June 10, 2009

More 9/11 Truther Science! revealed

Over the past few years, I've seen a whole bunch of Science! used by the 9/11 "truth" movement to prove that there is no possible way a plane crash and the resulting fires could have caused the collapse of steel-framed skyscrapers such as the World Trade Center. These would-be CSIs have modeled the twin towers with such accurate representations as chicken wire and paving slabs, stacking desk trays, and Microsoft Flight Simulator-generated videos.

But this guy tops them all with his Scientific! prowess:

I'm no materials engineer, but I can find at least three holes with this experiement:

  • Each tower of the World Trade Center was a massive, load-bearing structure of about a quarter of a million tons. A frying pan is, well, a frying pan - and it needs at least a few strips of bacon in it before it can be considered "load-bearing" in any sense.
  • If that pan is like any other stovetop frying pan I've seen, it's actually aluminum, not steel.
  • But assuming for the sake of argument that it is steel, notice how at about 3:45 he puts it back on the element and it rocks. I thought they manufactured frying pans flat-bottomed. Looks like fire can deform steel, after all.

Sometimes these Truthers are so out in left field with their Science!, you have to wonder whether they're some sort of pardody. Unfortunately for our educational system, this one appears to be completely earnest.

(H/T: the tireless Screw Loose Change.)

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