BYU Professor on Paid Leave for 9-11 Theory

KSL.com ^ | 9/8/06 | Gene Kennedy

[finnman69]

A controversy over words at BYU this morning. A professor is on paid leave for suggesting the government is responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center.

The man on paid leave is Dr. Steven Jones. He's a physics professor involved in the so-called "9-11 Truth Movement."

Jones believes unnamed government agencies orchestrated the fall of the twin towers and he says there's evidence to back it up.

Two weeks ago he published his theory in a paper called "Why Indeed did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?" In it, the professor says the towers fell not because of planes hitting them but rather pro-positioned demolition charges.

He sites research conducted at BYU on materials from ground zero, asserting those materials show evidence of thermite, a compound used in military detonations. He says terrorists could have never set those charges.

The State Department has released a rebuttal to Jones' theory in a 10-thousand page report.

BYU made this statement last night.

"Physics Professor Steven Jones has made numerous statements about the collapse of the World Trade Center. BYU has repeatedly said that it does not endorse assertions made by individual faculty.

"We are, however, concerned about the increasingly speculative and accusatory nature of these statements by Dr. Jones."

The university added, "BYU remains concerned that Dr. Jones' works on this topic has not been published in appropriate scientific venues."

It is rare for some in Dr. Jones' position to be under review because he has taught at BYU for more than a decade.

He began his career at the university in 1985 and has been known his cold fusion research. But other professors will teach his classes while he's on paid leave.

He will be allowed to conduct research in his field but the university is reviewing his actions.

[finnman69]

Steven Jones is one of the higher profile 9/11 loons who is certain the towers were demolished by explosives.

Good riddance from the education system.

[Paleo Conservative]

He needs to be on a permanent unpaid leave.

[Andy from Beaverton]

e-mail him here:  stevejones@byu.edu

 

His web site at BYU:  http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/default.aspx

[KC_Conspirator]

Good. I suggested that this wackjob ought to be fired and it looks like BYU is doing the responsible thing and starting the procees, which I am sure will be interrupted by ACLU lawyers.

[Past Your Eyes]

As might be expected, BYU shows much greater sense than UNH does. We the taxpayers are still giving our loonbattard professor a paycheck AND a forum.

[ChadGore]

You can bet his overseas account if filled with hezbo counterfeit.

[ChadGore]

oops

You can bet his overseas account is filled with hezbo counterfeit.

[finnman69]

Here is the guys whackjob paper. He really believes this stuff. It's google cached, since BYU pulled it off their servers.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:Z3tLh0j6QW8J:www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html+steven+jones&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

[frogjerk]

oops

That's OK, it was probably all of that Thermite in the air from the WTC destruction by the Government...

[ChadGore]

Yea, all the depleted uranium thermite from the military industrial complex.,m .kfngh.,.,lol I can't even type it without laughing.

[Choose Ye This Day]

He sites research

"sites"? Come on, ksl. Just because you're a TV station doesn't mean you don't have to be careful with spelling and word choice.

[Cicero]

I notice that he was originally hired to do cold fusion research. So he was on the fringes from the get-go.

To be fair, I am among those who are not entirely convinced that cold fusion is a complete impossibility, because it's very hard to prove a negative and I like to keep an open mind. But it has certainly not been shown to be a viable field for research, and it is a field known to attract nut cases.

[ChadGore]

Oh look! He's a man of science!

[finnman69]

great rebuttal to the Contrrolled Demolition kooks here

http://onautopilot.blogspot.com/2006/08/controlled-demolition-they-beg-to.html

Controlled demolition? They beg to differ..

All dressed up and nowhere to go. I was going to post a long rant debunking controlled demolition as a reason why the World Trade Center collapsed – but somebody has nicely put it all in a single document.

I will post a few choice bits I found that tackle the notion advanced by conspiracy theorists, namely:

“…2,000 lbs of RDX-grade linear-shaped charges (which could have been pre-positioned by just a few men) could cut the supports at key points so that gravity would bring the buildings straight down.”
-Prof. Stephen E. Jones, Brigham Young University

Professor, meet a man who blows up buildings for a living:

“The explosives configuration manufacturing technology [to bring down those buildings] does not exist… If someone were to attempt to make such charges, they would weigh thousands of pounds apiece. You would need forklifts to bring them into the building.”
-Mark Loizeaux, Controlled Demolition, Inc.

Loizeaux goes on to say that the biggest commercially available charges can cut through steel that is three inches thick. The box columns at the base of the WTC towers were fourteen inches on a side. If big enough charges did exist, Loizeaux says, for each tower it could hypothetically take as long as two months for a team of up to 75 men with unfettered access to three floors to strip the fireproofing off the columns and then place and wire the charges.

“There’s just no way to do it… If you just put bulk explosives in file cabinets next to every column in the building, it wouldn’t knock those columns down. It would blow the windows out. It would trash the [building] and probably blow out two floors above and a floor below… but it wouldn’t knock the building down.”
-Mark Loizeaux, Controlled Demolition, Inc.

On to the really good stuff. It turns out yesterday, the folks over at Implosionworld.com (gotta love the name) have released a report on controlled demolition theories at the WTC.

Their verdict – the Controlled Demolition theory folks don’t have the faintest idea what they are talking about.

Read all about it. (PDF) [Mirrored at xbehome.com]

[kenn5]

BYU is a religious private school. I do not think the ACLU can have much influence here. The BYU administration can remove their professors for just about any reason.

[finnman69]

I highly recommend reading this debunking of the controlled demolition theory here

http://www.implosionworld.com/Article-WTC9-6-06.pdf

[wideawake]

evidence of thermite, a compound used in military detonations.

LOL! ROTFLMAO!

Hey, guess what else thermite is used in besides military detonations?

Welding.

I wonder if any welding was involved in the building of two 110-story towers?

[Paradox]

No offense to any freeper Physicist (you know who you are :), but this is what happens when you send a physicist to do an engineers job. Its like trusting a college biology teacher to perform your open heart surgery... Bad idea..

[Kirkwood]

They need to revoke this guy's PhD (assuming he even has one).

[Kirkwood]

I've met a few of these whacko physicists over the years. One who was very entertaining was a high energy physicist who was convinced he could levitate through meditation and who was working on the ability to walk through walls. It isn't just physcists of course. I've also met some chemists, biologists, and engineers who were equally deluded.