1000 Architects and Engineers Question Official 9/11 Story - Washington Times Article

[Makalakumu]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/22/inside-the-beltway-70128635/?feat=home_columns

A lingering technical question about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still haunts some, and it has political implications: How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center.

"In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards," says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry.

"The official Federal Emergency Management [Agency] and National Institute of Standards and Technology reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials," Mr. Gage adds.

The technical issues surrounding the collapse of the towers has prompted years of debate, rebuttal and ridicule.

He is particularly disturbed by Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper, which was not hit by an aircraft, yet came down in "pure free-fall acceleration." He also says that more than 100 first-responders reported explosions and flashes as the towers were falling and cited evidence of "multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft. at 60 mph" and the "mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking."

There is also evidence of "advanced explosive nano-thermitic composite material found in the World Trade Center dust," Mr. Gage says. The group's petition at www. ae911truth.org is already on its way to members of Congress.

Thoughts?

 

[CanuckMA]

There are about 1.6 million registered architects and engineers in the US. 0.0625% of them are on the list.

1) Architects are NOT engineers. They are an engineer's worse nightmare. I would not trust an architect's word on structurasl matters.

2) how many of those engineers on the list are listed as software engineers, etc. IOW, not members of a recognized engineering association?

3) how many are structural, civil and/or mechanical engineers?

 

[Archangel M]

I think this ******** has been done to death. Mostly by one poster in this forum.

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38315&highlight=architects+engineers

All the people who would have had to been involved in the conspiracy.

http://debunking911.com/massivect.htm

 

[Makalakumu]

So, how many people would have to consider these questions legitimate before you would give it a second thought? What would it take to make you question the official story? What is your personal threshold?

Have you actually looked at and analyzed the points that are being made by the various architects and engineers in this research group? Does it make a difference to you that an increasingly educated and professional crowd is looking at this drawing the same conclusions?

 

[xJOHNx]

If I were American, I would support it.

This is not the drifter in the street that is shouting at the passing clouds. These are professional men and women who have questions. This is not about supporting some kind of conspiracy theory, but about basic questions concerning their bussiness, i.e. raising buildings out of the ground.
Normally in architecture, alot of math and formulas are used based on known concepts of material. If those concepts do not longer apply when a airplane hits it, don't you think that they will start worrying? About buildings they created, which could just collapse when a helicopter should accidentally fly into it? About the loss of their carreer, about mass lawsuits?

Ok, enough ranting. All I want to say is, alot of information concerning a major world event is clouded and dubious...
If there was no conspiracy, why all the secrets, why all the silent keeping?

 

[Nomad]

So, how many people would have to consider these questions legitimate before you would give it a second thought? What would it take to make you question the official story? What is your personal threshold?

Have you actually looked at and analyzed the points that are being made by the various architects and engineers in this research group? Does it make a difference to you that an increasingly educated and professional crowd is looking at this drawing the same conclusions?

I think the real questions are Is the group drawing the conclusions "educated and professional", most especially, are they well-qualified in the particular fields of mechanical stress and failure, specifically of large buildings? and Is the group of said professionals actually growing? How fast? 1000 really is not that big a number; how many well educated, professional engineers and architects with training in the specific fields involved have looked at the question and been convinced that the collapse happened pretty much as the official story showed?

There will always be those looking for the gunmen on the grassy knoll (whether or not they existed is not something I want to go into now), whether or not there was a cover-up.

 

[Makalakumu]

I think the real questions are Is the group drawing the conclusions "educated and professional", most especially, are they well-qualified in the particular fields of mechanical stress and failure, specifically of large buildings? and Is the group of said professionals actually growing? How fast? 1000 really is not that big a number; how many well educated, professional engineers and architects with training in the specific fields involved have looked at the question and been convinced that the collapse happened pretty much as the official story showed?

There will always be those looking for the gunmen on the grassy knoll (whether or not they existed is not something I want to go into now), whether or not there was a cover-up.

You can go to their website and see for yourself. All of the people are listed.

 

[Bruno@MT]

I am an electrical engineer with a minor in structural engineering.

My problem with taking these people seriously is that some of the arguments that are presented are ridiculous.

for example, the 'steel does not melt at those temperatures' argument. It may be true that steel used for skeleton structures does not melt when doused in burning kerosene. But it doesn't need to. Because it will get soft. Soft enough that it will bend and deform under load. If the load gets unbalanced, all the weight will be transferred to single load bearing columns which will snap one at a time and make the problem for the other columns even worse.

So we've established that where the plane crashed, the full kerosene tanks are what caused the collapse of that section.

Now the rest: load bearing columns are designed to take static weight. Think of a raw egg. if you gently compress it lengthwise, it can take a lot of pressure. Then, using the same force, knock it on the table. The egg will smash. When the top of the WTC towers crashed down on the lower parts with a couple dozen feet to gain momentum, each individual floor from top to bottom got crushed just like the egg I mentioned.

High rise buildings depend for their existence on symmetrical load balancing and static load. If you weaken the structure with heat and then dump a million tons of concrete and steel on top of it it will collapse in on itself. There are no explosives necessary for that.

But of course, mere facts should not get in the way of a good conspiracy. And for a secret this vast and with so many people involved, it is nothing short of a mircale that it can be kept secret by a government who is considered inept in all other areas by those same people.

 

[blindsage]

So, how many people would have to consider these questions legitimate before you would give it a second thought? What would it take to make you question the official story? What is your personal threshold?

How many people would have to consider these questions illegitimate before you would consider them debunked? What would it take to make you question their arguments? What is your personal threshold?

Have you actually looked at and analyzed the points that are being made by the various architects and engineers in this research group? Does it make a difference to you that an increasingly educated and professional crowd is looking at this drawing the same conclusions?

Have you actually looked at and analyzed the counter-points made to all the various '9/11 truth' groups out there? Does it make a difference to you that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the 'educated and professional crowd' is looking and not drawing those same conclusions?

 

[MBuzzy]

I'm a Structural Engineer and I'm convinced that there is no conspiracy. Everything that Bruno said is true. Everything that is sited in this article is easily explained by basic principles of materials and structures.

Bruno is dead on about the steel and the loading. The steel only had to reach about 1200 degrees to start to yield and which point it would lose the strength required to support the floors above. Each floor can only support the load of itself, subsequent floors are supported by the columns and structural members which carry the load all the way to the ground. Those are the culprits. When those failed, catastrophic failure. As in domino effect, when one floor went, the rest went, exponentially faster.

A few more:

"In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards," says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

This is simple - as stated earlier - this guy is an architect and as such is no more qualified to comment on structural engineering issues or materials failure than anyone else who IS NOT A STRUCTURAL ENGINEER OR MATERIALS engineer. Architects get very little to no actual structural and engineering training and what many get is just enough to be familiar with what the engineers must do. That is why SE's and Architects are forever locked in a battle. Architects draw pretty buildings, deliver them to engineers to design and wonder why engineers get mad about buildings are aren't feasible or practical within the given budget. Because architects often fail to consider structural issues. This is not true of ALL - there are architectural engineers and there are some who have taken the time to do more research.

He is particularly disturbed by Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper, which was not hit by an aircraft, yet came down in "pure free-fall acceleration." He also says that more than 100 first-responders reported explosions and flashes as the towers were falling and cited evidence of "multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally 600 ft. at 60 mph" and the "mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking."

Hmmm, apparently the person making this statement has never done a compressive failure test. When we place concrete, we also create a series of concrete cylinders from the same batch. Those cylinders are then tested at 7, 14, 28 days and sometimes beyond to measure strength gain. We also sometimes keep the cylinders on hand beyond in case there are complications. To test them, we put them under a hydraulic piston which compresses them until they fail. The cylinders are 50mm dia and about 150mm in height. WELL, just for fun, we used to test cylinders that were 90 days old...so the concrete had been curing for a long time. Let's just say that it's good there was a cage.....Those things exploded like you wouldn't believe, you couldn't have put it back together and portions are turned to dust. Now imagine the concrete on a building that has been curing for almost 40 years and remember that concrete continues to gain strength as it ages. It is COMPLETELY feasible and probable that sections of concrete would explode as they collapsed.

As for building 7, until we get real data on the loading caused by the collapse of the other buildings and the impact on its structure of millions of tons of concrete and steel impacting the ground near it....I'm not too convinced of anything unexplained there either.

Bottom line - if you want a pretty model built out of balsa and paper or a drawing a building, call an architect. If you want to examine the structure of a building or design a building, call an engineer.

 

[Makalakumu]

I am an electrical engineer with a minor in structural engineering.

My problem with taking these people seriously is that some of the arguments that are presented are ridiculous.

for example, the 'steel does not melt at those temperatures' argument. It may be true that steel used for skeleton structures does not melt when doused in burning kerosene. But it doesn't need to. Because it will get soft. Soft enough that it will bend and deform under load. If the load gets unbalanced, all the weight will be transferred to single load bearing columns which will snap one at a time and make the problem for the other columns even worse.

So we've established that where the plane crashed, the full kerosene tanks are what caused the collapse of that section.

Now the rest: load bearing columns are designed to take static weight. Think of a raw egg. if you gently compress it lengthwise, it can take a lot of pressure. Then, using the same force, knock it on the table. The egg will smash. When the top of the WTC towers crashed down on the lower parts with a couple dozen feet to gain momentum, each individual floor from top to bottom got crushed just like the egg I mentioned.

High rise buildings depend for their existence on symmetrical load balancing and static load. If you weaken the structure with heat and then dump a million tons of concrete and steel on top of it it will collapse in on itself. There are no explosives necessary for that.

But of course, mere facts should not get in the way of a good conspiracy. And for a secret this vast and with so many people involved, it is nothing short of a mircale that it can be kept secret by a government who is considered inept in all other areas by those same people.

These are all straw-men of what they are actually saying. Think about it for a minute. Why would a trained professional argue something so obviously wrong? The truth is that they don't argue these straw men. The media would have you think that this is what this group is actually saying. Have you read any of the papers published by this group? They are all on the website.

 

[Makalakumu]

How many people would have to consider these questions illegitimate before you would consider them debunked? What would it take to make you question their arguments? What is your personal threshold?

It's a matter of looking at both sides. I have a degree in physics and a fair amount of scientific discernment. After looking at both sides, I can see some fair points being made. After looking at both sides, I can say that there are some fatal issues in the official story. My personal opinion is that we don't know what happened. I've downloaded various papers, I even have read large sections of the official NIST report. I've spent a lot of time looking into this.

Have you actually looked at and analyzed the counter-points made to all the various '9/11 truth' groups out there? Does it make a difference to you that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the 'educated and professional crowd' is looking and not drawing those same conclusions?

I have looked into both sides of the issue. How do you know that "vast majority of the educated and professional crowd" have even questioned what they were told? Much less looked at any points against the official story?

Have you looked at both sides and really considered what is being said?

 

[Makalakumu]

If you want to examine the structure of a building or design a building, call an engineer.

The arguments are FAR more nuanced then what is presented in the article. It is detailed enough and well reasoned enough to convince hundreds of educated and professional engineers that there are some major issues with the official explanation. Therefore, other explanations must be entertained.

There may be no conspiracy. Maybe the crew at NIST did a terrible job and there models can't explain what actually happened. Perhaps a lot of people who are part of this group joined with that in mind? Who knows.

The point is that a large group of people, who really would know how to look at these things, looked at the issue IN DEPTH and are beginning to not only reach a consensus, but take action on it.

I don't think people are going to be able to blow this off much longer as just another conspiracy theory.

 

[CanuckMA]

The point is that a large group of people, who really would know how to look at these things, looked at the issue IN DEPTH and are beginning to not only reach a consensus, but take action on it.

I don't think people are going to be able to blow this off much longer as just another conspiracy theory.

How many are structural engineers????

I'll give you a relatively recent event of an architect not being an engineer. Remember Montreal's Olympic stadium?

When it was decided to finaly complete the tower to put the fabric roof, a much simpler static roof as opposed to the original retractable, engineers looked at the design and requirements to finish the supporting tower, and noticed that as designed, it could not support ITSELF, let alone the roof.

 

[Archangel M]

And then there are the thousands of structural engineers who dont buy this conspiracy crap. Why don't the nut jobs listen to "their side"? I'll tell you why. This is a matter of psychology rather than an issue of physics.

 

[Makalakumu]

How many are structural engineers????

I'll give you a relatively recent event of an architect not being an engineer. Remember Montreal's Olympic stadium?

When it was decided to finaly complete the tower to put the fabric roof, a much simpler static roof as opposed to the original retractable, engineers looked at the design and requirements to finish the supporting tower, and noticed that as designed, it could not support ITSELF, let alone the roof.

I see your point, but I'm pretty sure there are a few competent architects on the list. Also, look at the website. There are hundreds of engineering professionals listed. I'll go and count the number of structural engineers when I have time.

 

[Makalakumu]

This is a matter of psychology rather than an issue of physics.

That blade swings both ways, brah.

As far as people who disagree go, does it even matter if YOU are unwilling to even consider one sides argument? The whole "there are hundreds of unnamed engineers who have looked at the issue in depth and who surely must be out there and disagree with this" argument is really just a dodge.

As we say in Hawaii, "try look!"

In the end, how many more people have to join? 2000? 3000? 10,000? Then what are you going to do? Will you consider the arguments?

 

[Ken Morgan]

Conspiracy theories don’t hold water as too many people would have to know about them. People are just not that competent. If people were that competent, how the hell did Nixon get caught?

Its like UFO’s, you have to prove a negative, which is impossible, and even if you are 100% honest, the vocal crazies will still scream conspiracy.

Look, the amount of planning, set up time, explosives, coordination that would have been necessary to bring the buildings down would have attracted some attention. Just to bring down small, vacant office building require huge amounts of logistics, equipment and time.

Ya kinda think someone would have noticed holes drilled in the hallways and offices, filled with explosives, hooked up to wires for weeks and weeks? Some night time janitor would have got a bit suspicious.

Engineers, engineering theory, and practice are not all 100%, if that were true, no building or bridge would ever collapse, or need to be reinforced.

 

[Hollywood1340]

My favorite is the "Look at it! It's obvious" argument. I'm not qualified to tell you what I looking at.

 

[Archangel M]

Conspiracy theories don’t hold water as too many people would have to know about them. People are just not that competent. If people were that competent, how the hell did Nixon get caught?

Its like UFO’s, you have to prove a negative, which is impossible, and even if you are 100% honest, the vocal crazies will still scream conspiracy.

Look, the amount of planning, set up time, explosives, coordination that would have been necessary to bring the buildings down would have attracted some attention. Just to bring down small, vacant office building require huge amounts of logistics, equipment and time.

Ya kinda think someone would have noticed holes drilled in the hallways and offices, filled with explosives, hooked up to wires for weeks and weeks? Some night time janitor would have got a bit suspicious.

Engineers, engineering theory, and practice are not all 100%, if that were true, no building or bridge would ever collapse, or need to be reinforced.

[sarcasm]Gee man, don't ya know all it takes is few gvt "ninjas" with little blocks of C4 with red LED lights on them? Place them on a few beams and BOOM!

Then get hundreds if not thousands of people to keep the secret. [/sarcasm]

Bah!