09-08-2013, 05:36 PM
There is something else in play here. And that is what I call reading evidence or observations. We tend to use a result - outcome to tell us what caused that result outcome.
We see smoke we think (understandably) it was caused by fire. This works most of the time because we have a basic understanding of how the world works.. stimilus - response .. cause and effect.
But let say we saw a photo of a object in the sky.... a steel beam. Is it falling? Is it moving upward... or horizontally? One still pic we can't tell much.. that is other than the force of gravity and maybe some other forces might be acting on it. If we see a timed sequence we can know a lot more about the piece of steel and if we know the size and mass we can know a lot more. Our understanding is informed by the more ACCURATE data we have about the observation.
With respect to the collapses of the WTC buildings we have many poorly skilled observers reporting what they experienced. These reports are not scientific data, but anacdotal at best... although the observations of a trained skilled person would be more reliable than a laymen. I have more confidence in what a meteorologest sees looking at the sky than I do.
So the first thing is to take ALL lay observations with a HUGE grain of salt.
The there is the context. On the morning of 9/11 NYers were told they were under attack by terrrorists. They could see buildings on fire debris pouring from them smoke billowing skyward and the idiots on TV telling them what to think. So their observation of sounds will be HIGHLY prejudiced... loud noises are all bombs!
And further think of the language itself... most common use for a loud noise is the word EXPLOSION.... or maybe loud "BOOM".. explosions can BOOM too. Then there is ROAR like a loud train... or THUNDER which can BOOM or CRACK. All of these are the result of highly energetic events which release mechanical energy which is experience as sound. The collapse sounded to me like a ROAR not a series of explosions. A huge floor dropping would probably make a BOOM sound... and a series would sound as BOOM, BOOM, BOOM... what other way is there to describe the sound of floors collapsing?
The sort of sloppy thinking is on display with respect to dust ejections, smoke and dust laden air seen with the WTC collapses. The collapsing building occupied huge volumes of air and when the came down the collapses involved and CREATED enormous amount of air movements. Fires also cause air to move...heating it and causing it to rise and cooler air to rush in to replace it. Fires can create enormous local wind effects.
And these towers stood amidst the local wind conditions which were about 20 knots from the NW blowing SE. This too influences the observations. Dust in the air causes light to be refracted and color shifted, not to mention the low sun angle at the time of the plane strikes.
Down drafts were created from the collapsing billions of cubic feet of air rushed into behind/above the collapse and then spread laterally taking the heat from the smoldering fires in the rubble..and dust. This blast was like a huge bellows on the flaming debris pile stoking it hotter.
The event was so complex that it boggles the mind to try to describe all that was going on. But this does not prevent a single person from offering a description of what they saw. And people like Graham MacQueen from using statistics to determine what happened based on interviews of firemen and key words in their written accounts. Truth by word stats!
And truth because some self declared fake scientist tells you what you saw...
What to do?
We see smoke we think (understandably) it was caused by fire. This works most of the time because we have a basic understanding of how the world works.. stimilus - response .. cause and effect.
But let say we saw a photo of a object in the sky.... a steel beam. Is it falling? Is it moving upward... or horizontally? One still pic we can't tell much.. that is other than the force of gravity and maybe some other forces might be acting on it. If we see a timed sequence we can know a lot more about the piece of steel and if we know the size and mass we can know a lot more. Our understanding is informed by the more ACCURATE data we have about the observation.
With respect to the collapses of the WTC buildings we have many poorly skilled observers reporting what they experienced. These reports are not scientific data, but anacdotal at best... although the observations of a trained skilled person would be more reliable than a laymen. I have more confidence in what a meteorologest sees looking at the sky than I do.
So the first thing is to take ALL lay observations with a HUGE grain of salt.
The there is the context. On the morning of 9/11 NYers were told they were under attack by terrrorists. They could see buildings on fire debris pouring from them smoke billowing skyward and the idiots on TV telling them what to think. So their observation of sounds will be HIGHLY prejudiced... loud noises are all bombs!
And further think of the language itself... most common use for a loud noise is the word EXPLOSION.... or maybe loud "BOOM".. explosions can BOOM too. Then there is ROAR like a loud train... or THUNDER which can BOOM or CRACK. All of these are the result of highly energetic events which release mechanical energy which is experience as sound. The collapse sounded to me like a ROAR not a series of explosions. A huge floor dropping would probably make a BOOM sound... and a series would sound as BOOM, BOOM, BOOM... what other way is there to describe the sound of floors collapsing?
The sort of sloppy thinking is on display with respect to dust ejections, smoke and dust laden air seen with the WTC collapses. The collapsing building occupied huge volumes of air and when the came down the collapses involved and CREATED enormous amount of air movements. Fires also cause air to move...heating it and causing it to rise and cooler air to rush in to replace it. Fires can create enormous local wind effects.
And these towers stood amidst the local wind conditions which were about 20 knots from the NW blowing SE. This too influences the observations. Dust in the air causes light to be refracted and color shifted, not to mention the low sun angle at the time of the plane strikes.
Down drafts were created from the collapsing billions of cubic feet of air rushed into behind/above the collapse and then spread laterally taking the heat from the smoldering fires in the rubble..and dust. This blast was like a huge bellows on the flaming debris pile stoking it hotter.
The event was so complex that it boggles the mind to try to describe all that was going on. But this does not prevent a single person from offering a description of what they saw. And people like Graham MacQueen from using statistics to determine what happened based on interviews of firemen and key words in their written accounts. Truth by word stats!
And truth because some self declared fake scientist tells you what you saw...
What to do?