news.yahoo.com

Many 9/11 conspiracy theories revolve around explosions that were seen and heard in the World Trade Center's Twin Towers prior to their collapse. Despite scientific investigations that have explained the processes that brought down the skyscrapers, some conspiracy theorists suggest the plane impacts were just red herrings, to distract from the fact that 9/11 was an "inside job" — that explosives had been implanted earlier in the World Trade Center buildings and were what really brought them down.

Now a materials scientist has come up with a more scientific explanation for the mystery booms, and says his model of the Twin Towers collapse leaves no room for conspiracies. "My model explains all the observed features on 11th September: the explosions, molten metal coming out of the window, the time passing between the crash and the collapse, the fact that the explosions took place in a floor below the place it was burning, and the rapid collapse," Christen Simensen of SINTEF, a research organization in Norway, told Life's Little Mysteries.

As detailed in the new issue of Aluminum International Today, Simensen argues that molten aluminum from the airplane bodies chemically reacted with water in the buildings' sprinkler systems, setting off the explosions that felled the Twin Towers. [Did Nostradamus Really Predict the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks?]

Chain of events

When each jet cut its way into a building, it took with it parts of walls and ceilings, Simensen said. Steel bars in those walls would have gashed its fuel tanks, which would have caught fire. With the plane positioned somewhere in the middle of the building, blanketed in debris and with no route for heat to escape, the temperature would have rapidly escalated, reaching 660 degrees Celsius (1,220 degrees Fahrenheit), the melting point of aluminum — of which there was 30 tons in each plane fuselage — within an hour. The molten aluminum would then have heated up further to between 800 and 850 C (1,470 and 1,560 F).

"Then molten aluminum becomes [as liquid as] water and has so much heat that it will flow through cracks in the floor and down to the next floor," Simensen explained in an email. There was an automatic sprinkler system installed in each ceiling, and it was filled with water. "When huge amount of molten aluminum gets in contact with water, a fierce exothermic reaction will take place, enormous amount of hydrogen is formed and the temperature is locally raised to 1,200 to 1,500 C," or 2,200 to 2,700 F.

Chaos rapidly ensues: "A series of explosions will take place and a whole floor will be blown to pieces," he wrote. "Then the top part of the building will fall on the bottom part, and the tower will collapse within seconds." This is what Simensen believes happened in the two World Trade Center towers.

This isn't obscure chemistry, Simensen says; the U.S. Aluminum Association has recorded 250 accidental molten aluminum/water explosions worldwide since 1980. "Alcoa in Pittsburgh [the worldwide leader in aluminum production] has done a series of such explosions in special laboratory in order to understand what can prevent such explosions and what are the most dangerous situations," he wrote. "For instance they let 30 kilograms [66 pounds] of aluminum react with 20 liters [5.3 gallons] of water, which resulted in a large hole 30 meters [98 feet] in diameter, and nothing left of the laboratory."

The third tower

A third building, World Trade Center 7, fell eight hours after the others. Scientists explained that this happened because of fires that ignited in the building upon the collapse of WTC 1, but some conspiracy theorists take it as further proof that the impacts of the hijacked airplanes weren't what brought any of the buildings down.

Simensen says his theory does not challenge the accepted scientific explanation of the collapse of WTC7.

"The official governmental report said the collapse [of World Trade Center 1 and 2] was due to overheating steel bars in the buildings and did not mention anything about explosions. Their theory … can be used to explain why WTC7 … collapsed. This collapse took place after eight hours of fire and was much slower than the collapse of WTC 1 and WTC 2," Simensen wrote. [10 Ways 9/11 Impacted Science]

Fiery reaction

Simensen's new collapse model has not gained immediate acceptance by proponents of earlier models.

"Occam's Razor says that the simplest explanation is usually the best," said Thomas Eagar, a materials scientist at MIT who has also studied the fall of the towers. "I do not see any merit to this new, more-complex explanation. Any firefighter trying to extinguish a fire without having the water or the electricity shut off will tell you that there will be periodic explosions from inside the building. I don't need to invoke some water/molten aluminum theory to explain this."

Eagar also objects to the notion that the aluminum, if it did melt, would definitely have reacted with the water it encountered. Most of the time when water is sprayed on molten aluminum, "there is no explosion because the water turns to steam and excludes the oxygen, preventing the growth of the combustion," he said.

Along similar lines, Zdenek Bazant, a professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern University who was first to model how fires could have caused steel columns in the towers to buckle (leading to the buildings' collapses), thinks that the official explanation suffices. "I've explained it in six papers in leading journals," Bazant said. In his opinion, all factors related to the collapse have been accounted for.

But not everyone in the industry agrees with the simpler, official explanation. Roughly 1,600 architects and structural engineers across the country, who have banded together in a group called "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth," say it does not fully account for the buildings' collapses. With so many people looking for answers, Simensen's alternative theory is likely to receive further attention and study.

The one major problem with the conspiracy theories is that Al Quaeda claimed responsibility for them. Osama Bin Laden said he organised it, a claim which led to the invasion of Afghanistan, the ousting of the Taliban from that country and eventually the death of the man himself last year. How do you explain that exactly?

So you're researching conspiracy theories without knowing what we've been told in the first place? Seems kinda backwards to me.

I assumed he was joking but if he's not then he obviously never reads or watches any news in which case his opinions on world politics and affairs are completely redundant.

And you are basing this on one internet video that says:

"Hey look at this, don't you think this really looks like a building that was destroyed using explosives rather than a fire?? I mean it REALLY looks like it doesn't it? Honestly, look at it! It looks like it was blown up so that means it was!"

If that is the level of evidence you require then for your own sake please steer well clear of people on the street offering you free stress tests.

I don't have the foggiest, I'm not an engineer. However, I don't think you'll find a single reputable expert who thinks it was brought now with explosives.

You might be wrong there Tom

Website to architects and engineers for 911 truth.
ae911truth.org

Lecture by Dr Richard Gage

There's quite a few architects and engineers who believe it was brought down by explosives, headed by Dr Richard Gage.

If you listened to his lectures, I'm sure you would be swayed a little more to believing the explosives hypothesis. However, he seems to think that the explosive used was Thermite. In the history of building demolition Thermite has never been used. You would have had to have used tonnes of the stuff to bring a building the size of the twin towers down. Not very practical. He went on to hypothesise about 'super thermite', that I doubt even exists. Without any evidence of a suitable explosive, all you really have is that the buildings look like they freefall as they would if you had used explosives.

:0 It's like Rule 10 never existed...

To be fair as I was writing that I was thinking there probably is some nut job engineer somewhere who thinks it was explosives. Whether he's reputable or not is another matter.

Here's quite a nice page which pretty much sums up my opinion of conspiracy theories:

"1. A good conspiracy theory suggests that the government is competent enough to map out the strategy, plan the mission, subvert the individuals required to run the plot and then carry it out without getting caught. For anyone who has ever worked for government, it is known that the level of competency required to create such a conspiracy is beyond that of virtually any government – democratic or otherwise.

2. A conspiracy theory assumes that the government pays its employees enough to remain silent. Given the untold millions that could be made by a single book deal revealing the conspiracy and the relatively low rates of pay in government, this is obviously a ludicrous suggestion.

3. The 9/11 conspiracy theory assumes that the rank and file worker in government who helped carry out the conspiracy would tolerate and assist in the mass murder of their fellow citizens. This might be a fair criticism of senior political leaders in some states, but it is a slanderous accusation for the vast majority of government workers in democratic states.

In addition to these general guidelines, it is useful to keep the principle of Occam’s razor in mind when doing analysis on major events: the simplest solution is usually the correct one. If a large airplane full of jet fuel crashes into an extraordinarily tall building at a high rate of speed, then it was probably the airplane that caused the building to fall, not a cabal of unseen secretive government operatives who committed a mass murder against their own citizens."

globalbrief.ca

I'd be interested to hear Alienbeing's thoughts on any of those arguments.

Can't wait.

Hopefully it will be something along the lines of......

A secret elite team of Illumnati that run the government of the United States were responsible for organising the demolition of the twin towers using 45 tonnes of explosives. Luckily nobody working in the twin towers was able to spot the the ninja like explosive experts that were able to sneak the copious amounts of explosives past security, transporting it up the secret elevators, then distributing it on multiple floors.

The plan was to fly 2 massive fuel laden jumbo jets into either building which would have been enough to destroy any building on the planet. But it was better to be safe than sorry and risk being exposed by sneaking in explosives and hiring countless individuals (potential whistle blowers) to do the job. Hopefully these callous individuals wouldn't need paying off with too high a price for their complete lack of guilt and to keep them quiet for the heinous murder of their countrymen.

Of course just smashing up the trade centres is not a big enough spectacle, you might as well risk the same again and blow up WTC7 with more explosives! There's plenty of computers and secret filing cabinets with files on UFO's in building 7 that needed destroying anyway.

I think it may help Alienbeing to understand how ludicrous this whole thing is to appeal to his intense misogyny.

The conspiracy theory is a particularly female viewpoint. It abandons logic and appeals to emotion. The 9/11 conspiracy adds excitement and a feeling of western control over what is ultimately a terrifying and chaotic act of terrorism. "No, it wasn't the bearded lunatics randomly maiming and killing innocent people in our own country with no warning. It was a carefully planned secret plot masterminded by our secret services to precisely and surgically murder their own people for political gain."

Alienbeing, you are desperately romantacising what is a very basic act of mass murder because your feeble brain cannot accept the brute facts. Some horrible people want you and everyone else in western society dead as a fucking dodo and there's nothing you can do about it. Except for randomly murdering men with beards and women in burkas of course.

Alien I think you should start up a conspiracy group on here then we can discuss what worries you. Of course you had better hurry up because the world is going to end in 2012 according to the Mayans. A civilization that couldn't even predict it's own demise.

Of particular interest to me are you thoughts on:

Chemtrails
HAARP

The moon landing hoaxes need a good dusting off too, we've not visited those bad boys in too long.

Do you like gladiator films Billy?

Get a load of this one Alien, right up your street