Spring Break Has Begun

I have got to stop using titles that should otherwise be the first line of my blog entries. So as the title would suggest, I'm home. Do I wish I was in some sunny locale - Florida, California, the Caribbean? Partly yes, partly no. I'd love to be off somewhere having fun with my friends. But I also love being home, having quiet, catching up on sleep (13.5 hours last night - oh yea).

Plus I get to hear all the incriminating stories about my friends which I will not be a part of. All the fun, none of the repercussions. Haha!

I haven't done much in my 30 or so hours at home, as would be expected. I have eaten well, slept a lot, and watched two movies so far. And I hope that continues through the rest of the week. I have some work to do - Biochem and Drug Chem reading, and the usual grading load. Not too much, but it will keep me busy for a while. I intend on doing some significant Biochem outlining so I might actually start learning something in that class. Ever since Dr. Gregory's lectures ended, I have gotten about zilch out of BCHM 4116. Managed to BS my way through a quiz though...that was pretty impressive.

Something else everyone should be aware of. The link originated in Dave's profile, but I'm going to endorse it here:

The Other Side of 9-11

It's an interesting take on what happened that day. It suggests a government conspiracy. Now, I'm not one for conspiracies, and I honestly thought I'd find the thing riddled with holes and false assumptions, but that proved to not be the case. The guy makes a damn good case on the whole, and it certainly opened my eyes to something that seemed so definite, so absolute.

I recommend watching it if you find yourself with a free hour and 22 minutes. Then come back and read my counter-argument to some of it. He raises some interesting issues for which I have no rebuttal, but here are some things that I found problematic:

Regarding the Pentagon. I have heard all number of things about how it was really a missile that hit the Pentagon. I've seen all sorts of videos and proposals about how it couldn't possibly have been a plane. The images shown in the documentary, however, seem inconsistent with the original images broadcast on all news stations shortly after 9-11. I honestly think they were doctored by the documentary maker. I distinctly remember seeing the nose of the plane in the first image in the series, which was absent in the filmmaker's presentation.

Second, my father personally knows someone who was driving on I-395 when the attack happened. She saw a plane in her rearview mirror as she drove past the Pentagon. I know there were conflicting reports about what it was, but then again, remember the mass hysteria and how people claimed all sorts of things that day. This woman saw a plane flying low over the highway. I trust my father's friends.

My dad was an engineer in the U.S. Air Force. He knows a lot about planes - how they work, what they can do, and what they're made of. Here are his thoughts about the "inconsistencies" in the damage to the Pentagon. (They've become mine as well, he's got me convinced).

1 - No wing damage? No problem. Aircraft wings are made of tempered aluminum. For all those who don't know what that is, (I didn't until he told me) that means they are extremely brittle, and if heated, melt down into tiny beads of liquid aluminum. Hence no significant wing damage, no wing wreckage.

2 - No evidence of other engine wreckage? The documentary maker bases his entire case on four photographs he shows. That does not provide absolute evidence that there were no engines lying around, or other pertinent wreckage. He could simply be choosing what he elects to show us. Or it could just be a matter of there not being photographs of everything.

3 - Mysterious box being hauled away? If they had shot the Pentagon with a missile, there wouldn't be anything left. This giant box is obviously plane wreckage, and does not support the filmmaker's case. (This point was my own)

Next, on to the World Trade Center. The biggest flaw in the logic employed in the documentary is the Law of Falling Objects. It does not apply. Period. The principle of that Law is that an object can fall only a certain distance per unit time if in freefall. In other words,

D = 0.608 x t(s)^2

where D is distance and t(s) is time in seconds. The inconsistency lies in the fact that the World Trade Center is not a single object when falling, and the amount that falls is actually gaining mass (and thus momentum) as it proceeds downward. No, I'm not inventing matter, but check out this logic.

The plane hit the second tower between the 78th and 82nd floors. That much is true. That left about 30 floors above the impact. The building buckled at the point of impact, and the top descended upon all floors below the 78th. The momentum of this impact drove down the subsequent floors, which drove down lower floors, on and on until the bottom. Thus, the section of the tower in downward motion was increasing in momentum. That's why it fell so fast. It was not a single body of constant mass in freefall, it was an ever-growing collection of objects compiling upon themselves to increase in downward momentum.

And no, I'm not a physics major. That's just common sense.

Next, to address his claim that 2000 F heat melted the steel in the WTC. He cites a statement from a civil engineer who worked on the towers when they were built. He was quoted as saying that the heat of the burning jet fuel weakened the steel in the towers, leading to the collapse. OK. The filmmaker then cites an underwriter in the company who approved the steel as saying this engineer claimed the steel melted.

Whoa - get the quote right.

The melting point of steel is indeed 3000 F. That's the point where it liquifies, not where it weakens. That's what the engineer claims. It was weakened; he never said "melted." I mean, hell, you can heat steel to about 500 F and bend it by hand. Doesn't take jet fuel, genius. Then consider the fact that you just had a 100-ton aircraft slam damn near perpendicular into the side of the building. The impact, torque (since it hit at almost the top of the building), and vibrational damage done to the steel (from the explosion) had to have had some effect on the structural integrity of the tower.

It's physics again. I apologize.

He also claims there were secondary explosions that brought down the tower as it went down, and he points out around half a dozen "explosions" that occurred as the towers collapsed. Did he consider the fact that girders were snapping under the weight of the collapsing tower? I'm pretty sure that could account for some ejection of rubble from the tower.

The stuff that doesn't add up is compelling, especially regarding inconsistencies in Flight 93 (that crashed in Pennsylvania) and the collapse of World Trade Center 7. So I'm not saying that there's not some weird shit out there, but this guy's argument isn't as solid as it first appeared. I know I was pretty worked up after I first watched it, but I also never claimed to fully believe it, either.

Wow, all this physics has tired me out.