# An angle of the WTC collapse I'd never seen
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 19, 2010, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182 "2010-07-19T01:39:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 22
### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/421 "2010-07-25T14:24:49Z")
> [@ironbender](#):
>
> Fire has never caused a total collaspe in a steel skyscraper until the WTC. I have done my reasearch, and going by what is known today, fire cannot cause such a building to collaspe the way the WTC buildings did. Through itself as if all the supporting steel had been removed or weakend at the same time.
>
> You are trying to debate semantics. You link to a small picture of WTC 7, even though the building was huge and then question my use of the word corner. You talk about 17 floors of a 32 story building partially collasping, and the keyword here is partial, due to fire but the building was still standing. The WTC buildings were, for all intents, total collapes. Madrid acted the way one would expect according to known physics.
The structure of the Madrid building was completely different, of course. The WTC buildings were the first for a lot of things, including their designs.
Your argument is rather like saying that a small hole in the fuselage of a plane could never cause pressure to rip out large portions of the fuselage because we had gone through all of WWII with lots of planes suffering lots of holes and it had never happened–carefully ignoring the fact that the design of later planes, using pressurized cabins to fly at higher altitudes and higher speeds, did, indeed, permit small holes to result in large failures of fuselage sections.
> [@ironbender](#):
>
> Fire would cause a collaspe that is bound by gravity. There is no way the buildings them selves would have enough energy to cause the damage we saw.
I am afraid that this statement does not even make sense. The enormous weight of 20+ stories of buildings covering an acre apiece would provide a huge amount of energy at a rate of sixteen feet per second per second.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/422 "2010-07-25T14:28:53Z")
> [@ironbender](#):
>
> > [@sparky\_1](#):
> >
> > You are disregarding facts that have repeatedly been brought up in this thread. You are also asking questions that have already been asked numerous times in this thread.
>
> If you are refering to facts that claim the WTC buildings were so different that physics did not apply to them, then yes, I am disregarding that.
No, you’re misrepresenting the facts, again. We go through this on every 9/11 thread and it’s not going to change.
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### Author:  [@BlakeTyner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlakeTyner)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/423 "2010-07-25T15:02:19Z")
The destruction of the buildings happens due to gravity **either way.** Potential energy is basically all you have. Demolition charges do one thing and one thing only–they release the building to **gravity.**
Think of it this way–the North Tower began construction in August of '68 and was completed in December of '70. During that time, imagine all the fuel that was burned in order to lift all the steel, concrete, wallboard, aluminum sheaths, rivets, nuts, bolts, nails, pipes, etc. over the span of those 2 years. The building stored all that energy–2 years worth–as potential.
It was then released into kinetic energy on 9-11, and what took 2 years to build was destroyed in less than 30 seconds.
Figuring conservatively, with 40-hour work weeks, 50 weeks per year, for 2 years, means that there were 14,400,000 seconds to build the thing (assuming I did the math right.) Releasing 14,400,000 seconds of energy in 30 seconds would destroy the building.
Put another way–take all the fuel burned (and the energy of the coal burned for electricity) during that 2 year construction, put it into a big tank anywhere in the building, and detonate it. Reckon the building would fall?
Since I’m just a layman, I have to rely on the “Good Science and 9-11” calculations here, but for potential energy:
**E=mgh** where m = mass, g = acceleration due to gravity, h = height.
The only real variable here is the exact weight of a WTC tower, but an estimate yields a **gravitational** potential energy of 1.139x10^12 Joules.
ie: 1,000,000,000,000, or a Trillion.
Energy wise, that’s like detonating about 272 tons of TNT.
The gravitational energy of the buildings alone, without any added variables (like, oh, the kinetic energy of an airliner) added in, results in enough energy to destroy the buildings. It has to–that’s what would happen even if the towers were imploded. Gravity has to do the job.
Something else to consider: the 1993 WTC bomb was 1,310 pounds, and according to [this](http://web.archive.org/web/20050316140649/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3069653/) article, the “architect” of the WTC (I’m assuming they mean Leslie Robertson, since the principal architect had died in '86) said that if the '93 bomb had been parked closer to the poured concrete foundations, then THAT bomb would have brought the towers down.
Again, the reason is simple–it’s not that the '93 bomb’s measly 1,310 pounds would somehow pulverize the building–it would simply release the gravitational energy, which would. The WTC’s structural engineer believed that that relatively small catalyst would be enough to set up the failure, and we’re arguing that a fueled airplane that not only transferred X amount of kinetic energy into the building, but also severed structural support columns AND started fires AND blew off fireproofing material (that, by many accounts, wasn’t robust even before the attacks) couldn’t do it?
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/424 "2010-07-25T15:08:44Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#):
>
> > [@ivan\_astikov](#):
> >
> > Something else to ponder. Ever since things were investigated with scientific rigour, the general scenario will be that there is at least one dissenting voice amongst the group. And this is good. The world would be a much duller place if everyone agreed.
> >
> > So, bearing this in mind, where are the dissenting voices from this lot?
> >
> > If there are none at all, that is suspicious in itself.
>
> Wait… what?! This is really your position? This is your argument?
Hoo-boy, talk about a non-starter.
There is some dissent, ivan, unfortunately it got drowned out by the crank crowd. The NIST report had several petitions for changes to its report, but it was mostly detailing - critical detailing but detailing nontheless.
There are also a couple of engineering papers out there making the argument that despite the architects claims the impacts alone would have doomed the towers. This is definitely a minority opinion among engineers and once again was drowned out by the crank crowd. You can can go find them yourself since you really are not interested in doing anything but complaining, but they are out there.
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/425 "2010-07-25T15:17:05Z")
> [@ironbender](#):
>
> Fire has never caused a total collaspe in a steel skyscraper until the WTC. I have done my reasearch, and going by what is known today, fire cannot cause such a building to collaspe the way the WTC buildings did.
So just how many skyscrapers before 9/11 had:
a) Steel frame construction without concrete or other more fireproof materials
b) Had massive fires that started on multiple levels at once
c) Had no firefighting efforts on the fires
d) Had a larger building fall on them or a jet slam into them.
I think you would find your sample size is rather small.
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### Author:  [@BlakeTyner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlakeTyner)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/426 "2010-07-25T15:27:50Z")
The other thing that I forgot to point out is this:
In order for the buildings to have been brought down by a controlled demolition, then obviously _something_ had to be demolished. In your classic building implosions, we all know that the engineers place hundreds of charges throughout the building’s structural support columns. The explosives detonate, the columns give, and gravity takes over the destruction of the building.
Now, the video I linked in my OP shows that the core of the North Tower remained standing after the rest of the building fell away. There is still photographic evidence of the same thing happening with the South Tower. So, obviously, no charges were planted in the interior core of either building. If there had been, the core wouldn’t be left standing.
That leaves the perimeter columns. But, since those are on the outside of the building, visible to millions, any demolition explosives would be perfectly obvious. So those weren’t blasted, either.
So what’s left to 'splode with charges?
And, since we’re on the whole “no other building has ever…” thing, I’d like to see an example of a controlled demolition where the engineers, um, left the structural core of a building standing like the ones who ‘pulled’ the WTC did. Pretty sure that’s not part of the whole methodology.
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### Author:  [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/427 "2010-07-25T16:31:44Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> > [@pedescribe](#):
> >
> > Do you believe that there were explosives detonated in the Twin Towers on 9/11, or not?
>
> It’s certainly less of an impossibility than the book of Genesis being based on scientific fact and that it was dictated to man by a god.
But do you believe it [the explosives being in the towers]or not? Answer the question!
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/428 "2010-07-25T16:37:12Z")
I’m not going to discount it, when NIST themselves have said they didn’t look for any as it was too unlikely an hypothesis.
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### Author:  [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/429 "2010-07-25T16:42:01Z")
> [@BlakeTyner](#):
>
> \Since I’m just a layman, I have to rely on the “Good Science and 9-11” calculations here, but for potential energy:
>
> **E=mgh** where m = mass, g = acceleration due to gravity, h = height.
>
> The only real variable here is the exact weight of a WTC tower, but an estimate yields a **gravitational** potential energy of 1.139x10^12 Joules.
>
> ie: 1,000,000,000,000, or a Trillion.
>
> Energy wise, that’s like detonating about 272 tons of TNT.\
We did something like this in the last thread, too.
Just to give a feel for this amount of energy, note that the maximum bomb load of a B-29 was 20,000 pounds, or 10 tons. So the gravitational potential energy released by the WTC collapse is equivalent to a bombing run by a fleet of 27 Superfortresses.
Seems like enough to pulverize a building to me.
But it certainly doesn’t mean that explosives were actually involved. Clearly, it would be impossible to hide the amount of explosives necessary to bring down a building, to say nothing of hiding the preparations necessary to making those explosives effective. As has (sigh) been said so many times, by so many others, before.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/430 "2010-07-25T16:45:14Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> I’m not going to discount it, when NIST themselves have said they didn’t look for any as it was too unlikely an hypothesis.
That is not what they said.
> **[World Trade Center Investigation](https://www.nist.gov/world-trade-center-investigation)**
>
> The collapse of the WTC buildings following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, was one of the worst buildin
> [@](#):
>
> and there was\*\* no evidence (collected by NIST, or by the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department or the Fire Department of New York) of any blast or explosions in the region below the impact and fire floors\*\* as the top building sections (including and above the 98th floor in WTC 1 and the 82nd floor in WTC 2) began their downward movement upon collapse initiation.
>
> In summary, NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to Sept. 11, 2001.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/431 "2010-07-25T16:49:24Z")
> [@CannyDan](#):
>
> But it certainly doesn’t mean that explosives were actually involved. Clearly, it would be impossible to hide the amount of explosives necessary to bring down a building, to say nothing of hiding the preparations necessary to making those explosives effective. As has (sigh) been said so many times, by so many others, before.
Go on, keep repeating the lie. First of all, we’ve already stated that we are not talking about a conventional controlled demolition, hence your bollocks about it requiring too much explosive and preparation is completely misleading.
You should also check up on how many people had access to the WTC buildings involved, in say the month prior to it happening. Big hint - there was a lot, and it wouldn’t be too difficult too go unnoticed in such a large building. Not that they couldn’t also have had fraudulent ID, if they were challenged.
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### Author:  [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/432 "2010-07-25T16:50:55Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> I’m not going to discount it, when NIST themselves have said they didn’t look for any as it was too unlikely an hypothesis.
So let me get this straight. Because it is such an unlikely possibility…you’re more likely to believe it?
I wonder how this sort of approach would work in everyday life?
“Either he threw away the report, or he ate the report and stole a piece of paper to make into a decoy wad for the trash can.”
“Either he took a car to work, or he climbed on top of a bus and car-surfed for 45 minutes through rush-hour traffic.”
“Either this cart has a squeaky wheel, or the manufacturer of this shopping cart put a chemical on the handle that makes me want to buy more groceries, with the side effect of imagining that one of the wheels is squeaky.”
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/433 "2010-07-25T16:57:30Z")
From this article, [CommonDreams / Common Blunders: Attacking the 9/11 Dissenters](http://911blogger.com/node/15181)
> [@](#):
>
> You see, unmentioned, was the reality that 9/11 really was a lie. Even the two nominal heads of the 9/11 Commission, Kean and Hamilton – who moved mountains to contain the sham investigation, studiously avoiding the numerous pertinent questions – these two have complained publically about being lied to by military leaders and of having requested documents and evidence withheld. A large portion of their report was, of course, based on testimony produced via torture (Note: David Rovics himself would probably admit to blowing up the World Trade Center if tortured sufficiently into doing so).
>
> So many lies flowed forth in the wake of 9/11, that it is inconceivable that those telling them should be presumed innocent, when these attacks happened on their watch, with their foreknowledge, and with the cover story that “no one” ever considered such attack scenarios before. A lie. A big lie. I won’t even bother enumerating the political and monetary gains, the “opportunities” bestowed on the Bushites as a result of the 9/11 attacks.
>
> The Bush administration was explicitly warned of just such attacks just a month and a half before 9/11 in Genoa Italy at the G-8 summit, and they were literally moved out of their high-rise hotel for precisely that reason.
>
> The scope, magnitude, and complicity of specific US government individuals in the crimes of 9/11 has been somewhat covered up (with some help from “progressive” outlets like CommonDreams et. al., who stoop to demonizing dissent on the issue, rather than investigating further). But clearly the focus should be on the cover up by the US government, and not on the behavior of a few random persons at peace protests. The cognitive dissonance that allows such grotesque official lies to stand while turning the “two minutes of hate” (Orwell) toward 9/11 dissenters is both profound and damaging to the nation.
There’s a few cites there for you Derbunkers to get your teeth into.
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/434 "2010-07-25T16:59:08Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Go on, keep repeating the lie. First of all, we’ve already stated that we are not talking about a conventional controlled demolition, hence your bollocks about it requiring too much explosive and preparation is completely misleading.
Wheras you are invoking ‘unconventional demolition’ as a magic word to try and ignore the fact that any sort of demolition is going to leave behind large amounts of evidence.
> [@](#):
>
> You should also check up on how many people had access to the WTC buildings involved, in say the month prior to it happening. Big hint - there was a lot, and it wouldn’t be too difficult too go unnoticed in such a large building. Not that they couldn’t also have had fraudulent ID, if they were challenged.
And somehow they got the magic explosives past the bomb sniffing dogs. Then they put the magic explosive on the columns without any prep work to the column at all! Then the magic demolition men realized they didn’t need to put the magic explosive on the column! It was MAGIC after all, so they just left a small bag in the middle of the room. Then one of the magic demolition men realized that they didn’t need to be in the building at all! The explosive was magic, after all!
Sound stupid? It actually makes more sense then the tales your inadvertently spinning.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/435 "2010-07-25T17:02:18Z")
To someone with their head up their arse, maybe.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/436 "2010-07-25T17:08:35Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> From this article, [CommonDreams / Common Blunders: Attacking the 9/11 Dissenters](http://911blogger.com/node/15181)
Oh please. Now you’re just grabbing stuff at random from the conspiracy sites.
> [@](#):
>
> You see, unmentioned, was the reality that 9/11 really was a lie. Even the two nominal heads of the 9/11 Commission, Kean and Hamilton – who moved mountains to contain the sham investigation, studiously avoiding the numerous pertinent questions – these two have complained publically about being lied to by military leaders and of having requested documents and evidence withheld.
The same two guys who later wrote a book saying the commission was a success? yeah, they were complaining at the time, and that is why they had Commission powers - to cut through the obfuscation and coverups. The did so.
> [@](#):
>
> A large portion of their report was, of course, based on testimony produced via torture (Note: David Rovics himself would probably admit to blowing up the World Trade Center if tortured sufficiently into doing so).
That is an unsupported lie.
\
> [@](#):
>
> The Bush administration was explicitly warned of just such attacks just a month and a half before 9/11 in Genoa Italy at the G-8 summit, and they were literally moved out of their high-rise hotel for precisely that reason.
Wrong. There were warnings that some sort of attack might be imminent, not what happened.
\
> [@](#):
>
> There’s a few cites there for you Derbunkers to get your teeth into.
Same old, same old. Stuff that has been disproven ages ago.
---
### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/437 "2010-07-25T17:10:13Z")
Here’s a typical piece of NIST bullshit that even an idiot like me can rip apart.
> [@](#):
>
> The seismic spikes for the collapse of the WTC Towers are the result of debris from the collapsing towers impacting the ground. The spikes began approximately 10 seconds after the times for the start of each building’s collapse and continued for approximately 15 seconds. **There were no seismic signals that occurred prior to the initiation of the collapse of either tower.** The seismic record contains no evidence that would indicate explosions occurring prior to the collapse of the towers.
So, the seismic record didn’t even detect the impacts of the planes! How the fuck were they meant to detect much smaller charges intended to just blow up specific columns?
And you call that “scientific reasoning”?
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/438 "2010-07-25T17:11:20Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> To someone with their head up their arse, maybe.
Nope. Your ‘version’ makes not a lick of sense. It is magical thinking at its worst. I just put in the words your version was avoiding.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/439 "2010-07-25T17:15:50Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Here’s a typical piece of NIST bullshit that even an idiot like me can rip apart.
Except that you fail to do so.
> [@](#):
>
> So, the seismic record didn’t even detect the impacts of the planes!
Umm, it did.
> **[911myths](https://web.archive.org/web/20191216033221/http://www.911myths.com/index.php?title=Main_Page)**
Look at the first graph. They were recorded.
> [@](#):
>
> How the fuck were they meant to detect much smaller charges intended to just blow up specific columns?
Because that is what they do?
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2010, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/440 "2010-07-25T17:16:28Z")
Does it make less or more sense than the NIST comment I’ve quoted above? Remember, I’m just a layman; they have all the degees and letters after their names.
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