Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D., of Northwestern University, is, in fact, the end-all and be-all of the official 9/11 theory. Dr. Bazant published his "Simple Analysis" of the 9/11 "collapses" some 48 hours after the events. 48 hours. Think about it. For the first time in the 100+ years of steel frame engineering history, multiple buildings all "collapse", completely, supposedly due to fire primarily, and Bazant publishes a detailed theory 48 hours later? This is bizarre on its face.
Bazant, along with co-author Frank Greening, have published the only model of a gravity-driven twin tower collapse. NIST bypassed the subject entirely, studying only the events leading up to "collapse". I have dialoged extensively with both Bazant and Greening. Both have now made truly glaring admissions to me. Greening admitted he has "no evidence" to support his position, this is presented in
another article.
Bazant admitted that "100%" of the debris ejected from the towers could go outside the footprints, and that, according to his mathematical model, "collapse" would still continue. This is patently absurd, because if 100% of the mass went outside the footprint, 0% would be left to push down on the intact structure below. Following is the dialog between Bazant and me.
Dear Dr. Bazant,
Thank you for your detailed reply, there is a wealth of very entertaining material here. Short of you actually appearing in the documentary, this is the next best thing.
1) As for your statement "Dr. Greening has now candidly admitted that he has "no evidence" to support"..."your claim that >80% of the mass of each WTC tower remained inside the footprint during collapse", he told me he did not say that. Of course, the 80% is an approximate estimate, and, as he told me again, he agrees with us that it is reasonable .
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
Greening positively DID admit he has no evidence to support his position. See
this article reprinting Greening emails.
1. Dr. Greening has now supplied you with a copy of the email correspondence in which he admitted he has no evidence to support the claim of a gravity collapse. I repeat and reassert my position that
Dr. Greening admits he has no evidence of a gravity collapse (i.e. no evidence of stacked up floors, no evidence of a large pile, no evidence of filled up basements, no evidence of >80% inside the footprint, etc.). I repeat my request to you to provide any evidence you have. Until then, "no evidence" is the word.
Despite the length of your reply, you have not directed me to credible evidence for these things. You have instead directed me to newspaper articles, and reports of landfill tonnage. Dr. Wood has made known the truckloads of dirt and landfill that were brought IN to ground zero, beginning right away. Other than attempting to smother an ongoing process of molecular dissociation, no explanation has been offered for this occurrence. In any case, for the 2qoutgoing landfill tonnage to have any meaning, this incoming material would need to be accounted for.
2) The estimate of 20% mass ejection rate is verified by our comparisons with the video record. If the ejection rate were higher than 20%, the match of video record would get worse, though not much worse.. But even if the ejection rate were 100%, the calculated motion of the top part would still be much slower than the free fall, as we checked long ago, of course.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
2. Your observation of the video record indicates that only 20% of the mass went outside the tower footprint? Really? This would mean that you observe 80% of the mass staying inside the footprint. Where do you see that? I have studied every video, and all I see is towers turning to dust and exploding outwards. Can you direct me to any video which depicts any part of the towers falling down inside the footprint?
Sir, in my (non-expert) opinion the "ejection rate" cannot go up to 100%, because this would leave zero mass to push downward on the intact building. I will also note that this very issue was debated at length with Greening, and Greening maintains an upper limit of 20% ejection before "collapse" halts. However, I will note the professional disagreement between the two of you, and will certainly make mention of the fact that you believe a gravity collapse can continue while ejecting 100% of the mass outside the footprint.
This kind of new-physics makes me glad I stuck to music in college. I would have never been able to get my mind around a mass-free collapse.
3) On the other hand, from the numerous parameter studies that we have done, some of which are found in my paper with Verdure, one finds that the variations of the mass ejection ratio have a negligible effect on the overall duration of collapse (causing a difference of 0.15 second at most). This is further verified by the seismic record. The explanation is that the decrease of the resisting force due to an increase of the mass ejection ratio is approximately compensated by the configurational force calculated as the derivative of the energy needed to accelerate the mass for ejection.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
3. This is begging the question and assuming the conclusion. You're reasoning that the greater the lateral ejection, the greater the downward force that must have caused this ejection. Thus, although the mass of the remaining material is less, you say, the downward force is greater, and so the two compensate for one another.
Assuming a gravity collapse, the only explanation for lateral ejection is that some of the downward force due to gravity is redirected to move material sideways. The more ejection, the greater the downward force must have been, immediately prior to the lateral ejection. Under this logic, the more lateral ejection, the more energy pushing downwards, the more destruction to the intact building, and the faster the collapse.
Under this logic, the events at Hiroshima could be described as a gravity driven collapse. We observe tremendous lateral ejection, and reason that this tremendous energy must have come from the force of falling mass, redirected sideways. The greater the lateral ejection, the greater the downward force must have been, and the easier to explain the flattened buildings. Considering the radius of lateral ejection at Hiroshima, I suspect that the "configurational force calculated as the derivative of the energy needed to accelerate the mass" would easily explain how a gravity-driven collapse of a single building could wipe out a city.
OK? This is patent nonsense, and you know it. The observed lateral ejection requires an energy input, which could be gravitational potential energy, or it could be explosives and weapons of some kind, we don't know right away. We could assume a gravity collapse to test the idea, but if we run into an absurdity, we must abandon the assumption and try something new. You have already demonstrated that your assumption leads to an absurdity. I.E., your assumption allows for 100% of the mass to be ejected out of a gravity-driven collapse. HELLO??! Is anybody home? Dr. Bazant, when you got to the part in #2 about 100% of the mass going over the side, and this INCREASES the amount of energy available to destroy the intact building, THAT DIDN'T MAKE YOU WONDER ABOUT YOUR ASSUMPTIONS? Not even a little?
Please.
4) The seismic record provides further evidence. Since the heavy objects ejected out of the tower would experience an almost free fall, which is much faster than the front of crush-down, one would have to expect the strongest ground motion to occur well before our calculated collapse time. Nevertheless, the seismic record shows that the strongest ground motion does match our calculated collapse time. This again shows that a majority of the mass must have been falling within the tower perimeter during the crush-down.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
4. I have no training in seismology per se, but I do understand that seismographs plot waveform amplitude against time. In my professional work as a music composer, I routinely use software which depicts sound recordings as waveform amplitude against time. The amount of detail and complexity in a waveform can be seen. A very low amplitude waveform will naturally lack the detail present in a higher amplitude waveform. The "gain" can be increased on a low amplitude waveform to bring it up to a higher amplitude, but it will never present the same amount of high frequency detail present in a waveform which was recorded at a high level to begin with. Thus, I can see the difference between a sound that actually was loud, and one which was quiet and had its amplitude increased later.
The seismographs from 9/11 lack detail. They have far less detail than other seismographs of similar amplitude from the New York earthquake in January 2001. They remind me very, very much of music waveforms which have been artificially boosted in amplitude. Based on this, I feel confident in saying that the seismographs from 9/11 are not reliable.
5) A high lateral ejection on impact occurs only when an impacted layer is non-porous and non-compressible. But the stories are nearly empty. In this sense, the stories are more like a rigid foam (in which case a compaction with no lateral displacement is known to occur at impact), and not like dense gravel (for which such lateral displacement does occur). So, as we checked long ago, a high lateral ejection ratio cannot be justified mechanics of highly porous media.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
5. I've had enough of your lateral ejections. See 2 and 3.
6) The debris profile seen after the collapse cannot really reflect the true mass ejection ratio because, during the impact on the ground and during the crush-up phase, most of the debris that was falling within the perimeter must have been pushed to the sides after hitting the ground. Simple soil mechanics-type calculations, taking into account the known friction coefficient of rubble masses, verify that.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D
6. You're again assuming the conclusion and working backwards. It "must have" gone to the sides after the "collapse" was over? You don't even have any evidence that this falling material remained macroscopic, nor that it remained in the footprint during the collapse. Whatever material "must have" done assuming a gravity collapse is not relevant because I'm not willing to make that assumption. Once we remove your assumption of a gravity collapse, everything you say falls apart.
7) The dust cloud is expanding rapidly because the exiting air attains a near-sonic velocity at the exit from the tower.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
7. Again, unsupported assumptions. Do you have any evidence that falling material was moving that fast? I see no evidence that most of the falling material was even macroscopic, much less that is was moving near the speed of sound. Evidence, please.
8) Why didn't you try to get a record of the weight of debris transported by trucks from the site, and its mass at the deposit site? You could have easily seen your speculations about the small mass of the pile to be erroneous.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
8. Ryan Mackey and Mark Roberts provided me with the Fresh Kills numbers long ago. At the time, I questioned the validity. It's very easy to fudge numbers on a garbage report. As mentioned, Dr. Wood has informed us that innumerable truckloads of dirt and landfill were brought IN to ground zero. Amounts going back out must include records of how much was trucked IN. They don't, and we reject this line of evidence for those reasons. They are contradicted by the photographic and video record, which are more reliable.
9) We did, of course, examine the photos. By comparing several different photos with a map of the site, matching the lines of sight tangent to the pile top to various points of known coordinates on the surrounding building, and using elementary surveyors's trigonometry, it is not difficult to map the height of the pile. If you have doubts, do this exercise, or hire a surveyor.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
9. OK. Let's do the exercise! Here is a photo across the area of WTC1. We see WTC6 in the background. It is 8 stories tall. We can see all 8 stories. Therefore, the debris on the ground is <1 story. In fact, it barely covers the ground. Let me point out that this photo was taken on 9/11. Do I really need to draw lines? Do you see the humans?
What pile? Where did the building go?
10) Regarding the amount of debris pile after collapse, many newspaper articles and several formal publications mentioned that the height of debris pile was about 5-6 stories, e.g.:
[1] Landrigan, P. J. et al, “Health and Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Disaster.” Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 112, Number 6, May 2004. and
[2] Jameson, J. R. “September 11, 2001: Then and Now.” The online Journal of Issues in Nursing, ANA, Vol 7. No. 3, 2002.
Have you ever seen that towering huge pile of rubble? What I saw myself while visiting the site confirms that.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
10. No, I've never seen that "towering huge pile of rubble". Dr. Greening told me to look at a photo, and "use my imagination". Where exactly was this pile of rubble? I spent a month building a website called "Hunt the Rubble". I couldn't find big piles anywhere. Please direct me to the big huge piles. Forgive me. When I see photos like the above, I simply don't believe you. What piles?
11) One must also take into account that the "bathtub", about 20 m (over 6 stories) deep, and of a much bigger area than the tower footprints, was full of compacted debris.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
11. Do you have any evidence that the bathtub was filled with debris? Evidence please. Greening has already admitted he has "no evidence". I've seen pictures of the empty basement, undamaged trains, intact retail stores etc.
12) Apparently you have not time to reach understanding of our analysis of fragmentation and pulverization, and have not studied the theory of comminution, which is perfectly well established. It is simply inconcievable that most of the mass of the tower would have been turned to dust during the collapse, either due to supposed explosives or to impact energy. Our calculations of the particle size distribution and their total mass do not disagree with any observations.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
12. Excuse me? Your calculations completely disagree with the observation that the rubble pile is <1 story tall? (See above picture, one more time).
Finally, I agree whole-heartedly with one of your statements. It IS simply inconcievable that most of the mass of the tower would have been turned to dust during the collapse, either due to supposed explosives OR to impact energy. Correct. This is what led Drs. Wood and Reynolds to conclude that it was not a gravity collapse, nor was it conventional explosives. Correct. Brilliant. NOW we're getting somewhere.
Finally, let me say that if you read our papers carefully, if you looked carefully at the parametric studies in the diagrams in my paper with Verdure (or if you hired a graduate student in structural mechanics to do that for you), you could have arrived at the above explanations yourself.
Except if you would have some truly new important points to raise in regard to what you call a "documentary", please take me out of your mailing list. I do not have time to waste. I have more serious projects to work on than the WTC, which has merely been a hobby for me.
-Zdenek Bazant, Ph.D.
Fairly presenting the idea that the World Trade Center was destroyed by Directed Energy Weapons is certainly a truly new and important point, and is certainly in my documentary. Thus, you are still on my email list, and you are still cordially invited to sit for an interview, and financial compensation is available to you for your time, should you choose to participate. We are now in the editing stage, so an interview would have to be arranged as soon as possible. Getting you on tape discussing the possibility of 100% mass ejection, would be priceless.
SIncerely,
Ace Baker
