 |
| Dr. Keith Seffen, an amazing mathematical genius from the University of Cambridge, loves fake math and bogus engineering, but he loves you even more. |
An Amazing Genius
A handful of selfish and inconsiderate whiners had complained that the mysteries of the day had been rendered unsolvable by the swift removal of all the physical evidence, which disappeared long before the full and impartial investigation had even got started. They were wrong, of course, but it took a long time and an amazing mathematical genius to discover this fact.
Bazant and Zhou
Miraculously, no scientific paper pertaining to the attacks was published on the 13th of September, since everyone in the scientific community, knowing what it takes to get a paper published, would have been certain that the paper in question had been written long before the attacks occurred.
 |
| The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
loves you. |
Embarrassing Implications
As you can imagine, the implications could have been slightly embarrassing, both to the authors who didn't write the paper (Bazant and Zhou) and to the proprietor (ASME, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers) of the very scientific journal (JEM, the Journal of Engineering Mechanics) which didn't publish it.
Had such a paper been published so early, the notion that the attacks had come as a surprise would have been very difficult to defend, if not by reputable scientists then at least by the Mechanical Engineers.
 |
| The Journal of Engineering Mechanics loves
you. |
Explaining an Event which Hadn't Yet Happened
In the paper they didn't write in advance of the attacks, Bazant and Zhou explained how and why the Twin Towers had collapsed. By not studying the wreckage of the buildings that had not yet been wrecked, they determined that it had been a "pancake collapse".
To wit: Each tower had collapsed in similar ways. The crashing plane had damaged the structural integrity of the building. The fires from the burning jet fuel had heated the steel enough to weaken it. And gradually the steel became too weak to support all the weight of the building.
It was a splendid scientific achievement, worthy of both the JEM and the ASME, which have consistently led the way in Engineering Mechanics. But it didn't hold very much water.
 |
| The towers collapsed upward in a very ordinary
manner. |
Pancakes All the Way Down
As Bazant and Zhou didn't explain in the paper they didn't write, the building hung tough for as long as it could. But eventually something had to give. The building broke apart near the spot where the plane had hit it. And the top section crashed down onto the floor below it, which suddenly became too heavy for the weakened steel to support it, and it crashed down onto the floor below, and so on. On and on and on.
Pancakes all the way down. That's how the towers turned to toxic dust according to the paper Bazant and Zhou didn't write.
 |
| It was a very ordinary thing to happen. |
All the Nagging Questions
Their explanation answered all the nagging questions, and some slick scientific-looking mockumentaries were hastily produced which showed exactly how the collapses had occurred.
They satisfied every viewer on every point except for the part where the explanation was supposed to account for the evidence that was left behind when the towers had collapsed.
The animations in the mockumentaries looked nothing like the scenes we had seen 24 hours a day for two weeks straight, on all the national news networks, plus Fox and CNN. And a handful of very observant people happened to notice.
Apparently we were supposed to have been so traumatized by the footage that we saw repeated over and over that we wouldn't remember anything about it.
It was a good plan, and it might have worked if not for the internet.
 |
| The towers collapsed upward in a very ordinary
manner. |
Clowns on the Internet
At first there were only a few clowns on the internet. They had been writing vicious nonsense about our great leaders and the leaders of our only ally in the Middle East ever since the attacks had occurred. But only a handful of their readers were convinced. Most of us thought they were on bad drugs.
We had been willing to give the official story the benefit of the doubt. But we remembered that words such as "benefit" and "doubt" (i.e. nouns that do not end with an "s") are "singular" and refer to individuals, not groups.
 |
| It was a very ordinary thing to happen. |
Singular or Plural?
As time went by, we gave the official story more and more and more benefits and it gave us more and more doubts.
Over time, as the numbers of doubts and benefits both continued to climb, some people who had been sane before they started reading the clowns started to believe what the clowns were saying.
This was perfectly understandable according to some people, who thought the clowns were the only ones making any sense at all. But it was a very dangerous omen according to our great leaders. The clown population kept increasing, and for a while it seemed as though the trend could not be stopped.
Enough is Enough!
"Enough is enough!" the new clowns were saying. They had been keeping their doubts to themselves, some of them anyway, not wanting to do anything rash, and waiting to see whether a reasonable explanation for the odd collapses would emerge. But they weren't willing to wait forever.
And when they saw the animations showing how the buildings had "pancaked", and noticed that the animations were very different from what they remembered seeing, they started to get the idea that things might be a bit amiss.
Suspicions Multiply
In particular, they started wondering whether perhaps maybe the major news media and the specialty networks (which covered stupid things like science and history) might just be working with the Bush administration to try to convince us of things that weren't true.
But none of them wondered about Fox or CNN, whose roles as propaganda organs of the state had already been clearly established.
A Storm on the Horizon
This would not have been a big problem if the clowns had been unable to find one another and reinforce one another's mental illness. But it turned out that they could do so quite easily. And some of our great leaders thought there might be a bit of a storm on the horizon.
They figured the storm could be calmed if only someone could come along and explain how those towers had turned to toxic dust in the absence of explosives.
Too Much of a Coincidence
Our great leaders had always known, even in advance of the attacks, that there could never have been explosives in the buildings. This was a simple one: The hijackers could not have boarded the planes if they had been carrying bombs. That would have been too obvious.
The clowns might be willing to believe that the hijackers had boxcutters in their carry-on luggage, but they were not about to buy into any stories in which the hijackers had hijacked the planes after managing to smuggle bombs into the baggage compartments. That would have been too much of a coincidence.
 |
| The towers collapsed upward in a very ordinary
manner. |
Decent Loyal Confused Americans
The problem with all these new clowns was not, as popularly supposed, that they were stupid and lazy and foul-smelling.
Nor was it true that they had been convinced of great nonsense by some of the older clowns rather than having done the research on their own.
It turned out that most of them were very decent loyal Americans, who were smart enough to notice that something very wrong was happening to their country but not smart enough to figure out what it was or why it was happening.
Outrageous Slander
Many of these clowns have been slandered over the years with the suggestion that they had turned to conspiracy theories because they found comfort in them.
The reasoning never given for this outrageous smear was that the clowns were happier to think that their country had been hijacked by a gang of malignant psychopaths, than to admit that there are always unpredictable forces at work, some of which we can never be ready to meet.
 |
| The towers collapsed upward in a very ordinary
manner. |
The Central Question
World class psychologists found the final piece of the clown puzzle when they announced that most of the clowns were not much smarter than two bricks, or in rare cases three. And the shrinks said these clowns were confused because the problem they were trying to solve was so complicated and their little brains were so mushy.
The upshot of all this was the belief, increasingly prevalent among our great leadership, that most of the clowns, especially the new ones, would probably just throw up and fall asleep if they could only be given a credible answer to their central question, which was still: "Why did the towers collapse?" [1]
A Two-Fold Problem
The problem was two-fold:
(1) No one had yet concocted such an explanation, even though some of our most esteemed scientists and engineers had been trying to do so for years, and
(2) The debris had been such an eyesore that it was removed as quickly as possible and sent overseas to be recycled, since leaving it there would have been so disturbing to the people of the damaged city. After all, they would have had to look at it every day.
In short, we were lucky that the scene had been cleaned up so quickly. But the price was high: All the evidence which might have assisted our most esteemed scientists and engineers was gone!
 |
| Dr. Keith Seffen, an amazing mathematical genius from the University of Cambridge, loves fake math and bogus engineering, but he loves you even more. |
A Brilliant Model
Luckily, it turned out that no physical evidence was necessary for Cambridge University's Dr. Keith Seffen to write a paper describing a brilliant mathematical model which explained the rapid collapses of both Twin Towers to everyone's satisfaction, including the critics who said his paper could not possibly be credible and then proceeded to demonstrate that it wasn't.
 |
| The towers collapsed upward in a very ordinary
manner. |
"A Very Ordinary Thing"
Dr. Seffen discovered that the collapse of a 100-story skyscraper built of steel and concrete was "a very ordinary thing to happen", which settled the matter once and for all.
Or at least that's what news agencies all over the world reported. Or at least those who mentioned his paper did so.
And some of those reports (including one from the BBC) said that his paper had been published when in fact it had not.
 |
| It was a very ordinary thing to happen. |
Clowns to the Rescue
Far from the breach of scientific protocol that these reports appeared to have exposed, this simple clerical error brought us another kiss from Lady Luck, as it inspired some clown on the internet to try to get his hands on the paper.
When the paper came to light, as you no doubt recall, we all read Dr. Seffen's explanation together and breathed a collective sigh of relief. [2]
 |
| The University of Cambridge loves you. |
Nutty Conspiracy Theorists
It's easy to forget that in the days before Keith Seffen's monumental work, the usual rag-tag bunch of nutty conspiracy theorists were asking how any building, let alone one made of structural steel and concrete, could have disappeared in a gravity-driven collapse that barely took any longer than it would have taken for an object dropped from the roof of the building to hit the street.
 |
| The University of Cambridge loves you. |
An Astonishing Prediction
Fueled by paranoia and hiding their insanity behind the claim they were "only asking questions", these wackos hinted that, if the buildings could suffer such a collapse at all, the steel should have slowed the collapse appreciably, or stopped it altogether.
Keith Seffen came to the rescue and dismissed all these unpatriotic queries with a mathematical equation which "predicted" that the towers could have disappeared much faster than they actually did!
A Trail-Blazing Result
According to Dr. Seffen's precise and scientific explanation, the minimum time required for a gravity-driven collapse of a 100-story tower is about three seconds shorter than the time required for an object to fall from the roof of the tower to the street.
and it makes me wonder
It was a splendid, trail-blazing result, anticipating discoveries yet to be made by unborn physicists who will undoubtedly explain someday how anything of the sort could ever be possible.
 |
| It was a very ordinary thing to happen. But it took an amazing mathematical genius to prove it without using any physical evidence whatsoever. |
Beyond All Reasonable Doubt
Readers who suspect that too much attention may have been paid to Dr. Seffen in the present piece should be reminded that he has received scant coverage ever since his incredible paper was or was not published.
This proves beyond all reasonable doubt that the world of academic mathematics is stuffy and hidebound and unable to react quickly to anything, including the most astonishing result published or not published in at least a century.
But the story also goes to show that popular mathematics can be used to solve the most intricate mysteries, even without any evidence, as long as the mathematician is sufficiently skilled in the fine art of deception. And we can all be very grateful for that.
 |
| Ross Corotis, editor of the Journal of Engineering
Mechanics, showed his love by finally answering one of the many questions he was asked. |
The JEM and the ASME
Needless to say, we owe another debt of gratitude to the Journal of Engineering Mechanics (JEM), a propaganda organ of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), for publishing or not publishing Dr. Seffen's brilliant analysis.
We should also tip our hats to acknowledge the tireless efforts of Dr. Ross Corotis, who was running the JEM for the ASME at the time.
Steadfast Refusal
Dr. Corotis gallantly facilitated the discovery and publication of Dr. Seffen's historic paper by steadfastly refusing to respond to any inquiries at all until November 8, eight weeks after the story of Dr. Seffen's paper had hit the news. Presumably by that point, Dr. Corotis had been asked more than enough questions more than enough times.
So he finally broke the news that the paper which Cambridge and the BBC said had been published in September would actually be published in February.
And the very next day, one very sharp clown whose name I cannot reveal obtained a PDF of the paper, which of course was still unpublished. The sharp clown shared his discovery with the frozen clown who had caused all the trouble, and this is how all the clowns on the internet finally saw the light.
Light in the Darkness
If not for the efforts of the aforementioned frozen clown and the many unmentionable non-frozen clowns who helped him, we might never have learned the awesome truth contained in Dr. Seffen's magnificent fiction. One can barely imagine how misinformed we would still be if this had happened.
Luckily for us, the clowns got their hands on the paper after all. And it turned out that Dr. Seffen had been so determined to bring light into our darkness that he was willing to violate every principle of mathematical modeling on our behalf.
Further Details
The frozen clown, who had been trying to force Dr. Seffen's paper into the open, before it had been published but after it had been claimed to have been published, kept no notes of his demented efforts, and failed to publish them in a series of long and boring posts on his boring blog.
But nobody bothered to read any of them until he failed to fashion a crude annotated table of contents, showing how his search for the paper had been disorganized and what the results of the search had not been. This he then failed to publish under the title "The 9/11 Hoax that Didn't Quite Work for Dr. Keith Seffen and the BBC" , [3] which you are strongly advised not to read, according to Dr. Seffen.
The Least He Could Do
Some readers may collect the finest scientific and mathematical research papers they can find, for their personal libraries or just to read them. Others may simply wish to admire Dr. Seffen's groundbreaking work without reading anything that could be described as "fine". And of course the clowns claim that the paper is clear evidence of Dr. Seffen's complicity in a global conspiracy to hide the truth of 9/11 from those of us who aren't yet in on the joke.
As a special gift to all those people, the clown made Dr. Seffen's paper available as a PDF. [4] It was the least he could do.
 |
| Alison Richard, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, showed her love by refusing to answer any questions whatsoever. |
Call and Response
As the search for the unpublished paper wore on, the clown contacted everyone involved with this story in any capacity and asked them whether they wouldn't like to answer some of the questions that hadn't been raised, including the ones about not tarnishing the images of the university, the JEM, the ASME and the BBC.
 |
| Chris Burgoyne, Head of the Structures Group of Cambridge's Engineering Department, showed his love by refusing to answer any questions whatsoever. |
An Unwelcome Email
The frozen clown sent all the principals an email asking some of the relevant questions, and urged his readers to do the same. The clown's email is reproduced here:
TO: Dr. Chris Burgoyne
Head of the Structures Group
Department of Engineering
University of Cambridge
cjb@eng.cam.ac.uk
CC: Dr. Alison Richard
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
v-c.office.online@admin.cam.ac.uk
CC: Dr. Keith Seffen
Senior Lecturer in Structural Engineering
University of Cambridge
kas14@cam.ac.uk
Dear Dr. Burgoyne,
More than two months ago, the University of Cambridge published a press release whose opening sentence falsely claims that an unpublished research paper written by Dr. Keith Seffen of the Engineering Department's Structures Group "has been published". [1]
The subject of the paper was a controversial one, and the press release was echoed by the BBC and several other news providers. [2, 3, 4, 6]
The false claim in the opening sentence was pointed out shortly after the BBC article was published [5], and the BBC changed its online report within a few hours. [6]
Today, more than two months later, Dr. Seffen's paper remains unpublished. [7] Yet the press release is still online, with the original wording intact. [1]
Curiously, the press release contradicts itself in its eighth paragraph, saying Dr. Seffen's paper "will be published". The conflict between this statement and the assertion in the opening paragraph has never been explained, satisfactorily or otherwise.
Dr. Seffen has declined to answer any questions submitted to him by email. [8]
As you well know, one does not normally expect to see the conclusions of an unpublished paper discussed in the major media, especially when the topic is controversial.
Much less does one expect to see an article representing an unpublished paper as having been published.
If this had been an honest mistake, a prompt and apologetic clarification could have been granted a long time ago.
The lack of any such clarification, along with Dr. Seffen's subsequent failure to answer any questions, embodies no detectable respect for science nor any hint of a quest for truth.
Quite independent of the merits of Dr. Seffen's paper, this incident reflects badly not only on Dr. Seffen and the Structures Group but on the entire University of Cambridge as well.
It would be a shame if such conduct were to become the norm for Dr. Seffen and his colleagues.
Therefore it seems quite reasonable to ask:
Your attention to this not inconsiderable matter is most appreciated.
- Why has the University not yet posted a correction nor issued an apology?
- When does the University intend to do these things?
- Is this the sort of conduct the University expects from the Professors who represent it?
- And if not, how and when does the University intend to make its wishes known?
[ ... ]
Notes:
[1] University of Cambridge: 9/11 "conspiracy" theories challenged by Cambridge research [the original is no longer available, but the Wayback Machine remembers [5] .]
[2] Cambridge Evening News: Lecturer dismisses twin towers blast theory [the original is no longer available and even the Wayback Machine can't find it!]
[3] Business Weekly: Zero Grounds for Ground Zero conspiracy theory [The original is no longer available, but the text was preserved here [6] .]
[4] Winter Patriot: Seffen's Folly: Attempted 9/11 Hoax By Cambridge And The BBC Was A Failure [7]
[5] Winter Patriot: UK Engineer: WTC 'Collapses' Were 'A Very Ordinary Thing' [8]
[6] BBC: 9/11 demolition theory challenged
[The original is still available, but the text was preserved here [9]
[7] Winter Patriot: WTC 'Collapse' Research Cited In September Is Scheduled To Be Published In February [10]
[8] Winter Patriot: Where's The Paper? Did The BBC And A Cambridge Don Commit Fraud To Cover Up Mass Murder? [11]
As you can probably imagine, the cold clown is still waiting for a response. And we're probably lucky that nobody has ever bothered to reply to any of these questions because the answers would certainly cause more trouble than the clown ever could.
Purely Hypothetical Considerations
After Dr. Seffen's paper had answered all the questions about how the towers had turned to dust, nobody had any further questions save for a few clowns, and their questions were purely hypothetical. One line of "thought" ran as follows:
Suppose a clown had written a paper which utterly demolished the official story.
Suppose a respected university had issued a press release claiming the paper had been published and that it utterly demolished the official story.
Suppose a news provider with a global reputation for excellence then claimed the paper had just been published and that it was sufficient to put the official story out of business forever.
And suppose other news providers all around the world had picked up the story and run with it.
Now suppose all these claims had been proven false. Suppose the paper was garbage, and that it hadn't even been published.
Lingering Questions
What would that say about the "university"? What would it say about the "news provider"?
Would anyone retract any of their false statements? Would anyone apologize for having made them? Would anyone suffer for having made such egregious errors?
These are difficult questions, and some clown on the internet has been thinking about them for a long time.
According to his demented logic, the answers are all the same.
Lingering Answers
No! Nobody would ever suffer any consequences for any of this because nobody would have taken the story seriously in the first place.
They would have known that the official story is true because everybody knows that.
And they would have realized that nobody could prove the official story false, just on the basis of some equations.
The problems with the paper would be so obvious!
It's not only about needing to test such a model against physical evidence before it can be called a proof.
It's also because it's impossible to prove something false when it is actually true.
Even more importantly, the people who guard the reputations of the university and the news providers would all know that publicizing any such paper would be tantamount to career suicide.
April Fools!
So the clown "thinks": If anyone published such stories, it could only have happened on April Fool's Day, and even then it would have been seen as a sick joke.
No "news organization", respectable or otherwise, would dare to publish such a seditious tale on the sixth anniversary of the attacks.
It's a good thing nobody did. It could have been seen as crass and opportunistic. It could also have given people the wrong idea.
Lucky Us!
And it's a moot point anyway because in order to prove the official story was false, a clown would need some physical evidence. Luckily for us, all the physical evidence was gone a long time ago.
Purely Legal Considerations
What do we call a person who comes along after a crime has been committed and helps a criminal to avoid justice? What penalty attaches to such behavior? [12] What is the penalty for murder? What is the penalty for mass murder? [13]
And finally, given his obviously fraudulent and thoroughly failed attempt to create a shield behind which mass murderers could hide, would a choice between the traditional French method [14] and the traditional American method [15] constitute a fair punishment for Keith Seffen? [16] [17]
Listen: Alvin Lee / Ten Years After: I Can't Keep
From Crying Sometimes
My heart is filled with sadness
And my eyes are filled with tears
I can't keep from crying sometimes
Notes:
2: Perhaps the most articulate such sigh was produced by "Exodus
2006", whose website is no longer online, but whose compelling
review was preserved here: Exodus 2006 : Keith Seffen's paper
Exodus 2006 concluded his review by drawing our attention to
Exodus 2006 concluded his review by drawing our attention to
Dr Seffen's acknowledgements: "The author is extremely grateful to two anonymous referees for insightful and supporting comments."And this probably says more than enough. ↑
5: See: http://web.archive.org/web/20071013011908/http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/news/stories/2007/twin_towers/
↑
12: A person who comes along after a crime has been committed
and helps a criminal to avoid justice is called an "accessory
after the fact." In the U.S. the penalty for helping a criminal
to avoid justice is half the penalty attached to criminal
who committed the crime ↑
13: In most jurisdictions, murder is considered a serious crime.
In many primitive countries, including some parts of the
U.S., the penalty for murder is death. Mass murders are
typically considered more serious than murders of single
victims, and the penalty for mass murder may be proportional
to the number of victims. ↑
16: No! Not in the US!
In the United States, if the penalty for a crime is life in prison or death, the penalty for protecting the criminal is limited to 15 years. If we multiply by the number of people killed on 9/11 alone (ignoring those killed in the aftermath), Keith Seffen's penalty would amount to only 3,000 x 15 = 45,000 years in jail. See: 18 U.S. Code § 3 - Accessory after the fact at the Cornell University Law Library. ↑
In the United States, if the penalty for a crime is life in prison or death, the penalty for protecting the criminal is limited to 15 years. If we multiply by the number of people killed on 9/11 alone (ignoring those killed in the aftermath), Keith Seffen's penalty would amount to only 3,000 x 15 = 45,000 years in jail. See: 18 U.S. Code § 3 - Accessory after the fact at the Cornell University Law Library. ↑
