KennyJC said:His objection to NIST not modeling the full collapse is a straw man. NIST's models due to the magnitude of the failures that were occurring were not able to converge on a solution. NIST did not have to model the complete collapse anyway. All they were paid to do was find out what caused the collapse, and they succeeded in doing so.
Suppose we created a computer simulation of something that we know could not happen in the real world?
Make a computer model of the north tower and then remove 5 levels, 92, 93, 94, 95 and 96. This would leave a 60 foot gap with 14 levels in the air with no support. So 14 levels would fall straight down impacting the lower portion at 44 mph.
I think everyone would have to concede that the total elimination of 5 levels is more than the airliner and fires could possibly have done. But to analyze the result wouldn't the computer model have to know the quantity and strength of steel and concrete on every level? So if this computer model was accurately done and the entire building did not collapse then what would that say about this EIGHT YEAR debate?
I think the main thing here psikey, is that even with NIST's estimates of the quantity and strength of the concrete and steel on every level, the building simply wasn't going to collapse. Their own initial computer models made that abundantly clear. So, did they consider the possibility that perhaps something other than the planes and fires were involved? No. Instead, they "adjusted the input", as they state in their 2005 report:
To the extent that the simulations deviated from the photographic evidence or eyewitness reports [e.g., complete collapse occurred], the investigators adjusted the input, but only within the range of physical reality.
It seems clear to me and many others, however, that the only reality they were thinking of was the reality that, as they state, "the collapse occured"; they seem much less interested in the reality that the fires couldn't have done it. This is clear when we see how they "adjusted" their model: "Thus, for instance,…the pulling forces on the perimeter columns by the sagging floors were adjusted", they state.
Steven Jones highlights the absurdity of "adjusting" the inputs in this way in his peer reviewed paper, Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?:
How fun (perhaps) to tweak the model like that, until the building collapses -- until one gets the desired result. But the end result of such tweaked computer hypotheticals is not compelling. Notice that the “the pulling forces on the perimeter columns by the sagging floors were adjusted” (NIST, 2005, p. 142; emphasis added) to get the perimeter columns to yield sufficiently – one suspects these were “adjusted” by hand quite a bit -- even though the UK experts complained that “the core columns cannot pull the exterior [i.e., perimeter] columns in via the floor.” (Lane and Lamont, 2005; emphasis added.)
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