We really need a white board function on the forums. It would make explaining things like that easier, but either way sorry for being unclear. (Bad habit of typing up posts between doing stuff at work.)

In short, it doesn't all fail by being pulled inward. There isn't actually enough space for it. Some floors/cross members would fail and shear off from the outer wall, and some is going to fall outward, but the outer wall is still going to hold on long enough to guide the bulk of it downward instead of allowing the whole thing to fall down like a tree.

Some sections of the exterior shell sheared from the floor members while there was still a large mass above them, and buckled outward.
Other sections ended up with sudden excessive weight loads on them causing them to buckle outward, which sheared them away from their floor/cross members. They're two different damage patterns that end up doing similar things. (And either method may take some interior chunks with it.

At the end of the day the exterior structural panels would have held together long enough to become a big factor which encouraged a generally vertical collapse from the inside out, vs failure on one side causing either tower to tip over.


If you look at the rubble pattern you can clearly see that it did not fall perfectly into its own foundation foot print, but rather fell in the general downward direction, and parts falling all around. Had they been shorter towers built in a different fashion, then they would have had a greater chance of failing in the "Tipping over" fashion. (Their height meant that they required stronger lateral structure, such as the exterior shell, to keep the tower from racking/twisting in the high winds, and pushing itself over.)


But either way, zero high velocity debris pattern shooting directly outward means zero use of demolition explosives.

[color=#222222][font=arial, sans-serif][size=2][color=#000000]Never attribute to [color=#000000]malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.[/font]
[color=#222222][font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]
[/font]
[color=#222222][font=arial, sans-serif][size=2]Conspiracy? More like incompetence.[/font]

and debris from the initial collapse onset seems to be flung outwards at 60mph.

And instinct tells you it's wrong?

How often do you experience half-a-kilometer masses moving under effects of gravity?


I was in and on WTC. The thing I remember more than suicide fences on the top obstructing all the view is the lobby. It was a 4-5 story hollow room (google for images). There is no church that would have such an imposing dome. WTC was, for engineering purposes, hollow. The weight was supported by walls with a few central support beams - there was no lateral support - imagine a tube with a beam at center. I have yet to see a building of similar design being demolished.

Now take 20 stories from the top and move them 50 meters down under gravity. Calculate the energy stored. Now apply this as force perpendicular to a few tiny metal beams whose only role was vertical support and you get outward movement. Fast one at that. Or, take the center of roll of toilet paper. Plug one end, put fire hose on the other. Open water. The paper roll will "explode".

Take a look at moon craters. They have mountain in the center. Conspiracy? No. During impact, the energy release is so big the entire land mass acts like water. Drop of water will cause same effect in a glass. Now someone tells you they cannot replicate it by dropping stones from the roof so it's fake. We don't elicit many actions that result in matter phase change of kilometer-sized objects so those aren't intuitive.


Seriously, talking about controlled demolitions is moronic. Those people take months of planning to take down trivial buildings and here they put a show for billion people to watch live as two buildings are demolished one next to another while two planes crash in. The organizational aspects are unimaginable and undoable by mankind today.

Yes, people cannot imagine we landed on the moon. We also have Flat Earth Society. But what we cannot and rightfully so comprehend is the sheer magnitude and scale. A human does not have an intuitive feel of how half a kilometer of matter will behave. Most landslides are smaller than that. So trying to resolve something like this with "it doesn't feel right" is pointless. WTC collapse has more in common with water flowing and fluid dynamics than it does with demolitions.


But I am almost certain of one thing. Bin Laden was as surprised that buildings collapsed so completely and in such a spectacular way as everyone. Because before then there was no engineer in the world that would dare predict it, let alone be capable of engineering it to such result.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.[/quote]

A quote that universally explains just about every government action, regardless of where and when. Conspiracies are too complicated to work in real world.

[quote name='Hodgman' timestamp='1315913269' post='4861041']and debris from the initial collapse onset seems to be flung outwards at 60mph.

And instinct tells you it's wrong?[/quote]I was looking for a clarification on what Luckless meant in the quote below, as in layman's terms, the initial collapse is surely a huge expanding cloud of 'high velocity debris', even if it is just caused by gravity.

we would have seen medium to high velocity debris and fragmentation projecting through the dust cloud at the initial stages of the explosion

Is a steel beam moving at 100kmph "high velocity" debris? What are we (not) looking for? Something like a huge blast of shrapnel right before the collapse begins?

[Demolitions] people take months of planning to take down trivial buildings and here they put a show for billion people to watch live as two buildings are demolished one next to another while two planes crash in. The organizational aspects are unimaginable and undoable by mankind today.

Come on, you can surely have a bigger imagination than that! The implications of a conspiracy of this scale would have to infer some kind of super-secret Illuminati that's powerful enough to infiltrate the US Presidency, CIA, Mossad, ISI, etc, etc, etc.... so if you're going to construct such a fantasy, I'm sure this group could handle a few months of planning, right? They could also rig some plane's autopilots, orchestrate a hijacking of said planes, and strap a few thousand demolitions charges and a few coats of thermate paint to the structural supports of two buildings that they assumably own.
Also, demolitions take months as they have to strip the building of non-essentials and do it in a completely safe way. If you just want to blow shit up, I'm sure you can cut a few corners... There -- I just imagined it!

Seriously, talking about controlled demolitions is moronic.[/quote]What about in the context of WTC7, who's collapse can be shown side-by-side with controlled demolition footage? Is that more forgivable?
As I posted earlier, even Fox reported (in 2010) that permission was sought on the day to bring it down using controlled demolition, which is baffling because like you said, such a plan should take months. Is it somewhat less crazy to conject that a CIA field office would have a self destruct mechanism built into it?

What about in the context of WTC7, who's collapse can be shown side-by-side with controlled demolition footage? Is that more forgivable? As I posted earlier, even Fox reported (in 2010) that permission was sought on the day to bring it down using controlled demolition, which is baffling because like you said, such a plan would take months.

I don't know what WTC7 is. I wouldn't know what it is if it weren't for conspiracy nuts latching onto it.

Now think about the big picture. Why demolish a side building...

There are two half a kilometer landmasses dropping to the ground, but you go in, spend months undercover planting hidden explosives so that you can use the confusion to demolish it? Why? No, really, why would there ever under any circumstances a controlled building demolition serve any purpose except that of rebuilding on the same place. Name any imaginable human activity (rule 34 not excluded) for which orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper solutions do not work. And if building contained something to be hidden, wouldn't that be in like fireproof safes? To which building demolition would do exactly nothing? Would a few built-in charges with no external impact accomplish the desired task of destroying the contents? Kinda like military some types of military hard drives (although those use acid I think).

If anything, explosions are terrible at covering up anything due to their nature of, you know, propelling stuff all over the place. If there is anything you want to hide you use termite. Or, if you have months to prepare, you use a shredder. They are $19.99 from Amazon. Explosion is the last thing you want since it doesn't destroy anything at all.

It is somewhat less crazy to conject that a CIA field office would have a self destruct mechanism built into it though ;p[/quote]
CIA built self-destruct into SR-72 or that other spy plane.

It was needed and supposed to activate when the plane was shot down. It failed. CIA never blew up anything successfully.

But you know who did. Mafia. And guess who goes by the name of Cosa Nostra. Dun, dun, dun... I suppose the only logical conclusion is that Teflon Don blew up WTC7 or something.


Also, to all conspirators - instead of talking all the nonsense, how about voting with your feet so that my travel to US will again be less invasive then visits to max security prisons. As inmate. Slacktivism.

What about in the context of WTC7, who's collapse can be shown side-by-side with controlled demolition footage? Is that more forgivable? As I posted earlier, even Fox reported (in 2010) that permission was sought on the day to bring it down using controlled demolition, which is baffling because like you said, such a plan would take months. It is somewhat less crazy to conject that a CIA field office would have a self destruct mechanism built into it though ;p

From one angle WTC7 looks like a controlled demolition. In reality it had been on fire for a few hours in a huge hazard area with larger fires to be dealt with making it lower priority for fire fighters. If you think pulling off a controlled demolition in a burning building is in any way feasible you are insane. It wouldn't take months of planning. It would take years of planning. It fell exactly like the report said it fell. It burned for hours eventually weakening the supports at just off center bottom of the building causing the interior of the building to collapse down on itself at sub-free fall speeds, which caused the exterior of the building to fall at free fall speeds because there was no interior of the building left to slow it down. You can see the evidence of this yourself watching the videos. The roof visibly caves in before any of the exterior falls down.

NOT TO MENTION IT MAKES NO SENSE TO BLOW UP A BUILDING IN YOUR NATION'S FINANCIAL CENTER WHEN YOU COULD JUST BLOW UP AN ISOLATED ARENA WITH NO FALLOUT TO THE ECONOMY AND GET THE EXACT SAME "BENEFITS".

If anything, explosions are terrible at covering up anything due to their nature of, you know, propelling stuff all over the place. If there is anything you want to hide you use termite.

Damn termites.

If you think pulling off a controlled demolition in a burning building is in any way feasible you are insane. It wouldn't take months of planning. It would take years of planning.

Which is exactly why that Fox article is so baffling! The guy writing it is an eye-witness, and he debunks the demolition theory by saying that while the lease-holder was asking for permission to carry out a controlled demolition, the thing just collapsed.
WTF, is he insane? The only way that would make any sense, is if it was coincidentally already rigged up as some kind of CIA or Secret Service protocol (they had offices there), and he had access to their big red button... or something... which is also insane. So is Fox just smoking crack as usual?
But back to the conspiracy theories, if it was demolished by explosives, one would assume the building was rigged up in advance by the conspirators, not rigged on the day...

It burned for hours eventually weakening the supports at just off center bottom of the building causing the interior of the building to collapse down on itself at sub-free fall speeds, which caused the exterior of the building to fall at free fall speeds because there was no interior of the building left to slow it down. You can see the evidence of this yourself watching the videos. The roof visibly caves in before any of the exterior falls down.[/quote]Wouldn't the lower sections of the exterior wall provide some resistance against the fall of the upper (visible) portions of the outer wall? The 2 seconds of 9.8ms acceleration isn't explained in the report AFAIK - instead they only use the acceleration averaged over the entire collapse, which is obviously below free-fall.

NOT TO MENTION IT MAKES NO SENSE TO BLOW UP A BUILDING IN YOUR NATION'S FINANCIAL CENTER WHEN YOU COULD JUST BLOW UP AN ISOLATED ARENA WITH NO FALLOUT TO THE ECONOMY AND GET THE EXACT SAME "BENEFITS".[/quote]If you'd get the same "benefits", why didn't the terrorists/super-secret-Illuminatists do that then, eh? Maybe the economic damage was a "benefit"? Who says it's "your nation" to the conspirators anyway?

Now think about the big picture. Why demolish a side building... it doesn't destroy anything at all

Any of the conspiricy websites will give you a huge list of motives. A common reverse-engineered motive is that most of the paper evidence against Enron (including their dealings with the Taliban) were destroyed by the collapse.
Regarding non-destruction compared to paper shredders, yes, the CIA actually dispatched their own team to comb the ruins for any of their own surviving office contents.

[quote name='Antheus' timestamp='1315923823' post='4861087'][quote name='Hodgman' timestamp='1315913269' post='4861041']and debris from the initial collapse onset seems to be flung outwards at 60mph.

And instinct tells you it's wrong?[/quote]I was looking for a clarification on what Luckless meant in the quote below, as in layman's terms, the initial collapse huge expanding cloud of 'high velocity debris', even if it is caused by gravity.

we would have seen medium to high velocity debris and fragmentation projecting through the dust cloud at the initial stages of the explosion

Is a steel beam moving at 100kmph "high velocity" debris? What are we (not) looking for? Something like a huge blast of shrapnel right before the collapse begins?
[/quote]

Basically. Small pebble/rock sized fragments projecting at very high speeds. In controlled demolitions these are usually not seen to a great extent because they take pains to confine them with large, bulky sheets and chain link fencing. Safety reasons you know. These would project through the 'dust cloud', and produce visible showers of stuff. (Fine dust gets blown out, but quickly slows due to its lack of mass and air resistance rapidly slows it down. Larger chunks carry on without slowing as quickly.)

And yes, these would be happening before the tower started moving. We see dust clouds as the building grinds itself to dust after it is already collapsing, and we see chunks thrown off at high speeds due to collisions and pressure, but we don't see the kind of effects you get when you blow something up, even with a 'low velocity' charge.

I'm not going to go into masses of detail here as I don't want to get into heavy debate. But I think the article I linked quite a bit earlier actually covers a lot of this.

Basically the entire "WTC7 was supposed to be controlled demo" hypothesis come from the lease-holders use of the phrase "pull it" in a sentence. Conspiracy theorists claim (rightly in this instance) that 'Pull' is a type of controlled demolition. So when the guy says 'pull it' he is saying 'blow it up'.

But, when read in context (and especially when in the quote he says he was talking to the fire department chief), makes much more sense to mean "Pull it (the efforts to save the building. In other words: abandon firefighting efforts and evacuate)" rather than "Pull it (use controlled demolition to bring down this building that is already on fire and near collapse)". Also, if he was ordering demolition, he wouldn't be asking the fire department to do it. They don't really specialize in that kind of thing!

[color="#1C2837"]even Fox reported (in 2010) that permission was sought on the day to bring it down using controlled demolition[/quote]

If FOX News report something, it should instantly be disregarded as fiction unless we have very good reason to believe otherwise

[color="#1C2837"]What about in the context of WTC7, who's collapse can be shown side-by-side with controlled demolition footage? Is that more forgivable?[/quote]

Controlled demolition footage has explosions for a few second before the buildings collapse. WTC7 doesn't. Similar results =/= similar methodology. Controlled demo buildings fall in a similar way because the vital structural supports are taken out. If the same effect occurs by accident through debris damage and fire, you'll get the same result. Physics doesn't act any differently just because in one case the cause is SEMTEX and in another case the cause is fire and debris damage. Take out the same structural supports and physics will act in the same way.