In the Final Analysis

JOM, Nov 2007 by Robinson, James J

"The entire article is unscientific and highly innacurate (sic) and I now question the reliability of your journal."

- Crank Letter to the Editor

A page-turn away from here, you'll find our latest collection of Letters to the Editor, which is a department that I love to run because it is the kind of department that I love to read in other publications. Let's find out what other faithful readers really think! Be the comments favorable or otherwise, nothing is more gratifying than when a reader takes lime to compose his or her thoughts and send them to one of the editors. I assure you that we are very happy to receive your correspondence at JOM. If you have an opinion on an issue of the day or on something that we published, don't hesitate to send us an e-mail or a letter; when we compile enough to fill a page, we'll run it.

This is not to say that I'll publish just any letter, however. Take the one referenced above. It was e-mailed under an unverifiable identity via a free mail provider. It is representative of the kind of crank communication that occasionally comes JOM's way because we published an article in December 2001 that speculated on the collapse mechanisms of the World Trade Center towers: "Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation" by Thomas Eagar and Christopher Musso. The article was an early and influential contribution to an increasingly robust field of study on structural failures brought about by disasters and terrorism.

Regular readers of this column may recall my June 2006 editorial in which I made flabbergasted sounds and issued various indignant splutterings about how myriad conspiracy theories had emerged surrounding the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings. I was dumbfounded. I was especially discouraged to learn that many theorists (and I used the word generously) regularly referenced the JOM article in their arguments. For good or bad, the article had become a cyber-cause-célèbre, attracting hundreds of thousands of viewings as it has "open access" status on JOM's web site. Occasionally, it brings us a laughably disparaging note like the one quoted above. These messages usually wax ecstatic on our gross technological ignorance and/or general editorial incompetence.

While I never imagined that an article in JOM would feature prominently in conspiracy theories, I did imagine running an authoritative follow-up once the collapse had been thoroughly analyzed by a team of experts. One month shy of six year's later, this month's cover story gives us just that. It appears in the form of a manuscript by S.W. Banovic and many colleagues from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. They write on the role of metallurgy in the institute's exhaustive analysis of events. In addition to combing through twisted mountains of scrap, various teams of researchers at the institute have compiled and reviewed copious historical data, performed countless tests and analyses, developed and analyzed model upon model, authored numerous reports, and developed a World Trade Center web site to describe their methodologies and organize the presentation of their findings. It was a big job impressively done.

This month's article gives us a cumulative perspective on the results of the institute's combined efforts. In great detail, the authors describe how the buildings fell and conclude that they would not have fallen had it not been for the extraordinary combined effects of the aircraft impacts and the multi-floor fires.

At risk of setting the cranks abuzz once more, we're giving this month's paper high-profile, open-access status on JOM's web site. It is a small gesture that JOM can make to give readers worldwide insight into a seminal and still highly sensitizing moment-one where only facts, not fallacies, matter.

James J. Robinson

Editor