Saturday, December 21, 2013

Non-Truther Expert Calls Yellow Molten Metal "Thermitic"

If you look at the National Geographic 9/11 Conspiracies Documentary, starting at about the 31 minute mark, you'll see Thomas Eager, professor of materials engineering at MIT, say that the yellow molten metal pouring from the South Tower is thermitic in nature, but is probably caused by the melted aluminum from the plane reacting with some other material.

This would contradict NIST's explanation that the yellow molten metal is a mixture of molten aluminum and burnt organic material.  Mixing with something and reacting with something are completely different phenomena.  Thus, our air is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen (and other gases), while water is a chemical compound formed from the reaction of oxygen and hydrogen.

Now I have no idea if the yellow molten metal is thermitic, or a mixture of aluminum and organic materials, or something else altogether.  But I've been lectured that I should ask the experts, since of course they know, and of course they will tell me it is a mixture of aluminum and organic materials.  Yet here we have a non-Truther expert disagreeing with other non-Truther experts about that question. So which experts should I trust?

I have a better idea:  Somebody find a peer reviewed paper that is pertinent to this question, or do a clear experiment that supports one view or the other (by the way, I think Steven Jones experiment is suggestive, but I don't think it's clear that he's disproven NIST).  Until then, my point holds:  NIST did not properly investigate the nature of the yellow molten metal.

Now I think Jaydeehess is correct, and that even if NIST is wrong, this does not tell us that the yellow molten metal is thermitic.  However, it's possible that Thomas Eager might know more than Jaydeehess or I about this matter.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL...

melted aluminum mixing with stuff, that this is the thermitic in nature Eagar was talking about.

But then I am an engineer, and I did take chem eng 101, did you? lol

A blog of woo, dumbed down for idiots, dolts, and insane people - aka 911 truth. Are you being silly on purpose, or does it come naturally

Bilbo said...

Hi Anon,

I didn't take chem eng 101, but I know the difference between a mixture of substances that are not reacting with each other - which is what NIST said happened, and a mixture of substances that are reacting with each other, in this case aluminum with some other substance, and producing a thermitic reaction. I know enough to know that you are just blowing smoke and hoping to obscure a very clear difference.

JDB said...

"But I've been lectured that I should ask the experts, since of course they know, and of course they will tell me it is a mixture of aluminum and organic materials."

I assume this line is a reference to me; yet I've never lectured you in this way, let alone for this reason.

To avoid misunderstanding, I'll elaborate: my view is not that you should simply ask experts what the material was. Moreover, I've never said that you should ask because they will tell you it is a mixture of aluminum and organic materials, let alone that they will "of course" tell you this.

It would be interesting to see if you could actually accurately and sympathetically repeat in your own words my position on how laypersons should navigate expert disagreements, avoiding these kinds of distortions and misunderstandings.

Bilbo said...

So which experts should I ask, JDB? Mohr's metallurgists, who say it is aluminum, even though Mohr thinks it is lead? Eagar, who thinks it is the byproduct of a thermitic reaction of aluminum with something else? The experts at ae911truth, who think it is thermite? If and when I have time, I will ask some experts about it, and about the corroded steel, and about the free fall time. But wouldn't clear experiments or peer reviewed papers be a better source?

JDB said...

You: "But I've been lectured that I should ask the experts, since of course they know, and of course they will tell me it is a mixture of aluminum and organic materials."

Me: "To avoid misunderstanding, I'll elaborate: my view is not that you should simply ask experts what the material was. Moreover, I've never said that you should ask because they will tell you it is a mixture of aluminum and organic materials, let alone that they will "of course" tell you this."

You: So which experts should I ask, JDB? ... If and when I have time, I will ask some experts about it, and about the corroded steel, and about the free fall time.

This exchange casts doubt on whether a positive answer to my challenge is forthcoming. That challenge is: "It would be interesting to see if you could actually accurately and sympathetically repeat in your own words my position on how laypersons should navigate expert disagreements, avoiding these kinds of distortions and misunderstandings."

Bilbo said...

I'm not really sure what your position is on how laypersons should navigate disagreements between experts. We have experts disagreeing on what the yellow molten metal is. To my mind, the best way to navigate this is by clear experiments or peer review. Why is that a problem for you?