Thursday, August 26, 2010

Actually, no Mr. Nobles...

I think it's time to correct you on a few issues.

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Joseph Nobles posted a response to my debunking of his posts on the thermal conductivity of the WTC steel and the corroded steel samples. And on Tuesday, he posted a request to me that I correct myself.

I'll be doing some correcting, but not of me.

Mr. Nobles claims that Kevin Ryan cherrypicked information in his critique of NIST's WTC 7 report.




Well obviously this upset me quite a bit. How dare Kevin Ryan cherrypick his info and trick me like that. Fortunately, I managed to get a message from Kevin Ryan about this issue. Here is what he wrote:

"If the question here is referring to my "Bush Science Reaches Its Peak" article on the WTC 7 report, and I think it is, then note that I did not say that NIST didn't "include a factor of thermal conductivity" in its model. You only have to read the article to see that the NIST manipulation I referred to had the set the thermal conductivity to zero, which is quite different than omitting it altogether. The fact that NIST set the thermal conductivity to zero in that instance is very clear and supported by the references given in my paper. As an analogy, if someone sets your thermostat to zero, that doesn't mean there is no temperature in your home, correct? Even if they set it to zero Kelvin (absolute zero), temperature would still be a factor (quite a substantial factor for you actually)."

So yes Mr. Nobles, NIST did include thermal conductivity as a factor. But because they set the conductivity to zero or near zero, they might as well have not included it at all.

Further distortions in the NIST report on thermal conductivity are also noted by Jim Hoffman in his critique of the NIST's report on the Twin Towers.

"NIST apparently ignored thermal conduction within its model of the steel structure. Since steel is a good conductor of heat, and the steel in the Twin Towers' structures was well connected, their massive steel structures would have drawn heat away from the parts that were exposed to fire. The Report describes a model of "The Fire-Structure Interface", and describes the computation of heat transfer between the air and the steel structure, but it does not mention the conduction of heat along spans of the steel structure.(p 131-2/181-2) The suspicion that NIST simply ignored the conduction of heat within the steel is corroborated by the Report's disclosure that they used heat transfer tests on isolated steel elements to calibrate their model.(p 134/184)"

As for the corroded steel, Mr. Nobles barely offered any reasonable response at all.



That's the problem Mr. Nobles. You claim that it was corroded after the collapse. But as I already pointed out, the people who actually examined the steel stated that it is "possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure."

Mr. Nobles continually makes the argument that since whatever corroded the steel only approached 1000°C, it could not have been thermate, since thermate burns much hotter. What Mr. Nobles doesn't realize is that thermate can be formulated to burn at varying temperatures based on the quantity of the elements in it. A calculation for how the eutectic mixture could have approached 1000°C has been worked out by Jerry Lobdill in discussing the molten metal flowing out of WTC 2:

"Now consider the problem of the molten metal flowing from the 82nd floor of WTC 2. Some have suggested that this metal was the eutectic mixture of Fe and S. Let’s discuss that possibility. We assume that the steel that is cut from the columns is essentially pure Fe. It is melted and mixes with the thermate reaction products and then flows away by gravity. As the mixture cools, if the original molten mix was at S less than 31.4%, Fe begins to crystallize out. This increases the S% in the remaining mix. As the cooling continues, the S% increases until it reaches 31.4%, and this remaining molten eutectic mixture solidifies at 994 C (or 988 C, depending on which measurement you believe). So unless the original S% was 31.4%, the molten mass is crystallizing out solidified Fe as it flows downhill and cools. When, in the cooling process, the molten mass reaches the eutectic composition, it also reaches the eutectic temperature. At that temperature the remaining liquid gives up its latent heat of fusion and crystallizes as a microscopically heterogeneous solid with a (macroscopically) 31.4% S, 68.6% Fe composition. Once all the material has solidified the entire mass resumes cooling. We thus have a plausible explanation of why the material flowing from WTC 2 was orange-hot liquid (~1000 C)."

There are clearly many variations of thermite, thermate, and other incendiaries that can be formulated to reach higher and lower temperatures, as pointed out by Dr. Steven Jones.

"Of course, there is a straightforward way to achieve 1000°C temperatures (and well above) in the presence of sulfur, and that is to use thermate."

At the end of Mr. Nobles' response he offers a very obvious non-response to my other points.



First of all, yes, I did have to point out to you that the steel came from Building 7. Your first post on the topic mentioned nothing about Jonathan Barnetts's statement.

I responded to this post (a response that I know you read), and quoted Jonathan Barnett as saying that:

"They didn't use this particular type of steel in Towers 1 or Towers 2, so that's why we know its pedigree."

And in your post written after mine, you then included his quote.

You can call the fact that I had to point this information out to you as an "incredible assertion," but it's the truth.

Mr. Nobles is apparently unimpressed by Jonathan Cole's experiment, but others aren't, and that includes debunkers.

"I'm out of town most of the time of late so I have not been doing much 911 research these days. However, I did have a look at the video. I must say that I'm very impressed with Mr. Cole's experiment - nice job! It certainly looks convincing with regard to how the experiment was carried out and I'm very happy to see someone test something I suggested a few years ago.

I am prepared to admit that my initial proposal as to how steel was sulfided during the 911 events needs to be modified. Certainly it looks like diesel fuel, gypsum, concrete and aluminum alone are not going to do it ....."

-Dr. Frank Greening

Dr. Greening has suggested other natural causes of the sulfidation, but he acknowledges that his previous theories have been refuted.

This is the point I keep trying to get across to Mr. Nobles. If nothing natural inside the building could have corroded the steel, then obviously something unnatural must have been placed inside the building to cause it. Debunkers have presented several explanations for the corrosion of the steel. Well, the explanations have been put to the test. The experiment has been done. The burden of proof is now on the debunkers to show that something natural could have melted and corroded the steel.

Well, I corrected the errors Mr. Nobles, just like you wanted. But of course, it turned out I wasn't the one needing correcting.

Side note: Special thanks to John-Michael Talboo and all his contacts for their help.

Update:

Joseph Nobles has responded to the above (sort of). He still insists that NIST adequately included thermal conductivity in their reports. I still see evidence of fraud in the reports, but this matter could be completely resolved if NIST would release their modeling data for review. And he ignored my sections on the eutectic steel, except for his claim that I didn't correct him about where the steel came from. Decide for yourself:



Mr. Nobles' response ends with the following:



Ignore me all you want Mr. Nobles. It does seem to be the debunker way these days.