NIST'S WTC 7 technical briefing took place this morning. A number of good questions were asked, it seemed they came mostly from the 9/11-truth-seeking community. I asked (and these got through but were somewhat re-worded by the fellow "reading" the questions):
1. Did NIST have available to it samples of dust from the WTC catastrophe, and if so, did NIST examine the dust for red/gray chips as described by Dr. Steven Jones (physicist)? Note that over a dozen WTC-dust samples were examined by the US Geological Survey, and these were presumably available to NIST.
2. NIST discusses the fall time for WTC 7 on page 40 of their summary, where we find the significant assumption: "Assuming that the descent speed was approximately constant..." However, observations by Dr. Frank Legge and others of the descent speed shows that it is accelerating, not constant at all. Why did NIST assume "that the descent speed was approximately constant" when observation shows otherwise?
On 1, Shyam Sundar did not answer my questions at all -- he simply replied that they found some hypotheses "not credible," without doing the relevant experiments. Not a very scientific answer, IMO. PS -- they didn't look...
The NIST report disappointingly ignores our papers published in established, peer-reviewed journals:
Environmentalist: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10669-008-9182-4
The Open Civil Engineering Journal:
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM
But by so doing, NIST loses credibility, in not dealing with the issues raised and published in peer-reviewed venues.
I have heard from a number of scientists and engineers who are swayed by our arguments...
On question 2, Sundar and John Gross hemmed and hawed a bit, admitted that acceleration was probable and finally said the report probably needed to be corrected. If they make the needed correction, it should of course change their calculated fall time which was evidently based on the assumption that the descent SPEED was approximately constant... We will be watching.
My third question, about the high-temperature corrosion and sulfidation of a WTC 7 steel member-- reported in Appendix C of the FEMA report -- was not read...
AFAIK -- I say this because, after my second question was read and answered, the feed of the Briefing to my computer failed, and I could not get re-connected... Sundar spoke about this beam briefly in remarks, but I found he represented Barnett's explanation that gypsum COULD possibly have caused sulifdation as a given, rather than an untested hypothesis.
In other words, THAT hypothesis was taken as completely credible without experimental tests, no problem... What has happened to science and critical thinking?
Note that my paper with colleagues on the red-gray chips found in the WTC dust has been submitted to an established journal (a couple of weeks ago) and is going through the peer-review process prior to possible publication.
