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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 05:43 AM
Original message
A mini-survey of Ph.D. civil engineers
http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=3108&st=11130&#entry85072

A mini-survey of Ph.D. civil engineers

...so I took the opportunity to speak to 5 civil engineers at Rutgers University today. I basically asked for a few minutes of their time, to ask them 2 questions:

1) Have you read the NISt Summary Report?
2) Are you aware of and have you read Professor Jones' paper on the collapses?

The first CE I spoke to couldn't recall reading the NISt summary document, and was not familiar with Professor Jones' paper, though she indicated that she may have read it and simply forgotten.

...

The Net Net
============
Apparently, 6 out of 6 Ph.D. civil engineers that I have talked to have neither read the NIST summary report, nor have they read Professor Jones' paper. Only 1 of them has definitely even heard of Professor Jones' paper. (One of the six may have read the NIST summary, and even Jones' paper, but forgotten. However, I find it far more likely that she did not read either, and this seemed to me to be the thrust of her comments.)

more@link
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Ferry Fey Donating Member (289 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 07:43 AM
Response to Original message
1. So much for the teachable moment
What dismays me (but doesn't surprise me), is the lack of intellectual curiosity that the professors' responses seem to show.

With all the national commentators getting lathered up about how dreadful "conspiracy theorists" are, you'd think that a good teacher would want to be familiar with the issues so that naive and impressionable students who'd gotten sucked into thinking that the government MIHOP could be shown the errors of their ways. Use that teachable moment to show that good science can and must drive out bad science. Show the students that their questions can be answered with good scholarship. If there are bad memes out there in their areas of competence, I'd expect educators to help educate the ignorant or misinformed public, not just those in the lecture halls.

You took it to bautforum? My, what a glutton for punishment. Having tangled with them before, I've found they're the science wing of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders. ;)









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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 07:52 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Help educate the ignorant or misinformed.
Use that teachable moment to show that good science can and must drive out bad science. Show the students that their questions can be answered with good scholarship.

I have been looking a long time for good science and scholarship related to 9/11 collapse conspiracies. You seem to believe some exists. Please share, if you can.
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Ferry Fey Donating Member (289 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 10:32 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. Diogenes looking for an honest man?
I don't have any background in physics, chemistry, or engineering, so you generally won't find me commenting on these aspects of 911, or assessing the arguments of those who make them from that perspective. But when I hear teachers who appear to have no interest in learning about something which has the general public talking about their field of interest, I'm frustrated that they don't feel the need to make that extra effort.

I'm a parent of teens, and I do spend several hours a week in a classroom working with teenage students, so being alert to "teachable moments" is something that goes on all the time for me. I'm interested in how we know what we know -- or what we think we know. As someone who has participated in substantive online discussions for 13 years, I've had a long time to observe the difference between those who take the time to educate and really communicate, and those who are clueless about how to do those things.

I prefer to comment where I can make a substantive contribution, such as I did recently on the so-called "red bandana" which appears to be nothing but a red herring. I simply don't have the time to read as deeply about 911 issues as I'd like, and don't feel that I've absorbed the various sites well enough to weigh their merits.

But given that you are throwing around the disparaging word "conspiracies," I rather doubt that you sincerely care what I think anyway.


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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 10:51 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. I am all for using teachable moments
to help people learn something. Yes, I would have liked to hear that at least one of those professors had the sensitivity to reach out and correct ignorance about the 9/11 WTC collapse.

I misunderstood your comments to mean there is good science out there to back up 9/11 collapse conspiracies.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 05:44 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Nobody has bothered to refute Dr. Jones. nt
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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 05:48 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Is there something to refute?
He only provides speculation... like all other 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 06:25 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. ..
Edited on Tue Apr-25-06 06:25 PM by petgoat
I guess you haven't read the fourth sentence in Dr. Jones's paper.

"{L}arge quantities of molten metal were observed in basement areas under rubble piles of all three buildings: the Twin Towers and WTC7."

That's not speculation. It's an assertion of fact.

I guess you regard the ASCE/FEMA Appendix C report as speculation. It's not. The mysterious
evaporation of the steel due to sulfidation attack was observed.

The symmetrical collapse of the WTC is not speculation, it's a fact.

That no steel frame building had collapsed before from fire is not speculation.

I don't think you've even read Dr. Jones's paper.


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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 08:07 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. So what?
Literally thousands have made those same statements. The exact same thing is missing from Jones as in all other 9/11 theorists. The answer as to why these so called facts are material?
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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 08:52 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. Indeed.
So many red herrings, so little time.

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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 09:22 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. So this: You said Jones was nothing but speculation.
I showed you he was talking about facts.

So now you express the unfounded opinion that they're immaterial.

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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. I've read it.
Edited on Tue Apr-25-06 08:48 PM by Jazz2006
And if I recall correctly, Jones first attributed his "conclusion" of the presence of molten steel to a quote by Mark Loizeaux, but the quote he attributed to Loizeaux was never said by Loizeaux at all.

According to Loizeaux, some of the people who worked for him used the words "molten steel" in describing what they saw in the pit of the twin towers as the clean up was continuing, but he personally never saw any molten steel.

I have not yet seen any direct quote attributable to anyone who says that there was molten steel under WTC7. All I have seen is the twin towers "quote" misattributed to Loizeaux, followed by something to the effect (unattributed but presented as though attributed) that similar "pools of molten steel" were also found under WTC7.

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but so far, I haven't seen one authenticated quote by anyone who said that pools of molten steel were found under WTC7.


Edit: Oh, I just noticed that you're saying "molten metal" rather than molten steel. My mistake. That makes Lared's "so what" response even more appropriate.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 09:27 PM
Response to Reply #9
12. "If I remember".... Well, you don't.
Why don't you just google {{{Jones byu}}} and skim the paper?

Dr. Keith Eaton: ‘They showed us many fascinating slides, ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster’. (Structural Engineer, September 3, 2002, p. 6)

Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center Towers, who reported that “As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running.” (Williams, 2001, p. 3; emphasis added.)

Sarah Atlas was part of New Jersey's Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue and was one of the first on the scene at Ground Zero with her canine partner Anna. She reported in Penn Arts and Sciences, summer 2002, ‘Nobody's going to be alive.' Fires burned and molten steel flowed in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet. (Penn, 2002; emphasis added.)

Dr. Allison Geyh was one of a team of public health investigators from Johns Hopkins who visited the WTC site after 9-11. She reported in the Late Fall 2001 issue of Magazine of Johns Hopkins Public Health, "In some pockets now being uncovered they are finding molten steel.”

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html
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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 09:56 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Tsk tsk
Edited on Tue Apr-25-06 10:09 PM by Jazz2006
"Why don't you just google {{{Jones byu}}} and skim the paper?"

Because (a) googling isn't the answer; (b) I've already read the paper in its entirety; (c) I was a journalist before I became a lawyer; and (d) I know and have spoken at great length to people who were actually there in the aftermath.

Direct quotes from people who actually saw "molten steel" on site is what I'm looking for.

Particularly at WTC7.

Haven't found any yet.






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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #13
14. And ...
Edited on Tue Apr-25-06 10:11 PM by Jazz2006
apparently too late to add this to my prior post even though the time for editing hasn't passed....
(d) because my nearest and dearest was actually there in a search and rescue capacity, which sadly became a "search and preserve" capacity before too long.

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mirandapriestly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 10:09 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. what kind of person says "tsk tsk"?
or were you a librarian in between being a lawyer , a "journalist", and an airline pilot?
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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 10:25 PM
Response to Reply #15
16. Tsk tsk, what is your problem, miranda?
Edited on Tue Apr-25-06 10:31 PM by Jazz2006
I've certainly never been a librarian and I've never been or claimed to be an "airline pilot".

I realize that you get quite a kick out of stalking me, but you should at least get it right if you're going to pop in ... you should try to develop and exhibit some critical thinking skills along the way... and reading comprehension 101 wouldn't hurt, either.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 10:55 PM
Response to Reply #13
17. So LARED said Jones, was just speculation, and then
he backpedalled and said he really meant Jones's facts were irrelevant.

And you said there were no authenticated quotes about the molten steel,
and then you backpedalled and said you were looking for eyewitnesses.

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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 10:57 PM
Response to Reply #17
18. What are you on about?
Edited on Tue Apr-25-06 11:00 PM by Jazz2006
Read my posts again if you didn't get them the first time, but don't go accusing me of back pedalling when I've done no such thing.

Sheesh.

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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-26-06 06:45 AM
Response to Reply #17
26. Permit me to spell out the obvious
Edited on Wed Apr-26-06 06:45 AM by LARED
Anyone can pile up a bunch of stuff they deem to be facts. Jones takes these facts and then speculates on how they were caused, implying there is some inexplicable reason for these "facts"


He is no different from the other 9/11 conspiracy theorist other than being more articulate and having a title of PHd.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-26-06 02:36 PM
Response to Reply #26
27. So now you're saying there's no reason for facts?
Your argument is not improving.

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LARED Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-26-06 03:01 PM
Response to Reply #27
28. May I suggest a refresher course
in reading comprehension. You seem to have a very difficult time understanding simple sentences.
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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-27-06 01:30 AM
Response to Reply #28
30. May I suggest a refresher course in composing simple
declarative sentences (since that seems to be all you have time for)?

You fault Jones for speculating about causes to his facts.

Since you provide no alternative causes, you seem to exhibit hostility to
the very concept of causality.

Perhaps if you would invest a little more effort into your posts, they
wouldn't be so ambigous.

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SidDithers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 11:11 PM
Response to Reply #7
19. Ah, yes. the old "I don't think you've read Dr. Jones' paper" ploy...
is that your only response when people disagree with what Dr. Jones has written? Really, petgoat, you're gonna have to start doing better than that. Is it so hard to comprehend that we have read Dr. Jones' paper, and think that his evidence just doesn't support his theories? And no, I'm not going to give you specifics. Refutations of Dr. Jones are everywhere, if you'd care to take the blinders off, you might see that.

Has the rest of the Physics Department at BYU also not read Dr. Jones' paper?

Sid

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petgoat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 11:27 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. It's no ploy. Jazz claimed s/he had read Jones's paper,
and claimed "I have not yet seen any direct quote attributable to anyone who says that there was molten
steel under WTC7."

I provided four quotes from Jones's paper.

Refutations of Dr. Jones are everywhere

Then link one.
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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 11:56 PM
Response to Reply #20
22. Yes, I read it in its entirety....
Edited on Wed Apr-26-06 12:11 AM by Jazz2006
and the quotes you provided were not first hand quotes at all. If and when you can provide them, that's great, I'll be pleased to talk to those individuals personally in follow up but so far, you haven't.

I don't know where your "refutations of Dr. Jones are everywhere" blurb is quoting or who you are referring to, but surely you know that Jones' 'theory' has been refuted by many people so it seems odd that you'd pretend otherwise.

Oh well ~ back to your regularly scheduled programming, folks.

Carry on.

And don't forget that bit about answering how Jones' colleagues responded.

And don't forget to spell out specifically how you think Jones gets something right... and on which points you thinks he gets it wrong...

And be sure to spell out exactly how you think Jones' "evidence" actually supports his theories.

This could be interesting.

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Jazz2006 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-25-06 11:45 PM
Response to Reply #19
21. It does seem that
that's his only response and yes, it does grow wearisome.

*sigh*

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zforce Donating Member (157 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-26-06 01:28 AM
Response to Original message
23. Speaking of the NIST
(It seems I can't yet post a separate thread for the following post, due to being a new member or something along those lines..so I decided to post the message in this thread which touches upon the nist investigation.)

The NIST had found themselves in quite a pickle after the NIST's Metallurgical Results had attested to temps of less than 250c in Oct of 2004. The reason: the findings had contradicted their initial findings that the steel was adequate (representative) for the needs of the investigation (whole technical investigation), and more importantly, at the same time the findings had contradicted their "Fire Weakening" hypothesis.

So what did the NIST do?

Magic.

They, with a slight of hand, had changed their "adequate steel sample" from being adequate for the investigation (whole), to it only being adequate in determining the quality of the steel (final report).

The NIST did this even though in June 2004, before the "Steel temperature results" the NIST had clearly stipulated..

http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/chapter2.pdf

The collection of steel from the WTC towers is adequate for purposes of NIST’s investigation (i.e., chemical, metallurgical, and mechanical property analyses as well as a substantial damage assessment and failure mode examination) to examine why and how WTC 1 and WTC 2 collapsed following the impact of the aircraft and ensuing fires.


As you can clearly see above, the NIST clearly states, the collection of steel was adequate for the needs of the investigation (whole) - Chemical, Metallurgical,and Mechanical property analyses as well as a substantial damage assessment and failure mode examination.

Moreover, the NIST details exactly what the Metallurgical Investigation consists of in other papers describing their investigation..

http://www.nist.gov/testimony/2002/wtcplan.html

Collection and Analysis of Forensic Evidence: structural steel, material specimens and other forensic evidence to the extent they have been collected or are otherwise available; metallurgical and mechanical analysis of steel to evaluate quality and estimate maximum temperatures; analysis of fire and elevator control panels.

Hence, "The collection of steel is considered adequate for the needs of the investigation above"

Just in case more evidence is needed to ascertain the details of the investigation...

http://www.aws.org/conferences/abstracts/2004/papers/2A.pdf

NIST is implementing its technical plan to address these issues (see http://wtc.nist.gov/). A primary objective of the investigation is to determine why and how the towers collapsed after the initial impact of the aircraft. As part of this investigation, the Materials Reliability and Metallurgy Divisions in MSEL are studying more than 200 structural steel pieces from the WTC site. Progress in this study is outlined here..............

.......Task 3: Property data to support studies of structure performance and airplane impact modeling. Fourteen grades of steel were specified in the design of the WTC towers. All grades have been characterized for room-temperature mechanical properties, and initial high-temperature test results are complete. Testing at high strain rate is underway to determine the effects of strain rate on the mechanical properties of the outer columns, the inner columns and the spandrels. Chemical composition and metallographic examinations have been completed on the majority of the steels. Creep, or time-temperature-dependent behavior of some steels will be studied after the high temperature properties are developed.........

Task 5: Metallographic analysis of steel to estimate temperature extremes. Microscopic, macroscopic and metallographic analyses are under way to determine the maximum temperature excursions seen by the steel.


Hence as was stated before regarding task's 3 and 5...

---The collection of steel is considered adequate for the needs of the investigation above"---

So, as you can clearly see, the Metallurgical aspect of the investigation which the steel was adequate for, had consisted both of determining quality, and determining steel temperatures.

Last but not least, lets turn to the NAIL in the coffin.
The "Nail in the coffin" is evidence of the fact that the NIST had actually discussed changing their initial findings from the steel being adequate for the investigation to it being adequate to only part of the investigation (determining quality).

Note, this discussion had taken place on the very same day the results of the steel being less than 250c had been presented - Oct 19th 2004.

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/ncstmin_oct19-20.htm

C: As John Barsom said, the statement is not accurate. The validity of the model question from yesterday speaks to this issue. I do not believe that we have enough forensic evidence. It may be okay to establish steel quality. There was no effort by the Building Performance Study team to systematically look at the steel.

C: The use of the term “adequate” needs to be revisited. There is no core column test to support the hypothesis. The floors came down, the slabs were pulverized. This was unprecedented. Exterior columns and core remained. The floors group will attack this finding


In summary, the NIST had only focused on one, and only one conclusion throughout its entire investigation, and that one conclusion being the assumption that fires were the cause of the two buildings collapsing.

That is the sole reason the NIST had ignored the metallurgical analysis results of the WTC structural steel . Over and over again, the wtc steel indicated temps of less than 250c, which inturn naturally indicated fires not being the cause for the collapses, yet the NIST kept on with their assumptions and computer generated simulations via their assumptions, that the steel had attained temps of 550c, even though there was not one piece of metallurgical evidence in support thereof..even going so far as tweaking their initial findings of the steel being adequate to it being inadequate in the final report, thus bolstering their POS, lying computer generated garbage
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KJF Donating Member (792 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-27-06 07:16 AM
Response to Reply #23
32. Good catch
And welcome to DU.
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file83 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-26-06 02:02 AM
Response to Original message
24. That was an interesting thread - nice to see DU 9/11 isn't the only place
with 9/11 CT flame wars! :rofl:

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reprehensor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-26-06 05:27 AM
Response to Reply #24
25. Ha! Nice graphic.
Who needs external enemies? A fellow DUer is likely to rhetorically blow your head off at any random moment, on any random topic.

That physorg thread is like a bar on the wrong side of town... don't go in unless you plan to fight your way out.
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screembloodymurder Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Apr-26-06 03:04 PM
Response to Original message
29. You don't have to be a PH.D.
It's ninth grade physics.
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AZCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Apr-27-06 06:58 AM
Response to Reply #29
31. Bullshit.
Anyone who thinks it is only "ninth grade physics" does not understand what is involved.
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