Sunday, April 15, 2007

StillDiggin's "The Earth is Not Flat"

StillDiggin is back with three strong arguments that no planes hit the World Trade Center, and an explanation - repetition and social fear - why we think we saw a plane.

http://911logic.blogspot.com/2007/04/earth-is-not-flat.html

I'm not as sure as StillDiggin that all the witnesses were lying, as I wonder whether repetition acted quickly that day to influence people's perceptions, and I don't want to discount those witnesses that were in position to see or hear a plane and did not. I am speaking mainly of non-media witnesses that StillDiggin does not discuss. Regardless, there were not "hundreds" or "thousands" of people that saw a plane, and there are fireman that were in a position to see a plane and/or plane debris and did not.

But maybe I'm just unwilling to accept that so many people would lie.

Regardless, the images shown by StillDiggin are incontrovertible evidence of faked videos, which means no planes.

I agree that this is the most important fact about 9/11, and that the blowing up of the towers has been proven and how it was done is not nearly as important as this issue of the planes.

I have tried to prove no planes with equations, or at least by interpreting the equations of others. StillDiggin has more qualifications to do that than me, yet says:

As an engineer, [the ghost plane picture is] what got me thinking about what would really happen if a plane were to actually strike the World Trade Center. Even with equations, I wouldn’t be able to convince most people that this image can’t possibly be real. This is why I do my best to steer clear of that and appeal to people’s common sense.

I understand better now what he is saying in his comments to my first blog post:

Reverting to my use of layman's terminology, comparing the energy that would be required to shear cleanly through those steel beams with the energy that any part of a Boeing 767 traveling at 500+mph is essentially like trying to compare the size of an elephant to the size of an atom.

When ignoring the nature of the shear and imagining that the beams were bent and torn, we can then upgrage the atom to a mosquito and perform the elephant comparison again.

Do we really need equations to prove that the elephant is bigger?


Experts use equations, and the assumptions they plug in, to deny their own common sense.

Here is a quote by MIT experts on impact engineering:

To the casual observer, it would appear that the facade of the Twin Towers did not offer any resistance at all, and that the plane's wings and fuselage slice through the exterior columns as if they were made of cardboard. . . How was it possible that the relatively weak, light, and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

From: Wierzbicki and Teng, How the airplane wing cut through the exterior columns of the World Trade Center, Int'l J. of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 601-625

Yet their article purported to prove that the wings could slice through.

Then other engineering professors purported to show that the planes could penetrate the columns, but in their model, had the delicate front of the fuselage penetrate the columns as an assumption, not a proven fact. Like Wierzbicki, they took the video evidence for granted, and found a way to "prove" what defies common sense.

Karim and Hoo Fatt, Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft Into the World Trade Center, J. of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 131, No. 10 (October 2005).

A copy is available here for fair use:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/02/engineering-article-on-which-i-relied.html


I wrote more about this phenomenon here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/jim-hoffmanns-critique-of-manuel.html


I think that StillDiggin's theory of social fear may apply to these experts, and that we can't rely on experts but have to use our common sense.

Thank you StillDiggin. I've been waiting for your next article, and it's a fine one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

""As an engineer, [the ghost plane picture is] what got me thinking about what would really happen if a plane were to actually strike the World Trade Center.""

that is what i have thought about as well.
i stand by my previous beer can analogy:

a REAL 767 is nothing more than a giant flying beer can. did you know that when a 767 is way up there - say 35k' or so - they only pressure the cabins to an atmospheric equivalent of 8k' because a sea level pressure would put too much strain on it's fragile beer can seams.

the very instant when the beer can-like lightweight aluminum tube of the front fuselage portion of a REAL 767 - especially the nosecone which is made of smooth rounded lightweight plastic - encountered the massive steel columns - placed @ 2' centers and fully backed up by the horizontal concrete floor slabs which were in turn tied into and fully backed up by the even more massive core columns - it (a REAL 767) would begin to crumple into a big cushiony wad of aluminum, preventing itself from entering the wtc.

stomp a beer can onto a BBQ grill placed upon bricks and see how much of the beer can goes thru said BBQ grill.
is my size 11 clownshoe stomp on a beer can an equivalent force of 500mph on a 767?
maybe not. try a sledgehammer stomp on said beer can. it will still not penetrate said BBQ grill.

all of this takes place before the somewhat heavy yet brittle engines of a REAL 767 would have struck against the side of the wtc.
i further say that even the engines would not penetrate into the wtc because they would impact against the wad of squashed aluminum that was the beer can-like front fuselage of a REAL 767 - this wad of aluminum might even prevent the brittle engines from shattering against the massive hardened steel wtc columns.
i believe that the wings would tear themselves off at this point, splashing whatever fuel that they would still be carrying (after flying around for over an hour, all the while unhindered by the mighty U.S. air defense) across the face of the wtc - brief flash of jet fuel explosion at this point - the wings and certainly the giant yet fragile aluminum tail assembly would tear into a zillion pieces and deflect and rebound off of the face of the wtc in all directions, falling to the street below.

this scenario, i believe, is what would have actually been captured on video if a REAL 767 had REALLY impacted a wtc.
ha.