No. The NIST WTC 7 computer animation of the collapse does not even remotely resemble the observations and actual video footage of the destruction in three main ways. A scientifically valid explanation of any phenomenon must account for the key observations. Moreover, a computer simulation does not constitute an explanation. It is merely a tool for determining and visualizing what might have happened if various assumptions are true.
NIST has
refused to disclose the computer inputs of its mathematical models. This makes it impossible for anyone to check their work.
1. While NIST admits publicly that the building descended at “free-fall” acceleration, its computer simulation is not consistent with a building that is coming down in free fall.
NIST’s Final Report on the collapse of WTC 7 (NCSTAR 1A, p. 45) states that gravitational acceleration (free-fall) of the main roofline occurred. It began when the point NIST was using [1] as its marker on the video had descended about 7 feet*. In Figure 12-62 (NCSTAR 1-9 Vol.2 p. 588) the roofline has descended about 10m /33 feet (NCSTAR 1-9A, p. 77) and the columns are still buckling in an irregular manner. Buckling columns provide resistance and would obviously prevent the building from collapsing at free-fall acceleration. The NIST computer model is clearly not simulating free-fall acceleration.
This is consistent with Shyam Sunder’s statement at the WTC7 technical briefing on August 26, 2008 (which was his initial public attempt to deny free-fall along with his justification for that denial):
“… a free fall time would be an object that has no structural components below it … there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place. Everything was not instantaneous.”
Given the mismatch between the NIST computer animations and the video record of the actual destruction, it is clear that NIST’s assumptions (computer inputs
)
{i.e. the computer inputs NIST refuses to make public so they could be checked and verified by indepdendent scientists and engineers /JC} were substantially in error. It was NIST’s job to explain the destruction that actually occurred, not to posit some possible way in which the destruction could have occurred. Their model, which does not reflect the observed 2.25 seconds (about 100 feet) of free fall, should be judged a complete failure, or a cover-up.
http://www1.ae911truth.org/en/faqs/733-faq-11-does-the-nist-wtc-7-computer-animation-of-the-collapse-prove-that-the-skyscraper-came-down-by-fire.html
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