cont,

You also provided a link to a “truther” study which suggests 9.1m/s2. This is definitely within the realm of possible given NIST’s models.

You say >> “Surely you would have to agree that the consequences of accepting the official story, which appears to be wrong, have been so grave, resulting in the deaths of thousands of soldiers and millions people, largely innocent women and children, that there is ample justification for a new enquiry”

This is where I lose ANY respect for your position. This is the problem with you truthers. You don’t like Bush (hell who does), you don’t like the war so its awfully convenient for you to have this be a false flag operation. You fit the facts to your hopes

Paul.L,

You said: “…you avoided the fact that Chandlers “evidence” would not hold up in court. The scientific rigor involved in Chandlers experiment is NOT of a level that would allow it to be put forward for peer review.

Let’s get something straight. I am not suggesting that we should be taking this video to court. I will repeat what I am suggesting so that it will be abundantly clear:

….the consequences of accepting the official story, which may be wrong, have been so grave, resulting in the deaths of thousands of soldiers and millions of people, largely innocent women and children, that there is ample justification for a new enquiry.

I now add that there is much evidence that the official story is wrong, not just the acceleration of the buildings.

You said: “What is your estimate for the likely error for this analysis? Or do you assert that through this whole process he has introduced no error anywhere?”

I have already addressed the question of error by asking you to look at the spread of points in the graph. That provides a visual estimate of error. The spread is narrow enough that I would have thought that you would regard the graph, if not as prove, at least as disturbing and warranting further investigation.

I have already discussed two authors whose calculation came within 0.2 seconds of one another, if the acceleration they measured had been maintained to ground level. Now there is a third author. He has done something very similar to the others and shows a period of very near free fall collapse, at a rate of 9.62m/s/s, in between the values of the other two authors.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=RveHSPbtTmY

This is a particularly interesting study as it includes a comparison with a known controlled demolition. This gives an acceleration of 9.7m/s/s, and the graph shape is startlingly similar. You will notice near free fall for 2 or 3 seconds, then some resistance, exactly as one would expect for a controlled demolition. Why some resistance? Because the company does not need to waste money on laying complete demolition explosives all the way up the building, as gravity will do the work after about 2 or 3 seconds of free fall, provided a few major columns are chopped higher up. We do see signs of some limited explosives higher up in both WTC7 and the known controlled demolition.

You say: “The buckling of the exterior, together with the damage from the south tower meant that there was very little resistance to the collapse for at least 7 stories. If you have a look at NIST’s modeling of the collapse you will see this.”

Well I have had a look at the NIST simulation of the collapse and it doesn’t look right. For a start the collapse of the roof does not begin until a great deal of internal collapse has occurred right up to the roof. How this can be happening without a window breaking is beyond belief. Some refutations here:
http://www.911blogger.com/node/17785
The simulation shows much twisting and bending of steel with the west wall badly distorting very early in the collapse but there is no sign of this in the video. There are numerous refutations of the new NIST theory of thermal expansion. I will give just two:

tbc

1. NIST now says the steel did not get hot enough to collapse the building due to softening of the steel, and they say the damage from falling debris hitting the south side was not significant. I think they had to say that because the fire was diminishing on the north side, running out of fuel, as the videos and photos show. If the steel was cooling it was already regaining strength, and having survived its weakest period could not fail at 5:20pm, or at least, if it did fail, it would be the south side first. But it did not tilt south. So now NIST says thermal expansion did it, which did not need such high temperatures. But steel not only gets stronger as it cools but also contracts. So having passed the time when expansion was at a maximum it could not now fail. See p 34 of NIST report – even their simulation shows cooling near the floor section which supposedly started the collapse.

2. NIST says that expansion of a floor section pushed a girder off its support on column 79. The floor fell and knocked out the floor below, which fell and knocked out the floor below, etc., until there were enough floors knocked out to expose column 79 to buckling, being now unsupported horizontally. There is a problem with that however: the images show that column 79 was supported horizontally by a floor running away on the other side. The theory fails at the outset.

I said >> Structural engineers are not like plumbers or carpenters ..."

You said: “This is complete BULLSH!T. Academics with tenure are fully entitled to dispute articles published in journals or by NIST etc. Disputing the science isn’t the same thing as accusing the US Gov’t of mass murder of its own people.”

Yes, fully entitled to dispute, but that does not mean they will. And not everyone is tenured these days. I hope you will be able to disagree with policy if you think it wrong in your work. You might like to read this:
http://www.donaldmiller.com/The_Government_Grant_System.pdf

And again: “Do you think the FDNY doesn’t have structural engineers and other specialists who would be jumping up and down if they thought the gov’t was trying to shove under the carpet the fact that it killed hundreds of their brothers?

You appear to be unaware what the firefighters are saying. I suggest you take a look:
http://firefightersfor911truth.org/

Finally you say: “You don’t like Bush (hell who does), you don’t like the war so its awfully convenient for you to have this be a false flag operation. You fit the facts to your hopes.”

No. I tried hard to avoid concluding that explosives were used. Eventually I found the evidence to be so strong that I now believe a new investigation is mandatory. The death rate has averaged about 30 per hour in Afghanistan since 9/11. Do you not feel for those kids dying? They don't all die cleanly you know

On the YouTube broadcast at http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=USnxe7hxP4I President W stated. "... He told us that the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a higher point - a point that was high enough to prevent people from escaping. ..."

Huhh!?

"Ensure that the explosives went off"?

Or what about Donald Rumsfeld stating "... if we imagine the kind of the world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain ... if the people who attacked the United States and New York, who shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon ..." (http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Xoxaf1Al0)

Huhh! United Airlines Flight 93 was "shot down"?!

(See also my post of 25 October at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166#48419)

... or back to discussing the WTC 7 'collapse':

Larry Silverstein, who owned WTC 7, stated recalling the events of the day "I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it." (http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/silverstein_pullit.html)

I can already here Paul.L indignantly shrieking once again:

"There is NO evidence. Its all pure speculation. ..."

However, does any of the above strike anyone else here as suspicious?