# 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:** 38
### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/741 "2010-07-30T15:15:13Z")
> [@j66](#):
>
> So, can we answer these questions, to refudiate the explosives theory with something more specific than ‘somebody would have noticed’?
Sure: any explosives and their wiring would have needed to survive the fires. The amount of concrete “dust” seen that day would have required the equivalent of 185 tons of TNT per tower placed into holes drilled into each slab; that’s a lot of explosives that would have needed to survive being burned.
---
### Author:  [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/742 "2010-07-30T15:23:28Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> I get the feeling some of you are awaiting some sort of thanks for putting me right on all these elements of wrongness I’m raising?
No, but I would like to thank you for more than living up to my prediction that you could outdo yourself.
(ivan kinda reminds me of the “Bad Movies We Love” description of Bette Davis’ overacting in “Beyond the Forest”: “Just when you think she’s hit the top, we’ll be damned if she doesn’t raise the ceiling.”)
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### Author:  [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/743 "2010-07-30T15:36:16Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#):
>
> > [@j66](#):
> >
> > So, can we answer these questions, to refudiate the explosives theory with something more specific than ‘somebody would have noticed’?
>
> Sure: any explosives and their wiring would have needed to survive the fires. The amount of concrete “dust” seen that day would have required the equivalent of 185 tons of TNT per tower placed into holes drilled into each slab; that’s a lot of explosives that would have needed to survive being burned.
Likewise, I imagine det cord would be required. I can’t imagine wireless signals would work for any charges placed near the core (I know my cell signal is usually crap in elevators/stairwells).
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/744 "2010-07-30T16:00:42Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#):
>
> The amount of concrete “dust” seen that day would have required the equivalent of 185 tons of TNT per tower placed into holes drilled into each slab
That should have been “158”. Transposed the 8 & 5.
---
### Author:  [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/745 "2010-07-30T16:21:57Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> > [@Larry\_Borgia](#):
> >
> > People here engage with Ivan and his like to blow off steam and pass the time. If you want to pretend there is a silent audience of thousands who would read Ivan Astikov’s silly question mongering and be convinced that 9/11 CT’s are true, that’s up to you, but there really isn’t.
>
> As of this post, this thread has 730 posts, and over 16,000 views. Unless each person who has posted to this thread has first opened it at least twenty times before they make each of their posts, it seems like there’s a substantial number of people reading the thread, but not participating. Whether any of them have had their minds changed one way or the other by the debate here is, of course, impossible to say.
>
> However, in real life, I have used the arguments I’ve read in threads like this to convince the majority of my friends that 9/11 conspiracy theories are bunk. When these theories first started making their rounds, I was in the minority in my social circle in not buying into them. Now, there’s only one or two people I’m close to who still believe in this stuff. So I’d say there’s some real value to these debates, and I strongly suspect that the number of lurkers who’ve had their minds changed because of threads like this is substantially greater than zero.
Actually I think it’s likely that the view count is driven by dopers like myself who don’t post much in these threads, but check in frequently to see how crazy it’s gotten. But I could be wrong, so:
**CALLING ALL LURKERS! CALLING ALL LURKERS!**
I understand there is a silent audience of thousands of you who are following along with the Ivan Astikov show. I was wondering if you could do me a solid and register as a guest–it’s free–and post once to confirm that you exist. Also, when you post could let us know if you found Ivan’s questions compelling and would have believed in the CT were it not for all the people dutifully answering them and calling Ivan out on his poor argumentation.
Thanks!
As to using these arguments in real life, I guess I’m blessed not to know a lot of CT believers. But I still say there’s only one argument against the CT, at least the bombs in the towers part of it: It doesn’t make sense on it’s face. Once the Secret Masters arranged for the planes to fly into the buildings, they already accomplished everything they needed to. They wouldn’t have had any reason to blow up the buildings, a difficult operation that would have needlessly risked exposure. Arguing about the technical details cedes too much ground to the nutjobs.
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### Author:  [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/746 "2010-07-30T16:22:46Z")
> [@j66](#):
>
> 1. **Are** more individual explosive elements AND more total explosive material required to bring down a building safely - in it’s own footprint - than required just to ensure the building does fall?
For that matter, to what extent did the towers fall in their own footprint anyway? I seem to remember a lot of debris all over the place.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/747 "2010-07-30T16:25:30Z")
> [@j66](#):
>
> I’m only abut 2/3 of the way through the thread, so pardon me if these have been addressed:
>
> 1. **Are** more individual explosive elements AND more total explosive material required to bring down a building safely - in it’s own footprint - than required just to ensure the building does fall?
>
> 2. **Do** the explosive elements require det cord, or could some type of electronic trigger be used remotedly?
>
> 3. **Could** charges be placed on the \*\*core \*\*at the floor supports so as to cause the supports and floors to collapse **inward** , pulling in the outer support walls?
>
> 4. Is there some standard measurement of effectiveness of explosives, such as a blast power to explosive mass ratio (newtons to grams)? If so, what is the highest known?
>
> 5. Finally, what **volume of the most effective explosive known** would be necessary for the scenario below.
>
> 6. What would the Effectiveness Rating from #4 need to be for a six inch cube of an explosive placed at every floor support on a single floor need to be, compared to the most powerful available explosive?
>
> Explosives are placed at the core on the floor supports.
>
> The explosives are placed at the floors at which the ratio of the support strength of the outer support walls to the mass of the building above is most favorable to bring down the building (i.e. not too high, or the mass of the upper floors will not be enough to cause the metaphorical avalanche and not too low, where the outer walls will be strong enough to withstand the inward pull of the floors).
>
> _(Remember, safety is not a concern in these questions.)_
>
> The two contentions I am trying to address are that this would not have been a ‘typical’ demolition explosion, and that there exist more powerful explosives than we know of. I think I have asked the necessary questions for that, and this thread has attracted a demolitions expert.
>
> I picked the 6 inch cube volume of the explosive out of the air; I have no idea how large an item could have gone unnoticed in the Towers.
>
> So, can we answer these questions, to refudiate the explosives theory with something more specific than ‘somebody would have noticed’?
>
> I just noticed that my questions would require a density of the explosive, or an Effectiveness Rating in force to volume of explosive; I will leave that to any explosives expert; if there is an Effectiveness Rating in force to mass, let’s use highest know density of an explosive, to favor the smallest possible volume.
>
> [In case you need me to say it, no, this is not one of my pet conspiracy theories.]
OK, let’s get to the meat of the explosives theory.
Here’s the thing. Take a look at the video. The towers started to collapse up at the top, where the planes hit.
If the collapse was triggered by explosives, it would have to have been triggered by explosives preplanted at the floors the planes hit.
So you’d pretty much have to tell your terrorist buddies a particular floor to target. Or you’d have to preplant explosives on lots of floors and only trigger the explosives on the floors the terrorists actually hit. And what if one of the planes missed the target, and you’re stuck with a building full of explosives still standing. I suppose you could just trigger the explosives anyway to get rid of the evidence, but then why bother with the planes in the first place?
Next of course, the fires. What happens when the fires touch your preplanted explosives? Some explosives will explode from fire, others like C4 will just burn. But either way, your explosives can’t be controlled if there are raging fires everywhere. Fires will either set off your explosives prematurely, or they’ll destroy your explosives.
And of course, no one will notice you setting explosives, which in regular controlled demolitions typically takes weeks. Ah, but you don’t have to plant that much explosive–just enough to bring down the tower after it’s been weakened by the airplane strike.
Except if the tower has been weakened by the aircraft strike, so much so that only a little bit more help is going to cause it to collapse–well why not just rely on the goddam aircraft strike to bring the building down?
Because leaving the towers teetering on the brink of collapse is a BETTER outcome, if you’re a terrorist. The way things happened, it was over in a few hours. All that could be done is to clean up the rubble. But if the towers were left mostly standing? Then we’ve got to bring them down ourselves, which is going to be incredibly difficult and frightening. You’ve got a disaster that goes on and on, like the BP oil spill, rather than a disaster that’s over and done with.
Not that the result of the tower collapse wasn’t hoped for. But the idea that the tower collapse was so important that it absolutely positively couldn’t be left to chance, and there had to be a backup mechanism to ensure the collapse, is just fucking nonsense.
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### Author:  [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/748 "2010-07-30T16:42:23Z")
Yet another reason why the theory that planted explosives brought down the towers is so freak’n retarded: think of how bone chilling it’d be if one of the towers just exploded and sank to the ground? No airplane strike. Just Boom! and the tower is gone.
Imagine the sheer terror that would cause in the city. No one would have any idea what other building would go next.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/749 "2010-07-30T17:24:06Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#):
>
> Yet another reason why the theory that planted explosives brought down the towers is so freak’n retarded: think of how bone chilling it’d be if one of the towers just exploded and sank to the ground? No airplane strike. Just Boom! and the tower is gone.
>
> Imagine the sheer terror that would cause in the city. No one would have any idea what other building would go next.
Tough to blame that on a ragtag band of scrappy terrorists, though, because even the Truthers would admit that you require a USA-approved and -trained black ops team with federal funding and support to acquire the hundreds of pounds of magic explosive, smuggle it into the building disgused as pizza boxes over the span of weeks/months, and slip it behind the walls without even a single night guard noticing the holes you’re cutting into the walls all that time. Seriously, the terrorists can’t do that - only the GUVMINT can. And the GUVMINT’s plan was always\* to frame the Saudi terrorists in order justify an attack on Iraq.
- give or take when they slip into “the GUVMINT is just evil and likes killing for no reason” mode, as if the government would have to resort to this esoteric of a plan to kill people on the sly. Seriously, some contaminant in the water and you’ve got all the bodies your evil GUVMINT heart could possibly desire.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/750 "2010-07-30T17:36:01Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> > [@sparky\_1](#):
> >
> > Yet another reason why the theory that planted explosives brought down the towers is so freak’n retarded: think of how bone chilling it’d be if one of the towers just exploded and sank to the ground? No airplane strike. Just Boom! and the tower is gone.
> >
> > Imagine the sheer terror that would cause in the city. No one would have any idea what other building would go next.
>
> Tough to blame that on a ragtag band of scrappy terrorists, though
Nah. The truck bombs in '93 would have worked, they were just parked too far from the supports.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/751 "2010-07-30T17:37:04Z")
Yeah, but consider the 1993 WTC attack. They drove vans full of explosives into the underground parking garage. But the bombs weren’t powerful enough, and did minor damage.
If your actual plan is to destroy the buildings using explosives, truck bombs make a much better cover story than crashed airliners.
Again, a plot where first you plant explosives, then you hijack planes and crash them into the buildings, then you set off the explosives, is a plot invented by genius fools.
What’s wrong with a plot where you hijack planes and crash them into the buildings?
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/752 "2010-07-30T17:47:53Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> What’s wrong with a plot where you hijack planes and crash them into the buildings?
It’s too easy to dismiss the idea of GUVMINT involvement - if this is what happened, there’s no way for the Truthers to assert certainty that the US leaders were involved, due to the alternate possiblity that the people who claimed credit may have actually _done_ it.
So reality is required to walk a narrow line - the plan must be impossible for anyone else to have pulled off, but must remain a possible task for the evil US government. Of course the usual way they achieve this is to somewhat expand the set of things they believe the US government to have been able to accomplish - up to and including doing slight-of-hand with airliners, exerting complete control over press and the entire population of the New York/DC area to prevent counter-witnessing accounts, and defying the laws of physics.
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### Author:  [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/753 "2010-07-30T18:24:56Z")
> [@pedescribe](#):
>
> > [@j66](#):
> >
> > 1. **Are** more individual explosive elements AND more total explosive material required to bring down a building safely - in it’s own footprint - than required just to ensure the building does fall?
>
> For that matter, to what extent did the towers fall in their own footprint anyway? I seem to remember a lot of debris all over the place.
Here’s a nice aerial photo from NOAA on 9/23/2001, including outlines of the original buildings. As you can see there’s still stuff all over the place and note where WTC7 is (it was struck by debris from WTC1 or 2).
> **[File:World Trade Center Site After 9-11 Attacks With Original Building Locations.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Trade_Center_Site_After_9-11_Attacks_With_Original_Building_Locations.jpg)**
>
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> de:Bild:World Trade Center Site After 9-11 Attacks With Original Building Locations.jpg
> Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
“Fall into their own footprint” is somewhat misleading. As I noted before, buildings are mostly empty space and a catastrophic failure tends to just dump everything straight down, so the majority of the material is going to wind up in a big heap at the bottom (a tall skyscraper doesn’t tend to tip over intact like a felled tree). A certain amount of stuff will be flung around but depending on how you define “footprint”, sure, most of the building will be down there. That’s just the nature of how big stuff breaks, it doesn’t indicate anything suspicious.
---
### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/754 "2010-07-30T18:37:56Z")
> [@Valgard](#):
>
> Here’s a nice aerial photo from NOAA on 9/23/2001, including outlines of the original buildings. As you can see there’s still stuff all over the place and note where WTC7 is (it was struck by debris from WTC1 or 2).
>
> [File:World Trade Center Site After 9-11 Attacks With Original Building Locations.jpg - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Trade_Center_Site_After_9-11_Attacks_With_Original_Building_Locations.jpg)
It’s missing the Greek Orthodox Church that was at Liberty & Washington until parts of WTC2 fell on it.
---
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/755 "2010-07-30T18:38:10Z")
> [@Valgard](#):
>
> “Fall into their own footprint” is somewhat misleading. As I noted before, buildings are mostly empty space and a catastrophic failure tends to just dump everything straight down, so the majority of the material is going to wind up in a big heap at the bottom (a tall skyscraper doesn’t tend to tip over intact like a felled tree).
I feel obligated to point out that the exception to this would be when the cause of collapse is earthquake, and the building manages to be strong and flexible enough to start swinging back and forth without crumbling. Under these circumstances the greatest stress is placed on the lower portions of the building -when you take a stick of uncooked spaghetti, hold it at one end and start vibrating it until it snaps, it doesn’t snap at the opposite end- and the accumulated momentum that caused the structural failure of the lower stories is retained in the still-intact upper stories and brings it toppling down sideways.
Naturally enough, this effect would be impossible to achieve with any method of structural collapse that does not impart massive amounts of sideways kinetic energy to the structure - orders of magnitude more than any plane hit, certainly.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/756 "2010-07-30T18:42:41Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> I feel obligated to point out that the exception to this would be when the cause of collapse is earthquake, and the building manages to be strong and flexible enough to start swinging back and forth without crumbling. Under these circumstances the greatest stress is placed on the lower portions of the building -when you take a stick of uncooked spaghetti, hold it at one end and start vibrating it until it snaps, it doesn’t snap at the opposite end- and the accumulated momentum that caused the structural failure of the lower stories is retained in the still-intact upper stories and brings it toppling down sideways.
>
> Naturally enough, this effect would be impossible to achieve with any method of structural collapse that does not impart massive amounts of sideways kinetic energy to the structure - orders of magnitude more than any plane hit, certainly.
Coincidentally, someone just posted on the IMDb board for the latest version of Loose Change this morning regarding a portable earthquake generator invented by Tesla.
---
### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/757 "2010-07-30T19:11:24Z")
If you tried using an uncooked spaghetti analogy to explain anything on the JREF, you’d get about a million laughing dogs. Well, if you were a “truther” you would. Skeptics seem to get away with all sorts!
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### Author:  [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/758 "2010-07-30T19:12:36Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> If you tried using an uncooked spaghetti analogy to explain anything on the JREF, you’d get about a million laughing dogs.
JREF?
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/759 "2010-07-30T19:15:49Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Skeptics seem to get away with all sorts!
It’s funny what you can get away with if the facts are on your side. Facts about geography and construction and explosives and gravity, for instance.
---
### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/760 "2010-07-30T19:19:02Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#):
>
> > [@ivan\_astikov](#):
> >
> > If you tried using an uncooked spaghetti analogy to explain anything on the JREF, you’d get about a million laughing dogs.
>
> JREF?
The James Randi Educational Forum - Fighting Woo Since '72. The hang out of all the trendy skeptics.
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