Tin hat science marches on.

One difference is that it will be submitted for peer review.

Reading the original article makes you think twice abt wht happened on that dark day.

And you know...you can't trust this administration....

That article was more convincing than other paranoid conspiricies that I've seen, but still ....

I took a physics class at BYU. Physics 122 it was, and it was a tough class. To get a passing grade (D-) you needed to get a whopping 33% of the total available points. That's right, you can be a physicist and get the answer right only 1 time in 3. Hopefully Dr. Jones did better in school than that.

It wouldn't surprise me if explosives were used in such a fashion, it always seemed a little to clean. You ever think of 9/11 in relation to histroic events, like say the burning of the Reichstag in 1933? Build up and after affects of both events were very similar in how the countries reacted.

This has tin hat all over its pointed little head.

Jones acknowledges that there have been "junk science" conspiracy theories about what happened on 9/11, but "the explosive demolition hypothesis better satisfies tests of repeatability and parsimony and therefore is not 'junk science.' "

Repeatability? Come on. And anything can be submitted for peer review. Bring it back when it passes review at a reputable scientific publication. And the kind of "observable evidence" he cites would mean that the buildings were just loaded with tons of thermite, placed up and down the structures.

The guy is a physics professor, not a materials expert. And BYU isn't exactly science-central.

What is "tin hat"? I don't get the lingo.

There is also the problem of getting the explosives into the building, without it ever being noticed by anyone. Damned hard to do, very hard, if you really think about it. Too many people involved, at ground level.

Considering the many important things that can not be kept secret, it would have been impossible to tie up the many, many loose ends, witnesses, and people who would have known about it.

BitNOLA -- yes, I agree that BYU isn't exactly science-central. in fact, it's pretty right-wing and evangelical! which just goes to show that something's amiss when a BYU professor says muslims probably weren't responsible for 9/11. The irony.

Agreed it is not much more than tin-foil hat stuff until peer review.

It matters not, sitting in isolation at a keyboard, if one is thought a conspiricy theorist. That I'm not is incidental,the article I have yet to read. But, disregarding the towers, what on this earth caused building seven to collapse in such a manner. If anything were to be proved, then surely the basis for all answers lies with this building. In truth I watched as much as there was to be watched some nine months ago, all of the content being from the Alex Jones slant. Is there a feasable explanation in the public domain as to the collapse of this building that I am unaware of?

Did anyone else catch the 'Fight Club' reference in his interview? He said (in another interview--or another version of the interview, anyway) "We need to consider all options for the collapse of these buildings. Let the chips fall where they may.”

In Fight Club, Brad Pitt's character gets all speechy to Robert Norton's char, talks about destroying society to take us all back to a more equitable time, and "Let the chips fall where they may." Later in the movie, Pitt's char coordinates the demolition of several high-rise banking and trade buildings.

Maybe this BYU codger saw Fight Club (or read the book), swooned, and had his own little "Eureka! That's the ticket" moment. Or maybe I should put my tinfoil hat back on.

Tin -foil hat. (slaps forehead) I get it now.

I went to a presentation at Caltech by the forensic engineering team (not from Caltech) which analysed the collapses. It was very impressive. they used discrete element analysis and all the videos they could get to build computer models of the buildings and the planes, and ran simulations in the model, tweaking variables until they got collapses which looked like the videos.

They were really good. We saw the planes going in, the engines flying off, the main core columns which got severed in the second building hit, the hat truss falling in, the external tube collapsing, and so on. With video and stills of the catastrophe matching the model.

They had the budget to get the code written and run it on big iron. What's this BYU guy got, please?

'Muslims are (probably) not to blame for bringing down the WTC buildings after all,' Jones writes.

Gee, muslims were (probably) not responsible, not terrorists? Glad we can blame an entire group for the actions of a few. I think we know where he stands on this issue by that comment alone.

Just because something was peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's plausible. There are a lot of crappy journals out there. I noticed that the name of the peer-reviewed publication was not mentioned. Nice.

The article says it was accepted for publication, meaning it's already been peer-reviewed, meaning we should be able to figure out the journal it's being published in. That's important information that is clearly lacking.

One thing I always found kind of weird, was that the WTC fires from the crash were so hot that concrete was pulverized into dust in the collapse and then the FBI finds an intact non-burnt passport from one of the highjackers. The miraculous survival of that passport always seemed a little dubious to me.

Not sure what I think about bombs knocking down the towers. Although didn't terrorists bomb the WTC sometime in the early 90's? How did they get access? Why couldn't they have done it again?

Maybe that intact passport the FBI found was from a terrorist who set off the bombs? That'd make more sense than it coming from one of the planes that crashed into the buildings.

I don't buy the arguement that bombs bringing down the WTC buildings somehow prove that terrorists couldn't of done it. I think there have to be a little more evidence than that.

This seems completely ridiculous to me...

The towers started collapsing towards the top for one thing, where the planes hit, so the alleged bombs would have had to have been brought up the elevator or something... Maybe they smuggled them up in a cloths bin! ;)

But yeah, the jet fuel from the planes melted the critical support structures in the buildings and the weight of the upper floors caused a vertical domino effect to be set in motion...

Besides, it would seem a little redundant to plan to place bombs in a target you intended to fly a plane into...

Building seven was probably weakened by the shockwave created after the other two building collapsed.

Re: How did they get the explosives in there?

That's the beauty of the trick, see? My brother Marvin chaired the security company responsible for the WTC up until that day. They thought they were just gettting rewired for a new security system while we were loadin' the place up with enough thermite to blow it up real good. Hee-haw!

Agreed. If the paper was indeed "accepted for peer-reviewed publication next year," you would expect the name of the journal to be mentioned. Perhaps it is only being considered for publication (submitted, not accepted) at this stage.

In any event, the "paper" linked to in the news story is far from the finished article, and, with its liberal use of boldface and hyperlinks, probably bears little resemblance to any article that might have been submitted to a print journal.

Also, you may recall that Jones's earlier claim to 15 minutes of fame was his association with the Pons-Fleischmann cold-fusion debacle.

My first degree is in Physics (but I've never done any professional work in the field).

And I've spent a couple of hours reviewing this stuff ...

.. and even I can tell it has creation "science" written all over it.

First, he's giving a static analysis of the materials and structures involved, rather than looking at dynamics (get a clue:- the buildings were destroyed over about an hour each via structural damage and fire. Last time I looked, that's a dynamic process not a high school statics problem.

In other words, this guy ain't no engineer.

Second, he refers throughout to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and something called "The Law of Increasing Entropy". Well, what on earth does the second law have to do with the manner in which a building fell down? There's a huge disconnect there. Then what on earth is the law of "increasing entropy"?

There is no such law in physics, but if you google for it you'll find that it's a very common creationist synonym for the 2nd law (which as we all know) they are very keen to utilize as an anti-evolution argument.

So let's look at what the actual argument is:

1. The buildings fell straight down instead of being "poleaxed"

   Hmm. My understanding is that buildings are built to stand up straight, and arent' built to fall over like a tree falling.

   In fact, from what I hear engineers have a great deal of trouble building very tall buildings (do the tallest buildings qualify? - yeah I think so too) stand up against the sheer force from wind, let alone trying to maintain linear integrity when they get gratuitously destroyed by terrorist action.

2. Jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel

   Umm. It doesn't actually have to melt before structural failure occurs. Steel can lose its strength and start to bend at quite low temperatures - well below melting point.

   This bit just doesn't fly.

3. Molten steel was found in the wreckage

   Contradicts #2 I think

4. The building's weren't poleaxed (this is actually only implicit in the argument, but never mind)

   Well, they were hit by 100 ton planes about an hour before and that wasn't enough to knock them sideways....

   ... so where, pray tell, is the horizontal force (and energy) to propel them sideways an hour later supposed to come from?

   Gravity angels perhaps?

Sorry, but this never-practising-undergraduate-physicist can blow holes in this nonsense.

Don't get distracted by psychotic #$%^#$ that is totally irrellevant to the real issues.

Move on, nothing to see.

Also, you may recall that Jones's earlier claim to 15 minutes of fame was his association with the Pons-Fleischmann cold-fusion debacle.

Ouch. Don't journals keep a blacklist for these crackpots?

Oh that Jones, I remember at the time thinking he was just jealous of all the attention Pons and Fleischmann were getting and was trying to get on the bandwagon. Thanks Techer for that bit of history, that information certainly doesn't add to his credibility. Also to anwaya for the insights you provided.

What amazes me is that there are people arguing and debating over whether it was explosives or jets that brought the towers down, when there are more important questions:

• Who were the five guys from Israel who were filming the collapse from across the water and cheering/yelling?
• How can anyone believe the BS line about finding a hijacker's passport?
• What happened to the van full of explosives that was supposedly intercepted on its way towards one of New York's bridges?

I want to make a very clear point: it is quite possible to be anti-Israel without being anti-Jewish. That said, I am anti-Israel. All you have to do is a bit of research to see how they are playing us (check out the Lavon Affair, or some of the choicer quotes of Ariel Sharon about 'owning America').

I don't know how much of the tin-foil hat stuff I believe, but I know that there is a history of Israel staging fake terror events against the US. That gives me pause.

Oy. I believe that New York City was littered with tons of paper after the attack, all of it blown out of the towers during the initial impact and then even more ejected during the collapse. It's not hard to imagine that a passport or two was among the unburned debris. Just because a large part of the building was engulfed in fire doesn't mean that everything was incinerated. Like all conspiracy theories, the theorist uses facts to lead us in the direction he wants. For instance, saying that "no other steel structure -- before or since -- has collapsed from fire" is a way to distract our attention. But it is a fallacy, because the WTC buildings did not collapse from fire. We're talking about a collapse from massive damage caused by intrusion from a large plane, jet fuel explosions, and THEN fire.

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study

Gotta love those MIT boys!

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

"It's not hard to imagine that a passport or two was among the unburned debris."

This particular bit just seems too convenient. I always expected next they would find a miraculously unburned signed confession amongst the debris. The whole thing reminds me of some crap Agatha Christie novel.

sad, sad... How some of the comments here are doing their best to support the current official story. The whole case WILL sooner or later fall apart.

There was almost no forensic investigation. There was a small group of engineers who weren't actually allowed on the scene until most of the rubble was already send overseas to blast furnishes. Never, i repeat, NEVER in history was a skyscraper brought down by fire! In Madrid (2005) a hotel burnt over ten hours, gutting the building completely compared to the boy-scout-fire for 3 to 4 hours on 3 to 4 levels in WTC7. Question to scientists around here... The complete structures of WTC1 and WTC2 fell down as fast as a stone falls thru mid-air (around 15 secs.). Normally the energy is more and more absorbed by underlaying levels, slowing down the movement.

See presentation at citizen grand jury for starters (speaker from WTC7.net)

IMNSHO, the US administration knows a great deal more about what actually happened on that 11th september but it will be very hard if not impossible to open up the truth, although i really hope otherwise.

:-)) In other news:Tin foil hat may increase radio frequencies... via boingboing "...certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We theorize that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason. ..."

:-))

Not only is the science likely to be suspect, but circumstances surrounding all of this story would seem to require a degree in "creation science" to overlook them. C'mon!

The planes were crashed into the towers as an elaborate cover story?

The fourth plane, which was downed in Pennsylvania, had a destination, didn't it? No one is sure what that destination was, but presumably explosives would have to have been planted there too - good thing they were able to go pull them back out when the plane never showed up!

Jones found the "physics" of cold fusion credible! As James pointed out: "he refers throughout to the Second Law of Thermodynamics and something called 'The Law of Increasing Entropy'." Well, the Second Law DOES state that the entropy of the universe increases in every spontaneous change, but if I read phrasing like that in a paper I was reviewing, the feeling would be akin to what a forensic scientist must have felt when Quincy (Jack Klugman) turned to his assistant and said. "Sam, look at this data from the MASS SPECTROMETER!" LOL! How corny can you get!

As for Brandon's comment, "Ouch. Don't journals keep a blacklist for these crackpots?", well, anybody can SUBMIT a paper. It doesn't say what journal this was submitted to for "peer review", but there is a good chance that if the journal is at all reputable the editor has been rolling his eyes about ever since he got it. "Cold fusion", and the crackpots who made claims for it, is are not things scientists forgot about! The real "accomplices" to this lunacy are the good folks at Deseret Morning News and other media outlets who mistook it for news.

"Conspiracy theorists" and "tin foil hat" poo-pooing aside, it's just willfully credulous to believe that this was not an inside job.

It took me about two weeks to realize that this did not add up. If you choose to believe the conspiracy theory cooked up by the fascists, I leave you to it.

There is an instant defense mechanism that kicks in for most people when you begin to question the official story behind any catastrophe. So that's somewhat to be expected.

But there is absolutely no way someone could look at all the facts surrounding 9/11 and think that the government has told us the whole story. And that's all I'm saying. There are too many loose ends, too many coincidences. And too much history.

Alright, Joe, I'll bite.

What are some of the things about 9-11 that don't add up?

It's truly saddening to see that at least some people reading onegoodmove fall for this ... a lot of weak points of Jones' theory have already been pointed out by others above, but I think noone so far has commented that this physicist interested in solar energy and fusion is far off his area of expertise. His claim that he started his research based on someones "near death experience" is telling ... can it get any more ridiculous? And the claimed acceptance in a peer-reviewed Journal does not prove anything, unless it miraculously turns out to be a major enhineering or physics journal, which is unlikely since the accepting Journal is not named; therefore the "Journal" is either unimportant/bad, or the article is not yet accepted anywhere, which is more likely since the original article (as linked to by deseretnews) is clearly not in the prose of a scientific journal ...

I don't claim to be an expert on these matters, but if you want to read something plausible about the collapse, read:

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

The delight that some find in this and other conspiracy theories does not make them any more accurate.

The American Society of Civil Engineers did an exhaustive study for FEMA that can be found HERE>>http://www.fema.gov/library/wtcstudy.shtm

Take a look at the well-researched and scientifically sound books by David Ray Griffin:

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions

The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11

Read them carefully and then come to your judgement.

There are SURVIVORS who worked in the basements who SAW explosions or the flames thereof.

I'm absolutely floored by the fact that a real physicist is putting his reputation on the line with this. Any crackpot can spin a yarn but tenured academics at top-100 univerisities shouldn't be brushed off lightly.

As for the theory about it not being Muslims, the story as a whole seems silly--like UFO cover-up stories, it's much more complex than is necessary or plausible.

The planes obviously were flown into the WTC. It seems like they were indeed hijacked by Al-Qaida because people on board these planes called their families. Al-Qaida definitely took credit for it and the planning of 9/11 has been documented by the 9/11 commission. And yet the government planted bombs which were supposed to explode right after some Al-Qaida attack occurred? What could be the possile explanation for this? Why involve planes at all? Why not just fake a redo of the first world trade center and say that the terrorists got inside with a load of C-4? It sounds like something dreamt up by a comic book author rather than a NSA or CIA mastermind. Does anyone believe that any civilized person in America, let alone a conspiracy in our own government, could cook up the idea of mass murder, whatever their motivation?

There are many crazy things to come out of 9/11. Like the report that the passport of one of the highjackers just happened to drift down to the street and get found by a firefighter. But we shouldn't flee to some radically different, paranoid story just because there are strange aspects of the current one we have.

My fear is someone think that this guy's idea sounds reasonable. I like evolutionkills entry that it sounds like this professor of remedial science was watching fight club. The I-beams held until their protective coating burned though and when the buildings fell, they fell the at the rate that anyone should expect an object subject to gravity should fall. The gov't didn't set bombs, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Whitehouse knew the attack was coming.

My fear is someone might think that this guy's idea sounds reasonable. I like evolutionkills entry that it sounds like this professor of remedial science was watching fight club. The I-beams held until their protective coating burned though and when the buildings fell, they fell the at the rate that anyone should expect an object subject to gravity should fall. The gov't didn't set bombs, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Whitehouse knew the attack was coming.

I dont doubt that emotion drives a lot of people to have preconceived ideas about what happened on 9/11. This was an event that had a huge impact on the American psyche and really shock a lot of peoples perceptions about their country and what can or can not happen in it.

That being said, the one aspect that almost every single 'theory' about the collapse being triggered by explosives within the building have in common is that they dont seperate the science of the building collapse with the external, political reasons it happened. As someone said earlier, they use the 'physics' of the collapse to prove it what the US government that did this.

But if you simply view the collapse of the tower purely through a scientific analysis, there is no question that the planes crashing into the building and the resulting fire caused it. It is logical, it has been shown by hundreds of scientists and researchers over and over again. This last attempt to show otherwise may have been one of the better attempts, but compared next to real scientific analysis, it wouldnt hold any weight.

As for the 'truth' of the 9/11 and why and how the attacks happened, many people are right to believe that there are unanswered questions. But to assume that because a small anomoly such as a recovered passport was found in the ruble must mean that government did is absurd. Should there be more investigation into it? Yes. Did the government somehow play a role in it? Its possible. However, if the government did play a role in it, its highly, highly unlikely (given how easy information leaks out of the White House and how hard it would be to keep such a plan from ever being revealed) that it was directly involved. It may be negligent for ignoring previous warnings that attacks were planned, maybe they conciously turned their backs on protecting the country hoping that maybe something would happen so that they could use it to further their political agenda.

Or maybe it was just a well planned terrorist attack.

But to anyone who actually thinks that the government is really smart enough to plan all those attacks and plant explosives to take out the World Trade Towers and cause damage to the Pentagon and not have a single person leak any real information to prove it or have the entire slip out before hand really needs to wake up.

'Muslims are (probably) not to blame for bringing down the WTC buildings after all,'

That's satire, right? I thought terrorists were to blame, not muslims. And what is the "probably" doing in parenthesis?

And what are the three buildings? The triple towers?

I don't think there was an investigation into how the buildings fell, at least not by the 9-11 commission, I know cause I read their book.

As to hundreds of scientists and researchers over and over again proving it collapsed from the resulting fire of the crash? Really. Why would hundreds of scientists be trying to prove this over and over? Why bother "proving" the obvious?

Although this article seems suspect, there many unanswered questions from 9-11 without dreaming up bombs bringing down the twin towers.

What I always wondered is where was our air defense? That the commission found there was a highjacking drill that distracted NORAD from the real highjackings is kinda strange. I always wondered if there was an al-quaida spy telling the terrorists what day to strike because if NORAD hadn't of been distracted by the drill the terrorists would of never had the chance to crash the planes into the twin towers.

At Manuel: this is exactly one of the points that WTC7.net and other alternative 911 researchers make. The collapse of the third building (WTC building 7 !!!) is almost erased from common memory, colelctively erased, it fell nevertheless. Antiloop=troll (passport is not the one small anomaly in the entire 911 story, it reads "COVERUP" in skyscraper bold typeface all-over the entire 911 dossier).

"Tin -foil hat" is an American expression to ridicule those that dare bring up new ideas and think differently then the rest. If Copernicus lived today in American he would be called a Tin Hat Scientist for claiming the earth is not flat (as every good God fearing American knows it in fact IS flat). The same goes for anyone who dares claim there's a good mathematical probability that there is extraterrestrial life or in this case that the US government hasn't been totally honest to its people (big shocker there).

I'm not completely on board with the conspiracy theory. I do have questions though. This debate has been ongoing for years now and its not being conducted amongst "tinfoil hat" conspiracists. See http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/26/150221

Some salient questions:

1) Why did the head of Pakistan's ISI meet with George Tenet shortly before and after 9/11? Why did he order one of his agents to wire $100,000 to Mohammad Atta shortly before 9/11? Better question: why was this fact not brought out by the 9/11 commission?

2) Why did Building #7 collapse/implode in the same manner as the twin towers, though it was not struck by any planes and there was no significant fires on it?

3) Six of the alleged hijackers have turned up alive. Why is this not in the 9/11 Report? Why was this widely reported by the BBC, but not in our MSM?

Just a few of the many, many questions.

"As to hundreds of scientists and researchers over and over again proving it collapsed from the resulting fire of the crash? Really. Why would hundreds of scientists be trying to prove this over and over? Why bother "proving" the obvious?"

Anyone who is an engineer, anyone who has to stamp their name on a set of drawings proving that a building is sound, did/is looking at the tower collapse to find out what went on. Why do people want to know this kind of information? Because anyone who is liable when buildings have structural failures wants to know how buildings can resist earthquakes, attacks, wind, fire, whatever, wants to know everything that is possible so that they can plan their next building in a manner that correct some of the flaws of the WTC.

Im sorry, I fail to see how I am a troll. I said that yes, there are some questions that need to be looked at. Yes there are some irregularities and anomolies that may just be naturaly occuring randomness, or have another reason for their being.

But to think that the government is actually capable of covering up something as drastic as blowing up 3 buildings is giving them far more credit than they deserve. This administration might be really horrible and morally bankrupt, but they are really not that smart. They cant even keep a simple CIA leak under wraps. They get caught in lies everytime they open their mouths.

Im all for finding the truths in life and never stop questioning and being cynical. I have a very open mind when it comes to accepting new ideas. But I also use logic and rational thinking when deciding whether or not something seems plausable. And if you want to believe that bombs leveled the WTCs, thats fine, go ahead, I really dont feel like wasting my time trying to make you think otherwise. There is a wealth of information out there on 9/11. What you choose to see or understand is your choice.

Look, Antiloop, I'm not sure I buy the whole bombing the WTC either but to say that the WTC towers were studied over and over on how they came down isn't really true. I remember being outraged that the materials from the collapsed buildings were shipped to China before anyone could study it. When there are plane crashes, for example, the plane parts are examined and stored away for future examination not sent to China to be melted down.

Well antiloop, maybe i can put another way, because actually it would take many paragraphs to come to some of the points that matter. Maybe it is not the administration per-se itself but a group with interests who have a high hand in the card-deck. When the stakes are really high i betya that the situation is way different than now with the cia-agent leak where maybe two or three persons get indicted. Some of the options as i see it are that either the administration (or an interest group in/behind the administration) had (a) knowledge of an imminent attack and let it happen (the new pearl harbor), or even (b) staged further impact by rigging the outcome. At least a global interests group (western) other than muslim terrorist had a large hand in how the events unfolded. Now the mix/level of administration vs. this interest group determines if we ever get out the truth about 911.

It is not about being cynical, it is logic reasoning that WTC7 cannot have come down from the planes who crashed into WTC1 and WTC2, not from the fire nor from the rubble that fell from the twin towers. If you really think rationally about it, the picture becomes even more nasty and way ugly, because the evil minds who perpetrate such an event will not stop at 911 to get to their ends.

It's all about one thing only: "self-interest"

PS. there is one benefit from trolls (i'm sorry if i called you that and you are not one, but i just can't understand that you don't see the dots that have to be connected about 911)... the more a story get's trolled, the more of the essence remains, so in a fact the more counter-intellegence (cointelpro) the more it undermines itself or the goal it is trying to reach. This is no science fiction because in the end only the truth can remain because the rest is just a mirage... Science will corroborate the truth (hopefully :-)

The critics of this paper are trying to take your eye off the ball. WTC 7 wasn't hit by a plane, barely by debris. Visual reference: Murrah Building, Oklahoma City. Big bomb. Big hole. Still stood. Believe your eyes. Watch the replay. That morning the reporters themselves comment how similar to controlled demolition the collapses appeared. Now go watch the PBS documentary America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero. In this video the WTC plaza leaseholder Larry Silverstein states he and the FDNY made the decision to demo #7. The historical video evidence is overwhelming. Believe your eyes. LEARN THE TRUTH!

Oh yeah, whats with the fifth grade labeling system? Tin hat, Kool-aid drinkers, troll. Obvious label, divide and conquer tactics.