100 tons, that’s quite a lot, isn’t it?

On March 3, 2015, 911facts.dk interviewed physicist Per Hedegaard about his involvement in the court case filed by Niels Harrit against Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.

A U.S. website had claimed that Per Hedegaard had changed his mind and would testify in support of Niels Harrit’s claim that huge quantities of explosives and top secret military-developed nanothermite were placed in the World Trade Center 1, 2, and 7.

The interview quickly revealed that this was false. Hedegaard stated:

“Yes, he (Niels Harrit, ed.) is still crazy, if you ask me.”

Hedegaard laughed at the claim that he had changed his mind, and he had no idea where they had thought that. He had not heard the rumor himself.

“Do they really write that somewhere?”

asked Hedegaard puzzled. After being told that it was stated on one of the Truth Movement’s U.S. websites:

“That’s how these things happen. Now it is suddenly a truth in their circles, right?”

Hedegaard could not say just how he would give testmony for obvious reasons:

“I don’t know. It depends on what he (Niels Harrit, ed.) wants to ask me about. I’m just there to testify, right? I just have to answer questions.”

The only thing Hedegaard could say in advance was that he was quite willing to show up in court:

“Well, I just said that I would like to testify. That’s alright with me.”

However, Per Hedegaard could firmly reject another claim, namely that he, according to Niels Harrit’s statements in city court, should have called Kjeld Hybel, journalist at the Danish newspaper Politiken, crazy as a bed-bug:

“Never ever. Not at all. He (Kjeld Hybel, ed.) called me on the phone, and I just gave him my opinion.”

That opinion could be read by the public, when Per Hedegaard in 2010 stated that most of Niels Harrit’s hypothesis was pure nuts.

Hedegaard’s statement came after he had been made aware of Harrit’s report which claimed that nanothermite had been found at the World Trade Center in connection with the collapses of the buildings after the terror attack on September 11, 2001. Based on the numbers in the report, Hedegaard had calculated how much unreacted nanothermite there would have been in the buildings, if the report was correct. And that figure was so huge that, according to Hedegaard, this was an argument against the theory of nanothermite and explosives:

“There would be somewhere between 60 and 100 tons!”

Hedegaard continued:

“100 tons, that’s quite a lot, isn’t it? I would say that it is an argument against the theory that there must be any explosives, because you can’t just get away with placing 100 tons of explosives without somebody noticing.”

The physicist had a different and more plausible explanation of the findings in the report:

“It is really paint. All those steel beams, they are painted with this rust protection… (–) It is basically the same periodic elements, so in all likelihood, that’s what it is. (–) It is also in the same range, 100 tons of paint.”

Hedegaard does acknowledge that the report at least tries to state a case based on some experiments:

“It is nevertheless a report with figures and facts, and you can take a look at those and see what you get out of that. To me, he (Niels Harrit, ed.) can’t conclude anything, and he doesn’t do that. He is clever. (–) You will never get him to say ‘bombs and Bush’ or any of that sort. He just hints a lot. It is only his henchmen who say the wild things. You actually never hear him say that. Notice it… oh, my, he is just a neutral scientist… and then, he rolls his eyes and says ‘Newton’ and ‘Galilei’. But when you ask him, how e.g. Newton’s Second Law should be applied to two rods screwed together… He’s a chemist. I doubt that he could answer that.”

Hedegaard also offers his view on Harrit’s and the Truth Movement’s claim that the World Trade Center 7 should collapse in free fall:

“Let us just say that it was free fall. So what? What does that prove?”

asks Hedegaard and explains that the circumstances surrounding the collapse of the building is in full concordance with Newton’s Laws and that buildings sometimes are demolished and fall in free fall, sometimes not:

“They fall in many different ways, depending on what is needed.”

He adds that this goes for burning buildings:

“…and it might be that fires and weakenings that occur suddenly, when it gets sufficiently hot, have the same conditions as if they had been burned through, those few and critical beams. Something could point to that being the case.”

In other words, according to the physicist, you cannot equate either fire or demolition with free fall:

“There is a huge logical leap from free fall to concluding that it cannot be fire.”

And Harrit carries the burden of proof, says Hedegaard:

“He has to provide the scientific physical argument or engineering argument that leads from that movie (about World Trade Center 7, a movie clip that Niels Harrit usually shows at his lectures, ed.) to something else. He must explain that. He is the one who has to prove his claim.”

Finally, Hedegaard says that he does not believe that Niels Harrit is interested in retribution for being called a fool in Weekendavisen:

“That’s merely a way of keeping the pot boiling (–) It merely prolongs his time in the spotlight, so to speak. (–) He is retired, so this is his hobby.”

Hedegaard explains that he knows Niels Harrit quite well as a colleague at the Niels Bohr Institute, where they both have worked. He describes Niels Harrit as someone with a good reputation as a teacher:

“He is very good in his teaching. (–) He is excellent there. He is very pedagogical. No problem. But he has a weak point. It is this case.”