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Jim Hoffman is a software engineer, based in Alameda, California, who has worked in mathematical visualization and produced the first visualization of Costa's minimal surface. Hoffman is well-known as the publisher of several websites advocating what some describe as 9/11 conspiracy theories and others describe as 'frequently asked questions' pertaining to the investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster.

Mathematics

Jim Hoffman has worked in applying scientific visualization of mathematics, which was instrumental in the discovery of the first new examples of complete, embedded minimal surfaces in over one hundred years. As described by Stewart Dickson:

"By the 1890s the study of minimal surfaces was thought to be exhausted — no new surfaces could be described mathematically which were non-self-intersecting (embedded) in three-space and which had vanishing mean curvature. However, in 1983 a graduate student in Rio de Janeiro named Celsoe Costa wrote down an equation for what he thought might be a new minimal surface, but the equations were so complex that they obscured the underlying geometry. David Hoffman at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst enlisted James Hoffman to make computer-generated pictures of Costa's surface. The pictures they made suggested, first, that the surface was probably embedded— which gave them definite clues as to the approach they should take toward proving this assertion mathematically— and, second, that the surface contained straight lines, hence symmetry by reflection through the lines."

Hoffman's work has been featured in articles in Science News, Scientific American, and Nature, and he has co-authored papers in Science and Macromolecules. He is credited with involvement in the discovery of new, three-dimensional morphologies for modeling block co-polymers, such as the Split-P surface (a hybrid of the P and G triply periodic surfaces), and derived the first level set formulation for the Lidinoid surface.

He also is co-author of a patent for an internal combustion engine with increased thermal efficiency.

September 11, 2001 attacks

Since early 2003, Hoffman has been writing about the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) and other aspects of the September 11, 2001 attacks, which he believes involved insiders within the United States government. He is co-author, with Don Paul, of Waking up from our Nightmare: The 9/11 Crimes in New York City, and the video, released in February, 2006, 9/11 Guilt: The Proof is in Your Hands. He has also given talks and been interviewed on radio shows across the US and Canada. His work has been focused primarily on the collapse of the smaller 7 World Trade Center, and he is critical of the official explanation of that collapse. Hoffman has also written a critique of the official National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report on the building collapses, a critique of the 2006 NIST FAQ, and critiques of articles about 9/11 'conspiracy theories' by the popular-science magazines Scientific American and Popular Mechanics.

In June, 2006, at the 9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda Symposium, Dr. Steven E. Jones, a physicist from Brigham Young University, credited Hoffman's WTC7.net website, as an inspiration for conducting his own analysis of the WTC building collapses. Hoffman's book and websites are cited in Jones' essay "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?". Hoffman has also been cited by author David Ray Griffin,.

Hoffman has been critical of the more extreme 9/11 theories, in particular he does not endorse the theory that the Pentagon was hit by something other than an airplane, and his website has a detailed critique of the documentary Loose Change. Hoffman believes that, in an attempt to discredit skeptics of the official versions of the attacks, some aspects of the attacks may have been "engineered" to encourage acceptance of "flimsy" 9/11 conspiracy theories - such as the idea that a missile, rather than Flight 77, hit the Pentagon - particularly when an evidence vacuum exists. Supporting this position, the website oilempire.us notes that Donald Rumsfeld was the first person to imply that a "missile" hit the Pentagon on 9/11/01, and that the statement was made during the same week that Thierry Meyssan first published a webpage claiming that a plane did not hit the Pentagon. Oilempire.us states, "The most reasonable explanation is that this was a coordinated propaganda effort to create a false lead to distract the skeptics." Similarly, Chris Farrell, the Director of Investigations & Research at Judicial Watch, which was given 2 Pentagon videos to release to the public, warned in an interview that his organization "could be the water carriers for a honey pot operation, in which the government attracts overwhelming attention to the Pentagon issue, making it the cornerstone of the 9/11 truth movement, and then blowing it out of the water by releasing clear footage of Flight 77." He stated, "Let's just call it a baited trap, it draws somebody into a situation in which they're compromised." Currently, the Pentagon continues to hold over 70 videos of the Pentagon from the attack.

References

  1. ^ Manjoo, Farhad (2006-06-27). "The 9/11 deniers". Feature. Salon.com, Inc. Retrieved 2006-08-21.
  2. Mark, Jacobson (2006-03-27). "The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll". Feature. New York Magazine, Inc. Retrieved 2006-08-25. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  3. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster - Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
  4. Article on scientific visualization
  5. 9-11 Research - About 9-11 Research
  6. Computer graphics tools for the study of minimal surfaces
  7. The Split P Surface
  8. The Lidinoid Surface
  9. US Patent & Trademark Office, Patent Full Text and Image Database - patent 4,584,972
  10. 9-11 Research - About Jim Hoffman
  11. 9-11 Research - The 9/11/01 Attack: Means, Motive, and Precedent
  12. 9-11 Research - Talks and Radio Interviews
  13. 9-11 Research - Building a Better Mirage: NIST's 3-Year $20,000,000 Cover-Up of the Crime of the Century
  14. A Reply to the National Institute for Standards and Technology's 'Answers to Frequently Asked Questions'
  15. 9-11 Research - Scientific American's Dishonest Attack On 911Research
  16. 9-11 Research - Popular Mechanics Attacks Its "9/11 LIES" Straw Man
  17. "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?" by Steven E. Jones
  18. Ray Griffin, David (2004). The New Pearl Harbor. Interlink. ISBN 1-56656-552-9.
  19. 9-11 Research - 9-11 Research Does Not Endorse No-Jetliner Theories
  20. 9-11 Research - Sifting Through Loose Change: The 9-11 Research Companion to Loose Change Second Edition
  21. oilempire.us - "Rumsfeld's "missile" hoax debunked by 9/11 truth activists"
  22. Judicial Watch Says More Pentagon Tapes To Come

Publications

See also

External links

Websites designed by Hoffman

Audio

Video

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