These are all both probably false and entirely irrelevent to the question of whether the buildings were brought down by a controlled demolition. This question can be settled by examining the physical evidence, which answers a resounding "NO!" Anything that distracts from the incontrovertible physical evidence with a tempting explanation (which quite probably is generated from cherry-picked testimonies) is a red herring.

[Jawawithagun]

Here is another interesting thing:

9/11 was an inside job. That is not a theori it is a fact it was an inside job. Professor Steven E. Jones has tested the concrete or the dust from the remains. And the dust has been tested and showed it has elements of thermite. It melts steel like a hot knife through butter when it reaches the heat of 4500 C.

"elements of thermite"

Dies that chap even know what thermite consists of? Iron oxide and aluminium - and guess what is prime building material for all kinds of parts of a skyscraper. Utter nut!

[Adrian Laguna]

It's not a shop, or at least there were columns of liquid metal like that running down the side of the building.

Must be the exceedingly low quality of the image that made me think it was, the thing's chock full of artifacts.

him: 4) they both collapsed the same way

Given that the same mechanism was at work in both buildings, that's precisely what you'd expect.

Actually, they didn't quite collapse the same way. The first tower to go had the horizontal tresses that canceled the outward bending force exerted on the exterior load-bearing columns by the weight of the building weakened by the fire. They broke and in turn caused the exterior columns to snap, you can actually see them snapping if you have a good enough video on hand and know what to look for. I don't remember the details of what exactly happened to the second tower, but it had something to do with the core losing its structural integrity. If you look carefully, you can kind of see the interior starting to fall a moment before the exterior.

The reason they collapsed differently has to do with how each plane impacted each tower. The first plane to hit penetrated the tower head-on, hitting its core. The second plane to hit did so at an angle, severing external supports but leaving the core relatively intact. Thus each tower collapsed with its most damaged part going first.

[Surlethe]

It's not a shop, or at least there were columns of liquid metal like that running down the side of the building.

Must be the exceedingly low quality of the image that made me think it was, the thing's chock full of artifacts.

Here is a youtube vid of the phenomenon.

him: 4) they both collapsed the same way

Given that the same mechanism was at work in both buildings, that's precisely what you'd expect.

Actually, they didn't quite collapse the same way. The first tower to go had the horizontal tresses that canceled the outward bending force exerted on the exterior load-bearing columns by the weight of the building weakened by the fire. They broke and in turn caused the exterior columns to snap, you can actually see them snapping if you have a good enough video on hand and know what to look for. I don't remember the details of what exactly happened to the second tower, but it had something to do with the core losing its structural integrity. If you look carefully, you can kind of see the interior starting to fall a moment before the exterior.

The reason they collapsed differently has to do with how each plane impacted each tower. The first plane to hit penetrated the tower head-on, hitting its core. The second plane to hit did so at an angle, severing external supports but leaving the core relatively intact. Thus each tower collapsed with its most damaged part going first.

Ah, I see; that makes sense. Thanks. I understood the point this conspiracy nutjob was making to be pointing out the similarity of collapses in that they were both straight down without falling like a cut tree, so I answered accordingly.

[Surlethe]

him: 1) what the fuck happened to the core

It collapsed.

Here's a bit more information: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OP6MlrfbCvQ

Watch the video; when the south tower collapses at 2:00, at 2:06 you can see the core of the tower falling much more slowly than the exterior. (This is probably due in part to the mechanism Adrian explained, since the plane that hit the south tower did not sever any core columns.)

[CaptainChewbacca]

I would also submit that the WTC was built unlike any other skyscraper that had been built at that time. It didn't have a huge latticework of pillars and columns. It had a structural 'tube' around the outside, a strong core in the middle, and flooring struts supporting each story. That made the WTC EXTREMELY vulnurable to collapse when those beams started to expand and sag. A normal steel building might not have collapsed, but the WTC was in no way a normal steel building.