4/10/06 BYU physics prof more certain of thermite at WTC

by **Hugh Manatee Wins** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 3:40 pm

Steven Jones, professor of physics at Brigham Young University, is even more convinced that thermite is the cause of the WTC 1, 2, and 7 collapses on 9/11. And he cites evidence. Notice that this 4/10/06 headline seems at first glance to reinforce the cover story of plane fires being the cause of collapse even as the story content refutes it. <a href="http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635198488,00.html">deseretnews.com/dn/view/0...88,00.html</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Physicist says heat substance felled WTC Monday, 4/10/06 Extremely hot fires caused structures to fail, BYU expert says By Suzanne Dean For the Deseret Morning News EPHRAIM — A Brigham Young University physicist said he now believes an incendiary substance called thermite, bolstered by sulfur, was used to generate exceptionally hot fires at the World Trade Center on 9/11, causing the structural steel to fail and the buildings to collapse. "It looks like thermite with sulfur added, which really is a very clever idea," Steven Jones, professor of physics at BYU, told a meeting of the Utah Academy of Science, Arts and Letters at Snow College Friday. The government requires standard explosives to contain tag elements enabling them to be traced back to their manufacturers. But no tags are required in aluminum and iron oxide, the materials used to make thermite, he said. Nor, he said, are tags required in sulfur. Jones is co-chairman, with James H. Fetzer, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a group of college faculty members who believe conspirators other than pilots of the planes were directly involved in bringing down New York's Trade Towers. The group, which Jones said has 200 members, maintains a Web site at www.st911.org. A 40-page paper by Jones, along with other peer-reviewed and non-reviewed academic papers, are posted on the site. Last year, Jones presented various arguments for his theory that explosives or incendiary devices were planted in the Trade Towers, and in WTC 7, a smaller building in the Trade Center complex, and that those materials, not planes crashing into the buildings, caused the buildings to collapse. At that time, he mentioned thermite as the possible explosive or incendiary agent. But Friday, he said he is increasingly convinced that thermite and sulfur were the root causes of the 9/11 disaster. He told college professors and graduate students from throughout Utah gathered for the academy meeting that while almost no fire, even one ignited by jet fuel, can cause structural steel to fail, the combination of thermite and sulfur "slices through steel like a hot knife through butter." He ticked off several pieces of evidence for his thermite fire theory: First, he said, video showed a yellow, molten substance splashing off the side of the south Trade Tower about 50 minutes after an airplane hit it and a few minutes before it collapsed. Government investigators ruled out the possibility of melting steel being the source of the material because of the unlikelihood of steel melting. The investigators said the molten material must have been aluminum from the plane. But, said Jones, molten aluminum is silvery. It never turns yellow. The substance observed in the videos "just isn't aluminum," he said. But, he said, thermite can cause steel to melt and become yellowish. Second, he cited video pictures showing white ash rising from the south tower near the dripping, liquefied metal. When thermite burns, Jones said, it releases aluminum-oxide ash. The presence of both yellow-white molten iron and aluminum oxide ash "are signature characteristics of a thermite reaction," he said. Another item of evidence, Jones said, is the fact that sulfur traces were found in structural steel recovered from the Trade Towers. Jones quoted the New York Times as saying sulfidization in the recovered steel was "perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the (official) investigation." But, he said, sulfidization fits the theory that sulfur was combined with thermite to make the thermite burn even hotter than it ordinarily would. Jones said a piece of building wreckage had a gray substance on the outside that at one point had obviously been a dripping molten metal or liquid. He said that after thermite turns steel or iron into a molten form, and the metal hardens, it is gray. He added that pools of molten metal were found beneath both trade towers and the 47-story WTC 7. That fact, he said, was never discussed in official investigation reports. And even though WTC 7 was not connected to the Trade Towers — in fact, there was another building between it and the towers —and even though it was never hit by a plane, it collapsed. That suggests, he said, that it came down because a thermite fire caused its structural steel to fail. Jones said his studies are confined to physical causes of the collapses, and he doesn't like to speculate about who might have entered the buildings and placed thermite and sulfur. But he said 10 to 20 people "in the know," plus other people who didn't know what they were doing but did what they were told, could have placed incendiary packages over several weeks.<hr></blockquote>

by **darkbeforedawn** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:01 pm

So that kinda lets out the idea that demolition charges were built into the infrastructure, right?

by **StarmanSkye** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 5:59 pm

"So that kinda lets out the idea that demolition charges were built into the infrastructure, right?" Just curious -- What about sulfer-modified thermite would preclude it being built-in during construction? Let alone, modifications to this premise -- such that sulfer-enriched thermite supplemented C-4 built-in, or even added at some other time to boost explosives that might have some reliability issues after 35 years of aging, deterioration and elements-contamination, condensation, etc. Perhaps C-4 explosives and/or thermite were installed after the (CIA-aided and abetted) '93 bombing -- to better 'control' a catastrophic partial terrorist-bombing, ie., to minimize damage to neighborhood buildings from a toppling-fall (the unacknowledged 'official' explanation) OR in preparation for a future event (ie., 911). While I'm still not convinced CD is a fact or was necessary, I haven't stopped considering it or examining the evidence, let alone saying it's impossible. Some issues remain that argue strongly for CD IMO. I tend to think that id CD was involved, that having it built-in during construction is the most reasonable. But that also doesn't preclude having additional explosives added at a later time. I recall reading 3 anonymous accounts that claimed it was an openly-acknowledged but little-known fact that the WTC towers were built with explosives installed for most efficient controlled demolition at end-of-useful-life. This actually makes a lot of sense -- as would the PTB desire to keep this 'fact' hidden and denied. But if that's the case, then there has to be a sweetheart deal for the primary and secondary insurance providers, to cover a percentage of their loss in return for not contesting and publicizing this little-known detail. But how to explain that hundreds of engineers and contractors and others in the 'need-to-know' school not spilling the beans on this practice? Even IF it's reserved for only a handful of largest skyscrapers. I dunno. BTW: To show I'm still keeping an open-and-rigorous mind: <a href="http://usenet.jyxo.cz/odpoved/soc.culture.czecho-slovak/0603/metallurgical-examination-of-wtc-steel/1143730663">usenet.jyxo.cz/odpoved/so...1143730663</a> Metallurgical Examination of WTC Steel Suggests Explosives Although virtually all of the structural steel from the Twin Towers and Building 7 was removed and destroyed, preventing forensic analysis, FEMA's volunteer investigators did manage to perform "limited metallurgical examination" of some of the steel before it was recycled. Their observations, including numerous micrographs, are recorded in Appendix C of the WTC Building Performance Study. Prior to the release of FEMA's report, a fire protection engineer and two science professors published a brief report in JOM disclosing some of this evidence. 1 The results of the examination are striking. They reveal a phenomenon never before observed in building fires: eutectic reactions, which caused "intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese." The New York Times described this as "perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation." 2 WPI provides a graphic summary of the phenomenon. A one-inch column has been reduced to half-inch thickness. Its edges--which are curled like a paper scroll--have been thinned to almost razor sharpness. Gaping holes--some larger than a silver dollar--let light shine through a formerly solid steel flange. This Swiss cheese appearance shocked all of the fire-wise professors, who expected to see distortion and bending--but not holes. 911 revisited video: <a href="http://911revisited.infad.net/video.html">911revisited.infad.net/video.html</a> Case for Controlled Demo: Collapse times vs. momentum/free fall plots -- Pancake-theory doesn't add up: <a href="http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/BilliardBalls.html#c1">janedoe0911.tripod.com/Bi...ls.html#c1</a> While an important and well-done analysis, I'm disappointed that this site didn't plot the way the South Tower was observed to fail with the entire 30-floor upper section beginning to fall as a block (until it seemingly disintegrated-- but it's total mass, perhaps up to 150,000 TONNES, didn't just become -0-), but the analysis would still be relevant as each floor from about floor 74 down would have to be induced to fail, that is, start from -zero- motion and accelerate at G, ie 32.2 ft/sec^2, for ten feet until it HITS the next floor, and startes over again -- the point is, the rates for successive floor failure require calculated collapse times to account for the instant delay until momentum overloads each floor's structural resistance to fall. Calculated at ten-floor intervals, calculations indicate panacaking SHOULD have taken about 30 seconds -- if calculated at one-floor intervals it should have taken about 87 seconds. VERY intriguing issues that strongly argue for CD to cause observed near-freefall rate of collapse for the WTC towers. Not that I don't have problems with some of the conclusions -- such that 'most' of the mass and momentum of collapsed floors would disappear and be unavailable to contribute to progressive failure. Each floor weighed something like 5000 tons (if I recall correctly), and I doubt more than 10-20 percent would be in a temporary state of air-resistance-aided suspension, and so not directly 'pushing' on the lower load-bearing structure thru gravity at any given instant of collapse. IOW: There's STILL an enormous mass of at least some est. 80 percent of the building's floors collapsing that is crashing down. But also, I think Spooked here below (for instance) makes a very good argument for faults with the conventional pancake-collapse theory -- that even given localized floor-truss failures, it's hard (I believe he states it as 'impossible') for that to cause what was observed, global, near-symmetrical failure. The diagram re: free-fall speeds helps support Spooked's argument. I'm still kinda on the fence here, mebbe 60-40 (sometimes 80-20) on the 'side' of a mechanical failure for the Towers. I actually have less trouble thinking WTC 7 might have been CD. Related factoid: The WTC steel columns had tremendous longitudinal strength (as we know), but were very prone to shear-failure. Something to keep in mind. Starman <img src="http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/janedoe444/911/WTC-A4-150.jpg" style="border:0;"/> **** From Spooked's blog: http://wtcdemolition.blogspot.com/--quote-- I could see that a couple of floors, due to fire-induced weakening, could buckle and collapse, and that could conceivably start causing floors below to start dropping as well. I still think having a complete floor drop ten feet symmetrically is extremely unlikely, and that is the only way you would get enough momentum to start a progressive pancaking. Much more likely would be that the floor sagged on one side, where the trusses were weakened, and then that part gave way, pulling down the other side slowly (IE, the floor would not drop all at once). But I don't see how that floor collapse starts a global collapse or even the collapse of the next floor. But let's go with the assumption that one whole floor dropped ten feet, smashing into the floor below and knocking it loose, starting a cascading collapse. I think it is clear that this floor collapse would pull the floors AWAY from the outer columns and the inner core, certainly leaving those INTACT early on. So what would I expect to see then? Floors would collapse, say ten floors, leaving the outer walls more or less intact and the core intact. The outer walls would go first as they were weaker columns than the core columns. Unsupported, the outer walls would buckle, wave about and give way. This should still leave the core intact though! So the sequence should be: 1) floors collapsing 2) outer walls start weakening, eventually starting to wobble and break apart, 3) this would leave the core structure still standing-- you would see something like the Windsor building fire in Madrid, where there was an outer partial collapse, but the core would remain intact. 4) the floor pancaking might conceivably stop at the mechanical floors on floors 75-76, where there were thick steel beams supporting the floors instead of trusses. But let's say the momentum was so great, the pancaking floors broke through these beams-- 5) the floor pancaking would continue unabated for perhaps the height of the building as the momentum got too great to stop. 6) the complete outer walls of the tower would peel away 7) the core should STILL REMAIN INTACT! Now this might not be the most stable structure, and this might wobble and tip over at some point due to the stresses of the floors falling from it, but for a complete pancake collapse, I would expect to see some point where the complete core is left standing. Did we see this? No. Therefore, there was NO PANCAKE FLOOR COLLAPSE. So, how on earth does floor pancaking lead to complete global collapse including the core within 16 seconds (that is the maximal time that each tower could have collapsed in)? I just can't see it. It honestly makes no sense. (end)

by **FourthBase** » Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:35 am

Built into it at the time of construction is more reasonable than something installed the week before?

4/10/06 BYU physics prof more certain of thermite at WTC

4/10/06 BYU physics prof more certain of thermite at WTC

CD theory

Re: CD theory

Huh?

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