Announcing a New Website for Scientific Discussions, and a New Paper on the Pentagon

A new website, www.scientificmethod911.org is now up and running. Its primary purpose is the discussion of scientific papers on the events of 9/11. In order to maintain dialog at the level of principles inherent in the scientific method, the discussions will be moderated. After evaluation, comments and responses will be posted on the website in a discussion page. Authors are invited to submit their writings, both old and new, for discussion and feedback from the wider community of 9/11 researchers. Send papers to moderator@scimethod911.org. The community at large is invited to read the listed papers and provide comments and feedback.

A new paper is now available, “The Pentagon Attack: The Event Time Revisited,” by John D. Wyndham. From the abstract:

“Since publication of my paper, “The Pentagon Attack: Problems with Theories Alternative to Large Plane Impact,” questions have arisen about some statements made therein, specifically those concerned with the clock evidence for the event time. This paper reviews the evidence and finds that it is much more convincing for an event time around 9:38 am than for a proposed earlier time around 9:32 am. It is shown, by experiment, that the minute hand of the Heliport clock could easily have moved from a time around 9:38 am back to a time around 9:32 am because of the abrupt deceleration that occurred when the clock hit the ground after falling off the wall.”

You can find this paper on the above-mentioned new website at:

http://www.scientificmethod911.org/docs/Pentagon_Event_Time_Mar19_2013.pdf

John D. Wyndham
March 25, 2013

excellent idea

Thanks. Just a personal wish here, but I would sure love to see some in-depth scientific analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Bazant et al paper, "What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of WTC Twin Towers in New York."

http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/00%20WTC%20Collapse%20-%20What%20Did%20&%20Did%20Not%20Cause%2...

I think the approach you are taking for your website is a great one.

re excellent idea

Thank you for your comment, we'll consider that suggestion.

Peer Review: Bazant

Is it possible to see a report of the peer review process? Bazant's paper has an initial publication date of 9/13/01 with a few revisions that were 'finalized' one week later on the 22nd of September. I don't know directly about how the 'peer review' process typically unfolds, but publishing that fast -- and with a theory two days after the event -- before any physical evidence has been gathered and before any real measurements had been taken gives the appearance of an academic fraud.

"Modern science begins with data." -- Feynman

Satyakaama: Would assume you already know about these...

But just in case you don't....

All papers by scientists or engineers, hosted at various sites:

Momentum Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC 1
http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Journal_5_PTransferRoss.pdf

Dr. Seffen Paper Proven Ludicrous
http://rinf.com/alt-news/911-truth/cambridge-university-twin-towers-theory-debunked/2353/

Discussion of ”Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Center: A Simple Analysis” by K.A. Seffen
http://www2.ae911truth.org/docs/Seffenrevpub.pdf

The MIssing Jolt: A Simple Refutation of the NIST-Bazant Collapse Hypothesis
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/TheMissingJolt7.pdf

9/11 and the Twin Towers: Sudden Collapse Initiation was Impossible
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200703/Sudden_collapse_initiation_impossible.pdf

Dr. Bazant - NIST's Fall Guy
http://911blogger.com/node/9154/print

Can Physics Rewrite History?
http://www.truememes.com/911_physics.html

Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf

Most are linked here:

http://www.ae911truth.org/en/evidence.html#Technical_Articles

But there are likely others out there as well, and in other languages.

PS:

Here's one that doesn't reference Bazant per se, just his model:

http://www.reformy.cz/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nemec_I_2.pdf

More...

http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/comments/bazantzhou.html

https://8623ab44-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/resipsa2006/bazant-bjorkman/Bazant_Discussion_Closure.pdf

http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/D25%20WTC%20Discussions%20Replies.pdf

PS: Last I heard, a discussion by Tony Szamboti and Richard Johns from last year is still being held by the JEM. The politics of publishing papers in JEM, particularly those critical of Bazant, has become a discussion unto itself.

Two things... (and some more)

Thanks JN. I must emphasize two things:

1) I believe it is crucial that Bazant's paper ("What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse..." 2008) be evaluated meticulously step by step, and by someone with PhD level math and/or physics experience. Both Bazant's verbal language and his equations, including their validity pertaining to the specific event, must be carefully scrutinized. This project would be laborsome but crucial in waking up the engineering world, should Bazant be shown fraudulent. Some authors have specifically refuted Bazant's paper ("What Did and Did Not..."), but not in the comprehensive, detailed, and mathematical manner, in which I am imagining.

2) It is Bazant, as much as the collapses, that need to be here evaluated. Bazant is no half-wit. He is among the most knowledgeable structural engineers on the planet. Any absurd errors committed by him are likely committed on purpose. Any mainstream engineer who learns Bazant is fraudulent regarding 9/11 has to scratch his/her own head. To destroy Bazant is to destroy perhaps the strongest piece of the official collapse narrative.
----------------------------------

Thanks for the links. I have read most of the papers, though not the one at http://www.civil.northwestern... etc. It is much appreciated.

Also... some quick notes about Bazant and his 2008 paper (which is itself a revision--of a revision, I think--of a paper by the same title; though this differs from his 2001 paper):

Bazant fails to reference the very authors he is claiming to debunk. If memory serves, there is no citation pertaining to the "outsiders" who favor the CD hypothesis.

Bazant speaks in the paper's abstract of the amount of TNT required to comminute the concrete. He doesn't mention thermite until later in the paper, and only in passing.

Bazant presumably knows much more about nanocomposites than he is letting on. At this site

http://www.911review.com/articles/ryan/nist_thermite_connection.html

one can find the following citation and quote... http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/resume.pdf

"During the last few years, Bazant focused attention on the scaling of thin metallic films and nanocomposites on approach to nanoscale."

That quote is taken (by Kevin Ryan) from Bazant's resume at Northwestern University. I have read the resume, and the quote is from very near the end, perhaps the penultimate sentence. The last time I tried to access Bazant's resume, the page was no longer available. The resume was from 2007 or 2008, if I remember correctly.

Sorry if I'm repeating what people know. But, man, prove Bazant a fraud by means of his own paper, and I think the center of the official story will fall apart.

I want to repeat that

"During the last few years, Bazant focused attention on the scaling of thin metallic films and nanocomposites on approach to nanoscale."

What is a structural engineer doing focusing on the "scaling of thin metallic films and nanocomposites on approach to nanoscale" ???

Maybe there is a prosaic explanation. But it certainly seems interesting and germane.

Bazant's resume (2010)

http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/docs/Bazant/Zdenek_Bazant_CV.pdf

The sentence about nanocomposites is at the beginning of the penultimate paragraph.

Also of interest are the resume's last two sentences: "Later he published a theory of progressive collapse of tall building, verified it by reported observations on WTC, and showed how it could be calibrated by monitoring building demolitions."

Does Bazant's resume connect him with thermite?

Apologies for so many comments, Dr. Wyndham, but this keeps getting stranger.

Please note the adverb, "epitaxially", which appears near the end of the aforesaid penultimate paragraph of Bazant's resume.

What is epitaxy? Here's a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitaxy It says:

"Epitaxy refers to the deposition of a crystalline overlayer on a crystalline substrate, where the overlayer is in registry with the substrate. In other words, there must be one or more preferred orientations of the overlayer with respect to the substrate for this to be termed epitaxial growth. The overlayer is called an epitaxial film or epitaxial layer. The term epitaxy comes from the Greek roots epi, meaning "above", and taxis, meaning "in ordered manner". It can be translated "to arrange upon". For most technological applications, it is desired that the deposited material form a crystalline overlayer that has one well-defined orientation with respect to the substrate crystal structure (single-domain epitaxy).

Epitaxial films may be grown from gaseous or liquid precursors. Because the substrate acts as a seed crystal, the deposited film may lock into one or more crystallographic orientations with respect to the substrate crystal. If the overlayer either forms a random orientation with respect to the substrate or does not form an ordered overlayer, this is termed non-epitaxial growth. If an epitaxial film is deposited on a substrate of the same composition, the process is called homoepitaxy; otherwise it is called heteroepitaxy."

Might this compare with crystalline formation of the red layer in the Harrit et al paper? Both the aluminum lattice and the rhomboidal iron oxide grains, come to mind.

(The more I reread the resume, the more uncertain I am becoming. Was Bazant studying in situ material? In any case, I will stop editing this, and leave it as is, in case there is something to it.)

Experiments count

"It is shown, by experiment, that the minute hand of the Heliport clock could easily have moved from a time around 9:38 am back to a time around 9:32 am because of the abrupt deceleration that occurred when the clock hit the ground after falling off the wall."

That's a great idea, to actually drop the clock and see what happens. I wasn't aware that Pickering had suggested that.

"Given the inability to locate any information about previous clock experiments, the author decided to take up Pickering’s challenge himself."

Yes, it's important to have an experimental record of this information that won't be easily lost on the internet.

Several interesting points in the paper:

"The existence of a third wall clock reading 9:36:27 by itself seriously undermines the two wall clocks’ evidence presented by Honegger."

"Could the fall have caused the minute hand to move closer to a 9:31:30 am time for two of the clocks, as suggested by Russell Pickering? See the section “Wall Clock Experiments” for an experimental test of this suggestion for a clock virtually identical to the Heliport clock. The result of the experiment is that the minute hand can move back readily, even for a drop of 4 feet, as much as 8 minutes or more (to around the 9:30 am position), depending upon the clock’s orientation when it strikes the floor. This experimental evidence proves Honegger’s claim that the wall clocks’ provide the “ultimate evidence,” to be without foundation."

"Honegger’s remaining evidence items all entail time pieces, mainly personal wristwatches, for which there can be no certainty they were set or read correctly."

"The main evidence for a Pentagon event time of around 9:32 am has been shown to consist of readings from wall clocks and personal time pieces. The hitherto strongest part of that evidence, the two stopped Pentagon clocks, is shown by experiment to be untrustworthy because of the ease with which the minute hand of the Heliport clock can move backwards in time, together with the existence of a third stopped clock frozen at a time close to the official event time. The evidence from other time pieces such as personal watches is unreliable and unverifiable. There is a body of evidence, equal to that for the 9:32 am time, from similar time pieces that give times between 9:35 am and 9:43 am. Because of these uncertainties, the time piece evidence, pro or con, was not used in reaching a conclusion."

Here is one of the trials of dropping the clock: http://www.scientistsfor911truth.org/docs/EXP3.MOV (more here http://www.scientistsfor911truth.org/mempages/Wyndham.html)

Nice paper, careful and very focused on a single point, using an experiment, which can provide some of the strongest evidence.

TWO events at the Pentagon, perhaps?

The problem of the timing regarding what happened at the Pentagon could be explained by two separate incidents - one at (approximately) 09-32, and the second at (approximately) 09-38.

A possible indication: Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djGxQYCrCts

Porter Goss is seen here being interviewed by the media, shortly before the event(s) at the Pentagon. At 27 seconds into the clip, there is a sound, of an explosion; people gasp and turn their heads around in reaction. This explosion sound is not preceded by the sound of a low flying jet. Goss, completely unfazed, then calmly says: "....as you can tell, as we speak, there are still things going on .....".

Shortly after the explosion, at around 45 seconds in the clip, there is the whining roar of a low flying jet plane, sounding as if it is coming in to land. People look across and up at the sound, shading their eyes from the sun. Goss then exclaims "I think it might be a good idea if we got out of this ...."

If the sound of the plane in this video was the jet that hit the Pentagon, then what was the cause of the explosion shortly beforehand? The pertinent question here: Were there any *other* low flying jets in the vicinity of the Pentagon at the same time it was allegedly hit by AA77?

"Porter Goss is seen here

"Porter Goss is seen here being interviewed by the media, shortly before the event(s) at the Pentagon."

How did you determine this was before 9:37am?

Anomaly

Thanks, Kawika, obviously a highly relevant question. Unfortunately it''s hard to determine the exact time of this interview. However, in the clip, there are a number of scenes where the Sun's shadow from various visible objects can be seen. I don't know is there is any way to reliably/ accurately determine the Sun's angle of elevation from the shadow evidence in the video from using one camera source, but if this were possible - we know the date - 9/11/2001 and the location's exact latitude - then we might be able to determine the time of day, +/- a few minutes.

We do know that Goss was in the Capitol area that morning - that's on the record. We also see in the video that bystanders are calm and curious - there are tourists standing around with backpacks, and there are no frantic police activities or evacuations going on, which was the case in the Capitol area shortly after the Pentagon was hit. This *suggests* that the interview had started before the Pentagon was hit - ie before anyone on the ground was aware that the attack had extended outside of Manhattan.

The other things which suggests that the interview happened around the time of the Pentagon event... are the sound of the distant explosion and the noise of the low flying plane. Does anyone know if there any other recorded instances of explosions in the DC area on the morning of 9/11, and were there other instances of very low flying commercial jet airplanes in the vicinity at the same time?

I trolled through maps of AA77's flight path, and there are a number of variations. Several put the 'descending 270º loop' as passing close to the Capitol/White House area, while others keep it west of the Potomac. Which is correct? If AA77 did indeed pass close to the Capitol, then there is a likelihood that the airplane heard in the video is indeed AA77. If it can be proved that is the case, then we have a major anomaly - the explosion heard and clearly witnessed by onlookers in the clip would have been caused by something other than AA77.

youtube url

The url you posted goes to "Roy Harper - BBC Breakfast, 19th September 2011"

Correct URL:

That is very bizarre... and I cant seem to be able to edit that post.

The correct URL should be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q44verk-cwM

Time to dig deeper

Please connect with me through blogger contact. There are many facets to this story that require exploration and finalization.

Brainstorming is in order.

Thank you very much.

Thanks

Posts can't be edited once they are replied to.

There is video from after the crash at the pentagon, which contains a secondary explosion. I don't have the link handy, maybe someone else does. Nailing down the exact time of the Goss interview would be helpful. I would start by finding out exactly when it aired first, the archive.org footage should be useful for that.

Multiple Explosions at the Pentagon

Reporters confirm 3 booms, secondary explosions, after initial boom. They report smelling awful smell 'almost like when a fluorescent light goes bad' (cordite)? Were explosives responsible for bringing down the facade? And punching the hole in the C-ring? Were explosives used prior to plane impact?

If no interceptors were on the tail of Flight 77, then what plane is observed in the Porter Goss video? If the plane in the PG video is Flight 77, then what caused the explosion seconds prior? And what caused the explosions at the Pentagon after 9:37?

Secondary Explosion

~9:42 am

Captured up close by Daryl Donley.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_911_135.htm

Captured by NBC camera atop the USA Today (Rosslyn) building
(@ mark 30:43--under the peacock logo)

http://archive.org/details/nbc200109110912-0954

Captured by CBS camera atop the USA Today (Rosslyn) building
(@ mark 30:39)

http://archive.org/details/cbs200109110912-0954

Two events? The evidence says no.

The problem with the two-event theory, which arises from Barbara Honneger's work, and nowhere else as far as I know, is that there were a lot of people in the area at the time and none of them mentions two events. Had there been a substantial explosive event followed 6 minutes later by a plane impact, it would have been glaringly obvious to all these people and would have been reported.

There is no possible reason to doubt the official time of impact. The meticulous work of John Farmer based on radar analysis, calibrated using TV images from the south tower, confirms impact within a few seconds, as does the FDR file. Thus if there were two events, the early one was not the plane impact.

Here are 9 witnesses who were in a position to observe an explosion, if it had occurred, 6 minutes prior to impact:
http://scienceof911.com.au/pentagon/critique-of-barbara-honegger/

example of an "error" by Bazant

Beginning with the abstract in Bazant's 2008 paper, we find striking problems. He claims collapses of WTC 1 and 2 are " totally out of range of the freefall hypothesis, on which these allegations rest." This statement is readily falsifiable. Jim Hoffmans'site http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/collapses/freefall.html speaks of a rapid fall, but gives it as significantly slower than freefall. And one could list many other examples of papers (as linked above on this current page) that do not *rely* on a freefall hypothesis for CD arguments of WTC 1 and 2.

Bazant's statement reads like intentional misdirection. I am trying to give him some benefit of the doubt, but the most charitable perspective I can imagine, is that he is exceptionally ignorant of the papers that we at 9/11Blogger are familiar with. In the quoted statement, Bazant is either a liar or incompetent.

Fraud

I'm inclined to go with fraud and here's why:

1) What was the hurry to get the first paper out on 9/13 and completed with expansion/addendum by September 28, 2001? http://www-math.mit.edu/~bazant/WTC/WTC-asce.pdf It's not like he's running to the patent office trying to claim an invention (a pun!) in which case some excited sloppiness might be excused.
2) There's a great video lecture online of Prof. Feynman discussing the physical laws and gravity in particular. Therein he describes the meticulous measurements that Tycho Brahe made of the motion of the planets which allowed Kepler to mathematically describe their orbits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3mhkYbznBk This is the source of my paraphrase quote of Feynman above; this is the source of the modern approach to science.
3) To my knowledge and as revealed in his papers of 2001 and 2007, Bazant was not gathering physical evidence nor making precise measurements prior to formulating his theory, but instead was rushing to lend legitimacy to the politically palpable, non-explosive destruction hypothesis.
4) The towers were previously attacked in '93 with explosives and it is/was completely reasonable to thoroughly examine that possibility on the way toward a theory of the tower collapses. Instead we see Bazant ignoring witnesses to explosions prior to and at the onset of destruction by going into his 'sonic boom' hypothesis of wind-generated explosion sounds toward the end of the event.

In my humble opinion, Bazant's 'error' is fraud (because as has been mentioned, the man ain't stupid).

Already Prepped - Continued

Maybe he wrote it in advance and then just put the final touches on it as the real world events unfolded for a touch of realism.

Those who voted against this post are not living in the real world. If the BBC knew in advance about Building 7. why couldn't a scientist be given a request from the technocrats running the events to come up with a "scientific paper" that could be flashed as real science right after the events? It's the most logical explanation and modern science (as found in the FDA among others) is full of junk payed for by the government and think tanks anyway.

Someone I met at Cal in engineering at the time was furious that a Cal professor put an unscientific collapse theory on line and in his courses for the WTC.

In the real world

BlackOps are need to know.

Bazant didn't need to know. His paper is junk, easily written after the event.

The paper is so bad, I think it's evidence in itself that it was quickly written after.

The warnings for WTC7 were happening all day. That does not mean the people reading or receiving those warnings were "in on it". Aaron Brown knew enough about NYC to look back and correct himself (he could see 7 was still standing).

We have evidence that a few people were aware the buildings were coming down, Giuliani got a phone call telling him so, there is the infamous "Who the fuck told you that?", and someone (more likely some group) was putting out the warnings and explanations over the radio and news feeds.

http://911encyclopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Who_the_fuck_told_you_that

Also, warnings about the buildings coming down right before the events is much lower risk for the perpetrators than a specific warning about the buildings days ahead of time.

Speculating that having Bazant's paper was so important that he was told ahead of time to write it is a weak argument and distracts from scientific criticism.

Reminds me of another recent comment suggesting Goodman was "invited" to watch.
http://911blogger.com/news/2012-11-08/911-truth-confronts-amy-goodman-democracy-now-cal-poly-san-luis-obispo#comment-258008

Who knew?

Richard Zarillo was told by John Peruggia to go tell Chief Ganci.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110161.PDF

See Page 5.

John Peruggia was told by an engineer, "...the north tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110160.PDF

See page 17

Right