Glaring Proof of Something Hotter than an Office Fire in WTC2

This photograph by Frank Silecchia shows hot metal being removed from the North Tower rubble on September 27, 2001; sixteen days after the building collapsed.[7]

For unexplained reasons, this article was pulled from 911blogger.

Revised Sun Feb 15 13:10:43 EST 2009

Revised Wed Nov 28 07:09:00 EST 2007

My purpose in this article is to be brief and to the point. I am not a professionally trained physicist, but I have known about the theory of blackbody radiation since I was a child. It is essential for understanding the science of cosmology in which I took an early interest. Planck's Law of Blackbody Radiation is a fact of Nature which provides a decisive test for the 9/11 official conspiracy theory (OCT). That decisiveness may not be evident to the layman, but it should be clear to any physicist worth his salt. I challenge anybody to reproduce the recorded phenomenon of brightly glowing molten metal (or any other material exhibiting a similar appearance) using only materials and conditions reasonably present in World Trade Center Building 2 (WTC2) without assuming the presence of some intentionally placed pyrotechnic material such as thermate.

For those interested in sustaining the conclusion that the Twin Towers were destroyed by some kind of controlled demolition, I strenuously urge you to use this as a primary argument. I am firmly convinced that it is irrefutable. Though reasonable minds will conclude that massive 110 story skyscrapers do not crumble to dust due to the amount of structural damaged caused by aircraft impact and resulting fires, this is a very difficult fact to prove rigorously. It is possible to hand-wave the physics and thus arrive at collapse times roughly consistent with those observed, so the free-fall speed argument has a rhetorical vulnerability.

There is one actually glaring item of evidence in the body of recorded phenomena from the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 which I assert cannot be reproduced by recreating conditions reasonably present in WTC2, unless we assume the presence of some highly exothermic pyrotechnic such as thermate which would have to have been intentionally placed in the building prior to the airplane impact. This phenomenon to which I refer is the brightly glowing stream of molten metal seen flowing from the 81^st floor near the northeast corner of the north face of the building.

Demonstrations using thermite are performed every year at universities in both physics and chemistry courses. These demonstrations reproduce, on a smaller scale, the phenomenon preserved in the numerous video and photographic records of WTC2.

The laws of physics tell us unambiguously that the temperature of that brightly glowing stream was higher than that which could have been imparted to the material from a diffuse hydrocarbon flame such as occurs in office fires. Specifically, Planck's Law of Blackbody Radiation provides a formula for calculating the intensity profile of the emission spectrum for a thermally radiating material.

The work required to categorically disprove the possibility that the phenomenon was produced by an office fire consisting of diffuse hydrocarbon flame, or something as yet unspecified, using pure theoretical physics beginning with axiomatic principles constitutes an unnecessary effort.[1] Experimental procedures which reliably reproduce the phenomenon using aluminothermic reactions are readily available. There is plenty of corroborating evidence to support the conclusion that some kind of aluminothermic reaction took place in WTC2 prior to its collapse. I point to the white smoke (ash or powder, as you will) seen wafting from the apparent source of the molten stream, and also the well known findings of physicists Steven E. Jones and his colleagues, such as the iron-rich microspheres observed in dust samples collected at the crime scene.[2]

This video shows the brightly glowing molten metal under discussion, and gives a good indication of the time of its appearance relative to the time of the collapse of WTC2.[3]

This single frame was extracted from the video linked above. Notice that the flames appear red-orange, whereas the molten metal is bright yellow-white.[4] A pixel sample from a flame reveals an #RRGGBB (red, blue, green) color of #FFA181, whereas a sample from the molten metal gives #FFFFC5.[5]

To summarize, I assert with conviction that the recorded phenomenon of brightly glowing molten metal flowing from WTC2 in the moments before its collapse constitutes as simple, undeniable and irrefutable proof of malfeasance on the part of someone who had sufficiently unimpeded access to WTC2 prior to the attacks allowing them to place in the building a large amount of some kind of extremely exothermic incendiary material which produced the observed phenomena.[6] Any professional physicists who denies this without producing experimental procedures to reliably replicate the recorded phenomenon without resorting to the use of some intentionally place incendiary material is unsuited to his or her position. Any physicist who looks at this evidence while having these facts pointed out to him or her, and does not aggressively seek definitive answers is shirking the moral and ethical responsibility implicit in the role society has entrusted him or her with.

I suggest that when discussing the physical evidence for 9/11 truth, we should stick to this point. It is certainly relevant to examine other evidence in conjunction with the recorded molten metal phenomenon, but do not allow professionals in the physical sciences, including engineers, to evade this point. Insist on experimental procedures as the basis for acceptance of a proposed explanation. Provide examples of experiments with thermite in order to support the controlled demolition conclusion. We have reliable procedures for reproducing the phenomenon, and we have a huge amount of corroborating evidence. The stream of molten material (probably iron) is important primarily because it is irrefutably recorded in a form that no sane person could honestly deny.

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[1] I have made considerable progress in this direction, but, due to the complexities involved, attempting to present such a proof seems more likely to obfuscate than to illuminate. The interested reader should consult such works as The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard Philip Feynman, et al., and Theoretical Physics by Georg Joos and Ira Freeman.

[2]Some Physical Chemistry Aspects of Thermite, Thermate, Iron-Aluminum-Rich Microspheres, the Eutectic, and the Iron-Sulfur System as Applied to the Demise of Three World Trade Center Buildings on 9/11/2001 By Jerry Lobdill, Journal of 9/11 Studies, June 15, 2007 http://www.journalof911studies.com/

[3] If you are viewing this in hard-copy or some other format which does not support embedded videos, you can find the video at the following URL http://vehme.blogspot.com/2006/09/evidence-of-molten-iron-and-thermite.html

[4] Obviously, the camera used to record the video was not calibrated to serve as a precise optical pyrometer. Nonetheless, the difference between the color of the flame and the molten metal indicates that the temperature of the molten metal was much hotter than that of the fire. This is significant for multiple reasons. First of all, net heat flow is always in the direction of lower temperature, which means that the red-orange flames simply could not heat the molten metal to the temperature indicated by its yellow-white color. Furthermore, in order for fire to heat an object, it must transfer its heat energy to that object through either direct contact, or through thermal radiation. Since the reaction zone of a flame is a thin sheet into which fuel-rich gas flows, and out of which gas laden with the combustion products flows, this hottest part of the flame will not come into immediate contact with material surfaces where such flow is not possible. Therefore, the maximum flame temperature indicated by the color recorded in the video is significantly higher than the temperature the flame could have actually imparted to a material body. In addition, it takes time for a flame to impart heat to surrounding bodies. Consequently, if we assume the molten metal was produced by heat from the office fire, the solid material which was melted would have to have been in extended contact with this exceptionally hot flame and the molten product which was created first would have to retain this heat while the flame continued to melt more of the solid. The highest temperatures in the fire would have been near the ceiling, while the liquid metal will find the lowest available location. In a steel foundry melted metal is retained in a crucible designed for this purpose. We have no explanation as to how such a process might have spontaneously occurred in WTC2.

[5] One subtle point worth discussing is the effect of saturation on the apparent color recorded by a camera. Observe that in both the flame and molten metal pixel samples, the first two digits are at their maximum values, 'FF'. This means that the amount of red light incident on the image sensor at that location was at least as bright as the maximum sensitivity to red light, and any amount exceeding the sensitivity played no role in effecting the red bits of the pixel. In other words, the pixels are saturated in their red bits. Typically a better color sensitivity for a bright subject is achieved with a faster shutter speed since the amount of light impacting the sensor is a product of the intensity and the time of exposure. This helps explain why a flame might appear red in one image recorded by a still camera, while the same flame appears yellow or white in a picture taken from a different camera, or using a different shutter speed with the same camera. Though video cameras don't have shutters in the same sense as still cameras, the frame duration plays a comparable role to shutter speed.

The important factor in comparing the flame color to the molten iron color is not the absolute intensity in each color, but the relative intensity between the recorded colors of the two distinct sources. It is thus important to use a single image, if possible, when attempting to evaluate temperature differences based on the recorded color.

[6] The following graphs are from an unpublished detailed theoretical study of this topic.

This graph shows the thermal radiation curve for T = 640°C - a temperature slightly above the melting point of Aluminum [ Molten Aluminum ]; T=1200°C - the maximum temperature in a fully developed office fire [ Office Fire ]; T=1540°C - the melting point of steel [ Molten Steel ]. Centigrade temperatures were converted to Kelvin before calculating the plot points.

h = 6.62607 x 10-34 [Js] Planck's Constant K = 1.38065 x 10-23 [J/K°] Boltzmann's Constant c = 299792458 [m/s] Speed of Light	ν = c/λ [s-1] Frequency λ = c/ν [m] Wavelength T [K°] Temperature

This image shows the portion of the previous graph which falls in the range of visible light. Note that the curve for molten aluminum is coincident with the horizontal axis in this range. The curve for the office fire temperature shows a small amount of energy emitted in the red region of the visible spectrum. Only the curve for molten steel shows a ponderable amount of radiation in the yellow and green regions of the spectrum.

[7]
Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?[PDF], by Steven E. Jones, Journal of 9/11 Studies, Volume 3 - September 2006