# Skyscrapers on fire, not collapsing **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 12, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541 "2010-09-12T22:53:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/382 "2010-09-26T20:06:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > A “comparable” skyscraper would be one that used the same design features of a central core of support and a separate “tube” structure of the perimeter. That was a radical design in the late 1960s that has not been included in any other skyscraper that has burned. The other skyscrapers that have burned have used a more traditional framework of a series of interconnected cages. And several of them have been built of steel-reinforced concrete rather than simply steel, so that the steel was protected from the heat by the concrete. At least one had a steel frame around a massive concrete core; the top third of the steel frame completely collapsed. ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/383 "2010-09-26T20:58:14Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > > [@Mozart1220](#): > > > > \*\*\*Not when the area above the damage tilted sideways and then straightened it’s self out. Gravity wouldn’t do that. \*\*\* > > Oh, I’ll bite, what other “force” “straightened out” the top floors then? > Extra points if you can link it to Silverstein operating a tractor beam from his secret Moon base. Preset explosives, just like the professionals use to deliberately bring one down. I tell you what. I’m through answering the same stupid questions over and over. You guys continue to believe everything the government tells you like good little droids, and then ask “how would they get away with it”? This is how they do it. Pretty easy actually. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/384 "2010-09-26T21:13:55Z")
[QUOTE=Mozart1220] Preset explosives, just like the professionals use to deliberately bring one down. [/QUOTE] Of which you have zero evidence demonstrating that explosives were used, aside from your own and the other Truthers uninformed ignorance, not to mention wild ass speculations completely divorced from reality. > [@](#): > > I tell you what. I’m through answering the same stupid questions over and over. Wohoo! Finally! Let me just be the first to say, from the bottom of my heart…don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out of the thread! Come back real soon now…we just don’t have enough CTers on this board, and your own brand of CT seems to run the gamut of all manner of anti-government chip on the shoulder-age. > [@](#): > > You guys continue to believe everything the government tells you like good little droids, and then ask “how would they get away with it”? 😛 Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that it’s all us ‘little droids’ who are the deluded ones, chief. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/385 "2010-09-26T21:16:06Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > > [@Ale](#): > > > > Oh, I’ll bite, what other “force” “straightened out” the top floors then? > > Preset explosives, just like the professionals use to deliberately bring one down. Explosives can’t do that. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/386 "2010-09-26T21:27:54Z")
I’m still wondering why the government would cover up some half-baked insurance scheme… ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/387 "2010-09-26T21:33:31Z")
That’s the beauty of the Truthers little song and dance. They don’t HAVE to come up with a plausible theory or a rational explanation. They are ‘just asking questions’, you see, just throwing out a bunch of random dots that they then don’t connect…just imply are connected in a certain way, but it’s really up to you and the rest of us to stop being droids and Republicans and connect them ourselves and join the ranks of the faithful. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/388 "2010-09-26T22:00:11Z")
[QUOTE=Mozart] You guys continue to believe everything the government tells you like good little droids, [/QUOTE] You really think it was the government that told us how the buildings came down?! Even before NIST or even FEMA there were plenty of engineering papers - many written by people outside of this country - and while they differed on details about the collapse mechanism they don’t argue about the root causes. A hint, it was not explosives. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/389 "2010-09-26T22:01:51Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > > [@Mozart1220](#): > > > > Preset explosives, just like the professionals use to deliberately bring one down. > > Explosives can’t do that. They sure can’t. Even if they could they couldn’t do it that quietly (all you hear is the rumble of the biulding collapse, not any sharp sounds of explosives that had they been there would have deafened everyone in Lower Manhattan). ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/390 "2010-09-26T22:17:05Z")
Plus, unless they are using magic explosives and magical detonators they leave behind tons of material. I’ve been to a building that was brought down with explosive demolitions and you can see pieces of wire scaffolding, wire wrap, unexploded det cord and all sorts of other stuff. Plus when you look at the columns you can tell that they have used explosives to cut them in a very precise manner. Truthers seem to feel that when you blow up a building you, well, blow it up, and it doesn’t leave any trace of anything. That’s simply fantasy based horseshit. Never…not once…were any detonation materials found. Not one piece of det cord. Not one unexploded detonator. Not a single fragment of wire scaffolding. Zero. Zilch. Nada. No evidence of structural members cut by explosives, no evidence of detonators, no evidence of explosives…no evidence. -XT ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/391 "2010-09-26T22:18:36Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > Preset explosives, just like the professionals use to deliberately bring one down. So, the conspirators knew that the planes and fire would cause the buildings to tip in a specific direction, so they deliberately set different explosions in just the right places to cause the building to rock back into position, even though no one was seen planting any explosives over the many weeks that it would have taken to set all the correct charges and then the charges were all correctly detonated without any of them being set off prematurely by the plane crashes or fires and none of the electric fuse lines needed to set them off were damaged by the plane crashes and fires, (even though the much stronger water lines needed for fire suppression were ruptured by the plane crashes). > [@Mozart1220](#): > > I tell you what. I’m through answering the same stupid questions over and over. Actually, you have failed to answer very many questions, at all, (and your “answers” have generally been wrong). Beyond that, our questions have been much smarter than yours. So there. 😛 > [@Mozart1220](#): > > You guys continue to believe everything the government tells you like good little droids, and then ask “how would they get away with it”? > This is how they do it. Pretty easy actually. I will ignore, for now, the insult of “good litle droids,” but you are doing yourself no favors as a poster by being insulting while your preach balderdash and tommyrot. And, as noted, the serious analysts of the WTC collapse who are not connected to the government in any way, are in general agreement as to the basics of the event and their reports were delivered long before the NIST study was released–confirming the agencies and analysts unattached to the government. Simply wanting there to be a conspiracy, (along with needing to blame the Jooz), really does little to establish any credibility for your fantasies. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/392 "2010-09-26T22:50:32Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > I tell you what. I’m through answering the same stupid questions over and over. Who are you, the Ministry of Truth? You’ve done nothing here but **avoid** answering any questions. You have to do something before you get tired of doing it. > [@xtisme](#): > > Truthers uninformed ignorance They are way, way beyond uninformed ignorance. They’re lying. Maybe not all the little foot soldier truthtards on the youtube comments page, but the major players-- Alex Jones, Stephen Jones, David Ray Griffin, Richard Gage, et al-- they are lying. Plain and simple. They know what really happened that day just as well as any of us do. Hell, with all the time they’ve invested? Probably better than we do. But it’s just too profitable for them to continue to lie. They’ve found a cash cow and they’re not going to give it up for **anything**. No amount of evidence will ever make them change their arguments or tactics because they bring them too much money. Too many book sales, too many tshirt sales. Too many dvd sales. Too many website hits. Too many radio listeners. Etc, etc, etc. They’re lying about the violent deaths of thousands of people to line their pockets with huge wads of cash, and they don’t give one damn what kind of nonsense they convince their marks of, or which victims they implicate, or which heroes they blame. They are no different from oil companies who stir up anti-global warming sentiment - knowing full well that we are affecting the climate - just to increase their profits at the cost of our environment. They are scum of the earth. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/393 "2010-09-26T23:24:33Z")
Honestly, I don’t mind them that much. Yes, they are charlatans, but at least their snake oil isn’t killing innocent children. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/394 "2010-09-27T01:17:03Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > > [@Ale](#): > > > > Oh, I’ll bite, what other “force” “straightened out” the top floors then? > > Preset explosives, just like the professionals use to deliberately bring one down. > > … Assuming that is so, why would _they_ want to straighten out the fall of the building by using explosives? ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/395 "2010-09-27T03:08:24Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > > [@Mozart1220](#): > > > > Preset explosives, just like the professionals use to deliberately bring one down. > > > > … > > Assuming that is so, why would _they_ want to straighten out the fall of the building by using explosives? So as to only destroy those buildings they intended to destroy, with the least amount of “colladeral damage” why do you think? You think terrorists would care if the WTC tipped over sideways? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/396 "2010-09-27T03:14:28Z")
😛 The trouble being that even terrorists know that buildings don’t tip and fall over like trees or cows. Sadly, the Truthers haven’t twigged to this yet… (I feel like Mozart1220 should end each of his posts with ‘Thank you sir, may I have another!’…sheesh) -XT ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/397 "2010-09-27T03:14:28Z")
So their plan was to destroy a number of buildings in an attack that would inevitably kill thousands of people, but destroying a few neighbouring buildings would just be going too far? (as well, several neighbouring buildings, were, in fact, destroyed by falling debris) Not to mention that SKYSCRAPERS CAN’T TIP OVER LIKE TREES. ---
**Author:** ![Mozart1220](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Mozart1220](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mozart1220)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/398 "2010-09-27T03:24:20Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > So their plan was to destroy a number of buildings in an attack that would inevitably kill thousands of people, but destroying a few neighbouring buildings would just be going too far? (as well, several neighbouring buildings, were, in fact, destroyed by falling debris) > > Not to mention that SKYSCRAPERS CAN’T TIP OVER LIKE TREES. CAN’T? Really? Something as tall and thin as the WTC could NOT tip over? What if the planes had hit the BOTTOM? Actually, they can tip over, and I saw one do it. Not even a skyscraper, but about a 20 story building. In Salt Lake Ciity they weakened the structure just like they would in an explosive demolition, except they attached cables and “pulled” it over with bulldozers. It took them a couple tries, as the cables snapped the first time. Make a stack of lincoln logs the same relative size of the WTC and tell me you couldn’t tip it over. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/399 "2010-09-27T03:33:54Z")
No. You have a cartoonish, rudimentary understanding of physics. You’re treating the tower as a single point, when it’s millions of interconnected points. Gravity acts on all part of the tower, so as soon as the tower started to get significantly out of vertical, its internal structure would fracture and pull it apart, at which point you have a catastrophic failure of the system as the added weight of the floors crushes the rest of them. If the planes had somehow hit at the bottom, the towers simply would have collapsed that much more quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/400 "2010-09-27T03:37:24Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > > [@Raygun99](#): > > > > So their plan was to destroy a number of buildings in an attack that would inevitably kill thousands of people, but destroying a few neighbouring buildings would just be going too far? (as well, several neighbouring buildings, were, in fact, destroyed by falling debris) > > > > Not to mention that SKYSCRAPERS CAN’T TIP OVER LIKE TREES. > > CAN’T? > > Really? Something as tall and thin as the WTC could NOT tip over? What if the planes had hit the BOTTOM? If it were possible, it would have been pretty much the same, only probably faster and with a lot more spread of the debris. You really don’t have any sense of the scale and structure of such large things, do you. > [@](#): > > Actually, they can tip over, and I saw one do it. Not even a skyscraper, but about a 20 story building. In Salt Lake Ciity they weakened the structure just like they would in an explosive demolition, except they attached cables and “pulled” it over with bulldozers. It took them a couple tries, as the cables snapped the first time. So… Raygun99 says skyscrapers can’t tip over and you give a counter example of one that did…only it was not a skyscraper. …yeah… > [@](#): > > Make a stack of lincoln logs the same relative size of the WTC and tell me you couldn’t tip it over. And now we are playing with children’s toys. I wonder what the equivalent amount of force of pushing a Lincoln Log tower would be to have to be if you scaled it up to the size of the towers…scary to think about. Motzart, you really just don’t get it. You don’t realize that in order for a building to ‘tip over’ it must have a fulcrum. A tree tips (well, falls) because its base is solid. Not so with a skyscraper. In your example, the building was probably strong enough to maintain part of it as a fulcrum. Without knowing any other details about the construction that is an easy enough assumption. The towers weren’t like that. They were steel beams and those really are not strong enough to act as a fulcrum point to a large portion of the building moving on top of it. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541/401 "2010-09-27T03:41:04Z")
> [@Mozart1220](#): > > > [@Raygun99](#): > > > > So their plan was to destroy a number of buildings in an attack that would inevitably kill thousands of people, but destroying a few neighbouring buildings would just be going too far? (as well, several neighbouring buildings, were, in fact, destroyed by falling debris) > > > > Not to mention that SKYSCRAPERS CAN’T TIP OVER LIKE TREES. > > CAN’T? > > Really? Something as tall and thin as the WTC could NOT tip over? What if the planes had hit the BOTTOM? Can not happen. If the planes had hit the bottom, it would have dropped into the footprint, same as on 9/11. Your pretend physics simply won’t happen in real life. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/skyscrapers-on-fire-not-collapsing/553541.md?page=21)