Mark Hoofnagle has a MD and PhD in physiology from the University of Virginia, and is now a general surgery resident. His interest in denialism concerns the use of denialist tactics to confuse public understanding of scientific knowledge.
How will we ever know the truth about 4-29. I say, it was a conspiracy to undermine 9-11 truth to show that fuel from a tanker truck could actually melt steel and cause a freeway to collapse. Initial photos from the site raise lots of questions.
And if you visit the 9/11 truth site 9/11 blogger, they've already gathered evidence this was all a hoax and has nothing to do with the physics of combustion. Clearly, no real authority doubts that steel can't be melted by fire, and 4-29 should do nothing to change your mind about this clear fact.
Now, luckily, 4-29 truth has been created to address this latest conspiracy to discredit the 9/11 conspiracy theories. I suggest we all support them in their efforts to find out the real story from 4-29.
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(Photo from the Fark forums)
Comments
That 4-29 site is a spoof right? Right?
Please tell me it's a spoof.
Although when I first saw those pictures of the freeway collapsed because of the fire, the first thing I though of was - proof that steel CAN melt in a fire. ;-)
Posted by: Skeptico
| May 2, 2007 12:07 AM
First, welcome to Scienceblogs!
Now, oh gwacks, my brain hurts--that "4-29" site has got to be some kind of a joke? Geesh...
B.t.w., am I the only one who is finding all these 10-code-like shorthands for various incidents (4-29, 7-7, 9-11, 18-36 (Ok, Ok, I made that one up!)) utterly confusing? Doublely so in this case since, living in France, I hadn't even heard of this one until I saw this article.
Posted by: blf | May 2, 2007 12:59 AM
This made my day. Dog, those 9-11 "truth" fruitcakes annoy me.
Posted by: Craig Pennington | May 2, 2007 5:12 AM
http://www.429truth.com/2007/04/30/more-questions-about-429/#comments
Well, this wins my prize for favourite ever blog comment: "This was special, INCENDIARY aluminum. We have the lab tests to prove it."
Pretty special.
Posted by: Olaf Davis | May 2, 2007 5:26 AM
My head hurts.
In any case, if steel cannot be melted by fire, then how did we get steel in the first place? Aren't kilns just big, hot, contained fires? Oh, but perhaps they use a different sort of fire. Yes, that must be it...
Posted by: Ray | May 2, 2007 5:52 AM
Oops... make that 'smelters' instead of 'kilns'.
Posted by: Ray | May 2, 2007 5:53 AM
I am encouraged and entertained by the fact a number of commenters have questioned if this (4-29) is a parody site. The simple fact that it is questioned is a hoot and says a lot about our ability to entertain ourselves.
As it is written in the holy book of Fark, so shall it be.
Posted by: Ted | May 2, 2007 7:26 AM
Um, a fair bit happens to steel before it gets hot enough to melt: Thermal expansion, distortion from uneven thermal expansion, softening, perhaps ductile flow... . Do we know the steel actually melted? I'm not claiming that's impossible; per Ray's point hydrocarbon/air fires can obviously get hot enough to melt steel (and to create it in the first place).
I've read the NIST reports, and creep and thermal expansion were factors in their model of the collapse, but melting steel was not.
Posted by: Andrew Wade | May 2, 2007 8:26 AM
Andrew Wade wrote:
Um, a fair bit happens to steel before
it gets hot enough to melt: ...
I'm sorry I can't give you a cite for this, Andrew -- but a
friend of the family who is a metallurgist told me that at
those sorts of temperatures, there is a phase change in the
most common sorts of steels, to phases that simply don't
have the same tensile strength -- even while solid, steel
at high temperatures becomes a much weaker alloy. Or so I
was told -- I have no idea if it is true, but if it is then
it would account for what we all saw on the TV that day.
Posted by: Zorbane | May 2, 2007 9:02 PM
I have no idea if it is true, ...
I couldn't tell you; metallurgy is not my strong suite. But when (9/11) conspiracy theorists contradict what I know in my areas of expertise (physics mostly), I find it reasonable to assume that cluelessness extends to other areas as well. And really, expertise is hardly required to debunk many of the claims of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
Posted by: Andrew Wade | May 3, 2007 1:44 PM
The Chinese fortune photo suggests me that this 4/29 site must be a joke. Stupidity among denialists and cranks is always rising and they always surprises us, but a Chinese fortune is too much. Please, tell me it is too much.
Posted by: Martín Pereyra | May 3, 2007 2:09 PM
The temperature of the fires on 9/11 was not high enough to melt steel. However, the structural strength of steel beams decreases rapidly with heat, long before the steel melts. This is what caused the collapse of the towers, and (I imagine) the collapse of the overpass.
Posted by: Walter Mitty | May 4, 2007 11:49 AM