NIST Responds With Frequently Asked Q&A.

[Bushwick Bill]

Enjoy! :popcorn:

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

[greyl]

1. Woah! A bit surprising that they're responding to CD

but I'm quite happy about it.

Thanks.

[mhatrw]

2. Weird. I notice they completely avoided the main question.

What did the actual physical evidence you examined show?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=45315&mesg_id=45315

[Grateful for Hope]

3. It seemed to me that they were simply trying to debunk

without providing any new or valuable information. But, I am not an expert on NIST, so, this was simply my impression.

[John Q. Citizen]

5. They are responding to the fact that many are questioning.the

OCT.

It's a pre-emptive CYA.

Smart actually, from an organizational point of view.

[Grateful for Hope]

29. This is what I was thinking also...n/t

[mhatrw]

8. My Questions.

1) You claim that the fires reached 1000C in temperature, and that the steel reached a comparable temperature due to loss of fireproofing. So why were you unable to retreive a single piece of steel that showed heating above 600C, and only 2 pieces that showed pre-collapse heating above 250C?

2) Why didn't you analyze all the recovered metal to determine their temperature exposures as exactly as possible?

3) Why didn't you analyze the recovered metal for chemical residue?

4) Why didn't you analyze the recovered metal for signs of sulfidation or any other chemical attacks?

5) Why was no metal whatsover recovered from WTC-7 by NIST? Could this have anything to do with the fact that the only two pieces of metal recovered from WTC-7 (by FEMA) showed signs of severe sulfidation at a high temperature when they were metallurgically examined?

6) Why does your report significantly differ from both the seismic evidence and the 9/11 Commission's report concerning the times of impact?

7) Why was your own test unable to simulate a collapse even after six hours of high temperature exposure?

8) Why didn't NIST study what happened after the initial collapse sequences -- including what occurred in the debris pile post-collapse? Why were these phenomena deemed to be of no scientific or engineering importance?

9) Just why did WTC-7 collapse, anyway?

10) Finally, what is this supposed to mean?

9. If thick black smoke is characteristic of an oxygen-starved, lower temperature, less intense fire, why was thick black smoke exiting the WTC towers when the fires inside were supposed to be extremely hot?

Nearly all indoor large fires, including those of the principal combustibles in the WTC towers, produce large quantities of optically thick, dark smoke. This is because, at the locations where the actual burning is taking place, the oxygen is severely depleted and the combustibles are not completely oxidized to colorless carbon dioxide and water.

The visible part of fire smoke consists of small soot particles whose formation is favored by the incomplete combustion associated with oxygen-depleted burning. Once formed, the soot from the tower fires was rapidly pushed away from the fires into less hot regions of the building or directly to broken windows and breaks in the building exterior. At these lower temperatures, the soot could no longer burn away. Thus, people saw the thick dark smoke characteristic of burning under oxygen-depleted conditions.

[Grateful for Hope]

11. Am thinking this post is not meant to be responding to my post? n/t

[mhatrw]

14. I was continuing your thought that NIST was simply doing some

cherry picked debunking rather than addressing the real questions about their study.

I may have gotten a bit carried away ;-)

[Grateful for Hope]

16. I understand.

and, I think maybe you were not getting carried away...:)

[Carefulplease]

35. Times of impact...

Edited to add reference.

6) Why does your report significantly differ from both the seismic evidence and the 9/11 Commission's report concerning the times of impact?

Actually the time of the second impact NIST got from several timestamped telecasts closely match (within 3 seconds) the LDEO times inferred from seismic data. LDEO further analyzed the recorded signals and the revised times are reported in the NIST report. They perfectly match the times from the telecasts.

The times from the radar signals are approximate and can not be relied on. This has been discussed in the recent "Smoking Gun" thread.

I see that Make7 has recently provided a convenient list of the most relevant links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=105267&mesg_id=111818

[mhatrw]

37. Please explain why LDEO got the original times wrong by 3 seconds.

And why are the original times still up on their web paper without any note of this "correction"?

The seismic station was just 21 miles away. It should have taken less than 10 seconds for even the slower P-waves generated by the impact to reach the seismic station. Under these circumstances, LDEO's publication of two measurements, both with errors of 3 seconds, is remarkable. What caused these errors?

[Carefulplease]

41. Maybe seismology is more complicated than you think.

I suppose you might find some explanations about the new methodology in the more recent paper. So, look it up. 3 seconds isn't much of a difference when the measures both have an uncertainty of (+-)1 sec. I see nothing "remarkable" about such a small discrepancy. Those are also low amplitude events that have fuzzy boundaries that mesh in the background noise.

Why do they have a lousy webmaster? Don't ask me.

[mhatrw]

48. You see nothing remarkable about a published margin of error

being off by 300%? You must have had a very lenient scientific education.

The report you have advised me to "look up" is entitled Final Technical Report to the Building and Fire Research Laboratory with no further information indicating any publication. Where exactly would you direct me to "look it up"?

[Carefulplease]

59. This kind of error adjustment is not uncommon at all...

Error bars only quantify *known* sources of errors. They do not account for the effects from some mistaken or inaccurate assumptions. In any complex study, when new data come in, when assumptions are revisited, and when the analysis is refined, the magnitude of the original error bars are just as likely to increase than not.

You just have no basis for criticizing the original work when you haven't even looked at it or at the revised analysis and the explanation for the original error. I *did* point to the post where Make7 provides the reference to the study. You might have to contact LDEO or to visit a library to obtain a copy.

[mhatrw]

62. Visit a library?

This paper was not published in any public scientific journal.

If you think otherwise, please name the journal.

[Carefulplease]

68. That is a bummer.

If the paper in unpublished then you might have to fall back on the alternate solution I proposed. Contact L-DEO or Dr Kim. If they do not oblige then you will want to file a FOIA request with NIST.

[Make7]

44. Those questions would best be directed to the people that did the studies.

Here is some information that you might find interesting:

Energy in seismic waves travels in several modes. The compression or P wave travels through the body of the Earth. It is the fastest wave and is the same as sound waves in air or water. Particle motion for a P wave is a compression / expansion motion. The shear or S wave also travels through the body of the Earth. The S wave typically travels about half the speed of the P wave. Particle motion for an S wave is a twisting motion. S waves do not travel in air or water.

There are two waves that travel along the surface called Rayleigh and Love waves after the scientists who first described them. Both are slower than S waves. Particle motion in Rayleigh waves is a vertical ellipse. The slowest waves, Love waves, don’t exist everywhere. They require a shear wave velocity profile with a low velocity layer at the surface and a much faster layer just under it. The particle motion is horizontal side to side. The equation describing the velocity of Love waves is quite complex. Both Rayleigh and Love waves can be dispersive, i.e. the velocity depends on frequency.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2005-03/1110537727.Es.r.html

(I recommend that you read that entire page.)

"The fastest waves, the P-wave, travels outward at a speed of about 3 to 5 miles/second."

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/whathappens.html

You gave the distance to the seismic station as 21 miles in your post. That would give us, for "the slower P-waves", about 4-7 seconds to travel from the WTC to Palisades, N.Y. according to the figure cited above.

But if you look at the numbers taken from the following early LDEO paper, their use of Rg waves would give us 17 seconds for the seismic signal to travel from the WTC to Palisades.

(the nearest station is 34 km away at Palisades, N.Y.)

    <- snip ->

Signals at Palisades from Impacts and Collapses
    Figure 1 shows seismic signals at Palisades, N.Y. (PAL) for the impacts and collapses, which are labeled by their arrival time order. Note that impact 1 and collapse 2 relate to the north tower, and impact 2 and collapse 1 apply to the south tower. Computed origin times and seismic magnitudes are listed in Figure 1. Origin times with an uncertainty of 2 s were calculated from the arrival times of Rg waves at PAL using a velocity of 2 km/s.

    <- snip ->

    Surface waves were the largest seismic waves observed at various stations. The presence of seismic body waves is questionable even at Palisades for the two largest collapses; they are not observed at other stations.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/LCSN/Eq/20010911_WTC/WTC_LDEO_KIM.pdf

I also found the following page to be of some interest:

http://quake.usgs.gov/research/3Dgeologic/index.html

(Be sure to check out the "Seismic wave velocities at shallow depths" map near the bottom of the page.)

- Make7

[mhatrw]

47. Yes, they would. Unfortunately, these people have a choice of

getting with the plan or rocking the boat.

Considering the stakes, what's a few seconds between associates?

Even at a 2 km/s, a three second error is a 6 km error. At just 34 km away, that's about an 18% error. What caused this error? (Or more accurately, IMHO, at whose request was this "scientific" revision made?)

[Make7]

53. I think the issue would probably be with the velocity figure they used.

How did they calculate that the velocity should have been 2 km/s for their original calculations? Perhaps their knowledge of surface wave propagation in that area has improved between the studies. Calculating an arrival time looks to be a rather complex process to me.

But instead of me speculating on what may have led to the revised numbers, why don't you just contact one of the authors? Here is a page with contact information:

http://webcenter.ldeo.columbia.edu:81/people.nsf/c4f65a2662e6f09485256ee80071b305/9b8d4117b523833185256ef300648208?OpenDocument

You should ask him for a copy of the latest study. Let us know what you find out.

- Make7

[mhatrw]

54. So you think the "old" wave propagation velocity from downtown NY

to the Palisades seismograph 34 km away was off by 18%?

What experiments do you think have been done in the interim to confirm this 18% error? Do you think seismologists across the world need to revise their published margins of error in light of the fact that 18% wave speed estimate discrepancies of this sort have now been found to be routine?

It seems to me that the discovery and application of this correction deserves far wider distribution than a private, unpublished report. The correction of this 18% error, be it systemic or simply a local variation, would seem to me to be of critical importance to a number of seismologists and perhaps the whole field of seismology. Can you think of any reason why a discovery of such importance would go unnoted and unpublished except as a footnote in another document?

[Make7]

58. How did they arrive at the 2 km/s number in the original paper? ( n/t )

[MissWaverly]

51. I had that feeling as well

it seemed like the usual baloney, reformatted into a Q&A format, to convince skeptics that they
are genuinely and objectively reviewing facts, but it's amazing how we are presented theory
why isn't there data, lines of scientific analysis, feel like they need Truth is All in their
corner. I know that I am expressing myself badly, but I saw a special where they recreated
the titanic disaster in a lab environment, they were able to show the whole thing replayed hour
by hour with scientific models, if they could do that with the titanic disaster; why can't they re-enact 9-11 with scale scientific models, showing burn pattern, rate of collapse, smoke the same as the videos and have it measured in a controlled lab environment, and look at the by-products afterwards and analyze them.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. You're kidding, right?

Their final report on the WTC towers is all about what the actual physical evidence showed.

Every question they answered in this OP (thanks for the hijack attempt) are questions that are scathingly asked around here 24/7. Why don't you try dealing with the OP, mhatrw?

[mhatrw]

9. Because the OP is nonsense. NIST cherry-picked the "questions"

and generally presented their "self-evident" conclusions as "answers."

Here are my questions:

1) You claim that the fires reached 1000C in temperature, and that the steel reached a comparable temperature due to loss of fireproofing. So why were you unable to retreive a single piece of steel that showed heating above 600C, and only 2 pieces that showed pre-collapse heating above 250C?

2) Why didn't you analyze all the recovered metal to determine their temperature exposures as exactly as possible?

3) Why didn't you analyze the recovered metal for chemical residue?

4) Why didn't you analyze the recovered metal for signs of sulfidation or any other chemical attacks?

5) Why was no metal whatsover recovered from WTC-7 by NIST? Could this have anything to do with the fact that the only two pieces of metal recovered from WTC-7 (by FEMA) showed signs of severe sulfidation at a high temperature when they were metallurgically examined?

6) Why does your report significantly differ from both the seismic evidence and the 9/11 Commission's report concerning the times of impact?

7) Why was your own test unable to simulate a collapse even after six hours of high temperature exposure?

8) Why didn't NIST study what happened after the initial collapse sequences -- including what occurred in the debris pile post-collapse? Why were these phenomena deemed to be of no scientific or engineering importance?

9) Five years after the fact, just why did WTC-7 collapse, anyway?

10) Finally, what is this supposed to mean?

9. If thick black smoke is characteristic of an oxygen-starved, lower temperature, less intense fire, why was thick black smoke exiting the WTC towers when the fires inside were supposed to be extremely hot?

Nearly all indoor large fires, including those of the principal combustibles in the WTC towers, produce large quantities of optically thick, dark smoke. This is because, at the locations where the actual burning is taking place, the oxygen is severely depleted and the combustibles are not completely oxidized to colorless carbon dioxide and water.

The visible part of fire smoke consists of small soot particles whose formation is favored by the incomplete combustion associated with oxygen-depleted burning. Once formed, the soot from the tower fires was rapidly pushed away from the fires into less hot regions of the building or directly to broken windows and breaks in the building exterior. At these lower temperatures, the soot could no longer burn away. Thus, people saw the thick dark smoke characteristic of burning under oxygen-depleted conditions.

[Grateful for Hope]

6. In addition

I do wonder why this is coming out just now. In light of this news from Will Pitt:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2014859

it does seem that there is currently a concerted effort to exonerate the current administration of any and all blame.

[Bolo Boffin]

7. There is also a concerted effort to see the current administation

properly blamed for their actual faults.

That's the effort I'm a part of, and it's one that the noplane/controlleddemo nuttery makes a mockery of.

[Grateful for Hope]

10. Good to hear

(And, BTW...I don't believe in noplane/controlleddemo either...I do entertain the possibility of an uncontrolled demo (WTC7), however), and, I hope that the truth, whatever it is, will come to light, and that there will be appropriate accountability and justice for those responsible.

Thanks.

[mhatrw]

12. Exactly. You are just trying to stop our questioning of the government's

version of 9/11 for our own good.

[John Q. Citizen]

13. Are you joking?

You blame a bunch of "tin foil hatters" for your inablity to get bush properly blamed for his actual faults?

Excuses excuses.....

[canetoad]

15. So you are saying that

If someone believes WTC was demolished, they automatically believe there were no planes?

[canetoad]

23. I think you are wrong there

because that's just replacing one dogma with another. Either way, the poor old citz are expected to shut up and listen to what they are told.

Opposition is organic. I think the ones who are to be distrusted are the ones who have the biggest vested interest in 'organising' the opposition.

If your stated motive is true, then your organisation will rise above the more extreme theorists. But sorry, just to say you have a higher motive than anyone else here just don't wash with me.

[greyl]

26. So, when questions are answered

the timing is part of the conspiracy? Good grief.

And, how the hell does the NIST report contribute to "exonerate(ing) the current administration of any and all blame"? Did I miss the part of it that explains how bush, rice, rummy et al were on the ball prior to 9/11 and that they've all behaved splendidly since?

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. Here's the interesting part

The current NIST working collapse hypothesis for WTC 7 is described in the June 2004 Progress Report on the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster (Volume 1, page 17, as well as Appendix L), as follows:

* An initial local failure occurred at the lower floors (below floor 13) of the building due to fire and/or debris-induced structural damage of a critical column (the initiating event) which supported a large-span floor bay with an area of about 2,000 square feet;

* Vertical progression of the initial local failure occurred up to the east penthouse, and as the large floor bays became unable to redistribute the loads, it brought down the interior structure below the east penthouse; and

* Triggered by damage due to the vertical failure, horizontal progression of the failure across the lower floors (in the region of floors 5 and 7 that were much thicker and more heavily reinforced than the rest of the floors) resulted in a disproportionate collapse of the entire structure.

This hypothesis may be supported or modified, or new hypotheses may be developed, through the course of the continuing investigation. NIST also is considering whether hypothetical blast events could have played a role in initiating the collapse. While NIST has found no evidence of a blast or controlled demolition event, NIST would like to determine the magnitude of hypothetical blast scenarios that could have led to the structural failure of one or more critical elements.

Sounds like someone is starting to catch on, but since the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing they aren't able to put 2 + 2 together.

[LARED]

18. Sounds more like they are trying to see what happens

if there were blasts in a building to see how the building would withstand a blast. After all the main goal of the NIST study is to determine why the towers collapsed to improve building codes. Creating building codes that improve the integrity of building in an explosion could be a valuable exercise.

[canetoad]

19. Agree about the implementation of national standards

This happens all the time. Standards are revised, updated.

I'm not sure what the process in USA is to codify a building standard, but I would be surprised if it was not more than one, widely debated study.

[AZCat]

22. The process is difficult to describe...

only because it is so darn chaotic. The codes are usually written by an organization such as IAPMO or the ICC (a complicated process itself), then each jurisdiction has to decide what version of the codes they will adopt by incorporating into the jurisdictional laws. Many times there will be modifications made to the adopted codes by the local authorities. The modified (or amended) codes are then subject to interpretation by the code officials in that jurisdiction. This is where it gets really messy, because it is possible (and I have seen it happen) for a code reviewer and a building inspector to have different interpretations of a particular section of the code!

It's a lot like trying to herd cats. I know at least one member here has sat on a standards committee (Lithos, I think) and might be willing to give a first-hand account.

[canetoad]

24. Similar here

Small experience, from being involved in organisations studied when Quality Management standards were incorporated here. There is a skew in the responses, just because the feedback is designed by people who have a government job. People who look through the bullshit are not an ornament to most of these accountability methods.

I'm probably approaching 911 from a different perspective to you. To me it is good when we forget our differences and concentrate on what we have in common.

[AZCat]

27. I agree.

Both about how we probably have different perspectives, and about how it is good when we can use that to our advantage rather than letting it bog us down. I don't think it is made clear enough that as far as I know every poster here who fits the "OCTer" bill is absolutely furious at Bush and his cronies, just like every poster who fits the "CTer" profile. They are a bunch of conniving, evil bastards and they are trying to hide as much as they can from us, including a whole slew of issues related to 9/11. If we let our petty differences derail us from prosecuting those bastards then the terrorists (Bush&Co included) have truly won.

[dailykoff]

31. The fact remains however that OCTers continually misrepresent

the evidence in ways large and small. That cannot be finessed away.

hint: safety factors. :)

[AZCat]

38. As opposed to just being a rude one-line poster?

Does posting like this make you feel better about yourself, especially when the only way for you to win an argument is to anger the other poster sufficiently that they go away?

[dailykoff]

42. Ignorance is no excuse, sorry. (n/t)

[AZCat]

45. I accept your apology, but am confused...

why if ignorance is no excuse, you continue to willfully maintain it?

Please - for the sake of all of us - educate yourself! This is becoming an unfortunate habit.

[dailykoff]

66. I'll say. (n/t)

[hack89]

39. So what are safety factors?

honest question - why are they important?

[dailykoff]

43. Ditto. (n/t)

[hack89]

46. A classic non-answer. I should have know better then to ask. nt

[DoYouEverWonder]

20. Well now the OCTers

have their new talking points I suppose.

[hack89]

21. There are so many of us now ...

that the mailing list got out of hand - hence the public web site.

[DoYouEverWonder]

25. Well I know the job market is pretty tight right now

so I guess for some they just need a job. :-)

[AZCat]

28. I know - I don't even like to go to...

the weekly tea parties any more. It's just a bunch of ditto-heads thinking that all they have to do is parrot Dubya and they can be convincing. NO! To truly succeed as a infiltrator one must have spirit, guile, and above all be willing to think outside the box! Who knows when you'll be faced with a tricky question like the one in last month's "Sneaky Bastard" magazine where that poor new hire got all confused about the Bill of Rights (it wasn't written by Alberto Gonzales, you numbskull) and the organization had to "clean his backtrail"? Too bad about his mom and sisters...

[dailykoff]

30. LOL, you got it. There's a lie in every line.

Just one small example:

Even if the automatic sprinklers had been operational, the sprinkler systems—which were installed in accordance with the prevailing fire safety code. . . .

My understanding is that the sprinkler systems were installed after a major fire and that their capacities were well in excess of the prevailing codes, which does not make the term "in accordance with" untrue, but does make it misleading.

Most of #8, however, appears to be an out-and-out lie. :)

[mhatrw]

32. I'm still trying to figure out what #9 is supposed to mean.

How were the fires be 1000C and oxygen starved at the same time?

It's gibberish.

[Carefulplease]

34. Indeed they were both hot and "oxigen depleted" in places.

The explanation is plain. I don't know why you think it is gibberish. They just point out that thick black smoke is a feature of nearly *all* indoor fires. (Do you question this?) Whatever amount of fresh oxygen is being provided to the fires -- and in the case if the WTC Towers, this is a lot -- the combustion is never complete. In most locations where the combustion takes place, the oxygen is depleted; that is, it is used up before all the sooth is turned to H2O and CO2.

So, they're just debunking a wide spread urban legend that the 911 Truth Movement often pays lip service to. Incomplete combustion is not an indication that the fires were starved and dying. (How could they starve with the constant breeze, the hundreds of broken window panes and the huge entry holes of the aircrafts?) They're very hot, just as ordinary indoor fires usually are.

[mhatrw]

36. Almost all indoor fires burn between 650C and 900C.

NIST, without any physical evidence and with the evidence of the same thick, black smoke that characterizes typical indoor building fires, somehow arrives at a temperature of 1000C for the WTC fires.

[Carefulplease]

40. You can't measure the temperature of a fire from the color of the smoke...

NIST also produced large scale fire tests with workstations in typical WTC configurations and measured higher layer temperatures in excess of 1100C. You've got an over-restrictive conception of what physical evidence consists in. You would have to point to real flaws in the conception or interpretation of their tests or of their fire models before you could say that they have no evidence at all. Indirect evidence is often evidence enough.

Many tools NIST employed have been used many times in the past for the forensic investigation of building fires. There are uncertainties about the exact initial conditions and the details of the progression of the fires but the models have a certain robustness (insensitivity to variations in the initial conditions) and the general behavior of the fires seem well understood. Those high temperatures aren't surprising if you consider the specifics of the impacted towers. They were extremely well ventilated after the plane impacts. The speed of their progression and the (measurable) amount of smoke emited is proof of the high rate of heat release.

[mhatrw]

49. Come on. Show me any evidence that any actual office

fire has ever burned at a measured temperature in excess of 1000C within the first hour of heating. An indoor office fire burning at 1100C would be some kind of world record. That temperature is standard for fuel tank fires, not office fires.

[hack89]

50. According to this paper ...

temperatures in the WTC could have theoretically exceeded 1000C

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20V%20Fire.pdf

[mhatrw]

52. Yes. The operating phrase is "could have theoretically."

There is no hard evidence that these fires did in fact exceed 1000C, and good reasons (the fires' short durations, the thick black smoke, the actual measured temperature of all other building fires and the lack of even a single piece of recovered metal that showed exposure to 600C+ temperatures) to believe otherwise.

The author of the paper you cite argues unpersuasively that the correct way to model the WTC tower fires is as giant fuel compartment fires rather than office or building fires. Only by changing the model thusly can he arrive at his may have exceeded 1000C claim -- which shows exactly how far out on a limb NIST has gone with its completely unsupported 1100C claim.

[hack89]

55. As much as I enjoy watching you spin and twist ...

I have to leave for the weekend. It is easy to pick between an MIT Phd and an anonomous non-engineer on the internet. Have a good holiday.

[mhatrw]

56. That's cool.

You can always respond in a meaningful way once you're back on the clock.

[Carefulplease]

60. You forget to mention...

That NIST has conducted full scale laboratory burn tests with actual workstations in similar configurations to those typically found in the tenant floors of the WTC Towers and they measured those high upper layer temperatures. How is this possible in your opinion?

Edited to add: All your other points have been addressed in the new NIST FAQ, or here in other messages or other recent threads. Just ask if you need pointers.

[mhatrw]

61. Let me ask you one simple question. Were the WTC towers more like

office buildings or fuel containers?

And about my other questions. Can I get some "pointers" on these:

1) NIST claim that the fires reached 1000C in temperature, and that the steel reached a comparable temperature due to loss of fireproofing. So why NIST unable to retreive a single piece of steel that showed heating above 600C, and only 2 pieces that showed pre-collapse heating above 250C?

2) Why didn't NIST analyze all the recovered metal to determine each piece's temperature exposure as exactly as possible?

3) Why didn't NIST analyze all recovered metal for chemical residue?

4) Why didn't NIST analyze the recovered metal for signs of sulfidation or any other chemical attacks?

5) Why was no metal whatsover recovered from WTC-7 by NIST? Could this have anything to do with the fact that the only two pieces of metal recovered from WTC-7 (by FEMA) showed signs of severe sulfidation at a high temperature when they were metallurgically examined?

6) Why does NIST's report significantly differ from the 9/11 Commission's report concerning the times of impact?

7) Why was NIST's own test unable to simulate a collapse even after six hours of high temperature exposure?

8) Why didn't NIST study what happened after the initial collapse sequences -- including what occurred in the debris pile post-collapse? Why were these phenomena deemed to be of no scientific or engineering importance?

9) Just why did WTC-7 collapse, anyway?

10) Why did NIST model the WTC's temperature curve as a fuel container instead of an office building?

[Name removed]

63. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mhatrw]

64. Wow! What an informative response!

Please visit this forum again just as soon as you have something to contribute to the discussion.

[Carefulplease]

67. I said I would offer some pointers...

I said I would offer pointers specific to the issues you raised in your former message. Can't you do a little search on your own? I have researched most of these issues and I do not have definitive answers for some of them. Many of the new questions you raise (#4, #5, #7, #10) are premised of false assumptions.

This forum offers the advantage that specific issues can be discussed and fresh insight can be brought to them by contributors who approach them from various perspectives and who bring to bear a wide range of experiences, skills and competences.

No progress can be made just by piling up vaguely related claims and requesting that your interlocutor provide satisfactory rejoinders to all of them. This sort of "challenge" is not conductive of understanding.

[DoYouEverWonder]

33. The NIST Investigation has very limited goals

The goals of the investigation of the WTC disaster were:

• To investigate the building construction, the materials used, and the technical conditions that
contributed to the outcome of the WTC disaster.

• To serve as the basis for:
− Improvements in the way buildings are designed, constructed, maintained, and used;
− Improved tools and guidance for industry and safety officials;
− Recommended revisions to current codes, standards, and practices; and
− Improved public safety.

The NIST investigation has nothing to do with who or what brought the WTC down. The NIST Investigation is very narrow in scope and only seeks to find out what structural elements caused the building to fail and second, how to build better buildings in the future.

The NIST is not a criminal investigation. It is not part of their purpose to ask or try to find the answers about whether or not there were other factors involved aside from the impact from the airplanes and the resulting fire that brought down the buildings. This is why they still can't figure out what happened to WTC7. Without an arson investigation, there is no way to know where the 12,000 gallons of diesel fuel went that day.

Therefore, they should not answer questions about issues they have not investigated.

[dailykoff]

65. Technically, yes, but in practice,

a) as with the FEMA report, it was written and is being used for primarily political purposes, i.e., to quash rumors, and

b) all of those goals were thwarted by falsifying the causes of collapse, which would have been instantly obvious to any competent investigator.

[MervinFerd]

57. DARN! DEbunked Again!

For the 99th time, careful to arrant nonsense.

And will this stop the nonsense? NO...

If you disagree with the NIST assessment--

ADDRESS SPECIFIC STATEMENTS.

Otherwise, you are just spouting conspiracy hobbyist talking points.