The great thermate debate

[JazzRoc]

(11-15-2010 11:30 PM)JFK Wrote:  This thread's title is "The great thermate debate" and not "The great aluminum or steel debate".

And what IS a debate? Is the debate between people who believe there was thermate and people who don't? Or is the debate between people who believe there was thermate and people who believe there was thermate? Is THAT a debate?
Well, I DON'T believe there was thermate, and I'm giving reasons why.

Quote:I want to see him disprove what has been shown to be a possibility in the video.

You do? Then ask ME. I'm not the cat's mother, you rude SOB.

Quote:perhaps he should learn to read, listen, and comprehend instead of repeating others ignorance at JREF?

OK. Someone should tell JFK that I don't visit JREF and I don't even have it bookmarked.

Quote:As this slide comes on screen - snip - And as this slide comes into view - snip -To me that means that CLEARLY shows jazzrock either did not watch, or did not comprehend the video in the opening post. (I am going with comprehend as that seems to be the norm with him)

JFK may believe what he likes. It's a free world. I despise the media (and the JFKcopy) and respect NIST.

Quote:Besides, he is calling the firefighters who were there liars

JFKcopy may slander me as well. It's a free world. But I'd say they were mistaken.

As for the pouring of aluminum, then it's obvious that it'll look different if it's 300 deg C hotter. To all save a crazed idiot or a JFKcopy.

[JazzRoc]

(11-15-2010 11:54 PM)rsol Wrote:  I'm talking about volume and reactive differences between a hot solid and a cool gas. forget the percentages.

It's moot. See my later comment.

Quote:Water is hydrogen oxide. not altogether sure that would help with adding to a fire. split them up then it helps. so what does that prove?

Reacting thermite takes the oxygen out of water, but molten aluminum wouldn't. N/A here.

Quote:just a minute there you said it was ventilated? aren't we missing this from our heat loss through convection? all that lovely wind you talk of?

It's moot. See my later comment.

Quote:you are too localised with your thinking here. there are so many elements allowing heat to escape from the area. you want a sagging floor but a firm concrete to insulate heat. is it sagging or solid? ANY deviation of the floor would have any metals flowing toward the lower ends. also your debris did not just contain flammable materials but all kinds of things from parts of the building to parts of the plane. the very idea this has no quality in the equation beggars logic. anything not on fire will not aid air flow, let alone what actually IS. A covered fire will not burn well. In order for a fire to reach such temps you would need air directly to the flames and under consistent pressure. gusts and gales on a clear September morn?

It's moot. See my later comment.

Quote:from what i understand this is to do with different gases and the effect on temperatures of phase change from solid to liquid? ah. This is ascribed to the dissolution of aluminum and Al–Si particles. Aluminum and silicon reacting in the Al-rich phase depends on the gross silicon content of the alloy. also from what i can see these are abhorrent (?) ranges due to phase change and dependent on the make up. look on those graphs beyond the peaks to the temps our metal is at. none of these temperatures are at yellow hot.

No, but they indicate both exo and endothermic peaks on the way down wrt nitrogen, meaning marginal cooling, while we KNOW that oxidation is wildly exothermic. So HEATING is predictable - at least for the first ten yards or so of fall - until the oxide coating prevents further oxidation.

As I REPEAT ONCE AGAIIN, had that liquid been a pool of THERMITE or THERMATE iron - it WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THERE - as there is NO WAY a 4" lightweight concrete floor could EITHER have supported its WEIGHT or its 2,500 deg C WHITE HOT TEMPERATURE. And also as I said before, it's extremely unlikely for thermate product to pour OUT of the tower perimeter.
Not only that, we KNOW there was something like 150 tons of dural (1/3 of the mass of iron) lying around, so there was some likelihood of it melting and pouring out of the tower, was there not?

WRT "moot points", the argument for the presence of thermate has NO supporting facts without alternative, and more probable, explanations. If there was ONE single fact not susceptible to such an alternative you'd be on to something.
As you wrote, fire is always on an UPWARD search for more fuel. But molten metal is likewise always on a DOWNWARD search for somewhere to POOL.
The balance of probabilities favours the NIST conclusion. (I had formed my own conclusions within weeks, which NIST bore out, and not the other way round, as JFKclone claims.)
Microspheres are formed by violently hammering steel...
Red oxide (a constituent of thermite) is ALSO a constituent of the steel primer used on the structure...
Barium WASN'T found in the dust samples...
Samples WERE taken of the disintegrated structure, but EXPLOSIVES WIRING CIRCUITRY wasn't discovered... (This means that IF that particular collapse level DID originally contain thermate, it must have been the only one, and a REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE that the plane struck where it was needed.)
210,000 tons of collapsing steel brought about by a kerosine fire destroys much of the evidence one needs, of course, to be absolutely sure either way.
So back to the balance of probabilities...

(More later)

[JFK]

(11-16-2010 05:39 PM)JazzRoc Wrote:  JFK may believe what he likes. It's a free world. I despise the media (and the JFKcopy) and respect NIST.

Oh Really ? And how do you feel about the 911 Commission ?

Getting back to NIST, how could you possibly respect an organization which dismisses offhand the possibility of therm*te while admitting that they did not look for it ?
How could you possibly respect an organization which only studied the event to the point of collapse initiation without following through to the end of collapse ?
As Jon stated in the video, that is political science, not practical science.

(11-16-2010 05:39 PM)JazzRoc Wrote:  

JFK Wrote:Besides, he is calling the firefighters who were there liars

JFKcopy may slander me as well. It's a free world. But I'd say they were mistaken.

OK, I should have inserted "in effect" between "is" and "calling".
They were there and you were not.
Put the shoe on the other foot, who would you believe ?

(11-16-2010 05:39 PM)JazzRoc Wrote:  As for the pouring of aluminum, then it's obvious that it'll look different if it's 300 deg C hotter.

An open air hydrocarbon fire is not going to heat the aluminum to those ridiculious temps, even in your "muffle furnace" scenario... If you have cast aluminum ( as you claim ) you should know this first hand.

---

Anyway, I would prefer this thread be steered more towards this concept :
( I just posted this at the LCF )

JFK Wrote:And what about the possibility of using ceramics instead of steel for the "container" for the thermate ?



One could even incorporate a refined "segmented section" using this method which would ignite after the cutting process is done, which would act as a "self destruct" mechanism thereby destroying any visual ( but not microscopic ) traces of the device... And that might explain the layered particles found in the dust.

[rsol]

Quote:"No, but they indicate both exo and endothermic peaks on the way down wrt nitrogen, meaning marginal cooling, while we KNOW that oxidation is wildly exothermic. So HEATING is predictable - at least for the first ten yards or so of fall - until the oxide coating prevents further oxidation."

nonono they do not indicate thermic peaks at all they are showing HEATFLOW. As in how much heat it can absorb, that is all. It doesnt show anything on the way down. It also doesnt have any relation to the factors discusses as there is a HEAT SOURCE. hot metal, cold air. not slowly heated aluminium silicon compounds converting phase. not to mention its 200 degrees C OUT.

this paper is totally irrelevent.

Quote:"As I REPEAT ONCE AGAIIN, had that liquid been a pool of THERMITE or THERMATE iron - it WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THERE "

You are the one talking about pools. none of use have every expressed a "pool" of anything. The idea that anything would pool in a building that has been torn through by a plane, vent shafts, lifts, sanitation ducts, flooring torn to pieces. nonesense.

The idea of a small amount of molten iron making its way out to the end is however NOT improbable. The concepts you have thrown out dont gel with your theory and dont match the observed events.

[JFK]

(11-16-2010 06:42 PM)JazzRoc Wrote:  Barium WASN'T found in the dust samples...

You didn't look very hard...
From the USGS Particle Atlas.

[JFK]

crickets.

[JazzRoc]

(11-17-2010 03:08 PM)JFK Wrote:  And how do you feel about the 911 Commission?

Nothing.

Quote:Getting back to NIST, how could you possibly respect an organization which dismisses offhand the possibility of therm*te while admitting that they did not look for it?

They didn't look for little green men either.

Quote:How could you possibly respect an organization which only studied the event to the point of collapse initiation without following through to the end of collapse?

Because both they and I know something you don't: it would be like which butterfly wingflap was it that began the hurricane: different flap - different hurricane.

Quote:As Jon stated in the video, that is political science, not practical science.

No, ignorance on both your parts.

Quote:Put the shoe on the other foot, who would you believe?

You're the one making statements you cannot back. What IS an "explosion"?

Quote:An open air hydrocarbon fire is not going to heat the aluminum to those ridiculous temps, even in your "muffle furnace" scenario... If you have cast aluminum (as you claim) you should know this first hand.

We're only talking 300 deg C over the melting point. That was the AGREED temperature that the fires reached.

Quote:And what about the possibility of using ceramics instead of steel for the "container" for the thermate?

Absolutely possible.

Quote:One could even incorporate a refined "segmented section" using this method which would ignite after the cutting process is done, which would act as a "self destruct" mechanism thereby destroying any visual ( but not microscopic ) traces of the device... And that might explain the layered particles found in the dust.

Yes it might.

---

(11-17-2010 06:03 PM)rsol Wrote:  nonono they do not indicate thermic peaks at all they are showing HEATFLOW. As in how much heat it can absorb, that is all.

So why is there both a POSITIVE AND A NEGATIVE value?

Quote:It doesn't show anything on the way down.

On the way DOWN THE TEMPERATURE RANGE (yes, 1000 deg C is beyond the graph!) the line shows both a POSITIVE and a NEGATIVE heat flow. That means it HEATS UP and it COOLS DOWN (in the presence of nitrogen). The rest of the time the nitrogen has no effect either way.
The OXYGEN, on the other hand, is going to react vigorously with EVERY ATOM of freshly-exposed aluminum at a temperature of 1000 deg C which it meets, as the stream breaks into droplets.

Quote:It also doesnt have any relation to the factors discusses as there is a HEAT SOURCE. hot metal, cold air. not slowly heated aluminium silicon compounds converting phase. not to mention its 200 degrees C OUT. this paper is totally irrelevent.

No. It was your physics training which was irrelevant.

Quote:You are the one talking about pools. none of use have every expressed a "pool" of anything. The idea that anything would pool in a building that has been torn through by a plane, vent shafts, lifts, sanitation ducts, flooring torn to pieces. nonesense.

I think you have also lost your sense of scale. That was a LARGE POOL of liquid pouring out - at least half a ton of it. Four or five cubic feet - at least.
Another reason why the "box-cutter" hypothesis fails.

Quote:The idea of a small amount of molten iron making its way out to the end is however NOT improbable. The concepts you have thrown out dont gel with your theory and dont match the observed events.

I can see you can't see it. Do I care? No. I'm rather fed up of having to deliver physics lessons as a charity.

---

(11-19-2010 04:47 PM)JFK Wrote:  crickets.

Balls.

---

(11-17-2010 06:34 PM)JFK Wrote:  You didn't look very hard...

I'll restate it properly:

Barium SULFIDE was not found in the WTC dust in quantities consistent with thermite use.

The aluminum in the therm*te mixture, had it existed, would have REDUCED any barium sulfate to the sulfide.
Barium SULFATE is a common constituent of PAPER, WHITE PAINT, and MONITOR SCREENS. Not being anywhere near a therm*te reaction, it would NOT have been reduced.

[rsol]

Quote:"We're only talking 300 deg"

yeah only the difference between red and yellow hot. only 300c?? what compared to the sun??!?

Quote:"On the way DOWN THE TEMPERATURE RANGE (yes, 1000 deg C is beyond the graph!) the line shows both a POSITIVE and a NEGATIVE heat flow. That means it HEATS UP and it COOLS DOWN (in the presence of nitrogen). The rest of the time the nitrogen has no effect either way.
The OXYGEN, on the other hand, is going to react vigorously with EVERY ATOM of freshly-exposed aluminum at a temperature of 1000 deg C which it meets, as the stream breaks into droplets."

Jazz you question my physics and then completly misrepresent heatflow from a source. ITS NOT HEATING UP FROM THE NITROGEN. ITS BEING HEATED FROM ANOTHER SOURCE. THIS IS A MEASUREMENT OF HOW IT TOOK ON THAT HEAT AT THE POINT OF TURNING TO A LIQUID. the nitrogen is reacting with an aloy and they said themselves it depended on the amount of silicon in the alloy as to how it reacted. At melting tempretures that alloy will break down. even IF they bother to continue with the experriment that graph would look different and the measurements would be of a differerent set of matter.

TOTALLY IRRELEVENT.

You saying the graph carries on is totally false. you are projecting your idea onto no data. Look at it.
Read what heatflow actually means. You should know this.

Quote:"So why is there both a POSITIVE AND A NEGATIVE value?"

the fact you have a negetive value would be from the initial jump in heatflow. thus a sudden slowing to norms. if you look beyond to the 1000mark you will see that it is dipping as it cannot take anymore heat. above 1000 and beyond and that line would eventually hit the floor.

[JazzRoc]

(11-20-2010 09:23 AM)rsol Wrote:  the difference between red and white hot

NO.
The difference between "silver" (actually a red too dull to see in daylight - 660 deg C) and "red" - 1000 deg C. Your clouded thought misrepresents my words continually.

Quote:ITS NOT HEATING UP FROM THE NITROGEN - snip - the nitrogen is reacting with an alloy and they said themselves it depended on the amount of silicon in the alloy as to how it reacted.

I'd like you to see that you directly contradict yourself here. The silicon merely moderates the reaction.

Quote:At melting temperatures that alloy will break down. even IF they bother to continue with the experiment that graph would look different and the measurements would be of a differerent set of matter.

And here. You appear to be saying that materials only react and alloys get made when you wish them to. When heat flows in ONE direction that might describe an exothermic reaction, and in the other, an endothermic reaction. Alloys always require melting, and raising their temperature well above their melting point makes not the slightest difference to the end result. If the constituents will not melt and mix together, then sintering must be used. A reaction is a response. That what the words mean.

Quote:Read what heatflow actually means. You should know this.

Talking to a mirror again?

Quote:the fact you have a negetive value would be from the initial jump in heatflow. thus a sudden slowing to norms. if you look beyond to the 1000mark you will see that it is dipping as it cannot take anymore heat. above 1000 and beyond and that line would eventually hit the floor.

It takes a special kind of hypocrisy to write what you have just written here. I should slow down and take a deep breath if I were you.
"dipping as it cannot take anymore heat" - Really? (!)

[JFK]

Jazzroc Wrote:it would be like which butterfly wingflap was it that began the hurricane: different flap - different hurricane.

That shows how little you know about hurricanes...
It also reminds me of why you are on my ignore list.

[JazzRoc]

(11-20-2010 07:50 PM)JFK Wrote:  That shows how little you know about hurricanes... It also reminds me of why you are on my ignore list.

But doesn't remind you about chaotic systems, chaos theory and unpredictability. Pity - for you.

Sensitivity to initial conditions
Sensitivity to initial conditions means that each point in such a system is arbitrarily closely approximated by other points with significantly different future trajectories. Thus, an arbitrarily small perturbation of the current trajectory may lead to significantly different future behavior. However, it has been shown that the last two properties in the list above actually imply sensitivity to initial conditions and if attention is restricted to intervals, the second property implies the other two (an alternative, and in general weaker, definition of chaos uses only the first two properties in the above list. It is interesting that the most practically significant condition, that of sensitivity to initial conditions, is actually redundant in the definition, being implied by two (or for intervals, one) purely topological conditions, which are therefore of greater interest to mathematicians.
Sensitivity to initial conditions is popularly known as the "butterfly effect", so called because of the title of a paper given by Edward Lorenz in 1972 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. entitled Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas? The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. - WIKI

Need I remind you that a tower suffering 15% removal of its columns and greater damage, bending over its impacted area, and subject to an energetic kerosine and office furnishings fire at and around the point of impact, with its steel softening and its floors collapsing, is INDEED a system about to undergo a trajectory, and sensitive to its initial conditions?

[JFK]

Getting back on the topic which Jazzroc seems to want to derail ever so agressively....

I find this interesting. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7555986.html

Edit to add - The pre 9/11 version
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6183569.html

For those too lazy to open the .pdf...

[JazzRoc]

JFK, I could have drawn the same thing for you. One could have produced a whole batch of "C"-shaped devices with snap-on magnetic clamps and remotely-operable radio detonators, and inserted them around the columns on the floors above the false ceiling level where the workmen were known to have had access six weeks prior to the event (in, I believe, one of the towers only. Is this true?). It would be a HUGE BATCH of stuff, but it's ABSOLUTELY doable, and in minutes. To THIS devious mind it is, anyway...

But did ANY of those floors COINCIDE with the point of failure in either tower - the aircraft impact points? I'm willing to bet that they didn't.

And another point is that THAT would be the way to take down a CONVENTIONAL redundant cubic lattice concrete/steel structure, all right. But the construction of the towers was UNUSUAL, in that there was NO CONCRETE cladding the columns at all. So a heavy fast plane could get inside, its exploding kerosine load could blow away the column foam insulation, and the ensuing fire could soften the columns beneath their buckling strength, and Robert could be your father's brother.

There was NO NEED to use therm*te. The planes had sufficient energy. The coincidences of TWO plane strikes and TWO failure points are difficult to ignore, but somehow you are managing it.

Occam?

[JFK]

Is that yet another Ad Hom ? "and Robert could be your father's brother."
I disagree with you regarding your blanket statement "The planes had sufficient energy".

Think vacant floors below the impact area undergoing "renovation"... Perhaps Zim Shipping Company was involved ?

I have not counted floors and cross referenced with tenants yet, but could this be one "misfiring" and exploding ( see the section titled "segmented thermate box cutter" in the video in the opening post ) ?
Note this .gif represents about 1/3 of one second in real time.

http://209.85.62.24/18/3/0/p187380/Nosplash.gif (2.3 Mb)

Another point, most everyone thinks horizontal or vertical cuts, I am envisioning two diagnal slices per core column.
Like this only spaced a bit further apart, but on the same floor.


That would require only 376 charges being placed per tower ( 47 columns, 8 per core column, each of which has 4 sides ), and I am certain that the perimeter columns would not have been able to support the added weight of the "upper core", especially in their weakened condition from the initial plane crashes.

While it is true that that would leave a total of 94 pieces of steel with obvious visual evidence, with all the normal cutting going on in the months afterwards, 24 hours a day, those could have blended right in.

I suppose with the relatively new "neo" magnet technology at the time magnets could have been used to attach them to the columns, but I have my doubts for several reasons which I will not get into in this post.

As far as igniting the therm*te, could an igniter similar to those used in Estes rockets ( low voltage and current ) have ignited the therm*te ?
( unrelated, but what is the chemical composition of the propellant in thier rockets anyway ? - Nevermind )

Anyways the developing scenerio above would explain at least 2 witness accounts that day, one of whom died in the tower and called the news via cellphone and reported that a section of the core columns had collapsed, and another also on the news which was in the video in the opening post "ba ba ba ba bang and then 3 loud booms".

[rsol]

Quote:"The difference between "silver" (actually a red too dull to see in daylight - 660 deg C) and "red" - 1000 deg C. Your clouded thought misrepresents my words continually."

did i say silver? no i said red hot to yellow. but hey you are missing 40 degrees and you have that 300. rather clutching at straws here jazz. this is what i mean by misrepresentation. yellow kicks in at around 1000C and red is on its way to orange around the 700mark. But you go for the extreme of any statistic for proof.

I understand heat flow fine. anyone reading this can judge for themselves. throwing a scientific paper at me then telling me I dont know what im talking about is the talk of someone trying to confuse rather than convince. If you consider i cant understand it why show it?

I said it before and ill say it again. IRRELEVANT!