The Science Forum

kojax wrote:In physics, probability analysis is often the only way to determine causality. In QM, causality only even exists on the probability level. If you blindfold yourself and throw three darts at a dart board and they all hit the same spot, that's not unlike shooting three photons out of a photon gun and noting that all three struck the same detector.

If you're shooting hundreds and hundreds out a day, then having three hit the same detector out of that set is not exceptional. But, if those are the only three you ever shot three in the whole history of the world, and they all hit the same detector, that might be noteworthy. Of course you can't be sure of anything until you repeat the experiment a lot of times to be sure it wasn't a fluke. That's why you assign a "confidence level" to your findings. In this case, ofr course, it's impossible to repeat the experiment, something the official story and conspiracy theory both exploit to their advantages. It's evidence that I would also ignore if nothing else were fishy.

Statistics is subject to the "Texas Sharpshooter" fallacy (a mistake common to conspiracy theories as well), where a guy fires a hundred shots at the broadside of a barn, circles the closest grouping of 3 shots, and declares them to be the only three he intentionally aimed ... but in this case they really are honestly the only three.

That's all well and good, but statistically speaking, the buildings most probably came down as a result of planes crashing into them, and not due to some overcomplicated, deeply complex, psychologically tortured hyper-conspiracy involving thousands of people.

iNow wrote:involving thousands of people.

Why does everyone throw in that straw man? Who says it would involve "thousands of people"? What kind of idiot conspirators would be unable to find a way to do it with a small team?

My version of the conspiracy theory involves an extra-government group, like Bilderberg, or Mossad (still government, but not ours.) Some agents within the government might have played a role, but they weren't acting as government agents (I mean this in the sense of how a corrupt police officer might really be on the Mafia's payroll, but... still picks up his check as a police officer also.)

Silverstien and Donald Rumsfeld are both likely candidates for participation. I highly doubt any other members of the Bush administration would have been in on it. Silverstien could grant a Mossad/Bilderberg/Skulls/Corporate agent unlimited access to the buildings. Just say they're doing some kind of legitimate construction work. Hell.... say the guy's there to examine the asbestos insulation (because with a 99 year lease he's got to expect someday he's going to be required to replace it all.)

Rumsfeld was Secretary of State, and a former Air Force pilot. Probably he'd know how to push the defense systems' buttons just the right way if he wanted to ensure nobody intercepted the flights. He's also the one who pushed and pushed to make the 911 attack into a justification to invade Iraq. Insiders have said that he had the idea all hatched and had started pushing it on the others from within hours of the towers falling.

So there's your conspiracy: 2 guys inside.

For tech, you've got 1 - a demolition guy, 2 - someone to figure out how to rig the planes to fly by remote, 3 - some people to take over the planes and then parachute to safety somewhere along the way (preferably Arab looking). 4- Someone to arrange to get all the patsies to be on the appropriate flights. (Just tell them you're going to sell them a bomb or something, and what flight you want them to arrive on for the purchase.)

iNow wrote:That's all well and good, but statistically speaking, the buildings most probably came down as a result of planes crashing into them, and not due to some overcomplicated, deeply complex, psychologically tortured hyper-conspiracy involving thousands of people.

Well that's the problem right there, isn't it now? Putting the nature of the 3 tower collapses down to statistics is highly inadequate and not very constructive at all- and even if you were to look at the events in a purely statistical manner then it still doesn't add up; 3 structural steel skyscrapers collapsed completely, essentially, due to fires in one day (and in the case of WTC-7, only due to fires), whereas not a single structural steel building had collapsed completely due to fire ever before and ever since 9/11. So, statistically, it's a bit of a "needle in a haystack" situation. And let's not forget that the Empire State Building has been hit by a B-52 Bomber... And it didn't collapse...

Anyway, obviously, we do not just looking at the events of 9/11 from a statistical point of view- rather we study it from a scientific and engineering perspective. And, again, things get quite fuzzy as you look into the situation further and further. Let's have a look at a few of the facts given

• Straight down, symmetrical progression outside footprint.
• 200fps ejection of building Mat's at lower floors.
• 2/3 free fall acceleration through path of (what should've been) greatest resistance.
• Near total destruction of structural steel frame.
• Lateral ejection of structural steel up to 600ft at 60mph.
• Enormous pycroclastic-like clouds of pulverised concrete.
• Pools of molten iron and iron microspheres in WTC-dust.
• Nano-thermite composite explosives found in dust.
• Squibs (characteristic of controlled demolitions) in all 3 cases.
• Plastic deformation with no signs of elastic, ductile deformation (as would be expected from gradual heated sagging of members), in all 3 cases.

Just to name a few...

I like how Jarrah can't even keep a straight face in his martyrdom video, and has to be coached through it to get the seriousness down. If it were a real martyrdom video, and this guy is seriously contemplating killing himself, do you think he would have that problem? But if someone is putting him up to it and he thinks it's just a prank or some kind of ruse, then of course keeping a straight face must be the hardest part.

That's how you set up a patsy. Tell him he's posing as something bad to lure out real bad guys, or for a movie, or whatever have you. He'll incriminate himself every which way, and then after he's no longer alive to set the record straight you can paint him black. Hindsight is 20/20. How should he know what the footage will be used for later on?

Jarrah's Video

There's a fine recent example in Oregon of someone the FBI entrapped into making a terrorist case for them. A 19 year old kid name Mohamed Osman Mohamud. They basically coached him into trying to blow up Pioneer Square in Portland, and even provided him with the (disabled) bomb to do it with.

Hell, that's stuff that happens on the official level. Just think what's possible for an organization operating outside the official government.

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/inde ... _bomb.html

http://news.opb.org/article/pioneer-squ ... postponed/

x(x-y) wrote:Well that's the problem right there, isn't it now? Putting the nature of the 3 tower collapses down to statistics is highly inadequate and not very constructive at all

Please review my post again in context. It was directly tied to kojax' post.

Yeah. I was suggesting that, when you consider all the different ways a building could collapse, the likelihood of three buildings all falling the same way on the same event (owned by the same owner) is slim. Of course, it's also what we observed.

It's kind of an appeal to the "you think I was born yesterday?" kind of common sense argument, but I had to go and try to make a statistical argument from it instead. And because of that, it has drawn no shortage of criticism.

The real determining issue for its strength as a statistical problem is to know how many different ways were possible. If few ways were possible, or the vertical collapse were more likely than the others by a lot, then it might not mean anything at all. If the random likelihood of the collapse being vertical, as opposed to something else, is say.... 50%, then having three buildings fall that way on one day would be like flipping a coin three times and getting the same result all three times, a 1 in 4 chance. Not terribly extraordinary.

If there were 100 possibilities, all equally likely, then the odds would be one out of 10,000. That's a strong enough chance against that it would overrule any concern over the size of the sample set. Usually small sample sets are considered to have low confidence, but if it the odds are extreme, like if you buy two lottery tickets in your whole life and both win the jackpot, then you don't need a large sample set to declare a miracle.

x(x-y) wrote:• Plastic deformation with no signs of elastic, ductile deformation (as would be expected from gradual heated sagging of members), in all 3 cases.

I am assuming that plastic vs. elastic deformation is like melted vs. warped.
I would like to see some evidence and/or citations backing this.

GiantEvil wrote:

x(x-y) wrote:• Plastic deformation with no signs of elastic, ductile deformation (as would be expected from gradual heated sagging of members), in all 3 cases.

I am assuming that plastic vs. elastic deformation is like melted vs. warped.
I would like to see some evidence and/or citations backing this.

No.

Plastic deformation (yield) is permanent -- as in permanent bending where the material strain has exceeded the yield limit.

Elastic deformation exists only while a load is applied -- like a spring.

Ductility refers to the ability to undergo plastic deformation without ultimate failure (breaking) -- bending but not breaking in essence. Ductility is the opposite of brittleness.

About the only time you can get ultimate failure of a metal without first experiencing significant yield is in an explosive event involving a true detonation (a combustion mode found only in high explosives).

You can safely ignore x(x-y).

You can safely ignore x(x-y).

Pleasant, but utterly useless when discussing science and not "sociology" (so to speak).

Ductility refers to the ability to undergo plastic deformation without ultimate failure (breaking) -- bending but not breaking in essence. Ductility is the opposite of brittleness.

Exactly, the steel members, columns and connections in structural steel skyscrapers (and by extent, all structural steel buildings) are designed to deform in a ductile manner giving the people inside the building enough time to escape- in all 3 cases, most notably WTC-7 having not been hit by a plane, the buildings showed sudden plastic deformation with no signs of any ductile type deformation prior to total collapse; it would be expected that if the steel members were subject to high temperature fires for long enough then they would begin to sag and bend gradually which would show from the exterior as partial collapses may take place. But for the entire building to collapse into its own footprint in just under 7 seconds due to fires spread across only 8 floors (not "engulfed in flames" as NIST attempted to state in their final report) is incredibly strange especially seeing as other structural steel buildings (such as the case study I mentioned in my long post a few pages back, I forget it's name now) have suffered extensive fires across nearly every story and not suffered a total collapse.

And my other points made in my last post and long post still stand...

How hard do you think it would be for Rumsfeld to procure some military grade thermite? Maybe set up an op that calls for it, have it transferred to some location awaiting pickup by another team, then that other team never shows up? The mission gets canceled. Or .... better yet... the team does show up, never really goes on the mission (just claims to have gone and failed), then reports the thermite lost or used or destroyed. Never mind the more obvious possibility of claiming to send it to rebels in some African country.

We all remember Iran Contra. How many conspirators did it take to move missiles to Iran, and guns to the Contras in Columbia?