Thursday, January 17, 2013

Asking Truth scientists: How do you tell energetic and mundane chips apart?

Abstract

It has been alleged that dust particles from WTC dust that have the two properties "attracted by a magnet" and "are red-gray chips" are also active thermitic material. However, recent remarks made by some of the researchers involved strongly suggest that many chips selected by those criteria may in fact be really just paint.

In order for follow-up researcher to select the "right" chips, an objective method should exist to separate the "right" ("energetic", "thermitic") from "wrong" (perhaps "paint" etc.) chips.

It is also not entirely clear, in my mind, if the researchers like Harrit, Jones, Farrer or Basile who have reported on "energetic" chips were aware of the distinction at the time, and did in fact separate the different kinds of chips prior to any desctructive tests that yielded exotherm reactions and suspicious residues.

I expect that these "thermite"-proponents can declare unequivocally how to distinguish "thermitic" from mundane chips before any destructive experiments are done. I have designed a series of questions to shed light on this.

Content:

  1. Introduction
  2. Detailed Questions
  3. How the Bentham authors selected the chips to be studied
  4. How Millette selected the chips to be studied
  5. Statements by "truther" scientists
    • Steven Jones
    • Frank Legge
    • Kevin Ryan
    • Mark Basile
  6. References

Introduction

Harrit e.al. (2009 [1], refered to as "ATM [1]" throughout the rest of this article) have studied red-gray chips found in dust from the World Trade Center collapses that settled around "Ground Zero" on 9/11/2001. Their paper describes how these chips were selected, discusses how they are all similar, and presents data, much of which is said to be "representative" of all the red-gray chips they studied. They conclude that the red layer of these chips is "active thetmitic material" and some kind of "super-thermite" and "nano-thermite", i.e. contains the classical thermite ingredients iron oxide and elemental aluminium as nano-sized particles, embedded in an organic matrix.

The method to select these chips is described as involving only two steps:

a) Pull a magnet through the dust and select all particles that are attracted to it
b) Visually inspect particles and select those that are chips with a red and a gray layer

The paper gives the impression that virtually all chips that the authors found by this two-step method have the same "thermitic" properties - in particular, that they are all "energetic", and, when ignited and burned, leave in their residue iron-rich micro-spheres.

I have previously argued (Oystein [2]) that the data presented in ATM [1] speaks for the presence of several different kinds of red-gray chips, precluding the validity of lumping data from different chips together to form a single conclusion for all chips.

Millette (2012, [3]) has done a follow-up study to ATM [1] and selected red-gray chips from WTC dust samples using the very same method: a) Pull particles out with magnet; b) visually select red-gray chips. In addition, he focused on chips whose red-layer were similar in morphology and elemental composition (EDS spectrum) to chips a-d in Figures 6-11 in ATM [1]. He found that these chips contain no elemental Al, and thus no thermite at all. Instead, all the compounds he identified (kaolin clay, pigment-sized hematite and titanium dioxide ambedded in epoxy) are consistent with primer paint. His chips appear to be mundane.

It appears now that some of the authors of ATM [1] acknowledge that indeed some of the red-gray chips they selected were mundane - and believe that Millette looked at the wrong chips! This raises a few questions, that I would like these scientists to answer before any further studies (e.g. Mark Basile, [4]) are undertaken – most prominently:

  • By what non-destructive method and objective criteria – in addition to selection by magnet and visually seperating red-gray chip – can a researcher who attempts to study the "energetic" red-gray chips, that are alleged to be thermitic, distinguish them from mundane materials such as paint?

Detailed Questions

The scientists that, to my best knowledge, have stated there are non-thermitic yet magnetic (?) red-gray chips (I'll present their statements below) and who the following questions are addressed to most immediately are:

  • Steve E. Jones – the actual lead author of ATM [1]
  • Kevin R. Ryan – co-author of ATM [1]
  • Frank M. Legge – co-author of ATM [1]
  • Mark Basile – acknowledged in ATM [1] as contributor; has studied chips himself; proposes a new study to be done by an independent lab

Others who I'd expect to be able to answer them are:

  • Niels H. Harrit – named lead author of ATM [1]
  • Jeffrey Farrer – co-author of ATM [1], responsible for much of the analytical work in the lab (DSC tests and, I believe, all the work on at least chips a-d)
  • David Griscom – peer-reviewer of ATM [1] and currently advisor to Mark Basile

In the remainder of this section, I will talk about red-gray chips that are attracted to a magnet, and I will just call those „chips“. So whenever you read the word „chips“, I am talking about dust particles drawn from WTC dust with a magnet that have (at least) a red and a gray layer.

Here are two more terms that I define and consistently use throught this section to describe and identify chips:

  • energetic: This word denotes chips that react with an exotherm when ignited in the manner described in ATM [1] and produce spherical residues that include the element iron. Those are the chips that are considered „interesting“, „active thermitic material“, „suspect“ or what you want to call it. I give you some freedom to decide for yourself which chips you want to consider energetic.
  • mundane: Those are all other chips - they don't react energetically, or don't produce iron-rich spherical residue, and can thus considered to be non-thermitic, or not active, or not interesting, or whatever you prefer. Some or all of the mundane chips might be paint, but it is not important here what they are.

Each chips is either energetic or it is mundane, but can't be both, and can't be neither.

So here are my questions:

  • Do you agree that there are both energetic and mundane chips in the WTC dust?

If you agree that at least some chips are mundane, please answer the following (skip those that don't apply to you or that you can't answer on behalf of your team mates) (note that the recurring question „If yes, how (did you separate them)?“ is really the most interesting at the time of writing):

  • When did you first realize there are both mundane and energetic chips in the WTC dust?
  • Did you separate mundane chips from energetic chips before you photographed them? If yes, how?
  • Do any of the photographs you present in your work show mundane chips? If yes, which? If not, why did you not show photographs of any mundane chips? Do such photographs exist?
  • Did you separate mundane chips from energetic chips before you put them in the electron microscope? If yes, how?
  • Do any of the SE- or BSE-images in your work show mundane chips? If yes, which? If not, why did you not show micrographs of any mundane chips? Do such micrographs exist?
  • Did you separate mundane chips from energetic chips before you did XEDS scans on them? If yes, how?
  • Were any of the XEDS graphs you present in your work taken from mundane chips? If yes, which? If not, why did you not show any XEDS scans from mundane chips? Do such XEDS graphs exist?
  • Did you separate mundane chips from energetic chips before you did DSC or other ignition tests on them? If yes, how?
  • Were any of the DSC graphs you present in your work taken from mundane chips? If yes, which? If not, why did you not show any DSC traces from mundane chips? Do such DSC traces exist?
  • Was any of the post-ignition (DSC, flame test, heating strip...) residue you show in your work from mundane chips? If yes, which? If not, why did you not show photographs, micrographs or XEDS spectra from residue of mundane chips?
  • In your opinion, should a researcher who tries to replicate „ATM“ today, or wants to go beyond ATM and perhaps tackle the open questions, attempt to separare mundane chips from energetic chips before doing any ignition tests (such as DSC)? If so, how do you propose this be done?

If, on the other hand, you disagree that some of the chips are mundane, in other words, if you believe that all (magnetic! red-gray!) chips are energetic, then please answer the following:

James Millette reported on chips (from WTC dust that are both magnetic and red-gray), yet he said he didn't find any elemental Al in them.

  • Do you accept that Millette validly showed there is no elemental Al in the specimens he analyzed in depth? If not, what did he do wrong?
  • Do you agree that these specimens, where Millette ruled out elemental Al and thus thermite, are indeed chips, i.e. from WTC dust, red-gray, and attracted to a magnet? If yes, how do you square that with your assertion that all chips contain thermite? If not, what did Millette do wrong?

How the Bentham authors selected the chips to be studied

From ATM [1], page 9 (font colors added by me):

2. Chip Size, Isolation, and Examination

For clarification, the dust samples collected and sent to the authors by Ms. Janette MacKinlay will be sample 1; the sample collected by Mr. Frank Delassio, or the Delassio/ Breidenbach sample, will be sample 2; the sample collected by Mr. Jody Intermont will be sample 3; and the sample collected by Mr. Stephen White will be sample 4. The red/gray chips are attracted by a magnet, which facilitates collection and separation of the chips from the bulk of the dust. A small permanent magnet in its own plastic bag was used to attract and collect the chips from dust samples. The chips are typically small but readily discernible by eye due to their distinctive color. They are of variable size with major dimensions of roughly 0.2 to 3 mm. Thicknesses vary from roughly 10 to 100 microns for each layer (red and gray). Samples of WTC dust from these and other collectors have been sent directly from collectors to various scientists (including some not on this research team) who have also found such red/gray chips in the dust from the World Trade Center destruction.

Note that this section of the text provides only two methods to select chips of interest, and doesn't hint at any other criteria by which to select specimens to be studied. Further in the paper, it points out several times how the chips are similar, and how the data presented is representative for all chips (from pages 10-15):

1. Characterization of the Red/Gray Chips

Red/gray chips were found in all of the dust samples collected. An analysis of the chips was performed to assess the similarity of the chips and to determine the chemistry and materials that make up the chips.
...
All of the chips used in the study had a gray layer and a red layer and were attracted by a magnet. ... Similarities between the samples are already evident from these photographs.
...
... Fig. (5). These four cross sections are representative of all the red/gray chips studied from the dust samples. The BSE images illustrate the finding that all of the red layers studied contained small bright particles or grains characterized by a high average atomic number. ...
...
(XEDS) analyses of both the red and gray layers from cross sections prepared from the four dust samples were performed and representative spectra are shown in Figs. (6, 7). The four spectra in Fig. (6) indicate that the gray layers are consistently characterized by high iron and oxygen content including a smaller amount of carbon. The chemical signatures found in the red layers are also quite consistent (Fig. 7), each showing the presence of aluminum (Al), silicon (Si), iron (Fe) and oxygen (O), and a significant carbon (C) peak as well.

At still higher magnifications, BSE imaging of the red layer illustrates the similarity between the different dust samples.

No hint at all in all of the paper that some of the magnetically selected red-gray chips can be distinguished by any of the methods described and be grouped as "thermitic/energetic" chips vs. "non-thermitic/mundane" material before testing them in the DSC.

How Millette selected the chips to be studied

From [3], page 2 and 3:

Method
...
The criteria for the particles of interest as described by Harrit et al.1 are: small red/gray chips attracted by a magnet and showing an elemental composition primarily of aluminum, silicon and iron as determined by scanning electron microscopy and x-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS) (Figure 4). The spectrum may also contain small peaks related to other elements. To that end, the following protocol was performed on each of the four WTC dust samples.
...
1. The dust sample particles contained in a plastic bag were drawn across a magnet and those attracted to the magnet were collected (Figure 5).
2. Using a stereomicroscope, particle chips showing the characteristic red/gray were removed and washed in clean water.
3. The particles were dried and mounted on a carbon adhesive film on an SEM stub and photographed (Figure 6).
4. Analysis of the surfaces of the chips was done by SEM-EDS at 20 kV without any added conductive coating (Figures 7 and 8).

Red/gray particles that matched the criteria (attracted to a magnet and an EDS Al-Si-Fe spectrum) were then considered particles of interest and subjected to additional analytical testing.

Millette used the exact same criteria that Harrit e.al. did – plus making sure the red layer has the Fe, Si and Al signals that Harrit e.al. consider a significant finding in "thermitic" chips.

Statements by "truther" scientists

Steven Jones

At the end of a blog post at 911Blogger [5], Steven Jones appended the following remark at the very end:

I (Dr. Jones) have searched Millette's plots and see no indication of strontium (Sr) or lead (Pb) in his samples, but he does report titanium (Ti) which we do not see. Thus, his samples do not appear to be the same material as what we reported on.

This implies that red-gray chips can be pulled from WTC dust with a magnet that are not the same material that Harrit e.al. reported on – i.e. a different material.

Frank Legge

Frank Legge recently engaged in an online debate with Ronald Wieck and others in the comments section of an Amazon customer review [6]. Note that he incorrectly addressed "Ronald and Millette", it should have been "Ronald and Erich", as Millette didn't participate in that exchange. To make reading easier, I'll format the questions quoted from Ronald's previous post blue, Legge's own words purple:

Ronald and Millette

"you write "Millette's ... carefully selected some paint fragments on which to perform his analysis. He did not study the chips described in the Active Thermitic Materials paper."

Do I understand you correctly when I construe your words to imply
1. that there are different kinds of red-gray chips, i.e. different materials? Such that some may represent thermitic incendiaries/explosives, some may perhaps represent paint, and some may perhaps represent other mundane or not so mundane things?"


Of course!

"2. that it is possible to select chips and pick out those that are not thermitic?"

Of course

"3. that, as a corrolary to 2., it would be possible to select thermitic chips from a mix of various kinds of red-gray chips?"

Of course.

"If that is so, can you provide objective, unambiguous and non-destructive, criteria by which to distinguish and separate thermitic chips from the dust? I believe this would be a great help for future studies, such as the one contemplated by Mark Basile (http://aneta.org/markbasile_org/proposal/index.htm) right now? "

Of course. Read the Active Thermitic Materials paper. It is all set out there.

The questions don't mention the magnetic separation of red-gray chips. However, since Legge is very clear that "[i]t is all set out [in the Active Thermitic Materials paper]", these words must be construed as meaning that ALL red-gray chips selected with a magnet are thermitic.

Kevin Ryan

Prior to commissioning the James Millette study, Colorado-based journalist Chris Mohr was in conversation with Harrit's co-author Kevin Ryan. In those exchanges, Ryan acknowledged that there are paint chips among the red-gray chips, as Mohr relates on the JREF forum [7]:

BTW in support of what MM said, when Kevin Ryan was still talking to me, he said that he has in his possession both red-grey paint chips and red-grey thermitic chips, "and I can tell you they are not the same." He claimed that they look different to the eye, but more importantly, that the thermitic chips have an exothermic quality that the paint chips don't. Unfortunately, he refused to release the samples to me or Millette, and our personal connection broke down around that time. I was never able to get samples of these different kinds of chips, or more info about them in relation to the Bentham paper. Nor did I know at that time about the two different types of paint primer in use at WTC. So MM is right that the Bentham authors knew there were paint chips, but his noncooperation has made it impossible to know what he actually has. In the meantime, however, the Millette study has not been credibly refuted when it comes to the question of which chips he tested. Many 9/11 Truth people seem to agree that his methodology in finding the correct chips was sound.

Red font marking added by me to highlight the key statement. So the question is: How do the acknowledged paint chip look different? I note that there is again no mention of magnetic properties, which would in this case seem to indicate that magnetic attraction is not a key difference.

Mark Basile

Mark Basile is a chemical engineer who first approached Steven Jones about the alleged thermitic nature of the red-gray chips in december 2007, and was in due course supplied with a sample of WTC from one of the sources (Janette MacKinlay) which he did some tests on. I commented some of his results elsewhere in my blog

As Basile is currently proposing yet another lab study of the dust, he was recently (december 2012) interviewed by the radio talkshow "9/11 Free Fall Radio" (Bernie Suarez and Andrew Steele) on No Lies Radio [8]. Some passages transcribed - first one starting at the 27:26 minutes mark:

There are a lot of paint chips in the dust! You should make that perfectly clear! Just when you, if anybody in the audience, let's say, would get out there and get a World Trade Center dust sample, and they pull out red chips from this, I'm not telling anybody in the world that every red chip you're gonna pull out of there is one of these nano-thermite chips. The vast majority of them actually are primer paint, from what I'm finding, but that doesn't mean they all are. And they are not all, because […?...] pulled out ones where I've seen the reaction, I've seen the product, so I know you're in there. But there is also a lot of primer paint chips in there, too.

He even goes on to speculate about the work of Steven Jones (28:28 minutes):

I think some of the chips that, you know, Jones and all looked at were definitely, you know, primer paint chips, too, so not everything in there was necessarily nano-thermite chips.

(I wonder what Jones, Harrit etc. have to say on this?)

References

[1] Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley and Bradley R. Larsen: Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe ("ATM"). The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2, 7-31

[2] Oystein: Why red-gray chips aren't all the same. Posted in author's blog on March 14 2012

[3] James R. Millette: Revised Report of Results: MVA9119. Progress Report on the Analysis of Red/Gray Chips in WTC dust. Prepared for Classical Guide, Denver, 01 March 2012.

[4] Mark Basile: Proposal for Labs to Study the Building Fire Dust.

[5] Steven E. Jones: Letter regarding red/gray chip analyses. Posted on 911Blogger on September 08 2012. Last retrieved: 2013/01/16

[6] Frank M. Legge: Reply to a question. Posted at amazon.org as a comment to a Customer Review on December 25 2012. Last retrieved: 2013/01/16

[7] Chris Mohr: A forum post. Posted at the JREF forum on January 10 2013. Last retrieved: 2013/01/16

[8] Mark Basile: 9/11 Free Fall: Mark Basile and WTC dust. Radio talkshow, broadcast by No Lies Radio on December 27 2012.

13 comments:

  1. This is turning into a real comedy dear Oystein.

    Unfortunately it has been documented by Mohr that Ryan made it clear in their correspondence, that there are also "mundane" paint chips in the dust, besides the active thermitic chips: Mohr and Millette therefore knew this from the start.

    So be careful about what you do, lest Millette´s new paper ending up as a source for TP as predicted, or the seed for another charge of fraud against Millette.

    - Z

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, see, that's why I am asking:
      - "what did he do wrong?"
      - "Did you (Ryan...) separate mundane chips from energetic chips before you photographed (XEDSed, DSCed...) them? If yes, how?"
      - In your opinion, should a researcher who tries to replicate „ATM“ today, or wants to go beyond ATM and perhaps tackle the open questions, attempt to separare mundane chips from energetic chips before doing any ignition tests (such as DSC)? If so, how do you propose this be done?
      And above all:
      - By what non-destructive method and objective criteria – in addition to selection by magnet and visually seperating red-gray chip – can a researcher who attempts to study the "energetic" red-gray chips, that are alleged to be thermitic, distinguish them from mundane materials such as paint?

      You see, Ryan refused to provide energetic chips, but as far as I can see he also did not provide any objective method that Millette should have applied to select the right chips!

      So: Can YOU please briefly answer just those three question:
      1. Do you agree that there are both energetic and mundane chips (that are also magnetic and red-gray) in the WTC dust?
      2. If yes, how can these be distinguished without destryoing them?
      3. What did Millette do wrong?

      I fully expect yoou to provide answers that are actionable, that give full, objective information to a future researcher on how to find the right chips such that you will accept without any further excuses any and all experimental results from these!

      Or you admit that you don't know - and my questions can't be answered using the information published so far. In other words: That the questions could only, if at all, be answered by Harrit, Ryan, Farrer, Jones. In other words: That I pose relevant questions to the relevant people.

      (You see, there is no indication that chips a-d were, subsequent to XEDS scanning, tested in the DSC. And the MEK-chip most certainly wasn't tested in the DSC, as it was full of MEK which obviously would have screwed the thermal behavior, being flammable and volatile. So the DSC test can't be the one by which Harrit e.al. determined that chips a-d and the MEK chip are thermitic rather than mundane).

      Delete

    2. "1. Do you agree that there are both energetic and mundane chips (that are also magnetic and red-gray) in the WTC dust?"

      Yes, as one of the ATM authors told Mohr and Millette before Millette began the study.

      "2. If yes, how can these be distinguished without destryoing them?"

      - Millettes chips are all over the place regarding XEDS, he has to cut it down to a group of chips that matches chips a-d, including no titanium.

      - Check to see if they have consistent sizes of finely mixed 100nm iron-oxide grains and 40nm al/si plates.

      - Porous matrix with embedded grains and plates

      - Check resistivity

      - It seem Ryan has suggested that they are also visually different, which should then be obvious to anyone taking a close look

      - If the above leaves any doubts then MEK should confirm that one group of chips remains hard, and splits the little si/al platelets into elemental aluminum and silicon. The rest of this group of chips should go on to ignition tests.

      "3. What did Millette do wrong?"

      He avoided all of the above, and he completely ignored the rest of the paper. He is very careless even though he knows it is possible to get the wrong chips, and he does not even attempt to demonstrate that paint chips can replicate the ignition results.

      - His study just looks like CRAP from a very questionable source.

      And as Jones has pointed out recently, more tests later have revealed traces of lead and chromium, both of which the Millette chips lack.

      Delete
    3. "You see, Ryan refused to provide energetic chips,"

      They don´t want to get involved in Millette´s research because of his WTC dust fraud background. If Millette would fx "accidentally" neutralize the samples again, this time before testing in DSC, then if he could say the chips came from Ryan fx they could end up in a debate who did the tests wrongly etc? This could bury the research in shit - nobody in his right mind would get involved.

      Delete
    4. "You see, there is no indication that chips a-d were, subsequent to XEDS scanning, tested in the DSC."

      Common Oystein, this is getting old. Figure 7 of chips a-d shows clean surface of chips while the MEK and DSC chips were unwashed. The paper states that those chips represent all tested chips, and it seems obvious from the layout of the paper.

      "So the DSC test can't be the one by which Harrit e.al. determined that chips a-d and the MEK chip are thermitic rather than mundane"

      All the tests before DSC/ignition tests are about identifying and describing a group of chips. And for the last time, the DSC confirms that they are energetic, while the observation of molten iron after ignition confirms that a thermite reaction drives the energetic output.

      Delete
    5. "Common Oystein, this is getting old. Figure 7 of chips a-d shows clean surface of chips while the MEK and DSC chips were unwashed. The paper states that those chips represent all tested chips"

      So if Millette picked a chip that has the same XEDS signature, and same morphology under visible light microscope and electron microscope, down to the nan-sized features, then he used the same chips? Yes or no?

      Now can you tell me:
      1. By what method(s) did they in fact select all the chips they tested? And in particular:
      2. By what method(s) did they in fact select chips a-d?
      3. How do you know they applied those methods?
      4. By what method(s) did they in fact select the MEK chip?
      5. How do you know they applied those methods?
      6. By what method(s) did they in fact select the four chips tested in the DSC that they show in Fig 19?
      7. How do you know they applied those methods?

      You will find that there is no method beyond a) magnetic attraction b) visual separation of red-gray chips that the paper speaks of and that we know to have been employed on any one chip.

      Do you agree with that statement?

      If you disagree, then please state the method, the chip, and how you know this method has been applied to that chip!

      "it seems obvious from the layout of the paper."
      That is a statement of faith. Nothing in the paper suggests at all that the authors were aware at the time of writing that they were looking at different kinds of chips, and used any method at all, beyonfd magnetic attraction and visual inspection, to distinguish and separate chips to be studied.

      If you, or the authors, now claim that there are different kinds of chips, then this alone would immediately render the entire conclusions of the paper invalid.

      Delete
    6. "All the tests before DSC/ignition tests are about identifying and describing a group of chips."

      Ok. Tell me specifically: Which tests were done on the chips they put in the DSC before they put them in the DSC - and how do you know this was done?

      "the DSC confirms that they are energetic"
      The DSC shows that the chips are much too energetic. In conjunction with all the other results (XEDS spectra, morphology), the DSC shows that almost all, or fully all, of the energy release must come from organic combustion, while the maximum conceivable thermite content, given the very low Al-content (under 3%), could not have provoded more than an insignificant (<5%) portion of the energy output.

      "while the observation of molten iron after ignition confirms that a thermite reaction drives the energetic output."
      No, it doesn't. Iron spheres routinely form from various iron-rich materials in a number of processes, many of them well below the melting point of iron, some easily within the temperature range of that DSC device.

      You guys don't understand DSC. That's Differential Scanning Calorimetry. The "Differential" points to the fact that you always have a second, known probe that you measure alongside your specimen. The method works like this: Both probes are kept at the same temperature all the time, and the difference in heat input is measured. If the specimen's temperature ran away and deviated much from the target temperature, then that would immediately render any and all DSC results invalid.

      You may find it hard to imagine, but the temperature of those chips or their residues never exceeded 700 °C.

      And yes, I know that Argument by Imagination is King among Truthers: That which you can't imagine doesn't exist, right?

      Delete
    7. "Yes [there are different chips], as one of the ATM authors told Mohr and Millette before Millette began the study."
      Good. And that is why Millette didn't just pick any chips to study further - he made sure, by using all methods used and documented on Harrit's chips a-d, that he selected chips from the same material as chips a-d.

      "Millettes chips are all over the place regarding XEDS, he has to cut it down to a group of chips that matches chips a-d, including no titanium."
      He did.
      The requirement to not have Ti is moot - Harrit, too, tested chips with Ti: Chip d has a signal for Ti, Harrit simply doesn't label it properly, as he leaves out several other labels for elements (such as Ca in chips a and b, Cr in chip d, Sr and Cr in chip a). Also, the residue of a chip shown in Fig. 25 shows significant Ti. So Jones is stupid or a fraud when he demands that Ti-bearing chips be discounted.

      "Check to see if they have consistent sizes of finely mixed 100nm iron-oxide grains and 40nm al/si plates."
      This wasn't done on the MEK-treated chip. Fig. 12 and 13 show micrographs (SEM and photo), but you can't make out the grains nor the plates. If those were important, and they had identified these plates in that chip, thay would have chosen an appropriate image to show it.

      You also have zero proof that this was done on all the chips that they tested in the DSC. They neither show it, nor do they call that criterion a selection criterion.

      In other words, you just made up stuff.


      "- Porous matrix with embedded grains and plates"
      No different from the previous point.

      "- Check resistivity"
      You don't know if this was done on chips a-d
      You don't know if this was done on the MEK chip
      You don't know if this was done on the chips tested in the DSC
      You don't know if this was done on all chips prior to further testing as a general selection method

      "- It seem Ryan has suggested "
      Yeah, "seem" and "suggested". Great science.

      "that they are also visually different, which should then be obvious to anyone taking a close look"
      Well, HOW are they different? That's the question! Can anyone just look at the chips, and find that "obviously" this chip here is paint, and that chip there is thermite? After all, the authors write explicitly that the chips look like paint ("Initially, it was suspected these might be dried paint")

      "If the above leaves any doubts then MEK should confirm that one group of chips remains hard, and splits the little si/al platelets into elemental aluminum and silicon."
      You don't know if this was done on chips a-d
      You do know that this was notdone on the chips tested in the DSC....

      "The rest of this group of chips should go on to ignition tests."
      ...because soaking chips with flammable MEK would obviously invalidate any DSC test.

      Delete
    8. "[Millette] avoided all of the above,"
      Because all of the above is not known to have actually been done as a selection method.

      "he completely ignored the rest of the paper."
      The rest of the paper is the incompetent blundering of a group of amateurs. They lump together random things in stupid ways.
      It is best ignored.
      Millette selected chips identical to chips a-d, and using competent methods, proved they are paint, not thermite.

      Farrer and Jones also used competent methods - FTIR, TEM, XRD - and never showed the results!

      "He is very careless even though he knows it is possible to get the wrong chips, and he does not even attempt to demonstrate that paint chips can replicate the ignition results."
      No, the contrary is true:
      He is very careful to only replicate those tests where the identity of the chip specimens can be established with sufficient certainty.

      As we have not the slightest clue how Farrer selected the chips he tested in the DSC, it is simply impossible to make sure you choose the "right" chips for that experiment.

      Because, you see, you don't know that Farrer, in order to select chips for the DSC
      ...looked for grains and plates
      ...checked resistivity
      AND we know that he
      ...did NOT rule out chips with Titanium (because Ti is found in the residue)
      ...did NOT soak any of those chips with MEK


      So your answers fail completely.

      Delete
    9. "Yes [there are different chips], as one of the ATM authors told Mohr and Millette before Millette began the study."
      Good. And that is why Millette didn't just pick any chips to study further - he made sure, by using all methods used and documented on Harrit's chips a-d, that he selected chips from the same material as chips a-d.

      "Millettes chips are all over the place regarding XEDS, he has to cut it down to a group of chips that matches chips a-d, including no titanium."
      He did.
      The requirement to not have Ti is moot - Harrit, too, tested chips with Ti: Chip d has a signal for Ti, Harrit simply doesn't label it properly, as he leaves out several other labels for elements (such as Ca in chips a and b, Cr in chip d, Sr and Cr in chip a). Also, the residue of a chip shown in Fig. 25 shows significant Ti. So Jones is stupid or a fraud when he demands that Ti-bearing chips be discounted.

      "Check to see if they have consistent sizes of finely mixed 100nm iron-oxide grains and 40nm al/si plates."
      This wasn't done on the MEK-treated chip. Fig. 12 and 13 show micrographs (SEM and photo), but you can't make out the grains nor the plates. If those were important, and they had identified these plates in that chip, thay would have chosen an appropriate image to show it.

      You also have zero proof that this was done on all the chips that they tested in the DSC. They neither show it, nor do they call that criterion a selection criterion.

      In other words, you just made up stuff.


      "- Porous matrix with embedded grains and plates"
      No different from the previous point.

      "- Check resistivity"
      You don't know if this was done on chips a-d
      You don't know if this was done on the MEK chip
      You don't know if this was done on the chips tested in the DSC
      You don't know if this was done on all chips prior to further testing as a general selection method

      "- It seem Ryan has suggested "
      Yeah, "seem" and "suggested". Great science.

      "that they are also visually different, which should then be obvious to anyone taking a close look"
      Well, HOW are they different? That's the question! Can anyone just look at the chips, and find that "obviously" this chip here is paint, and that chip there is thermite? After all, the authors write explicitly that the chips look like paint ("Initially, it was suspected these might be dried paint")

      "If the above leaves any doubts then MEK should confirm that one group of chips remains hard, and splits the little si/al platelets into elemental aluminum and silicon."
      You don't know if this was done on chips a-d
      You do know that this was notdone on the chips tested in the DSC....

      "The rest of this group of chips should go on to ignition tests."
      ...because soaking chips with flammable MEK would obviously invalidate any DSC test.

      Delete
    10. "[Millette] avoided all of the above,"
      Because all of the above is not known to have actually been done as a selection method.

      "he completely ignored the rest of the paper."
      The rest of the paper is the incompetent blundering of a group of amateurs. They lump together random things in stupid ways.
      It is best ignored.
      Millette selected chips identical to chips a-d, and using competent methods, proved they are paint, not thermite.

      Farrer and Jones also used competent methods - FTIR, TEM, XRD - and never showed the results!

      "He is very careless even though he knows it is possible to get the wrong chips, and he does not even attempt to demonstrate that paint chips can replicate the ignition results."
      No, the contrary is true:
      He is very careful to only replicate those tests where the identity of the chip specimens can be established with sufficient certainty.

      As we have not the slightest clue how Farrer selected the chips he tested in the DSC, it is simply impossible to make sure you choose the "right" chips for that experiment.

      Because, you see, you don't know that Farrer, in order to select chips for the DSC
      ...looked for grains and plates
      ...checked resistivity
      AND we know that he
      ...did NOT rule out chips with Titanium (because Ti is found in the residue)
      ...did NOT soak any of those chips with MEK


      So your answers fail completely.


      "And as Jones has pointed out recently, more tests later have revealed traces of lead and chromium, both of which the Millette chips lack."
      Remember: We have different kinds of chips!
      Some contain lead, others don't
      Some contain chromium, others don't
      Some contain titanium, others don't
      Some contain Si-Al-rich paints, others don't
      Etc.
      So how did Farrer (Jones speaks about Farrer's results) select the chips that contain lead? How did he select the chips that contain chromium? Are chips that contain chromium (and strontium!) the same chips that contain lead?

      Answers to all of these questions are:

      YOU DON'T KNOW!



      And that's why I ask these questions above.

      Delete
  2. Oystein, before I go further into this, you should realize that to me - and most likely to Ryan also - this looks like you having stepped into shit you had been warned about: The combination of Mohr and Millette, per Ryan´s article "When Mohr Is Less". You really should read that article again with an open mind, including the part where Millette was involved in fraudulent WTC dust studies before taking money from Mohr to appear as an "independent" scientist on this new study.

    No matter how you nit-pick the ATM paper, it still an establish fact that Millette knew of the different chips from the start, and that he has already been warned that he does not have the right chips.

    If he finds the ATM paper insufficient to divine the right chips, then PERSONALLY contact the authors directly and get further instructions. Make sure to test un-ignited chips in the DSC. If he thinks his results challenge the ATM paper then see if he can replicate the ATM ignition results with the proposed prosaic substance, i.e a samples of paint on a gray layer. This is the challenge.




    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If anyone is a fraud here, it's Kevin Ryan. His representation of Millette's previous involvement is slanderous, malevolent, not backed by fact, and disgusting. The only shit here to step into is Kevin Ryan's blog. He spews rotten drivel just to run away from scrutiny.

      Of course Millette knew of the different chips - that's why he didn't stop at the "Chip Isolation" method described in the Harrit paper (magnetic attraction, red-gray chip appearance), but made sure he picked chips that are similar to chips a-d in every way:
      - They have the same XEDS spectrum
      - The morphology of both the red and the gray layer under electron microscope is the same
      - The red layer contains the same grains and platelets
      - These grains and platelets have the same XEDS pattern as those in chip a.
      However, if you read Harrit e.al. with an open mind, you will find that the authors had no awareness at all that there are different chips, and treated them as if they were all the same. They say so several times explicitly, and their conclusions rest fundamentally on the premise that all the chips are the same.
      However, it is blatantly obvious that, for example, the MEK-chip (Fig 12-18) is NOT the same as chips a-d, it is very obviously different, as I have shown in my post Why red-gray chips aren't all the same

      So why do you accuse Millette of using the wrong chips? He showed, in great detail, that he studied the same chips! You should accuse Steven Jones of using the wrong, different chip, when he did the stupid MEK-test!

      Some detail on Millette's chosen chips vs. Harrit's chips a-d: WTC Dust Study Feb 29, 2012 by Dr. James Millette, post #1337 (Sunstealer, at JREF)



      So questions to you:

      1. Do you know how Jones selected the MEK-chip from the different red-gray chips that are magnetic?
      2. Do you know how Farrer selected the DSCed chip from the different red-gray chips that are magnetic?
      3. If you don't know how they did it, how do you know these are the same kinds of chips?

      Delete