BYU physics professor disputes WTC collapse explanation
 

This issue was given short shrift over on CougarBoard, but I think it raises some interesting issues.

Here's the CougarBoard link:

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=1563561

Here's the link to the Deseret News article:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160132,00.html

The Deseret New article also contains a link to the draft of his paper.

I find it particularly interesting, because I brought up similar concerns on CougarBoard several months ago, in relation to the Pentagon crash. As expected, I was pretty much ridiculed. I had seen the same concerns the professor brought up about the WTC, but I never got beyond the Pentagon issues. (By the way, I never did get a satisfactory scientific explanation for how the Pentagon crash and damage occurred.)

He is not the first scholar to look at the issue, but he may be the first to have a peer-reviewed paper on the issue published. I'll be very interested to see what happens to that.

I have read through part of his paper, and so far, it makes sense. Of course, I'm not a physicist, but he is. It's very interesting, too, that he's putting his name on the line on this.

When otherwise respected scientists start questioning something like the WTC collapse, does it mean they're actually crackpots? A lot of the CougarBoarders seem to think so.

Pons and Fleischman were respected
 

scientists as well.

that's interesting. I think Jones was my teacher for PHysics 101.

I think he should keep his mouth shut about whether it was Muslims or not, cause I don't see how he has proof of that, even if there were explosives.

His paper, I think sheds light on why he made that comment. He says not only that it appears this was a demolition job, but that it was a demolition done so well and on such a large scale that there are only a few demolition companies in the world who could accomplish such a thing. I kind of doubt that al Qaeda runs any of them.

I think the point he's making about that, too, is that if his hypothesis is true, the ramifications are significant.

I have no opinion on the validity of the science, but I am surprised how quick people are to dismiss his theories just because they are uncomfortable with where his conclusions might lead.

It's the usual (and very vocal) suspects over there, too: Snipe & DixieCougar being the prime among them.

The WTC collapses aren't the only holes in the 9/11 explanations. I have seen inconsistencies regarding the Pentagon crash, the military's response to the off-course airliners, the identities of the hijackers (apparently a couple of the alleged hijackers are alive and well in the middle east), and President Bush's response to the news of the first WTC crash.

Usually, conspiracy theory nuts can be debunked pretty easily. I have not seen logical explanations for some of the inconsistencies I have done a little research into myself.

I think Professor Jones is a gutsy man for publishing his paper, especially if he believes the hypothesis. I think the ramifications of this sort of thing may have chilled others from doing the same. If you follow the logic of his hypothesis, there are conclusions involving very powerful people.

this argues in favor of tenure. a junior level person could never publish something like this. he would never be able to go anywhere and would be ridiculed by his colleagues.

obviously jones feel secure enough that he can go against the grain and be provocative.

what's up with a byu professor being provocative? Fire him now! he's hurting the church!

I was a rather vocal opponent to the Pentagon theories
 

you posted on CB, and remain very skeptical of those particular claims. I am no scientist, but I have talked to a few engineers. I have a deadline at work and so can't get into great detail right now, but here is the bottom line. I find the arguments presented by Jones et al. about the WTC twin towers to be very weak but find it harder to dismiss what happened to WTC 7.

OTOH, ask yourself this: How likely is it that the one or two demoiltion ocmpanies in the owrld that have the ability to perfrom such a clean demoliton would be able to
1. perfrom all their set up without being noticed;
2 Get a sufficient number of managemnt and on the line people to go along with this idea before the blasts
3. Keep all of these poeple quiet after the blasts;
4. convince not one but two groups of hijackers to attack

and finally, WHY? We do have a pretty good idea that Ossama wants to kill us; why would the shadowy 'they' need to go to these great lengths to demo these buildings? Nothing about the post 9/11 actions at the site suggests that anyone had some great plan that was being hindered by the presence of any of these bulidings, so why do it? THere are many, many places that they could have created a sufficiently large attack to justify oging after Afghanistan and, once having done so, Iraq would follow whether or not thre WTC had been attacked. So why did it happen?

Look at it in reverse, Creekster. Starting with the premise that 9/11 happened as we believe, we should be able to go back to the circumstances and find evidence which will support that premise. There will be an engineering and scientific explanation for how the towers were caused to fall as a sole result of the jetliner crashes. Four years after the fact, however, the questions are still being raised, and have not been debunked.

If the evidence does not support the premise, then the premise fails. If the premise is correct, it should be supportable by the evidence.

I disagree
 

There are engineering models, but we don't have the ability to recreate the exact circumstances.

I don't think we always should be able to recreate a singular event like 9-11.