Abject Geekery

Recently I have found myself in certain social circles.  I find myself asking a damning question: are all these people crazy?  The trouble with that question is that it is invariably followed by the darker question: if I am surrounded by crazy people, does that make me one of them?

Did you know that Glen Beck is a CIA plant meant to draw attention away from the Patriot movement?  Or how about this: did you know fire has never brought down a steel building?  Never ever.

These are just a small sampling of things I have heard recently from people I thought were otherwise rational.  I found myself wondering.  Am I crazy?  It is said that you can judge a person by the friends he keeps.  Does this mean that if a person’s friends are conspiracy theorist nut jobs that by default that person is also a nut job?  The thought is sobering.

What makes conspiracy theory so damn attractive is that it satisfies the need for a boogey man.  These otherwise people have opted to be afraid of the implausible instead of being afraid of the dark.  These people so incredibly believe in that which is not possible.

One of the most vocal groups in the conspiracy crowd is the 911 Truth crowd.  The Truthers are such a fervent bunch of loons that their commitment to the utterly absurd is frighteningly sad.  This commitment is a slime that poisons every honest and factual undertaking they touch.

Let me be clear: I am not saying some of what they say does not have merit or that some of it is not legitimate.  The problem is that the structure of their arguments are just like Building 7; removing a single pillar will implode the entire thing.

These people so fervently believe “fire has never destroyed a steel building.”  Really?  Why are structural steel members required to have fireproofing?  What happens when steel is exposed to heat?

There are of course lots of credible and quizzical things to be said about the 9-11 collapses.  But there are logical if yet unexplained answers for everything.

“Aluminothermic explosives surely brought the structure down.  No building falls like that unless there is demolition.”  Really?  Buildings on fire for hours without proper fire suppression systems and heavy structural damage don’t collapse?  I guess you can believe that if you believe that fire has no effect on steel.

I understand your frustrations 9-11 Truthers.  I do.  Honestly.  Metal in the building liquefied in the course of the fire.  When the wreckage was cleared, even weeks later, cherry red metal was found.  There was residue that had the chemical consistency of Thermite.  But government didn’t explore these things further because there are simple explanations for each of these.  Explanations the Truthers choose to ignore.

Liquefied metal.  Temperature, pressure, and volume.  Given proper gradients and enough relative surface area, the metal will thermally degrade in localized regions.  But these reports in the structure are unsubstantiated and impossible to verify.  Lots of things can have the appearance of a liquid metal, and with no concrete proof of its existence in the pre-collapse structure, there is no logical reason to believe what was seen was actually liquefied steel and not another substance in the building.

Cherry Red and liquefied metal post collapse in the debris.  Kinematics.  Kinetic energy, E = ½ mv^2.  The potential kinetic energy of a structure, U = mgh.  Physics 101.  Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  All of the potential energy in the building had to go somewhere.  Sure some of it was dissipated by the collapse itself, but much of the energy was not.  That energy thermally transferred into the debris at the bottom of the structure.  It had nowhere else to go.  What happens when you put a lot of energy into a molecule?  That’s right its temperature increases.

Thermite.  Molecules do strange things at high temperature.  Molecules with the consistency Thermite residue could have been generated in the furnace of trapped energy.  After all, thermite residue is formed at exceedingly high temperatures.

I know, I am probably being obtuse.  Thermite is way easier an explanation then catastrophic structural failure, simple physics, and a trust in professionals who have no reason to lie in their official reports.

One final thought.  As a professional engineer I have something to say that might blow some minds out there: some engineers are stupid.  9-11 Truthers love to claim that hundreds of engineers, scientists, and professors agree that WTC 7 is definitely a controlled demolition.  Ironically these Truthers have no problem recognizing that Lawyers, professors, and other types of scientists can be completely wrong about legal matters.  Why can’t engineers and scientists be wrong about natural ones?

I know that these people in general have good hearts and mean the best for everyone.  But I wish they would realize that this position hurts the Liberty movement far more then it helps.

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