I'm sorry, but the WTC came down from the aircraft strike and fire.

[benburch]

Anything else is just loony. :tinfoilhat:

Bush's complicity was allowing it to happen through depraved indifference and just possibly because he needed an incident to further his plans.

His real crime is what he did with it afterwards.

-Ben Burch

P.S. I think Lee Harvey Oswald was just that good of a shot, too.

[Mr_Spock]

1. My eyes were glued to the 2nd building after I saw it hit live...

It happened in front of my eyes. BTW, I think this sort of thread will get locked :D

[mattclearing]

Not anytime soon, it won't. n/t

[bpilgrim]

94. for a detailed scholarly open-source analysis click here --------- > LINK

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

psst... pass the word ;->

peace

[bryant69]

2. What's that big red flickering thing coming in this direction?

I largely agree with you, incidentally.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[TomInTib]

3. What's the theory on WTC7?

I've been around a lot of demo and cannot figure that one out.
Note- I am NOT a physicist or demo expert. Just been around a lot of it.

[northzax]

5. I recommend a trip to the 9/11 forum

you'll see everything from death rays to telekenisis.

[redqueen]

4. Is this thread in response to this article?

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160132,00.html

Y. professor thinks bombs, not planes, toppled WTC
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News

The physics of 9/11 — including how fast and symmetrically one of the World Trade Center buildings fell — prove that official explanations of the collapses are wrong, says a Brigham Young University physics professor.

In fact, it's likely that there were "pre-positioned explosives" in all three buildings at ground zero, says Steven E. Jones.

In a paper posted online Tuesday and accepted for peer-reviewed publication next year, Jones adds his voice to those of previous skeptics, including the authors of the Web site www.wtc7.net, whose research Jones quotes. Jones' article can be found at www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html.
Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three (WTC) buildings," BYU physics professor Steven E. Jones says. Jones, who conducts research in fusion and solar energy at BYU, is calling for an independent, international scientific investigation "guided not by politicized notions and constraints but rather by observations and calculations.

(more at link)

[northzax]

6. and I can find Tenured Biology Professors

who don't believe in evolution. And there are even a few who don't buy climate change.


I have now read the article in question (remove the . from the end of the link, if anyone wants to see it) and it is weak. This is obviously not the right place for discussion of conspiracy theories, which I think this counts as. Professor Jones is reaching for facts to fit a pre-ordained hypothesis, not looking for a hypothesis that fits the facts.

and I'm not sure about this journal, but I'd be suprised if this survives peer review.

[Coastie for Truth]

14. Jones is the same Physicist who gave us "cold fusion"

which he could not even replicate.

When you have a doctorate and are a tenured professor at an accredited university you can get anything accepted in a peer reviewed journal.

[screembloodymurder]

79. Coastie?

That's a Neocon term, isn't it?

[benburch]

15. In response to DOZENS of postings here.

I'm sorry, but I have working in the sciences and engineering and it is really clear to me how those structures failed.

The aircraft and the fire (from fuel and contents of the building) weakened a section of a tower enough that it slumped. Just a few centimeters was all it had to slump. The vast weight of the unburned portion above that was enough that the slump had considerable inertia. Enough inertia to continue to deform weakened material and accelerate the failure.

See, all of the energy that went into hoisting all that material to the top of WTC did not do away, it was stored there as gravitational potential energy, and we got it all back explosively.

I did a similar analysis over a decade ago when I was worried that the New Madrid fault's nect earthquake might topple buildings in Chicago's Loop. The amount of stored gravitational potential energy in the Sears Tower is staggering.

[northzax]

25. back in the good old days

when I was modding the tinfoil forum, I actually determined the heat and pressure created by the floors falling onto each other. It was more than enough to account for the molten steel and the pure vaporization of the concrete.

I still don't understand why people don't realize that this building was designed to fall straight down, the strength was on the outside forcing a collapse inwards. And last time I checked, stuff falls down, not over. the WTC, like many modern skyscrapers, is basically empty space, intersperesed with very heavy slabs.

[benburch]

36. And the horizontal ejecta...

What happens to the air inside a sealed building when you collapse it?

It blows out the windows at very high speed, taking with it debris.

[northzax]

45. and what happens to steel when you compress it

at great force? it melts.

but then, that's physics and engineering, I wouldn't expect it to convince the tin foilers any more than Darwin's finches will convince IDers. Both know they are right, and are willing to make the most amazing conclusions from random data.

[HereSince1628]

7. What the BYU prof proposes is falsifiable when put to the test

In that sense it really isn't loony.

In the face of existing investigations it seems unlikely to be true, but if someone is willing to fund the work, why stop it?

[HamdenRice]

8. Just look at this -- then tell me what's loony

WTC7:

http://www.911hoax.com/gwtc7_1.asp?strPage=wtc7_1&intPage=60&PageNum=60

[yurbud]

12. WTC 7 wasn't even hit and it collapsed too

[benburch]

19. It had just been through the equivalent of an earthquake...

and had also been hit by a pyroclastic flow of sorts of high speed ejecta from two falling towers. It was like you had been shelling it with shrapnel rounds.

[yurbud]

29. any history of high rise buildings spontaneously collapsing

from that level of abuse?

We have earthquakes here all the time and office buildings don't implode.

[longship]

66. I'll bet no building has ever gone through that level of abuse before.

nt

[HamdenRice]

35. Wrong on both counts ...

I work down here a few blocks north of the site, so I know first hand how far WTC7 was from the towers. WTC7 was shielded from any flow by an intervening building -- WTC6:



As for the "earth quake", why did it not fall when they fell, but some 7 hours later? Why did no other building, even mostly destroyed WTC6 fall later that day?

And could the collapse of WTC7 have anything to do with the fact that it was the NYC headquarters of the the CIA, Secret Service, SEC (Enron investigation files) and IRS?

<edited>

[northzax]

50. if they took down seven

why not six as well? it would have been even more impressive.

oh, maybe they couldn't get a key?

oh heck, I normally subscribe to 'loony prove it' but I'm bored, so I'll play.

Take a good look at your map. What do the three towers that collapsed have in common with eachother? And what do all the ones that didn't collapse have in common with each other?

go ahead. work with me here.

[JHB]

51. WTC6 a Shield? More like a speed bump...

The towers were 110 stories tall, WTC7 a little short of 50, and WTV6 was only 6. On a human scale: if the towers were your height, 7 would come up to about your waist, 6 might be as high as your ankle.

Steel beams from the towers knocked out a sycamore tree in St. Paul's Chapel's graveyard. All the way across the plaza and "sheilded" by WTC5, and debris still made it that far (not exactly "in its footprint", BTW). More debris was sticking out of the WFC buildings, across West Street, at elevations far above anything that WTC6 would have blocked for WTC7.

WTC6 wouldn't have blocked much, and what it may have could actually have directed the "flow" directly at WTC7 through the gap between 6 and 5.

[HamdenRice]

52. You just weren't there or didn't see pics ...

You're just making things up at this point. The debris field simply did not reach WTC7, and to say it did is make believe.

[JHB]

60. "Weren't there?"

Hamden,

like a lot of other people, I can give you the f-ing walking tour of every picture and piece of film shot that day, "this was shot here looing this way, in this next part the cameraman was in this place walking in such direction panning between this spot and that spot, you know the doorway where they guy asked the fireman for a "toot" of oxygen: that was this doorway right here", etc., etc. all day long.

I had the good fortune not to be in the area on that day, but I damn well remember how that area was laid out, better than you if you think 6 could have blocked debris from the North Tower that was falling far enough away from the "footprint" to hit middle and upper floors of the WFC

Don't presume to tell me I'm just "making stuff up".

[yurbud]

54. Did you look at the WTC 7 collapse video?

[JHB]

61. The one that showed windows blowing out?

That and all the others, and I'm just amazed at how an effect that could easily be caused by a stress fracture as the collapse starts is venerated as absolute proof of demolitions charges.

[yurbud]

57. Remember Oklahoma City bombing? PHOTO

that wasn't flying debris and shaking, that was a bomb blast that blew the face off the building--and it was still standing at the end of the day.

[northzax]

77. it's an 8 story building

compared to 50. Thats a couple of hundreds of millions of tons or downward pressure difference. the Murrow was rebar, the WTC was simply steel. sheesh.

[longship]

70. Simple answers.

WTC7 was shielded from any flow by an intervening building -- WTC6:

Why would you expect an eight story building to sheild a 47 story building?

why did it not fall when they fell, but some 7 hours later?

The same reason why it took time for WTC 1 and WTC 2 to collapse. It took time for the fires to ignite available fuel and weaken the structure enough so that it could no longer hold itself up. I would have been more surprised if they had collapsed immediately.

I suspect that if it had collapsed immediately you'd still be making the same conclusions. In the tin-foil hat zone, every possible evidence supports their conjectures because it's not the evidence but the conclusions which are important. That's why the whole MIHOP logical structure collapses under its own weight. It's utter rubbish.

Why did no other building, even mostly destroyed WTC6 fall later that day?

You're not saying that because WTC7 collapsed, all the other buildings in the area must also collapse, are you? I didn't think so. WTC7 collapsed because it was damaged sufficiently to do so. WTC6 was only eight stories tall and, as you say, it was mostly destroyed. You've answered your own question.

And could the collapse of WTC7 have anything to do with the fact that it was the NYC headquarters of the the CIA, Secret Service, SEC (Enron investigation files) and IRS?

This is *not* evidence. It's not even good logic. (Post hoc ergo proptor hoc.) This is typical tin-foil hat stuff, where the lack of evidence gives rise to the claim that *anything* is evidence.

[TX-RAT]

42. I agree, you knock the bottom out the tops got to go.

It's called collateral damage people. There was a wave of debris going in all directions.

[HamdenRice]

46. There was almost no damage to WTC7

I wish I could get this across to non NYers. I work down here. Something like 60% of NYCers don't believe the official story, because geographically it doesn't make sense. Maybe you have to see the site.

But WTC7 was not next to the towers. There was an intervening building. And all these badly damaged buildings next to the towers survived.

Then in the middle of the afternoon, a building a block north that just happens to house the CIA, SEC, IRS, Secret Service, collapses.

[JHB]

55. What makes you say that?

HamdenRice, maybe you're the one who needs a referesher on the WTC layout. WTC6 may have been located between 7 and the towers, but at 6 stories tall it hardly counts as "intervening" between 48- and 110-story buildings.

[HamdenRice]

59. I'm not basing this on what could have happened, but on what did happen

Here is a pic of 7 burning. There is no "debris field":



Here is another pic of 7 on fire. There is no "debris field"



You can argue about what might have happened, etc., given the layout and the height of 6, but in fact, the debris field did not reach 7. I can't understand what you are arguing about.

[JHB]

62. Both these pics are from the north side of 7, away from the plaza.

What does the other side look like, after the collapses?

[JHB]

65. Here's a peek, if it comes through

This is a helicopter view of the west side of the building: the side opposite that in your first photo above:

Now, does that building look "essentially undamaged"? Or does it look like a big chunk was taken out of one of the corners (and one of the main load-bearing structures of the building)?

[longship]

71. What's the point of view of these pictures?

They could not have been taken from the WTC vantage point. These were taken from the *other* side of the building. No debris field there because the debris was sheilded by the building. Sheesh!

[hack89]

89. Eyewitness accounts of heavy damage..

Deputy Chief Peter Hayden:

but also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o’clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/hayd ...

Deputy Chief Nick Visconti:

I don’t know how long this was going on, but I remember standing there looking over at building 7 and realizing that a big chunk of the lower floors had been taken out on the Vesey Street side.

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/visc ...


Battalion Chief John Norman:

From there, we looked out at 7 World Trade Center again. .... but at the edge of the south face you could see that it was very heavily damaged.

We were told to go to Greenwich and Vesey and see what’s going on. So we go there and on the north and east side of 7 it didn’t look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn’t look good.

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/norm ...

Boyle: There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was probably about a third of it, right in the middle of it. And so after Visconti came down and said nobody goes in 7, we said all right, we’ll head back to the command post. We lost touch with him. I never saw him again that day.

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/boyl

Also there was this:

• The building had sustained damage from debris falling into the building, and they were not sure about the structural stability of the building.

• The building had large fires burning on at least six floors. Any one of these six fires would have been considered a large incident during normal FDNY operations.

• There was no water immediately available for fighting the fires.

• They didn’t have equipment, hose, standpipe kits, tools, and enough handie talkies for conducting operations inside the building.


http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-81.pdf

page 165

One Battalion Chief coming from the building indicated that they had searched floors 1 through 9 and found that the building was clear.390 In the process of the search, the Battalion Chief met the building’s Fire Safety Director and Deputy Fire Safety Director on the ninth floor. The Fire Safety Director reported
that the building’s floors had been cleared from the top down. By this time, the Chief Officer responsible for WTC 7 reassessed the building again and determined that fires were burning on the following floors:
6, 7, 8, 17, 21, and 30.391 No accurate time is available for these actions during the WTC 7 operations; however, the sequence of event indicates that it occurred during a time period from 12:30 p.m. to
approximately 2:00 p.m.

The Chief Officer then met with his command officer to discuss the building’s condition and FDNY’s capabilities for controlling the building fires. A Deputy Chief who had just returned from inside the
building reported that he had conducted an inspection up to the 7th or 8th floor.392 He indicated that the stairway was filling with smoke and that there was a lot of fire inside the building. The chiefs discussed the situation and the following conditions were identified:

• The building had sustained damage from debris falling into the building, and they were not sure about the structural stability of the building.

• The building had large fires burning on at least six floors. Any one of these six fires would have been considered a large incident during normal FDNY operations.

• There was no water immediately available for fighting the fires.

• They didn’t have equipment, hose, standpipe kits, tools, and enough handie talkies for conducting operations inside the building.

At approximately, 2:30 p.m., FDNY officers decided to completely abandon WTC 7, and the final order was given to evacuate the site around the building. 395, 396 The order terminated the ongoing rescue
operations at WTC 6 and on the rubble pile of WTC 1. Firefighters and other emergency responders were withdrawn from the WTC 7 area, and the building continued to burn. At approximately 5:20 p.m., some three hours after WTC 7 was abandoned the building experienced a catastrophic failure and collapsed.

[benburch]

105. I'd say this is pretty much conclusive.

Not that facts will have any impact of the tinfoilers.

[Bob3]

9. Sorry ben

nobody is that good a shot. nobody on the planet could fire, chamber a round reacquire the target, fire again, require the target again, fire again, then chamber another round before dropping the rifle to the ground unless they had gone to sniper school (which oswald had not) and had a decent sniper rifle - a modified Springfield '03 for example with modified sights and scope (which my dad used when he went to sniper school).

[benburch]

30. Like I say below.

I have done that stunt myself. If I can do it, a military trained shooter can do it better.

It simply isn't that hard.

It does take some luck though.

[mattclearing]

31. Not to mention that if you accept Oswald, you accept the magic bullet.

You also have to ignore the Zapruder tape.

The OP sounds sarcastic to me.

[benburch]

100. Nothing whatsoever magic about that bullet.

It makes perfect dynamical sense.

[TX-RAT]

32. I can, and so can thousands of other people.

Sorry but 3 shoots in that time frame at that distance is no great accomplishment.

[benburch]

104. Well...

I found it moderately difficult, but not impossible. I was using the same sort of rifle.

[Walt Starr]

10. What did Lee HArvey Oswald and Charles Joseph Whitman have in common?

Both were taught how to fire a weapon accurately by the United States Marine Corps.

[Orrex]

56. Yeah, so was Private Pyle

Lots of guys were trained by the USMC. So what?

[longship]

72. Hmmm. Using a ficticious person to make an argument?

Pshaw!

[Orrex]

82. Not to make an argument, but to highlight one

Specifically, so what if Whitman and Oswald were trained by the USMC? So was my cubemate, and so was that guy on the bus.

What's the point?

[sofa king]

63. Every Marine a rifleman.

And every Marine rifleman must hit a target with iron sights at 500 yards.

JFK was less than one-tenth that distance away, and Oswald had a scope.

Think of it this way. At 13, Oswald was the captain of his baseball team. At Dealey Plaza, he was shooting a scoped rifle from the same distance (140 feet) that a shortstop has to throw to reach home plate.

[newportdadde]

11. Smoking man voice: "Your wrong Ben"

The Majestic 12 and I decided it was time for a change in this country. It was time to shake it up although my rule against Buffalo winning the super bowl stands. It wasn't planes or explosives but Alien technology using precisely aimed sound waves that brought down the towers. Our black helicopters weren't seen due to all of the attention on the diversionary planes.

I can tell you no more now Ben but if you need me you can put and X with masking tape on your window and I will help you with more info.. or I may kill you or someone else may give you info or they may also kill you. :tinfoilhat:

[bullimiami]

13. ben, i think you are in denial.

too much is too much. just looking at the video should be enough. but add the fact that both towers came down and tower 7. the way the debris was rushed out of the site with no forensics and steel sold off to china.

i think to believe the story as told is :crazy:

[benburch]

16. Looking at the video is how I reached my conclusion.

Read my response to Red Queen above.

This is my engineering opinion.

[longship]

26. So is this a reason to believe...

that two airliners (with all their passengers) disappeared without a trace, that invisible demolition experts planted invisible explosives, etc.

MIHOP is rubbish. It always *has* been rubbish. It always *will* be rubbish.

[longship]

73. "the debris was rushed out of the site with no forensics and steel

That's it!!!
The debris was taken to China!!!

Aha!! Now we have proof that 9-11 was a Chinese conspiracy because they wanted the steel debris!!! This is an outrage!! We blamed Islamic fundementalists and it was the atheistic Chinese all the time!!
:evilgrin:

[longship]

17. People are so easily swayed.

I worry about a country where such claptrap is so prevalent. People don't think. We've lost our ability to think critically. Credulity must be at an all-time low. Of course, this is precisely why we have ChimpCo in the WH.

[MN ChimpH8R]

18. However good a shot Oswald was,

he was using a cheap rifle and had very little time to squeeze off three hits in that space. Nor does Oswald's marksmanship explain the magic bullet or the fact that the death shot clearly hit Kennedy from the front right.

[400Years]

22. there's just no way Oswald acted alone

[benburch]

23. I could do the same with the same type of rifle.

A friend's dad had one, and we used to practice just that stunt when we were kids. (Back then they let kids shoot rifles out in the rural area I was raised in.)

I was only good enough about 20% of the time, though.

[Zynx]

112. Oswald's shot is extremely easy to make.

He fired three times, missed his target (the head) twice, and scored one hit, all at very short range for any rifle. Not very good shooting.

The rest of your stuff is just tinfoil BS - you cannot get that sort of wound on Kennedy's front right without firing a shotgun into him from a couple inches away, as entry wounds are no bigger than the bullet diameter.

And 6.5mm FMJ ammo will penetrate just about anything, so there's nothing magic about one going through as much stuff as that one shot did.

[bowens43]

20. You're entitled to your opinion.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProfessorGAC]

27. Totally Different Designs

Can't compare them. Apples and oranges.
The Professor

[longship]

34. So how is this germaine?

1. It was not built like the WTC.
2. The fire was not fueled by tons of jet fuel.
3. The structure was not damaged by a large airliner crashing into it.
etc., etc., etc.

I can't count the ways that your pics are totally irrelevant.

[yurbud]

58. your only relevant point is plane strike--one building didn't burn long

remember one of the fires more or less was out before the collapse--a fireman was even on the floor and said he could put it down with a couple of hoses.

That Madrid thing burned longer and everything was gone but the steel core.

Do you want to say that a taller building was built WEAKER?

[longship]

76. No!

Do you want to say that a taller building was built WEAKER??

No, I want to say that the building in your picture wasn't hit at 500+ knots by a huge airliner.
Sheesh!

[longship]

81. Special pleading.

See, folks. To the MIHOPper every evidence supports their theory. When there is no evidence, MIHOPpers just make up evidence, or use some irrelevant information. All evidence supports MIHOP!!! Even if the evidence were entirely different, it still supports MIHOP!!

And the world was created in 7 days 6000 years ago.

And the world is the center of the universe.

And, Oh My God!!! There are *liberals* under my *BED*!!!!

And the *PARANOIDS* are after me!!!
AAARRRRRRrrrrgh!!!!

[mattclearing]

24. Bother me not with your facts, science, and logic.

:D

[goclark]

28. It is so loony to me that Bush would

sit in a class room reading with a group of children and MSM never questioned it.

Loony to me is why MSAmerica could just take GWB for all these years and not do anything about it.

Loony to me is not being allowed to question anything that just doesn't make complete sense.

Where there is smoke, there is usually a little bit of fire, even if it was the match for the cigar.

The beauty of what America should be involves the ability of citizens to question.

When we are not able to question, that is when I get scared.

I don't ever wish to close the door to anything.

We would not have the lightbulb if some loony person named Edison didn't fight off all the loonies that said it could not be done.

[bpilgrim]

33. 3 buildings don't fall in their own footprints unless by design

Anything else is just loony. :tinfoilhat:

P.S. I don't think Lee Harvey Oswald was just that good of a shot, too.

peace

[benburch]

40. Billy... They simply cannot fall any other way.

It is physics.

[MN ChimpH8R]

53. Did the WTC fall the way it did

because it was supported by its perimiter rather than a central pillar? Seems to me that a things would be more likely to fall down and in where there's a constrained outer layer, as WTC had, than with a center-pillar building, where the physics would seem to require that the structure peel away from the pillar and scatter over a wider area.

I am no engineer or physicist, but the building structure would seem to make a big difference in a case such as this.

[bpilgrim]

69. fyi: it was supported by a very strong center

that it was hollow on the inside is a myth.

peace

[northzax]

78. yes, but it was built

to pass the stress out to the outside, not the inside. The interior was not built to hold the stress of the building, only to hold the pressure of the inside parts of the floors.

[bpilgrim]

93. not true

see this open source paper from the physics dept. at byu for more details...
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html


This approach finally fails to account for the observed collapse of the 47 interconnected core columns which are massive and designed to bear the weight of the buildings, and it has the striking weakness of requiring the connections of the floor pans to the vertical columns to break, both at the core and at the perimeter columns, more or less simultaneously.

peace

[Zynx]

113. Um, they were hit by a very large plane?

When you start knocking out supports, the loads on the rest increase dramatically. When the remaining ones finally fail, there's been so much stress applied that they'll all break pretty much instantly as the weight on each multiplies.

[northzax]

115. and as the floor went,

the one below it was hit by several hundred thousand tons of mass moving at speed. and accelerating.

[longship]

43. How would you have them fall?

Topple like a block of wood? What physics courses have you taken that lead you to believe that they would do *anything* but collapse on itself? What external forces existed to make them fall any other way than how they did?

This isn't freaking Hollywood. This is reality that tends to obey the laws of physics.

[northzax]

48. yes, it was designed.

that's the whole point. the Building design of the WTC towers favored internal collapse over toppling. They actually were designed that way.

Everyone says this, that a building doesn't fall into itself. does anyone have an example of a modern skyscraper falling any other way?

[bpilgrim]

68. clean collapse vs dirty collapse

the only clean collapses i have ever seen are 2 types...

1. CD
2. DESIGN (FLAW)

i have not seen any info that these structures were designed to collapse in on themselves, do you have a link?

tia :toast:

peace

[northzax]

74. simple engineering logic

the way the WTC could be built so high, and so quickly, is that they were external steel frame buildings. Unlike traditional buildings at the time (Like Empire State, for instance) which had the majority of the structural support inside the core of the building and used masonry to external support, the WTC used steel frames on the outside of the building. Think of it as the difference between a masonry tower, like the Coit Tower and a radio transmitter, although that is a gross simplification.

Now, conduct an experiment. take like 50 toothpicks and use them to build two towers, of the same height. on one, put most of the support in the middle of the tower, on the other put minimal support in the middle. Now, take away the side supports on the second floor. Most of the time, the interior support tower will bend over towards that side, until the middle breaks and it topples. In the exterioir support structure, the floor above will collapse straight down onto the breach, pulliing the rest down, into the footprint of the structure.

in the central tower, there is enough structural support to hold the higher floors up while they being to be pulled to the side. There is enough support to allow the sideways movement to overcome the intertia of staying vertical. In the exterior support structure, the fall begins too quickly, as the entire floor goes, and gravity pulls down before the sideways movement can gain enough momentum to pull the top over.

The design was not so much that they would fall inwards, but that they would direct stress around the outside of the building and down to the ground, so the building could survive higher strength winds. The idea was to make sure that they would never fall over onto another building (or eachother)

now, the collapse is starting. and everything is moving downwards. In the WTC construction, the floors above strike simply another floor, held to the exterior construction, and will rip that floor from its moorings. Air, of course, doesn't like to be compressed, so it blows out the windows on that floor, where the blowout image comes from. At every floor, the mass of the collapsing section increases, and so does its velocity, striking the next floor even faster, creating even more shearing and so forth.

In a central building, the core might maintain enough strength, or even mass, to slow the fall just enough to allow sideways movement of the upper structure. and once there is some force going sideways, it reduces the amount coming straight down, and you can get topple.

Basically, things will collapse straight down unless the force holding them up is greater than the force pushing down, obviously. But the lateral forces are almost nothing compared to the acceleration of gravity. the World Trade Center was just heavy enough, and built in just the right way, to come straight down. Had this been done with, say, the Citibank building, it might have been different.

hope this helps. And do you have an example of a collapse that wasn't CD or design flaw? Have any other buildings even close to this size ever collapsed? seriously, I keep hearing the arguement 'but no building's ever done that" well, has any building ever done the other? has a skyscraper ever fallen over? laterally?

[bpilgrim]

92. but the twin towers had massive steel cores as well as steel curtains

see this open source paper from the physics dept. at byu for more details...
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

also folks are pointing out that no fires have EVER brought down a steel building and when there are collapses they are partial or 'dirty' not clean like the wtc buildings.


Madrid's Biggest Fire Destroys Skyscraper

A fire described as the worst in Madrid's history ravaged a 32-story skyscraper in the Spanish capital's financial district on Sunday, causing no injuries, but the tower stayed upright despite fears of collapse.

More than 200 firefighters worked all night to quell the spectacular blaze in the Windsor building, the city's eighth largest tower that looms over the northern financial district.


peace

[Orrex]

49. "3 buildings don't fall in their own footprints unless by design"

Uh, it was by design, at the time of construction.

Do you propose that the architects and engineers should have designed them to topple over? To what possible end?

And if the WTC had toppled, then tinfoil hats would be screaming that there's no way they could have toppled unless some MIHOP inside-job guy snuck in and deliberately sabotaged them to do so.

[No Exit]

37. You make Our Lord George W. Bush smile when you think like that!

Firmly "inside the box", that's your thinking.

Here's how it went for someone else whom I'm sure you would ALSO have called "tinfoil hat":

"Well, several of Galileo's astronomical discoveries showed (or suggested) that the Earth actually goes around the Sun. He thought that he could convince the Church to change its view on this, as truth surely will win over superstition. So he wrote a book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. He presented his case in the form of a dialogue. One character (Simplicio) defended the Church's view, and another (Salviati) defended Copernicus' view. The Pope (who was a friend of Galileo), and other defenders of the Church's view on this subject, were insulted by being portrayed as Simplicio, and by having their strongly held views ridiculed, for Galileo was an excellent writer who could easily show another person's folly. Very much like Socrates had done centuries earlier, Galileo made enemies of the people who he could make look like fools. And very much like Socrates, Galileo's "martyrdom" may have been intentional. In 1633, he was found guilty of heresy; his book was banned; he was forced to claim that he had been wrong, that the Earth did not move; and he was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. It is sometimes reported that after admitting that the Earth did not move, he said under his breath, "But it does move.""


http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:T_B5y1OTBjwJ:www.jimloy.com/biograph/galileo.htm+%22it+does+move%22&hl=en

[No Exit]

47. Benburch, my apology and explanation for this

ill-conceived post is below on the thread.

[johnnie]

38. Gravity did it

:tinfoilhat:

[oregonindy]

39. you say loony but dont include any scientific evidence.

could you back up your statement with some?

[benburch]

41. I did in replies above.

Compute the gravitational potential energy.

You need no bombs.

[No Exit]

44. Apologies to you, benburch.

I didn't read your post carefully b/c I had just come from the thread which was locked, and was busy answering someone who was ridiculing Jones' new theory. (I'm not saying I accept his whole theory; I don't have the expertise to evaluate it properly; but I sure as HELL don't believe the Official Story of 9/11 as brought to us by the mal-administration and its neocons.

So when I said "You make Our Lord George W. Bush smile when you think like that", I was wrong. You have definitely made Our Lord George W. Bush frown today!:)

[benburch]

64. Never a problem!

:)

[Kevin Fenton]

67. Fires

Some of the steel from the impact and fire areas was recovered after the WTC collapsed. NIST was able to determine how hot the fires had been around these pieces of steel. According to the available evidence, how hot were the fires in the twin towers?

[northzax]

75. it's hard to tell from the steel

because much of the steel was molten from compression.

[Kevin Fenton]

80. Molten?

"much of the steel was molten from compression"
That's not what NIST says. How about a link?

[northzax]

83. from the article in question:

There are several published observations of molten metal in the basements of all three buildings, WTC 1, 2 (“Twin Towers”) and 7. For example, Dr. Keith Eaton toured Ground Zero and stated in The Structural Engineer,
‘They showed us many fascinating slides’ continued, ‘ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster’. (Structural Engineer, September 3, 2002, p. 6; emphasis added.)

The observation of molten metal at Ground Zero was emphasized publicly by Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center Towers, who reported that “As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running.” (Williams, 2001, p. 3; emphasis added.)
Sarah Atlas was part of New Jersey's Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue and was one of the first on the scene at Ground Zero with her canine partner Anna. She reported in Penn Arts and Sciences, summer 2002,
‘Nobody's going to be alive.' Fires burned and molten steel flowed in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet. (Penn, 2002; emphasis added.)
Dr. Allison Geyh was one of a team of public health investigators from Johns Hopkins who visited the WTC site after 9-11. She reported in the Late Fall 2001 issue of Magazine of Johns Hopkins Public Health, "In some pockets now being uncovered they are finding molten steel.” Further information on the subject is available at http://globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=11663.

Thus, molten metal was repeatedly observed and formally reported in the rubble piles of the WTC Towers and WTC 7, metal that looked like molten steel. However, scientific analysis, using for example X-ray fluorescence, would be needed to ascertain the actual composition of the molten metal.

why molten? you try taking a hundred thousand tons of steel and compressing them at high speed, compress a metal and it heats. and melts.

[Kevin Fenton]

85. If I understand you correctly...

You're implying that all the steel that failed due to the fires was later compressed into molten steel during the fall (or perhaps due to the underground fires?) and that it is just a coincidence that the steel from the fire floors that didn't get anywhere near hot enough to fail survived to be analysed. Right?

I have to admit I haven't heard that one before.

[northzax]

86. from what I have seen

the conditions after collapse were such that very little steel survived in identifiable form, but I could be wrong. Has the steel from the hit floors been identified from the pile?

[Kevin Fenton]

87. Much of the steel survived,

but was loaded onto boats and shipped off to China (or wherever) as fast as possible. The FEMA/ASCE investigation had real trouble getting hold of a significant amount of samples due to administrative problems (i.e. their access to the site was very restricted). This (destruction of evidence) is one of the reasons people believe there might be something odd about the collapses.

You can find the NIST Mechanical and Metallurgical Analysis of Structural Steel here:
http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-3.pdf
All parts were numbered, so it was really easy to identify most of the steel pieces (except when a corner without a number had broken off).

236 steel samples were recovered (i.e. less than 0.5 percent of the total), but they obviously weren't all from the impact and fire areas.

The two key questions are:
(1) Is there any evidence to support the theory that the fires were not hot enough to cause the steel to fail?
A: Not much.

(2) Is there any evidence to support the theory that the fires were hot enough to cause the steel to fail?
A: No, none.

That's kind of odd, isn't it?

btw, NIST's models of the fires basically ignored the evidence provided by the steel samples from the fire areas.

[HughBeaumont]

84. Sigh . . .

Another day, another gaggle of 9/11 Commission believers being curmudgeonly, sarcastic and just plain ANNOYING.

Here's a hint - state your argument in a scolding and patronizing manner, and no one here's going to be kind back.

Even if you toss OUT the CD/Pentagate theories, just about everything leading up to, during and after this "attack" smells to high heaven of Bushshit. I don't know what's more hilarious - the "cane-waving" and sneery tone or the fact that you people don't think that this administration is THAT criminal and THAT evil; that you think this administration CARES about what ANYone making under $373,000 per year THINKS. Our needs are confetti in a wind tunnel to this junta. 3000 people, 2060 soldiers, a hundred thousand or so dead Arabs . . . they pass GAS which matters more to them when it comes to profits and mountain-sized wealth.

[HamdenRice]

88. OCTA personnel Please report for your blue pill for the day ...

As I posted elsewhere

OCTA -- Official conspiracy theory apologists.

Yes and they are a nasty, sarcastic lot as well.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x59951

[pauldp]

90. So who's the one clinging to a belief system here?

So if the collapse of building 7 is so clearly not a controlled demolition perhaps you could point out a couple of things in the video that are inconsistent with controlled demo? Can you find something? Anything? There must be SOMETHING that would give it away as clearly not a controlled demo right? The twin towers fell top down which is uncharacteristic for a controlled demo, but what about 7? If you find something please let me know.

Remember when FEMA was done investigating they said the cause of the collapse of 7 was "unknown at this time". Then of course all of the steel from the building was destroyed.

It's amazing to me the amount of ridicule and derision heaped upon people who think that
just MAYBE one explanation for an unexplained collapse is that IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXACTLY WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE! Again if it didn't look like a controlled demo then show me HOW it didn't.

So does BushCO really deserve a free ride on this? Can we really say with confidence "They may be bad but they couldn't be THAT bad" You know you don't have to "believe" anything. Many of us who realize the official story of 911 is horse shit aren't asking you to believe ANYTHING. We are just asking that you to not give these lying criminals a free ride. They have absolutely lost the right to be trusted EVER again. NOTHING about the official story of 911 should be taken for granted. The 911 Commission omitted the collapse of building 7 entirely from their report. Think about that - a 47 story skyscraper collapses in one of the most bizarre architectural failures in history, supposedly as a direct result of the fires caused by the attacks and it does not even warrant a SENTENCE in a 500 plus page "full and final" report. If you want to trust them go ahead. Personally I'm not going to believe ANYTHING until if and when some REAL criminal and scientific investigations are conducted.

[HamdenRice]

91. Very well put -- exactly

Their basic argument is that the Bush administration couldn't possibly be so evil as to participate in the murder of 3000 Americans.

Meanwhile we have just gone past 2000 soldiers who are so considered cannonfodder that the Assistant Secy of Defense couldn't even remember how many had died last year during his testimony.

Then, they stand by a watch the great city of NO flood, killing another 1000, let the bodies rot on the streets for a month, scatter the people to the four corners of the continent and then play bullshit games with relief.

And they kill between 30,000 and 100,000 Iraqi civilians.

No, no these guys would never kill human beings, would they?

[benburch]

95. No, my argument is that they didn't do it.

Though they were clearly capable of doing it.

Very, very different.

[pauldp]

96. So what about building 7?

does it or does it not look exactly like a controlled demo?

[benburch]

97. Nope...

Looks like structural failure to me.

[pauldp]

98. OK tell me what about it does not look like a controlled demo?

If it doesn't look like controlled demo then tell me how it doesn't. There are several angles available.

[benburch]

99. None of it looks like a controlled demolition.

It looks like structural failure.

[pauldp]

101. Ha!

:spray:
'smatter, afraid to be specific?
OK I'll help you.
How does the speed of the global collapse of 7 differ from the speed of global collapse of a controlled demo?

implosionworld.com has lots of good video if you need reference.

[pauldp]

102. So are you saying....

building 7 DID NOT undergo a global collapse?

building 7 did not fall in it's own footprint?

building 7 did not fall at near free fall speed?

because ALL of those things are consistent with controlled demolition and all of those things can be observed in the footage of 7 coming down - and that's just a few of them.

So once again, what SPECIFICALLY does NOT look like controlled demo?

Maybe you are looking at some different video than I am. Please advise.

If you can't come up with anything specific then I would say your blanket statement that
"none of it looks like a controlled demolition" holds no water .

[benburch]

103. You will clearly believe what you want to believe.

But falling in its footprint is exactly how I would expect a large building to fail. There is no reason, no force vector to cause it to deviate from a vertical drop. As for falling at free-fall speed; Exactly what I expect. Once the center slumps the gravitational potential energy overcomes the strength of the materials by a couple of orders of magnitude.

I understand there is a lot of very emotional reasons to want to make the Bush Administration out to be villains in this, but "sexing up" the facts doesn't help.

They ARE villains in this matter;

• They ignored intelligence
  
• They ordered the FBI to take hands off Bin Laden
  
• They fumbled the disaster response
  
• They used it as an excuse for war
  
• They used it as an excuse for destroying our civil liberties
  
• They used it as a political boon
  
• They quite possibly knew something was going to happen and did nothing because they NEEDED it.
  

How much more of a conspiracy do you we NEED?

Sheesh.

[pox americana]

106. You might expect a highrise to behave that way

after watching a few bogus experts talking nonsense in PBS- and FOX- produced TV specials.

But you'd be wrong. They don't.

[benburch]

107. They do.

I'm not basing this on any expert. I am basing this on years of physics and engineering experience and on having considered failure of skyscrapers well before 9/11 ever happened.

[pox americana]

108. I see. Tell me, how many steel-frame highrises

have experienced "progressive collapse" for any reason other than demolition in your vast experience?

No need to hurry with that answer. :)

[benburch]

109. None. But that isn't the point.

These three did.

[pox americana]

110. It isn't the only point.

But it's compelling, though not as compelling as the structural evidence, which you should look at sometime.

[HamdenRice]

116. That's very telling -- none, but three on one day!

Since the flat iron building of the early 1900s until 2005, this has never happened. Then it happened three times on one day -- to one building that hadn't even been directly impacted by an airplane. And it hasn't happened since.

Hmmmmm -- the only three, all on one day, in the midst of a calamity that you admit the administration was complicit in.

[HughBeaumont]

117. "I REFUSE to believe that Cheney is THAT evil!"

Siiiiiiiiiiggggghhhh . . . .

That's the other operative phrase - "hasn't happened SINCE". Somehow I DON'T buy that this was simply a lottery "winning".

[pauldp]

111. You are evading my question.

I'm not "believing" anything, and who is sexing up facts?

Explaining how the collapse COULD have happened without controlled demolition does NOT explain how it was DIFFERENT than a controlled demolition. The fact is you can't find ANYTHING specifically in all the footage that differs from a controlled demolition. If you could you would say what it was.

I don't "believe" in controlled demolition any more than I believe in Santa Claus.
However, I do UNDERSTAND that :

-the collapse of building 7 was entirely consistent with the a controlled demolition - just look at that site I pointed out.

-all of the steel from the building was destroyed before a thorough analysis could be conducted.

-Never in history had a steel skyscraper collapsed due to fire.

If you think any of that is untrue or "sexed up" please tell me specifically what about it is so.

My point was that given these facts, plus all the facts you mentioned about the administration above, why is it "loony" to consider controlled demolition as a hypothesis?
Not to "believe" it mind you, but to consider it.

It seems you may be the one doing the believing.

[Zynx]

114. You can't make a building that size fall anywhere other than straight down

The entire mass of each building - hundreds of thousands of tons - is being accelerated downward *constantly* at 9.8 m/s. That's while it is in place. It is held in place by the structure of the building.

Gravity pulls straight down, and will continue to do so as long as nothing forces the falling object to one side.

Unless you cut a building off at its knees like with a tree, taking out only one side, you can't force a collapse other than straight down. Beyond this, WTC 1 and WTC 2 were deliberately designed to fall straight down, becuase of what was around them. A toppling WTC in Manhatten would kill tens of thousands of people outside the tower. Hence, the structure was designed with no other way to fail than straight down, emphesizing the natural gravitational vector.

In point of fact, it's literally impossible, short of a nuclear weapon or a tsunami, to force the floors of the Twin Towers off-axis so they do not fall straight down once they start to collapse. That is how much force you need, period, because each massive slab floor weighs thousands and thousands of tons and is already set on its normal gravitational vector at 9.8 m/s.

Overcoming this inertia is a massive pain. You'll note that the actual plane impacts, the biggest missiles in history that they were, did nothing to actually cause the towers to sway significantly.

As far as WTC 7 taking damage from this collapse - of course it would. The energy release by the collapse of each of the Twin Towers exceeds a small nuclear weapon. The energy release is much slower, of course, but it is still being released. That's completely apart from any debries.

[pauldp]

118. So now YOU are evading my question.

Again, I did not ask if it was possible for the building to collapse from fire on its own the way it did - Although I have some doubts about your explanation - if you could provide some photographic evidence to support it I might consider it plausible. What I was asking was if there is ANY characteristic of the collapse of 7 that is different than the collapse of a biding imploded by controlled demolition? Anything. Anything at all? With the twin towers you can point out at least one characteristic that is inconsistent;
they fell top down.
Then of course there are collapses such as these:
&s=x11
&s=x11

Which aside from having obvious characteristics that are different from a controlled demo, don't seem to support your hypothesis of straight down collapse either.

My point is, if you can't find ANYTHING about the collapse footage of 7 that is different from a CD, than why not at least consider CD as a possibility given that the collapse is unexplained? Maybe it actually IS exactly what it looks like?

[Zynx]

119. How about there are no explosions on the upper floors?

CD explosions are normally sequential and throughout the building, designed essentially to break the floors and columns into pieces so it all just falls down. There's no sign whatsoever of this at WTC 7, let alone WTC 1 and WTC 2. There are no flashes, there are no bangs.

If it's a "controlled demolition" its unlike any other building demolition that's ever been done. So I have no idea how it could presumably be recognized as such by a bunch of untrained people on the Internet.

Btw, take a physics class, please. The buildings in your photographs *did* complete their falls, but were not pulverized because they fell very short ways, and thus fell over as they landed off balance. If they had had enough energy to smash their lower layers into nothing, they would have pancaked vertically.

Even WTC 7 is *hundreds* of times more massive than the buildings in your pictures, which means it has much, much, much more energy, which means that its lower floors are going to be smashed utterly, which means the fall will continue longer, and will continue straight down. As the fall continues longer, the acceleration of the top floors increases because gravity is cumulative, and that means that the upper floors are going to hit *their* supports extremely hard when when those supports stop and try to halt movement, which means those supports will snap and crush, and the collapse will continue. Cumulative acceleration is why you can jump off a one-story roof with no problems, but a three story drop will almost certainly kill you and will smash you up something bad.

Because gravity is constant and cumulative, a much bigger building will fall much harder than a smaller building, and be *much* more prone to maintain its inertia on its original vector.

And that inertia is present whether or not the building is actually falling. You just don't notice it unless you start having structural failures that create unequal loads that will break support columns very rapidly indeed.

So you really can't push a building like that to one side with anything short of a nuke (or a very large earthquake), and one wouldn't expect it to fall any other way than straight down, and one wouldn't expect the floors and columns to fair particularly well.

[pauldp]

120. Thank You for being specific!! But what about these...

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/281104unmistakablecharges.htm
They sure look like sequential charges going up the side and front of the WTC7.

If you go here:
http://www.implosionworld.com/cinema.htm
and look at the bottom row fourth from the right there is a CD that looks very similar to WTC7's collapse and there are fewer puffs of smoke.

If you can work on that one I'll go see if I can find my old physics textbook.

[HamdenRice]

121. You asked for explosions on upper floors? You got em

That's the whole point. Many are convinved by this video:

http://www.911hoax.com/gwtc7_1.asp?strPage=wtc7_1&intPage=60&PageNum=60

[pauldp]

122. Thanks for that link.

I shows it better than the one I had.

the challenge still stands.
:)

[Zynx]

127. That's glass and other crap blowing out from the building collapsing.

Notice the breaking on the front glass in a similar manner in many areas? There's no explosion there. Also, even if it was a demolition of WTC 7, it would probably have been a good idea to get rid of that building eventually anyway since it was likely structurally unsound.

[publius_jr]

123. PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES

Ever play Uno-Stacko? Pull out the support on one side, & it is likely for the tower to crash to that side.

The notion that there is "no reason, no force vector to cause it to deviate from a vertical drop" is ludicrous. One, if it were true, why would we need demolition experts to implode a building, with carefully timed explosives? Two, there is an obvious symmetry-breaking "force vector," as you call it, in non-controlled demolitions. It is the weight of the building itself applied about the point of first failure. If the steel on the east side happens to fail first, there would be a slight rotation of the building above that level to the east side. There is significant torque in this situation, favoring an eastword tumble. The way to avoid this is very complicated. The support has to fail symmetrically, or in our simplified case the north, south, east, & west sides all have to fail at exactly the same time.

In criticizing your detractors, you make the mistake of lumping all who disagree with the official story into one group--the "conspiracy theorists." YOU debunk the wild fantasies of some to introduce doubt regarding the less-wild, even logical, observations of others. YOU focus on the nebulousness of possible motive, but our concerns are not (at this stage) with motive. Our concern is a very simple one--(a) there exists evidence to suggest that the collapse of the towers is not explained by the official story, and (b) the hypothesis that the towers were demolished in a controlled fashion is consistent with all evidence available to public purview. Let us first see if THIS concern is legit--we need a FAIR, & FULL, & OPEN investigation by scientists around the world. If it is, THEN we can get into the who's and why's. But any impediment to a FAIR, FULL, & OPEN investigation is an impediment to the rights of all Americans, & Iraqis, & Muslims, & anyone on the world, for that matter. Please do not "Sheesh" us off as conspiracy theorists, when we are merely disconcerted by the FACT that the official story & logic are playing a dissonant tune.

Also, your can brandish your credentials as an engineer all you want; the authority in the tone of your writing exposes your ignorance in these matters. Our government has spent ~$20 M to come up with an INCOMPLETE & IMPROBABLE hypothesis, yet you assess the situation in the blink of an eye--it is, as you say, what you expected. It is NOT, however, what the computer models expect, save making EXTREME assumptions & focusing ONLY on the the events until the buildings BEGAN to collapse (& specifically NOT their miraculous footprint-fall). Nor is it what the engeineers who designed the towers expected, as they designed the towers to withstand the horizontal impact of an airplane.

I suggest you get out a Uno-Stacko kit & tinker around. Your expectations might not be met.

[DemonFighterLives]

124. Good Post

Welcome to DU!
:hi:

[HamdenRice]

125. Thank you for this clear eyed post and welcome to DU!

And welcome to the "dungeon" to which 9/11 discussion is consigned!

[pauldp]

126. Great post. Thanks and welcome to DU.

:thumbsup:

[benburch]

128. That vector is overwhelmed in this case.

It existed, but was not of sufficient magnitude to act during the brief time of the collapse.

As others have said, nobody has seen a building this large collapse before!

Your expectations, drawn from the failure of smaller structures, are based upon physics that does not scale.