James B. over at Screwloosechange recently commented on the debate between Richard Gage and Chris Mohr. James apparently thinks that Gage is contradicting himself by saying that explosives took down WTC7 but that thermite is an incendiary and makes no explosive sounds. From this, James concludes that this "magical thermite stuff" proves "trutherism is a mythology, not a science." Interestingly, James has brought up this issue before regarding the Twin Towers. What James still doesn't seem to grasp is the fact that thermite can be formulated as a quiet explosive. Granted, there was no "lack of sounds" as David Chandler has already demonstrated.
Explosions can be heard, but they are obviously quieter than normal explosions. But is this possible to accomplish with thermite? Well, as pointed out in the Active Thermitic Material paper, in April 2001 the American Chemical Society held a symposium on the defense applications of nanomaterials in which they stated:
At this point in time, all of the military services and some DOE and academic laboratories have active R&D programs aimed at exploiting the unique properties of nanomaterials that have potential to be used in energetic formulations for advanced explosives…. nanoenergetics hold promise as useful ingredients for the thermobaric (TBX) and TBX-like weapons, particularly due to their high degree of tailorability with regards to energy release and impulse management.
The authors then go on to point out that:
The feature of ‘impulse management’ may be significant. It is possible that formulations may be chosen to have just sufficient percussive effect to achieve the desired fragmentation while minimizing the noise level.
This certainly doesn't sound like magic or mythology to me. All it sounds like is science.
So yes, thermite can be formulated as an explosive, but it can also be formulated to reduce the explosive sounds. Certainly those close to WTC7 might have heard these explosions, and it is those types of witnesses Gage references.
Gage has good reason to criticize Mohr for claiming that WTC7 and other demolitions "sound completely different,” because as the NFPA 921 guide points out:
Although an explosion is almost always accompanied by the production of a loud noise, the noise itself is not an essential element in the definition of an explosion. The generation and violent escape of gases are the primary criteria of an explosion.
Below is an edited version of Gage and Mohr's debate where I have added comments and videos to address the sound issue and other points raised by Mohr.
Update - 7/25/2011: Chemist Kevin Ryan published a video of an experiment proving that Van Romero was not using super-thermite in his experiment.
Update - 10/11/2010: Civil Engineer Jonathan Cole published a video of experiments he carried out proving that thermite variants can demolish vertically standing steel beams.
Pat Curley of the Screw Loose Change blog called it!:
Remember back in December when the Governator had his Conspiracy Theory Show on the 9-11 Fruitcakes? There was a segment where Van Romero painted superthermite on a steel beam and lit it on fire. (starts about 40 seconds into this clip):
Note that Romero asks the question, 'Does it burn long enough and hot enough so that we have structural failure?' at about 1:50 into the video. Hilariously, Ventura cuts off Romero at that point. As I said at the time:
"And we see that while the unpainted beam did not catch fire, the painted beam did seem to light up. But will it fail structurally?"
Well, no kidding they skip right over that part. Apparently the idea that the steel caught on fire, however briefly, is enough to convince Jesse that this was how they did it. And nobody stops to mention that the claim is that they destroyed columns (vertical) not beams (horizontal), and that we haven't seen the beam actually destroyed in the video by any means. It's another TrutherBurn fiasco!"
Well guess what Pat, Scootle Royale of the Debunking the Debunkers blog called it too! As he said at the time:
The superthermite demonstration was a bit crap .. and they didn't even show the ending so I'm assuming the beam didn't break. To be honest I'm not sure it was superthermite, the documentary did mix thermite and superthemite a few times. Also it was never explicitly stated whether the particles in the demonstration were on the nano scale. However it did appear to burn longer than ordinary thermite. Which is interesting because it's consistent with the fact that ground zero cooked for several months after the event.
Scootle adds, "I also highly doubt that there was any organic material in the so-called superthermite in that demonstration. Which is what creates the explosive force."
Indeed, the authors of the April 2009 scientific paper that found nano-thermite in the WTC dust quoted an April 2000 report by Gash et. al. which states the following about the sol-gel process, "Once dry the (hybrid inorganic/organic energenic composite) material burns very vigorously and rapidly with the evolution of significant amounts of gaseous species."
The authors note the following of the material found in the dust, "The carbon content of the red material indicates that an organic substance is present. This would be expected for super-thermite formulations in order to produce high gas pressures upon ignition and thus make them explosive."
Among the things Jones mentioned was using nano-thermite in shaped charges to cut through steel explosively as 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
Although super-thermite and nano-thermite are interchangeable terms, thermite with additives such as sulfur and/or barium nitrate known as thermate is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as super-thermite. Case in point, the definition of thermate contains no mention of it being called super-thermite or it being explosive like the thermite talked about in the show.
Mechanical Engineer Tony Szamboti noted that it might have been nano-thermite, but pointed out in his comment that, "Nanothermite is tailorable as far as it's brisance by varying particle size. Additionally, some energetic materials like gun powder need containment to quickly generate very high pressures and become explosive, otherwise they just burn. In the case of the open air placement on the beam the nanothermite burned but it was obviously quite energetic."
Pat, if you really have the cahones to take on the nano-thermite issue then write a detailed rebuttal to my recent blog. Or you can just act like you've debunked something because a steel beam wasn't destroyed by a few strokes of a paint brush.
