Update to Blog Published 2/5/12

Update 09/30/2012 - Reply from Oystein to below text.

My 2/5/12 blog, "What Does it Mean for the 9/11 Truth Movement if James R. Millette Proves Nano-thermite Wasn't Used to Take down the WTC Towers on 9/11?," outlines what steps must be taken to conclusively debunk nano-thermite as the culprit in our minds here. It's argued that the case for demolition isn't nano-thermite dependent, as varied methods of demolition have been proposed by those rejecting gravity-driven collapse. Most importantly, the widely agreed upon physical evidence for demolition has not been debunked, as evinced, in part, by the peer-reviewed scientific literature battle favoring controlled demolition theories.

Also noted, is the non-demolition evidence of complicity, consisting of the UNBELIEVABLE LACK of response from NORAD and other facilities equipped to defend our air space on the morning of September 11, 2001, as well as a staggering amount of prior-knowledge, some as specific as could be. This seemingly ever-mounting evidence, strains the incompetence excuse offered up the government and "debunkers" beyond its breaking point and needs to be properly investigated, despite any debunking of the original nano-thermite study or dismissal of demolition in general.

The "debunker" Oystein at the JREF Forum replied, commenting that my post "presents Discussion pieces at the JEM [Journal of Engineering Mechanics] as 'peer-reviewed articles', which shows the author (Talboo) know nothing about scientific discourse, or he flat-out lies ('discussions' about a peer-reviewed paper are published by the journal without peer-review)."

First off, after being told on YouTube that, "There is a rebuttal to Zdenek Bazant's January 2011 paper with an editor at JEM right now, "grandmastershek" responded, "You mean Bjorkmans comments? Yeah discussion papers are not peer reviewed."

To which mechanical engineer Tony Szamboti retorted:

No, it is not Bjorkman's comments. It is a substantial correction of major errors in the Bazant and Le January 2011 paper in JEM which are not ambiguous and that their claim that deceleration of the North Tower upper section in a natural collapse would be too small to be visible is erroneous. I hate to burst your little bubble here bubba but I would tend to think Discussion papers are more rigorously reviewed than standard papers, owing to the fact that they are criticizing a published paper and the author of the paper being criticized gets to respond.

Bjorkman (who has "more than 40 years experience in steel structural design and structural damage analysis") noted at The 911 Forum that he sent his discussion paper into the JEM in February 2009 and that following June was "advised it had been reviewed and was going to be published."

Further backing up Szambot's argument, is chemical engineer James Gourley, who described the process of getting his discussion paper refuting Bazant published in the JEM on 911blogger.com. Gourley states, "Not much is ever written about what we go through to get these papers published. The publication of this paper is a case study in the struggles we face." He notes that he had to "remove language that the editors thought was too argumentative" and that he left out a number of points he could have raised, knowing that "it would be difficult to get a paper critical of the official story published in a mainstream scientific journal" and "didn't want to give JEM any reason to reject it."

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which oversees the JEM and many other scientific journals, makes essentially the same point, in their "ASCE Authors’ Guide," as Szamboti did, that "Discussions present significant comments or questions about the technical content of a technical paper." The guide goes on to state that "Discussions follow the requirements for other manuscripts except that they do not have abstracts, introductions, or conclusions." [All above emphasis added.]

Considered in sum, it certainly looks like discussion papers are indeed peer-reviewed. But just to make certain, I contacted Szamboti as well as esteemed scientist Dr. Crockett Grabbe, who replied:

I know they are peer reviewed in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, as Richard Johns and I just went through that with our Discussion of the Le and Bazant January 2011 paper [mentioned here]. There was at least one reviewer other than the editor.

Tony Szamboti

JM,

Yes, the discussion papers submitted to JEM are peer-reviewed. I have had 2 papers peer-reviewed & accepted to JEM: one appeared in 4/11 (taking apart Sefen), & the one I submitted early summer of 2011 will appear in October of 2012 (which takes on Bazant).

Crockett Grabbe
PhD in Applied Physics, Caltech, 1978

As Scootle recently noted, stay tuned for an upcoming "post about the red-gray chips that addresses Millette's report and outlines an upcoming, blind study of the WTC dust commissioned by chemical engineer Mark Basile." The article will kick off a fundraising campaign for the study that I am helping spearhead. Let the red chips fall where they may!

Related:

US patent 5505799 looks like manual for 9/11 "explosive​"

Put up or Shut up: A Year in Review

Update September 17, 2011:

So it's been a little bit over a year since physicist Steven Jones told us "what we need to know about peer-review" while also essentially telling 9/11 "debunkers" to put up or shut up. Let's see if they have stopped just being loud and have gotten loud and clear...

In October 2008, long time 9/11 "debunker" Dr. Frank Greening and three of his colleagues were published in the American Society of Civil Engineers' peer reviewed Journal of Engineering Mechanics (JEM). Their paper "What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of WTC Twin Towers in New York" promoted the pile-driver or crush-down theory in which the tops of the Towers act as giant sledgehammers. Greening was the third author of the paper, the first being engineer Zdenek Bazant who wrote another paper also published by the JEM on 9/13/01 essentially promoting the theory.

As the website 911research.wtc7.net pointed out, "Bazant must be a super-genius to understand how two skyscrapers could crush themselves to rubble, a newly observed behaviour for steel structures, and write a paper about it in just two days."

The problem for Greening and company is that JEM published a peer-reviewed refutation of his hypothesis by chemical engineer James R. Gourley and are now set to publish another such peer-reviewed refutation by Anders Björkman, M.Sc. in July of this year, making it the 6th mainstream peer-reviewed paper published by members of the 9/11 truth movement.

Björkman's paper can currently be read at his personal website. It closes with the following statement, "Simple observations of any video of the WTC1 destruction prove the Bazant, Le, Greening and Benson model wrong."

Indeed.



Dr. Greening, why don't you do as James Gourley has done with your work and write a peer-reviewed refutation of the latest paper he was involved in regarding 9/11?
You know, the one in the peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal, published by Bentham.org, that reports to have found remains of nano-thermite, a high-tech military explosive, in dust recovered from the WTC.



The one that you have only attempted to refute on an internet forum where you presented disputed calculations regarding how energetic the material was, but no argument that the material was anything but nano-thermite.
As Steven Jones said:

Debunkers may raise all sorts of objections on forums, such as "Oh, it's just paint" or "the aluminum is bound up in kaolin." We have answered those questions in the paper, and shown them to be nonsense, but you have to read to find the answers...

Here's what you need to know (especially if you are not a scientist): UNLESS AN OBJECTOR ACTUALLY PUBLISHES HIS OR HER OBJECTION IN A PEER-REVIEWED ESTABLISHED JOURNAL (yes that would include Bentham Scientific journals), THEN THE OBJECTION IS NOT CONSIDERED SERIOUS IN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY. YOU SHOULD NOT WORRY ABOUT NON-PUBLISHED OBJECTIONS EITHER...

IF it is so easy to publish in Bentham Scientific journals, or if these are "vanity publications" (note: there is no factual basis for these charges) -- then why don't the objectors write up their objections and get them peer-reviewed and published?? The fact is, it is not easy, as serious objectors will find out.

Being a chemist this is right up your alley and you don't need his samples to refute his work. So what are you waiting on Dr. Greening? Related Info:

Debunking Dave Thomas, Ryan Mackey, and Zdenek Bazant et al.

Super Duper Thermite: A Year in Review

Thermite Denial - A Year in Review

9/11 Truth Movement: Year in Review

Who Needs Debunking When Insults Are So Easy

Scootle's post thanking the Screw Loose Change blog for their lack of debunking and promotion of 9/11 truth has inspired me to expand on his thoughts and answer a question for my rebunking ally.

First off Scootle, one of their commenters recently stated, "We're at the mocking stage now, well past any debunking."

I have seen comments from Pat Curley before that basically state the same thing, so yes, as you thought might be the case, they are getting lazy. Dr. Frank Greening, while sometimes doing good work, can be just as lazy, as was recently demonstrated when he did some calculations regarding the recent paper on the nano-thermite discovery, Pat reprinted the following "key points.":

I've already done a calculation of how much heat energy a layer of nano-thermite (such as the one allegedly found by Jones et al) could generate. My conclusion was that Jones' chips would do no more than slightly warm a WTC column!

So when I bounced my calculations and conclusions off Jones et al, all he could come up with was the suggestion that there were probably other explosives used in the WTC and the nanothermite chips were maybe just fuses! Thus, after all the fuss about high-tech nano-thermites, we are back to good-old 'bombs in the buildings' as the answer to how the buildings were destroyed."

First off, that wasn't all Jones could come up with. In a recent post regarding this debate on 911blogger.com Jones highlighted how he informed Greening that during the ignition of the material iron-rich spheres were formed, such as would be expected during a thermite reaction. He pointed out that the device the chips were heated to only reaches 700°C, but that "the melting points of iron and of iron oxide are both above 1200 C." This is evidence of a high temperature chemical reaction and was basically already addressed in the paper, which notes that the samples ignited at about 430ºC.

Greening also argued that, "The microspheres reported in the Harrit paper could at best be described as 'iron-rich', with Al, Si and O always present. But let me remind you, this is also true for the magnetically separated microspheres found in incinerator ashes – they contain mostly Fe, Al, Si, and O."

Jones replied with more information from the paper, "Dr. Farrer and Danny and I have looked at many of these post-DSC spheres, many do NOT contain Al. See for example Fig 21 in our paper."

Greening then admitted to some error on that point. He also seemed to agree that the materials could not be primer paint used on the WTC.

Jones next pointed out that he never stated thermate alone could bring down the Towers, he states:

During the discussion, I briefly expressed my hypothesis that nanothermite served as an igniting agent, as in the "super-thermite matches" described in our paper, to ignite more conventional explosives such as C4 or HMX, in the destruction of the WTC buildings. Thermate (sulfur plus thermite and possibly the form thermate-TH-3) was ALSO in evidence and probably intended to weaken critical steel members (e.g., residue/ material flowing with orange glow from the So. Tower just minutes before its collapse and the sulfidation of WTC steel reported in the FEMA report but ignored by NIST). Thermite incendiary without sulfur is not in evidence at the WTC to date.

But sulfur is NOT needed for the function of explosive nanothermite and would not be expected to appear in the red/gray chips. Reliable and robust super- or nano-thermite ignitors would each be ignited by an electrical pulse generated by a radio-receiver, in turn igniting shaped charges to cut steel, the sequence beginning near where the planes went in for the Towers and computer-controlled, so that the destruction wave would proceed via explosives in top-down sequence. Thus, this was no conventional (bottom first) controlled demolition, agreeing on this with B. Blanchard, but I never claimed it was! (For the Towers; the demolition of WTC7 appears to be bottom-first and more conventional.) The top-down destruction of the Towers in this model would doubtless require more explosives than would a conventional controlled demolition. Thermate (an incendiary, not an explosive) is not the 'be all and end all' explanation (FG’s terminology), nor did I ever claim it was – I have consistently pointed to evidence that explosives were used in bringing down the Towers.

The "working hypothesis" above is a scientific hypothesis, that is, subject to change as further research data emerge. It is also possible (for example) that explosive nanothermite (not an incendiary) could have been used in SHAPED CHARGES, to cut through steel explosively (a use suggested in Fig. 1 of Miziolek AW, "Nanoenergetics: an emerging technology area of national importance." Amptiac Spring 2002; 6(1): 43-48. Available from: http://www.p2pays.org/ref/34/33115.pdf ."

As the Rock Creek Free Press pointed out in their bombshell article Scientists Find Explosives in World Trade Center Dust:

The authors avoided describing the material as 'explosive' because the flakes studied are too small to assess the bulk properties of the material.

To test the power of this thermitic material, small samples were heated in a Differential Scanning Calorimeter, a very sensitive device for detecting the heat generated by a chemical reaction. The samples ignited at about 430ºC and generated as much or more heat than an equal mass of high explosive such as TNT.

When Kevin Ryan was asked if the materials were explosive, he stated, "They can be made quite explosive, in fact they have been referred to as high explosives."

This is a fact...

Aluminothermic Technology - Existence of High-Tech Metal-Based Explosives

Dr. Greening also tried to argue that the materials didn't have the correct physical structure for nano-thermite, but Steven Jones corrected him, "The iron-oxide grains are approximately 100 nm across, which fits the requirement for nano-thermite as defined in the literature, despite Greening's obfuscation of this point."

The literature that Jones refers to is once again something that can be found in the paper itself, at footnote 19 the authors quote a report by Gash et al. dated April 2000 which states, "Nanostructured composites are multicomponent materials in which at least one of the component phases has one or more dimensions (length, width, or thickness) in the nanometer size range, defined as 1 to 100 nm."

The chips also have the correct chemical composition. As Jim Hoffman recently pointed out regarding the structure and composition of the chips:

The particles are very small: the plates being only about 40 nanometers thick, and the grains are only about 100 nanometers in diameter. The particles are highly uniform in size and shape. The particles are intimately mixed in a highly consistent composition throughout the material.

These are all features of a nano-engineered material. It is not possible that such a material was formed as a by-product of the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Although these elements -- aluminum, iron, oxygen, and silicon -- were all abundant in building materials used in the Twin Towers, it is not possible that such materials milled themselves into fine powder and assembled themselves into a chemically optimized aluminothermic composite as a by-product of the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Dr. Greening has in fact used ridiculous explanations akin to this in the past when he claimed that there could have been natural thermite reactions within the tower fires!

Dr. Jones brings us the bottom line:

So how do you, as a non-scientist, discern whether the arguments are valid or not? You should first ask, 'is the objection PUBLISHED in an ESTABLISHED PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL?' If not, you can and should say -- "I will wait to see this formally published in a refereed scientific journal. Until then, the published peer-reviewed work by Harrit et al. stands."

Might I add, if this happens, then wait for the response!

So yes Scootle, the debunking is quite lax these days, but our foes claim it's because there's "not much out there," except Dr. Greening kicking so much butt in his exchange with Jones, that "Jones shouldn't be sitting down anytime soon." Did I mention this guy hypothesized that there could have been natural thermite reactions within the tower fires?!

Related info and some of the stuff that is going on out there:

Frank Greening versus Isaac Newton

NYC CAN Update: Now 40,000 signatures

9/11 Survivor Janette MacKinlay Makes an Appeal for a New Investigation Into 9/11

41 U.S. Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence Agency Veterans Challenge the Official Account of 9/11

General Richard Myers Asked About Nanothermite Explosives Found in WTC Dust

New Film Fabled Enemies and the Cumulative Argument for 9/11 Complicity

Let us for the sake of argument concede a point. For a moment we shall imagine that WTC 7 was actually "the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building," as we have recently been told by NIST's final report. While we are at, let's also forget the related issue of the Twin Towers' dramatic plunge to the earth that hurdled steel beams out laterally for hundreds of feet. No demolition there either, gravity was the cause of these ejections of course, that achieved the herculean feat of being lodged in neighboring buildings. Now that we've conceded these points, what are we left with? Well, according to the website oilempire.us we are left with the fact that demolition theories are NOT needed to prove complicity! We are left with the fact that the argument for government involvement in 9/11 is a cumulative one.

Maybe these demolition arguments really should be conceded though, after all, the Wikipedia article on the subject states that the "controlled demolition hypothesis has been dismissed in the structural engineering literature." Of course after this statement there is no mention of the growing list of structural engineers who have gone public with their doubts. Not to mention that as of this writing the "Notable proponents" section of the article fails to mention the 453 architectural and engineering professionals that are members of ae911truth.org. Also, despite various claims to the contrary, the 9/11 truth movement has had papers published that passed peer-review in independent journals, including publication in an established civil engineering journal. The mainstream journal The Environmentalist also published the paper "Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials." But I forgot, these points are being conceded for arguments sake, not because they really should be, so I digress!

The reason I wish you to imagine a world where these arguments are dropped from the conversation, is because what is left is still a massive load of evidence for 9/11 government complicity, and not just the US government. The newly released film Fabled Enemies, by Loose Change producer Jason Bermas, shifts the focus from the physical anomalies of 9/11 to the volumes of evidence that fingers various intelligence networks for their participation in the attacks. While most "debunking" efforts focus on scientific evidence, some do try to take on the other aspects of evidence for government complicity, such as 911myths.com. So, I now invite you to take the 9/11 myth or 9/11 fable challenge. Is it the myths of the 9/11 truth movement? Or the fables of the official storytellers? You be the judge... Fabled Enemies (Super High Quality, full movie)