# 9/11 wreckage **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567 "2009-01-16T05:42:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/61 "2009-01-16T22:54:22Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > it still seems to me that concrete would break into large chunks, instead of pulverizing Please detail your structural engineering credentials. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/62 "2009-01-16T23:05:28Z")
Once again the conspiracy theory goes like this: _A massive, ultra-genius organization consisting of thousands of dedicated criminals trained in the art of deception perpetrate a fraud on the entire world that a six-year-old could see through._ If there _were_ a conspiracy to make it look like a plane hit the Pentagon it would have been the easiest thing in the world to make a _plane-shaped hole._ But evidently this imaginary conspiracy, despite having billions of dollars and allies at all levels of government, despite having covert agents planted in every branch of the media, doesn’t know what shape an airplane is. Or maybe, just maybe, an airplane crashing into a concrete building doesn’t make a plane-shaped hole the way it would in a cartoon. Here’s a thought exercise. Take a pencil and shove it through a potato. Now, throw the potato through a wire-reinforced plate glass window. Does it make a potato-shaped hole or a plane-shaped hole? ---
**Author:** ![jessesheeran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@jessesheeran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jessesheeran)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/63 "2009-01-16T23:16:31Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > Please detail your structural engineering credentials. no, i have absolutely no credentials in this area, and i realize that my thought experiemt with the stacks of concrete slabs is too elementary… but.. you could visit the [Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Petition Signers](http://www.ae911truth.org/supporters.php) select “engineers, degreed and liscensed” **WARNING:** it will take a while to scroll through them all ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/64 "2009-01-16T23:18:29Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > but suppose you just stacked concrete slabs, one on top of another, infinitely, until you reached the point where the bottom slabs are not made to shoulder the weight of the slabs above it. **when you put the last slab on top, the slab that breaks the camels back, would it – pulverize?? from the top down??** i think there might be cracks and splits and it would all fall over and break some more, big mess, etc… But we’re not talking about stacked slabs of concrete. We’re talking about slabs of concrete suspended a good fifteen feet above each other, with the intervening space filled with dry wall divisions. Drop a concrete slab fifteen feet onto another concrete slab, it’s going to pulverize everything in between. Drop those two slabs fifteen feet onto a third slab, then those three onto a fourth slab, and so forth, pretty soon you’re going to see the slabs themselves breaking up into finer and finer parts. It won’t be turned completely into dust, but the process of so many tons of concrete breaking up as it impacts again and again on each floor, each time crushing everything that was in that floor, is going to generate a fucking huge amount of dust. > [@](#): > > i disagree, there are plausible alternate theories out there, namely Steve E. Jones discovery that thermite was used to cut the steel, “Why Indeed did the WTC buildings Completely Collapse” [He demonstrated no such thing.](http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm) His paper on the subject was never submitted to peer review, and was roundly denounced by his own university’s physics and engineering departments. > [@](#): > > –but whater the case-- there is absolutely nothing wrong **just pointing out anomalies** in the official theory The fact that you don’t understand the rudimentary physics involved in the collapse of the WTC does not constitute an “anomaly” in the official explanation. There’s nothing anomalous about the catastrophic destruction of a fully furnished office building the size of the WTC producing a huge cloud of dust. Watch the controlled and purposeful demolition of an empty building sometime - it still produces a huge amount of dust, and this is after the place has been stripped. Hell, they’re renovating my apartment right now, which involves nothing more destructive than stripping the stucco exterior off the building, and the entire complex has been engulfed in a haze of dust for the last week. > [@](#): > > could you show a **cite**? [Here](http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/gzrescue0.html) are three pictures of the rubble. What I see in those pictures is a lot of rubble of indeterminate nature. How do you know that a significant amount of that rubble is not, in fact, concrete? ---
**Author:** ![Algorithm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/algorithm/32/12204_2.png) [@Algorithm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algorithm)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/65 "2009-01-16T23:33:12Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > you could visit the [Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Petition Signers](http://www.ae911truth.org/supporters.php) select “engineers, degreed and liscensed” **WARNING:** it will take a while to scroll through them all Well why don’t you summarize the authoritative argument you are appealing to here? Why do particles of the particular size observed in the rubble necessarily imply a controlled demolition? ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/66 "2009-01-16T23:33:19Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > it still seems to me that concrete would break into large chunks, instead of pulverizing Maybe. I don’t know as I’ve never dropped a slab of concrete from 100 stories in the air. But lacking any other plausible mechanism for pulverizing the concrete I’m willing to accept that the fall did it. > [@](#): > > explain to me **exactly** how… certainly not just from the falling, as we saw clouds of dust before it hit the ground, > so that leaves… > being crushed. You appear to be working under the assumption that the large dust clouds coming out of the building while it was in mid-collapse mean that all of the concrete must have been pulverized, and furthermore that it must have all been pulverized before the building finished collapsing. This conclusion would only be supported if there was no other possible source of dust other than pulverized concrete. We know that the buildings contained large amounts of gypsum sheetrock drywall. Drywall very easily forms dust, as anyone who has done home repair work can tell you, and is much softer and more fragile than concrete. Therefore you would expect large clouds of gypsum dust to be created during the collapse regardless of the state of the concrete, and it is therefore not possible to know the state of the concrete in mid-collapsed. Furthermore, even if you know that some of the concrete was pulverized in mid-collapse, it does not then follow that all of it must have been. It would be possible for a small portion of the concrete to have been pulverized, with the dust cloud thus created obscuring the state of the rest of it. > [@](#): > > which under the official theory says that the steel beams failed, and the concrete couldn’t support the weight of the building and was crushed. I’ll have to correct you there. The concrete in the WTC never supported the weight of the building. The structure of the WTC was made up of steel beams. The only concrete was in the form of floor slabs which rested on top of the steel and provided a flat surface for the building contents. When the steel frame failed the concrete simply fell with the rest of the building contents. > [@](#): > > but suppose you just stacked concrete slabs, one on top of another, infinitely, until you reached the point where the bottom slabs are not made to shoulder the weight of the slabs above it. **when you put the last slab on top, the slab that breaks the camels back, would it – pulverize?? from the top down??** i think there might be cracks and splits and it would all fall over and break some more, big mess, etc… You might be right, but this supposition bears no resemblance to what actually happened. The concrete was not piled in a neat stack until it failed. The building structure was a lightweight steel frame, with concrete slabs and other material supported by it. When the frame failed the concrete slabs were not gently lowered to the ground, but fell, striking each other and other pieces of falling debris as they did. I am not surprised that they were badly fractured in the process. > [@](#): > > i disagree, there are plausible alternate theories out there, namely Steve E. Jones discovery that thermite was used to cut the steel, Steven Jones findings as far as thermite are [highly questionable](http://www.911myths.com/html/traces_of_thermate_at_the_wtc.html). Furthermore, claiming that the steel was cut by thermite does not in the least explain pulverization of the concrete, so the claim that the concrete was pulverized is not support for the thermite theory. > [@](#): > > could you show a **cite**? From [Here](http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/a/Hard-Evidence-Rebudiates-the-Hypothesis-that-Mini-Nukes-were-used-on-the-wtc-towers-by-steven-jones.pdf): [QUOTE=Steven E. Jones] As we examined the WTC-debris sample, we found large chunks of concrete (irregular in shape and size, one was approximately 5cm X 3 cm X 3cm) as well as medium-sized pieces of wall-board (with the binding paper still attached). Thus, the pulverization was in fact NOT to fine dust, and it is a false premise to start with near-complete pulverization to fine powder [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/67 "2009-01-16T23:45:49Z")
I suppose what the conspiracy advocates are alleging is something like the following: _We believe it is impossible for a plane to have caused the collapse of the World Trade Centers. Therefore, it must have been a bomb or series of bombs, planted beforehand, by some criminal conspiracy. They only wanted us to think it was caused by airplanes!_ If so, then my response is: _Why? Why would it be necessary to pretend it was caused by airplanes? If terrorists had bombed the WTC, would our response have been less? Would we have been apathetic? If the conspiracy wanted us to think it was airplanes, why airplanes particularly? Why was it not enough to simply plant the bombs, set them off, and blame it on terrorists?_ It makes no sense. Occam’s Razor. If there were a conspiracy there is no logical reason for them to invent imaginary airplanes. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/68 "2009-01-16T23:50:44Z")
Because, clearly, the _real_ objective of the conspirators was not to draw us into a protracted ground war in the Middle East. Neither was the aim to drive a wedge between the religious leaders of the world, or to provide an umbrella for the evisceration of the more inconvenient parts of the Constitution. None of those has anything to do with the fictional aircraft; logically, the fabricated story must be connected directly to the conspirators’ intentions. No, _obviously_, the true objective was to require all of us to show our naked feet at the airport, because the people in charge are dedicated fetishists. _Obviously._ ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/69 "2009-01-16T23:55:05Z")
And it was done on 9/11. What’s the number between 9 and 11? Ten! How many toes do we have? Ten! We’re through the looking glass, people! ---
**Author:** ![jessesheeran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@jessesheeran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jessesheeran)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/70 "2009-01-17T00:34:44Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > Once again the conspiracy theory goes like this: > > _A massive, ultra-genius organization consisting of thousands of dedicated criminals trained in the art of deception perpetrate a fraud on the entire world that a six-year-old could see through._ > > If there _were_ a conspiracy to make it look like a plane hit the Pentagon it would have been the easiest thing in the world to make a _plane-shaped hole._ But evidently this imaginary conspiracy, despite having billions of dollars and allies at all levels of government, despite having covert agents planted in every branch of the media, doesn’t know what shape an airplane is. > > Or maybe, just maybe, an airplane crashing into a concrete building doesn’t make a plane-shaped hole the way it would in a cartoon. > > Here’s a thought exercise. Take a pencil and shove it through a potato. Now, throw the potato through a wire-reinforced plate glass window. Does it make a potato-shaped hole or a plane-shaped hole? Today was the first time I’ve ever heard of no-plane conspiracy theory. As far as the thought experiment, my common sense says, potato shaped hole. So, we are probably in complete agreement that planes did indeed crash into the WTC towers. I guess the debate will always hinge on one question. “did the burning jet fuel melt the structural steel?” As far as conspiracy theories always being bunk because there will always be a whistle-blower, well, I think only a few people were really “ **in the know** ” and I don’t think Gerorge W. was one of them judging from how scared he looked in that classroom in Florida. And, remembering back to 2001, the media did not show one single investigative impulse as the story unfolded. While its true that if you “break the big story” you will make the big bucks, if you aren’t already “playing the game” you probably wont find yourself in a position of power in the media. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/71 "2009-01-17T00:46:44Z")
You’re wrong and you’re wasting your life. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/72 "2009-01-17T00:50:56Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > I guess the debate will always hinge on one question. “did the burning jet fuel melt the structural steel?” Probably not. What the burning jet fuel did was ignite pretty much everything flammable across half a dozen floors. Modern office buildings contain a surprisingly high amount of flammable materials, and an un-fought office fire can reach temperatures high enough to significantly weaken structural steel. You don’t have to melt steel to make a structure collapse. Structural steels start to lose strength almost as soon as you heat them above room temperature, and lose most of their strength at a temperature well below what it takes to melt them. There has also been some research to suggest that thermal expansion alone might have been enough to trigger a collapse, by twisting and bending beams out of alignment. The strength of a frame structure is dependent not only on the strength of the materials involved, but also their precise alignment. A steel beam, once bent even a little bit out of line, will immediately lose most of its resistance to further bending, simply by virtue of being bent. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/73 "2009-01-17T01:06:39Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > I guess the debate will always hinge on one question. “did the burning jet fuel melt the structural steel?” The debate is over as far as researchers are concerned: [http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military\_law/1227842.html?page=4](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=4) > [@](#): > > FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks.” > > “Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. “And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat. > > But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F. > > “The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down.” > [@jessesheeran](#): > > As far as conspiracy theories always being bunk because there will always be a whistle-blower, well, I think only a few people were really “ **in the know** ” and I don’t think Gerorge W. was one of them judging from how scared he looked in that classroom in Florida. > And, remembering back to 2001, the media did not show one single investigative impulse as the story unfolded. While its true that if you “break the big story” you will make the big bucks, if you aren’t already “playing the game” you probably wont find yourself in a position of power in the media. The real conspiracy was the one Osama and buddies committed, that BTW does not eliminate other “conspiracies” like the one from Bush and henchmen that were ready to use an incident like this to settle unrelated scores. It is important to notice that history has shown many times that dictators and autocrats gain power by using incidents that they themselves did not cause. Many 911 conspiracy theorists always forget this. ---
**Author:** ![jessesheeran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@jessesheeran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jessesheeran)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/74 "2009-01-17T01:20:47Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > But we’re not talking about stacked slabs of concrete. We’re talking about slabs of concrete suspended a good fifteen feet above each other, with the intervening space filled with dry wall divisions. Drop a concrete slab fifteen feet onto another concrete slab, it’s going to pulverize everything in between. Drop those two slabs fifteen feet onto a third slab, then those three onto a fourth slab, and so forth, pretty soon you’re going to see the slabs themselves breaking up into finer and finer parts. It won’t be turned completely into dust, but the process of so many tons of concrete breaking up as it impacts again and again on each floor, each time crushing everything that was in that floor, is going to generate a fucking huge amount of dust. alright, my thought experiment was way off without accounting for the space between the floors. please look again at my original post in the thread, and repeat your theory while looking at them[it is just a link of pictures:](http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/wtcdust3.html) the building is still collapsing in the first photos. If the steel failed where the planes hit, roughly in the middle of the building, then you have a situation where all that unsupported concrete etc, is going to come down due to gravity. I don’t understand why the ungodly amounts of dust are clearly visible **before** this falling debris hits the ground. It is the impact of the material with the ground that could pulverize it. > [@](#): > > [He demonstrated no such thing.](http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm) His paper on the subject was never submitted to peer review, and was roundly denounced by his own university’s physics and engineering departments. thanks for the link, i do admit that Jones theory is not **proven** , but, he (and no-one outside of NIST, FEMA, and FBI) was never given even reasonable access to the evidence, in fact he had to go rouge to collect his samples. It is hard to solve a crime when you are not free to investigate the scene. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jones theory is an approximation that could be corrected with more analysis of the evidence. There should have been, and though it is too late for some things now, there still should be and independent investigation, as in: independent from government. > [@](#): > > The fact that you don’t understand the rudimentary physics involved in the collapse of the WTC does not constitute an “anomaly” in the official explanation. There’s nothing anomalous about the catastrophic destruction of a fully furnished office building the size of the WTC producing a huge cloud of dust. Watch the controlled and purposeful demolition of an empty building sometime - it still produces a huge amount of dust, and this is after the place has been stripped. Hell, they’re renovating my apartment right now, which involves nothing more destructive than stripping the stucco exterior off the building, and the entire complex has been engulfed in a haze of dust for the last week. yes, a controlled demolition **does** produce a lot of dust, because the building collapses into its own footprint. > [@](#): > > What I see in those pictures is a lot of rubble of indeterminate nature. How do you know that a significant amount of that rubble is not, in fact, concrete? i am sure there are some chunks of concrete that broke off and they can be used as an anomaly against controlled demolition: my original post in this thread that i have reiterated in this post: why the cloud of dust before and material hit the ground? ---
**Author:** ![jessesheeran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@jessesheeran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jessesheeran)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/75 "2009-01-17T01:23:46Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > You’re wrong and you’re wasting your life. worst case scenario - I’m wasting my evening. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/76 "2009-01-17T01:27:13Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > my original post in this thread that i have reiterated in this post: why the cloud of dust before and material hit the ground? But you’ve already been answered, at least once. Sheet rock can and will powder quite well. And when you have tons and tons of rubble forcing all the air out of a floor and into space, the pulverized sheet rock will travel with that air. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/77 "2009-01-17T01:28:32Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > i am sure there are some chunks of concrete that broke off and they can be used as an anomaly against controlled demolition: my original post in this thread that i have reiterated in this post: why the cloud of dust before and material hit the ground? Why, what do you think it should’ve looked like? It’s not every day a 110-story steel-and-concrete building falls down. I’m not sure what you’re using as a basis for comparison. And you haven’t answered my question: if somebody wanted to bomb the WTC, why would it be necessary to make us think it was caused by an airplane? What would be the point? Al Queda had _already_ attempted a bombing against the WTC once before; it was a known part of their modus operandi. Any conspiracy that can be imagined or concocted would have no reason to pretend it _wasn’t_ bombs. In fact, you could argue that because it _wasn’t_ a bomb the second time, it _couldn’t have been_ blamed on Al Queda. ---
**Author:** ![jessesheeran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@jessesheeran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jessesheeran)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/78 "2009-01-17T01:30:55Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > I suppose what the conspiracy advocates are alleging is something like the following: > > _We believe it is impossible for a plane to have caused the collapse of the World Trade Centers. Therefore, it must have been a bomb or series of bombs, planted beforehand, by some criminal conspiracy. They only wanted us to think it was caused by airplanes!_ > > If so, then my response is: > > _Why? Why would it be necessary to pretend it was caused by airplanes? If terrorists had bombed the WTC, would our response have been less? Would we have been apathetic? If the conspiracy wanted us to think it was airplanes, why airplanes particularly? Why was it not enough to simply plant the bombs, set them off, and blame it on terrorists?_ > > It makes no sense. Occam’s Razor. If there were a conspiracy there is no logical reason for them to invent imaginary airplanes. Occam’s Razor, we would be **really** stupid and inept to allow terrorists to bomb the WTC (yes, i know it was bombed in 1991, but you do realize my point. hell, for all I know terrorists **did** bomb the WTC and **that** is why Gerorge W. looked like a deer in headlights in that classroom in Florida ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/79 "2009-01-17T01:38:40Z")
> [@jessesheeran](#): > > yes, a controlled demolition **does** produce a lot of dust, because the building collapses into its own footprint. > > i am sure there are some chunks of concrete that broke off and they can be used as an anomaly against controlled demolition: my original post in this thread that i have reiterated in this post: why the cloud of dust before and material hit the ground? Because it was NOT a controlled demolition. Before a controlled demolition the people in charge have already removed most of the material that would make the cloud of dust a bigger one. **The towers did not collapse into their own footprint** , as the damage and the destruction of other buildings showed. ---
**Author:** ![jessesheeran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@jessesheeran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jessesheeran)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567/80 "2009-01-17T01:43:04Z")
> [@AndrewL](#): > > Maybe. I don’t know as I’ve never dropped a slab of concrete from 100 stories in the air. But lacking any other plausible mechanism for pulverizing the concrete I’m willing to accept that the fall did it. > > You appear to be working under the assumption that the large dust clouds coming out of the building while it was in mid-collapse mean that all of the concrete must have been pulverized, and furthermore that it must have all been pulverized before the building finished collapsing. This conclusion would only be supported if there was no other possible source of dust other than pulverized concrete. We know that the buildings contained large amounts of gypsum sheetrock drywall. Drywall very easily forms dust, as anyone who has done home repair work can tell you, and is much softer and more fragile than concrete. Therefore you would expect large clouds of gypsum dust to be created during the collapse regardless of the state of the concrete, and it is therefore not possible to know the state of the concrete in mid-collapsed. Furthermore, even if you know that some of the concrete was pulverized in mid-collapse, it does not then follow that all of it must have been. It would be possible for a small portion of the concrete to have been pulverized, with the dust cloud thus created obscuring the state of the rest of it. > > I’ll have to correct you there. The concrete in the WTC never supported the weight of the building. The structure of the WTC was made up of steel beams. The only concrete was in the form of floor slabs which rested on top of the steel and provided a flat surface for the building contents. When the steel frame failed the concrete simply fell with the rest of the building contents. > > You might be right, but this supposition bears no resemblance to what actually happened. The concrete was not piled in a neat stack until it failed. The building structure was a lightweight steel frame, with concrete slabs and other material supported by it. When the frame failed the concrete slabs were not gently lowered to the ground, but fell, striking each other and other pieces of falling debris as they did. I am not surprised that they were badly fractured in the process. > Steven Jones findings as far as thermite are [highly questionable](http://www.911myths.com/html/traces_of_thermate_at_the_wtc.html). > > Furthermore, claiming that the steel was cut by thermite does not in the least explain pulverization of the concrete, so the claim that the concrete was pulverized is not support for the thermite theory. > > From [Here](http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/a/Hard-Evidence-Rebudiates-the-Hypothesis-that-Mini-Nukes-were-used-on-the-wtc-towers-by-steven-jones.pdf): AndrewL many of your points here were similar to miller’s, whom I already responded to. > [@](#): > > When the frame failed the concrete slabs were not gently lowered to the ground, but fell, striking each other and other pieces of falling debris as they did. I am not surprised that they were badly fractured in the process. like I asked miller, try reconciling “fell, striking each other and other pieces of falling debris, …badly fractured in the process” -which seems completely reasonable- with the images that I linked to thread -which **[do not](http://http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/wtcdust3.html)**- [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-wreckage/481567.md?page=5)