Great Names in Science Clash

[pomeroo]

Ace Baker's 'Hunt the Rubble' game has drawn fire from rationalists outraged at another sneering know-nothing's mockery of the victims of the jihadist attacks of 9/11/01. Baker, who posts here as Truthseeker1234, paraded his scientific expertise on a Conspiracy Smasher thread, "Dumb Doesn't Even Begin to Describe Them." I sent some of his comments to Dr. Frank Greening and Greening's reply created the following new thread. I will present Baker's reply to Greening in a separate post.

Dr. Greening crushes witless conspiradroid


Ronald Wieck was kind enough to send along this response from Dr. Frank Greening correcting several erroneous assertions by Ace Baker (the post "Dumb doesn't even begin to describe them" from last week ) A Conspiracy Smasher exclusive!

Dear Ron,​

I and many others at Physorg.com forums have set Ace Baker "straight" so many times it's not funny any more. He is obviously completely ignorant of basic engineering, physics and chemistry and he clearly does not understand Greening's calculations. True enough, the description of Greening's calculation on 911Myths indicates that the first program Greening wrote considers "crush down" with a fixed value of E1, and no mass loss. This is essentially the same set of assumptions used by Bazant et al. in their famous 2001 paper. A paper that remains THE benchmark in the field!​

However, if Ace Baker was keeping up with developments over the past year or so he would know that Greening has extended his initial model to include; crush-up occurring simultaneously with crush-down; variable E1 and mass shedding during collapse. Thus Ace Baker is clearly not paying attention but simply spouting the same old misinformation to discredit the real scientists researching 9-11! So, when the three factors noted above are incorporated into Greening's model, a self-sustaining collapse is still predicted, but with a slightly increased collapse time. In fact, if Ace Baker was half the scientist he purports to be he would repeat Greening's calculation for himself, (because it's really not that difficult!), and discover the truth of Greening's assertions! In other words, Mr. Baker should put up or SHUT UP!​

But let's look at some of Mr. Baker's very own nonsense:​

"The evidence shows that most of the mass of the towers ended up as fine powder blanketing lower Manhattan."​

or,​

"The north wall of WTC1 went missing."​

I think Mr. Baker needs to see an eye doctor or something! He fails to notice an enormous rubble pile that contained about 1,000,000 tonnes of debris, was many stories high, took over a year to remove and contained literally thousands of core and perimeter wall columns. No, he prefers to believe the fantasy that "most of the mass of the towers ended up as fine powder blanketing lower Manhattan." !!!!! Pray tell us how steel is turned to dust Mr. Baker!​

And if Mr. Baker is correct that "The north wall of WTC1 went missing.", I suppose it must have been beamed up by Scotty or something!​

So really, it's a waste of time dealing with such an "ACE" a this; a man LOST IN SPACE, who apparently prefers to live in his very own Conspiracy La La Land..........​

As for Gordon Ross, his model is simply not attuned to reality. The damage to the Twin Towers was asymmetric and the elastic compression wave so beloved by Mr. Ross would not propagate vertically down 17 floors as he suggests, but would be dissipated by the lateral and torsional forces that we know were responsible for the failures of the columns at practically each and every splice. The fact that most of the core columns found in the rubble pile were in neat ~ 10 meter sections, with very little bending, shows that they failed in this way - not by some huge buckling of a (17 x 3.7) meter section!​

Cheers,​

Frank​

 

[pomeroo]

Baker Responds to Greening

Here is Ace Baker's reply to Dr. Greening:

Ace Baker said,

Response to Greening, Greening in italics, my responses in plain type.


I and many others at Physorg.com forums have set Ace Baker "straight" so many times it's not funny any more.

False. Most of the troubling observations, such as the holes, the missing mass, etc., have simply been ignored. Greening’s use of quotation marks around the word “straight” is revealing.

He is obviously completely ignorant of basic engineering, physics and chemistry and he clearly does not understand Greening's calculations.

False. I have a fine grasp of the basic scientific principles that are in play here, e.g. Newton’s laws of motion and conservation of energy. It is true that my formal training is in music, not the physical sciences. But one does not need to be an engineer to understand when the scientific method has been grossly violated. The “official” reports on 9/11 all violated the scientific method by ignoring relevant data, assuming the conclusion, and disallowing others to replicate their findings.

True enough, the description of Greening's calculation on 911Myths indicates that the first program Greening wrote considers "crush down" with a fixed value of E1, and no mass loss. This is essentially the same set of assumptions used by Bazant et al. in their famous 2001 paper. A paper that remains THE benchmark in the field!

The infamous 2001 Bazant/Zhou paper was released on 9/13/01, some 48 hours after the event. This alone is highly suspicious. Yes, Greening makes “essentially the same set of assumptions used by Bazant et al”, and these assumptions bear no resemblance to observed reality.

However, if Ace Baker was keeping up with developments over the past year or so he would know that Greening has extended his initial model to include; crush-up occurring simultaneously with crush-down; variable E1 and mass shedding during collapse.

After Greening’s first paper, astute observers pointed out the obvious: That all of the videos show “crush up” happening prior to “crush down”. They show huge clouds of pulverized material being systematically ejected outwards in all directions. Clearly, the accumulating mass required in Greening 1 is not present. Embarrassed, Greening went back to the drawing board.

In his second version, Greening allows for “crush up” and “crush down” to happen at the same time, and he budgets some energy for pulverizing some of the concrete. This may have served to bamboozle some, but not me. “Crush up” and “crush down” do not begin at the same time. The videos of WTC1 clearly show that the top 14 stories “crush up” to half their original height before the lower building moves an inch. The photos of WTC2 show that the frame in the upper 30 stories was shattered as it began to tip eastward.

Furthermore, Greening 2 still only allows for around 20% of the concrete to be pulverized, at most. The problems are still obvious: this does not agree with observed reality. We observe that about 99.9% of the concrete is rendered into fine powder. We observe nothing in any video that looks anything like a “top block” crushing down through the lower structure. The evidence is that about .1% of the concrete remained macroscopic. If anyone claims it is more than that, I would welcome any photographs that support this. Calculations have shown that the amount of dust blanketing lower Manhattan is consistent with all of the concrete being pulverized.


Thus Ace Baker is clearly not paying attention but simply spouting the same old misinformation to discredit the real scientists researching 9-11!

Whether scientific principles are new or old does not matter. Newton’s laws are old, yet they seem to be holding up rather well.

So, when the three factors noted above are incorporated into Greening's model, a self-sustaining collapse is still predicted, but with a slightly increased collapse time.

In fact, if Ace Baker was half the scientist he purports to be he would repeat Greening's calculation for himself, (because it's really not that difficult!), and discover the truth of Greening's assertions! In other words, Mr. Baker should put up or SHUT UP!

Greening’s arithmetic is fine. But his calculations are based on false assumptions, as explained. His models do not account for the observations. Therefore we know inductively that something must be wrong somewhere.

But let's look at some of Mr. Baker's very own nonsense:

"The evidence shows that most of the mass of the towers ended up as fine powder blanketing lower Manhattan."
or,
"The north wall of WTC1 went missing."


One can attempt to dismiss these observations as “nonsense”, but that does not make it so. Yes, most of the mass of the towers ended up as fine powder blanketing lower Manhattan. Correct. There are multiple lines of evidence which corroborate this.

1. Judy Wood’s calculations which show that the amount of dust is consistent with what we would expect if most of the towers were “dustified”. The dust had to come from somewhere, and it came from the towers.
2. The videos show huge quantities of dust being ejected, and do not show mass remaining intact and pushing down.
3. When it is over, there is essentially no trace left of any of the building contents.

Yes, the north wall of WTC1 went missing. About 10-20 stories of it remained standing, leaning over what was left of WTC6. But what happened to the other 90-100 stories? We find no evidence of perimeter sections inside WTC6, nor in Vessey street, nor in the rubble of WTC7, nor anywhere. If you think that it is “nonsense” for me to say that all these steel columns and spandrel plates went missing, then where are they? I have seen no evidence for the existence of this steel after the events of 9/11, and Dr. Wood is a hero for pointing it out in her paper.

I think Mr. Baker needs to see an eye doctor or something! He fails to notice an enormous rubble pile that contained about 1,000,000 tonnes of debris, was many stories high, took over a year to remove and contained literally thousands of core and perimeter wall columns.

Greening can use adjectives like “enormous” all he wants. Relative to the size of the twin towers, the rubble “pile” was tiny. There was a round crater where WTC1 was, with a round rim around the crater several stories high.

The perimeter column sections are very easy to recognize, due to their characteristic “wheat chex” appearance. Where then are the perimeter sections from the north wall of WTC1? Please do tell.

No, he prefers to believe the fantasy that "most of the mass of the towers ended up as fine powder blanketing lower Manhattan." !!!!! Pray tell us how steel is turned to dust Mr. Baker!

That is an excellent question. I don’t know. But I do know that the correct scientific explanation must account for this observation. It is a gross violation of the scientific method to ignore troubling data, which is what Greening has done.

And if Mr. Baker is correct that "The north wall of WTC1 went missing.", I suppose it must have been beamed up by Scotty or something!

The hypothesis of a directed energy weapon is a valid hypothesis that must be explored. Thankfully, Drs. Wood and Reynolds have the intellectual honesty and courage to research it.

So really, it's a waste of time dealing with such an "ACE" a this; a man LOST IN SPACE, who apparently prefers to live in his very own Conspiracy La La Land..........


And so ultimately, having failed to substantively counter my logical criticisms of his work, Greening, like Ronald Wieck, resorts to childish ad hominems, abandoning scientific argument altogether.
1:20 PM

 

[Spins]

False. Most of the troubling observations, such as the holes, the missing mass, etc., have simply been ignored. Greening’s use of quotation marks around the word “straight” is revealing.

Bloomin' eck he's still talking about those holes, this is the thread he presented his smoking gun...

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66444

1. Judy Wood’s calculations which show that the amount of dust is consistent with what we would expect if most of the towers were “dustified”.

Ah so Dr. Evils Death Star was used to "Dustify" the Twin Towers!

 

[T.A.M.]

What I would really love to see, as opposed to dimwit versus scientist, would be for ACE's Muse, Judy Wood, to actually try to have a scientific argument over the issues with Greening. Now that would be really worth reading.

TAM

 

[R.Mackey]

I really have to hand it to Dr. Greening -- his willingness to engage those nutballs, not to mention perform actual work just to shut them up, is inspiring.

As for Ace, let me just say I've never seen anyone say "Nuh-uh! Cuz' I said so!" in so many words before.

We need to initiate a "Who's the Stupidest Troofer" contest. I'm envisioning something along the lines of the Middle-Class Twit of the Year pageant.

 

[Spins]

Furthermore, Greening 2 still only allows for around 20% of the concrete to be pulverized, at most. The problems are still obvious: this does not agree with observed reality. We observe that about 99.9% of the concrete is rendered into fine powder. We observe nothing in any video that looks anything like a “top block” crushing down through the lower structure. The evidence is that about .1% of the concrete remained macroscopic. If anyone claims it is more than that, I would welcome any photographs that support this. Calculations have shown that the amount of dust blanketing lower Manhattan is consistent with all of the concrete being pulverized.

Every word is comedy gold.

 

[GlennB]

Is Ace still using the totally discredited "pyroclastic" dust figures that Hoffman eventually withdrew at the 911research website?

 

[Horatius]

Furthermore, Greening 2 still only allows for around 20% of the concrete to be pulverized, at most. The problems are still obvious: this does not agree with observed reality. We observe that about 99.9% of the concrete is rendered into fine powder. We observe nothing in any video that looks anything like a “top block” crushing down through the lower structure. The evidence is that about .1% of the concrete remained macroscopic. If anyone claims it is more than that, I would welcome any photographs that support this. Calculations have shown that the amount of dust blanketing lower Manhattan is consistent with all of the concrete being pulverized.

That would be Judy Wood's calculation wherein she forgot to multiply by 2, for 2 towers, right?

It's simply amazing how he has spent months arguing these topics, and has yet to admit any error on the part of the twoofers, on any issue, no matter how blindingly obvious.

I'd say he's just lying, but really, don't most liars at least try to sound plausible? He's just totally out there.

 

[bonavada]

We need to initiate a "Who's the Stupidest Troofer" contest. I'm envisioning something along the lines of the Middle-Class Twit of the Year pageant.

:-]



BV

 

[ConspiRaider]

:-]



BV

AWESOME. Required viewing.

 

[beachnut]

dustified! just dustified

music wins out

 

[T.A.M.]

A really obvious question...

HOW DID THEY CALCULATE ALL THE DUST THAT FELL ON MANHATTAN?

Did they collect it all? Did they measure the layer thickness in hundred of different sites, then multiply the average of that by the total surface area the dust covered to get a volume??

ARGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

TAM

 

[Horatius]

A really obvious question...

HOW DID THEY CALCULATE ALL THE DUST THAT FELL ON MANHATTAN?

Very badly.

As I mentioned before, there's one glaringly obvious error in this calculation, amongst all the other, less-glaring errors.

I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on it, and I know Dr. Greening discussed it in one of his papers (and did a much better job of it than I, big surprise!). Based on reports of how thick the dust was, and rough estimates of the density, you can get an order-of-magnitude estimate for how much dust there was, but of course we'll never know for sure. Best estimates are about 30% of the concrete was dusted.

From Judy's "analysis":

If a WTC tower were completely turned to dust, how much dust might we expect?

Suppose the building's materials were reduced to 10% of its original volume.
Volume of one WTC tower = (207 ft)x(207 ft)x(1368 ft)
Dust Volume (from one WTC tower) = (1/10)xVolumetower (approx.)
One square mile = (5280 ft)x(5280 ft)
Dust Volume for one WTC tower (approx.) = (1/10)x(207/5280)2x(1368x12 inches) = 2.52 inches deep over 1 square mile,
or equivalent to 1-inch deep over 2.52 square miles.
An area of 2.52 square miles would be a radius of 0.896 miles. Note that the area would include both land and water.

Suppose the building's materials were reduced to only 5% of the original volume.
Dust Volume for one WTC tower (approx.) = (1/20)x(207/5280)2x(1368x12 inches) = 1-inch deep over 1.26 square miles,
An area of 1.26 square miles would be a radius of 0.634 miles.

These calculations suggest that the towers had enough material to yield dust about an inch deep and cover approximately a square mile in lower manhattan, plus the dust carried over the Hudson River, the East River, Brooklyn, the Upper Bay, and into the upper atmosphere. So where did all the dust come from? It looks like it all came from the towers.

She's edited this since last I looked, as now she's admiting that she's using 10% of the volume of the building as an estimate of how mauch material was in the structure. She's also added a 5% version. Too bad that the only reference I could find as to a ratio of material volume to building volume cited 30% as a working number. Even if you allow for the WTC design to reduce that value, no way was it reduced to 1/3rd or 1/6th of the traditional value.

And notice how she goes from "a tower" at the start to "the towers" at the end? Just a little factor of two error, there. Nothing major.

 

[R.Mackey]

She's edited this since last I looked, as now she's admiting that she's using 10% of the volume of the building as an estimate of how mauch material was in the structure. She's also added a 5% version. Too bad that the only reference I could find as to a ratio of material volume to building volume cited 30% as a working number. Even if you allow for the WTC design to reduce that value, no way was it reduced to 1/3rd or 1/6th of the traditional value.

And notice how she goes from "a tower" at the start to "the towers" at the end? Just a little factor of two error, there. Nothing major.

Back of the envelope here, using her figures for the tower dimensions (which also seem slightly off), we get a tower volume of 58.6 million cubic feet.

Typical concrete is about 150 pounds per cubic foot. If the Towers were solid concrete, they would weigh a total of 4.4 million tons, each. The actual figure is about 500,000 tons, so using this very, very rough estimate, the "material volume" was about 11%.

Obviously, the Towers were not made solely of concrete, but incorporated a great deal of other materials both lighter (sheetrock, office furniture, glass) and heavier (steel). Nonetheless, I might believe a 10% figure, simply because of the Towers' highly unorthodox and efficient lightweight construction -- truly a revolutionary design, but alas one with a critical vulnerability.

Conspicuously absent from Judy's ramblings, however, is any actual measurement of the dust after the fact. I see some speculation about how much dust the Towers could conceivably have produced, but absolutely no attempt to quantify the dust actually seen. This isn't even an apples to oranges comparison, it's apples to TBD.

Unless you take the TruthSeeker1234 route, of course, and simply postulate that "99.9%" was turned into dust, based on... well, who knows?

Relative to the size of the twin towers, the rubble “pile” was tiny.

Um, duh, the building was mostly empty space. Naturally a compacted pile would be smaller than the standing structure. This would be like me folding up a grocery bag, noting that the folded bag was "tiny" compared to the full bag, and then concluding that the bag must now be in the form of dust blanketing my kitchen.

Thousands of posts here, and not a single thing learned!

 

[T.A.M.]

ummm...and all the office contents that were either (i) turned to ash in the fires or (ii) turned to dust with the collapse, and most importantly (iii) the building drywall, do any of these things enter into her "calculations"?

What an embarrassment to science she is.

TAM

 

[ConspiRaider]

A really obvious question...

HOW DID THEY CALCULATE ALL THE DUST THAT FELL ON MANHATTAN?

Did they collect it all? Did they measure the layer thickness in hundred of different sites, then multiply the average of that by the total surface area the dust covered to get a volume??

ARGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

TAM

The Twoofers brought in a guy that night, gave him some anti-sneezing pills and then had him breathe in all the dust that fell in Manhattan. They then weighed him, subtracted the weight of his clothes and shoes and emergency supply of woo pills in his pocket - and then compared that with the weight of the towers. 3 grams off. A risk, but enough to go with Beam Weapons as the culprit.

 

[Horatius]

Back of the envelope here, using her figures for the tower dimensions (which also seem slightly off), we get a tower volume of 58.6 million cubic feet.

Typical concrete is about 150 pounds per cubic foot. If the Towers were solid concrete, they would weigh a total of 4.4 million tons, each. The actual figure is about 500,000 tons, so using this very, very rough estimate, the "material volume" was about 11%.

Obviously, the Towers were not made solely of concrete, but incorporated a great deal of other materials both lighter (sheetrock, office furniture, glass) and heavier (steel). Nonetheless, I might believe a 10% figure, simply because of the Towers' highly unorthodox and efficient lightweight construction -- truly a revolutionary design, but alas one with a critical vulnerability.

I didn't think to try your calculation. I guess 10% may not be too far off. There's that "common sense" problem again.

But that still doesn't get her off the hook for throwing in the 5% version, or for forgeting that there were two towers. She also doesn't seem to allow for the dust being lower density than the solid materials, which also acts in her favour.

We also have to allow some mass for office contents, which I think may have been included in the 30% figure I had. Although, of course now I can't find that reference

Still too many obviously biased "errors" for real science.

 

[hellaeon]

attention seeker

Baker is just an attention seeker. He is enjoying the fact people know who he is etc and that top scientists will argue with him. Its easy behind his pc, but put him in front of a large group of engineers and then debate with greening. He would be shot down by the laughter on every point he makes. He is just another attention hound so bored with his own life.

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Back of the envelope here, using her figures for the tower dimensions (which also seem slightly off), we get a tower volume of 58.6 million cubic feet.

Typical concrete is about 150 pounds per cubic foot. If the Towers were solid concrete, they would weigh a total of 4.4 million tons, each. The actual figure is about 500,000 tons, so using this very, very rough estimate, the "material volume" was about 11%.

Obviously, the Towers were not made solely of concrete, but incorporated a great deal of other materials both lighter (sheetrock, office furniture, glass) and heavier (steel). Nonetheless, I might believe a 10% figure, simply because of the Towers' highly unorthodox and efficient lightweight construction -- truly a revolutionary design, but alas one with a critical vulnerability.

Conspicuously absent from Judy's ramblings, however, is any actual measurement of the dust after the fact. I see some speculation about how much dust the Towers could conceivably have produced, but absolutely no attempt to quantify the dust actually seen. This isn't even an apples to oranges comparison, it's apples to TBD.

Unless you take the TruthSeeker1234 route, of course, and simply postulate that "99.9%" was turned into dust, based on... well, who knows?


Um, duh, the building was mostly empty space. Naturally a compacted pile would be smaller than the standing structure. This would be like me folding up a grocery bag, noting that the folded bag was "tiny" compared to the full bag, and then concluding that the bag must now be in the form of dust blanketing my kitchen.

Thousands of posts here, and not a single thing learned!

Don't know if this helps firm up your % or not:
About 10,000,000 square feet of rentable space, occupied by about 50,000 people.
An acre of rentable space on each floor of each tower.
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/World_Trade_Center.html

 

[pomeroo]

Greening Counters

Dr, Greening included a graph in his reply that isn't showing up when I attempt to paste. Does anyone have a suggestion?

Dear Ron:

Tell this guy ACEBAKER, who claims he would "welcome any photographs that support the evidence that about .1% of the concrete remained macroscopic", and has "calculations that show that the amount of dust blanketing lower Manhattan is consistent with all of the concrete being pulverized", to take a look at the incredible book "AFTERMATH" by Joel Meyerowitz.

And to consider this:

If we assume that the WTC concrete particulate was formed at an average height of 200 meters and consider how far a particle could travel in a 5 m/s wind before settling out, we may estimate the maximum distance concrete particles could be found from ground zero. Representative values are shown below together with these maximum distances.

Concrete Particle Diameter: 10 cm 1 cm 1 mm 100 mm 10 mm
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Settling Time in seconds: 4 11 33 400 30,000

Max. Dist. from GZ in meters: 20 55 165 2000 -
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Based on these settling distances and the expected size distribution of pulverized concrete produced during 9-11 one may conclude that almost 50 % of the WTC 1 concrete settled more than 200 meters from ground zero. However, it is important to recognize that the dust that fell well outside the footprints of the Twin Towers was a relatively small fraction of the total mass of concrete used in the construction of these buildings. To demonstrate this fact let’s first consider the depth of the WTC dust estimated by Risk Management Solutions and determine the total volume of dust produced by the collapse of the towers , a quantity we shall call VD.

Figure 3 is a plot of the depth of the WTC dust as a function of its distance from ground zero. It shows that the distance, x, and depth, y, follow the approximate functional form xy = a constant. This function may be integrated to determine that the total volume of rotation about the y- axis, VT, is about 116,000 m3. However, VT includes a (hypothetical) volume of dust within the building’s footprint. The volume of dust outside the building’s footprint, VD, may be determined by subtracting a volume equal to p(2002) ´ 0.05 m3 » 6000 m3 from VT to arrive at a value » 100,000 m3 for the required volume of dust VD. If we assume that the dust had an average density of 1200 kg/m3 it follows that the mass of WTC dust was approximately 120,000,000 kg or 120,000 tonnes.

The WTC dust was made up of concrete, gypsum, man-made vitreous fiber and cellulose-based material of which only about 40 % was concrete. Thus one may readily estimate that the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 deposited about 50,000 tonnes of concrete outside the footprint of the towers. If we consider that the total mass of concrete in the two towers was about 150,000 tonnes we conclude that 100,000 tonnes of concrete fell within the footprint of the towers. This has important implications for the issue of mass-shedding during the tower’s collapse. It suggests that more than 90 % of the mass, (concrete and steel), in the damage zone created at each impacted floor was retained by the descending “hammer” thereby sustaining the progressive collapse of WTC 1.

So, in conclusion:


AceBaker ignores reality and the documented/visual evidence available from sources such as AFTERMATH on the true nature of the WTC rubble pile.

AceBaker claims to adhere to scientific principles, but has no problem invoking STAR WARS WEAPONS with absolutely NO EVIDENCE or PROOF!

AceBaker, the musician says:

"Thankfully, Drs. Wood and Reynolds have the intellectual honesty and courage to research it."

But Ace:

Do Drs. Wood and Reynolds have the intellectual capacity?

Cheers, Frank