Reply #180: you're flat-out wrong

[OnTheOtherHand]

Of course the NIST report addressed the collapses beyond initiation. Read 6.14.2-6.14.4 again. Even the letter addresses the collapses beyond initiation: "Once the collapse initiated, it is clear from the available evidence that the building was unable to resist the falling mass of the upper stories of the towers."

It's one thing to argue that NIST's explanation of the collapses is wrong. But it's a giddy height of denialism to aver that NIST doesn't have an explanation of the collapses.

Now, if you intend to get this right, here is something you can say about NIST's approach, from the footnote on page xxxvii: NIST's investigation of the probable collapse sequence "includes little analysis of the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached and collapse became inevitable." If you can marshal the intellectual courage to confront the NIST report on its own terms, this statement will actually make sense to you -- even if you decide to disagree with the NIST report. It dovetails neatly with the point about model convergence that you presently feel compelled to argue isn't actually a point at all. Hence my Gary Larson parody.