WTC Collapse: Need airtight answer please!

[John_Morrow]

Help me demolish my brother-in-law and his hangers-on… When looking at video playbacks of the 911 collapse of the WTC towers, we can see small, seemingly synchronized, timed explosive puffs from the corners of several floors as the tower pancakes. These “puffs” are like those one sees in videos of planned explosive demolitions of big buildings. The goons are convinced that this similarity shows the towers were deliberately set to self-destruct (by Bush? the Jews?? the Queen of England???) … Please give me the lowdown on this phenomenon. I have no doubt the collapse was caused by the planes, but I have not found an answer to those pesky on-screen flash-puffs!! I need the answer because my favorite grandson is leaning towards the dark side in this now heated argument… Thanks in advance…

[Personal Information Redacted - Jonathan Chance]

[Marley23]

This might help. Although really, this kind of stupid bullshit is immune to facts.

[Jonathan_Chance]

John-

Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board. I certainly hope you’ll hang around after this question is answered.

As a matter of prudence, I’ve edited out your personal information from your post. Please monitor this thread for replies.

Jonathan Chance
Moderator

[Musicat]

Marley’s link is good and detailed, but anyone who claims that explosives must have been involved merely by looking at the puffs apparently has never played with toy blocks as a kid. I did. Part of the fun for a kid in building stuff is crashing it down. Anything between layers of blocks is going to squirt out if one “floor” collapses upon another, whether a child’s toy or a ginormous office building.

The twin towers looked a lot like my toy collapses, and nothing was mysterious about it.

Fun with toy blocks…should I have become an architect?

[split_p_j]

This has been proven to be incorrect, due to the velocity of the puffs of dust.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

9/11 is one of those topics like the recent JFK joke in the jokes thread - conspirators will get to heaven and ask God for the truth, and when he tells them terrorists flew airliners into the buildings, they’ll whisper to each other, “Wow, this goes deeper than we thought.”

Once someone - especially a close group of someones - has convinced themsel/f/ves of the “truth” about some nonsense subject, you can take the argument to bare metal and they will still insist on some additional layer of “proof.”

If the link above isn’t enough to get your grandson to keep a more open mind about the topic, if not convince him of the established truth… buy him a nice roll of tin foil for Christmas.

[TimeWinder]

The airtight answer is “Yes, you’re right. It was a conspiracy. You’ve convinced me.”

Then go do something else. It’s not worth the argument any more; anyone who still believes 9/11 was a conspiracy isn’t going to be convinced by any argument you can produce. It’s like arguing against a religion.

[x-ray_vision]

@split_p_j

This has been proven to be incorrect, due to the velocity of the puffs of dust.

What does “This” refer back to in your sentence? I’m pretty sure the OP is looking for more than declarations from other posters.

[Magiver]

Even the engineers weren’t sure of the exact failure at first. The WTC buildings differ from earlier traditional buildings in that they relocated the support columns into a double tube setup. This provides more open space between floors. The outer supports are tied to the inner supports with floor joists. This is a very strong structure but like all steel structures it’s vulnerability is heat. It weakens the metal. Heat it up enough and the metal loses strength and bends.

What they originally thought is that the bolts holding the floor joists to the outer support pillars snapped from the sagging floor joists causing the outer support pillars to bow out. What occurred was the floor joists sagged pulling the support pillars inward until the immense weight of the structure above caused a cascade failure. Once they started to fail they all went at once.

[John_Mace]

@TimeWinder

The airtight answer is “Yes, you’re right. It was a conspiracy. You’ve convinced me.”

Then go do something else. It’s not worth the argument any more; anyone who still believes 9/11 was a conspiracy isn’t going to be convinced by any argument you can produce. It’s like arguing against a religion.

I tend to agree…

[Bryan_Ekers]

@TimeWinder

The airtight answer is “Yes, you’re right. It was a conspiracy. You’ve convinced me.”

Yeah, but “wha ev” is more succinct.

[split_p_j]

I refer to Magiver’s explanation that the puffs AKA “squibs” were due to air pressure form the collapsing floors above. That is a belief that people hold, but it is not true.

It is something that is easily measured and has been debunked in peer reviewed papers.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@split_p_j

I refer to Magiver’s explanation that the puffs AKA “squibs” were due to air pressure form the collapsing floors above. That is a belief that people hold, but it is not true.

It is something that is easily measured and has been debunked in peer reviewed papers.

And the alternate explanation is…?

[Czarcasm]

@split_p_j

I refer to Magiver’s explanation that the puffs AKA “squibs” were due to air pressure form the collapsing floors above. That is a belief that people hold, but it is not true.

It is something that is easily measured and has been debunked in peer reviewed papers.

Have you got a better explanation, with cites?

[x-ray_vision]

@split_p_j

I refer to Magiver’s explanation that the puffs AKA “squibs” were due to air pressure form the collapsing floors above. That is a belief that people hold, but it is not true.

It is something that is easily measured and has been debunked in peer reviewed papers.

Again, declarations don’t really cut it here. Can you please link to these peer reviewed “papers”?

[Marley23]

@split_p_j

I refer to Magiver’s explanation that the puffs AKA “squibs” were due to air pressure form the collapsing floors above. That is a belief that people hold, but it is not true.

It is something that is easily measured and has been debunked in peer reviewed papers.

John Morrow, I reiterate the second sentence of my other post.

[silenus]

Don’t bother, Bryan. It’s Crazytown that way.

To everybody who thinks it was a conspiracy: You are right. Thank you for your time. Now go away.

[Telemark]

@split_p_j

It is something that is easily measured and has been debunked in peer reviewed papers.

No it hasn’t. Unless you have some evidence that supports this assertion?

Remember, we’re fighting ignorance.

[running_coach]

@split_p_j

I refer to Magiver’s explanation that the puffs AKA “squibs” were due to air pressure form the collapsing floors above. That is a belief that people hold, but it is not true.

It is something that is easily measured and has been debunked in peer reviewed papers.

Just because one CTer agrees with another does not make it “peer reviewed”.

[split_p_j]

@Czarcasm

Have you got a better explanation, with cites?

I believe I’ve linked to the paper from Dr. Steven Jones, who lost his job when he started questioning this 911 BS, before. I’m not going to bother to look for the link again after the response I got. People here didn’t want to consider a peer reviewed paper then, there is no reason for me to think they will now. To the OP all I can say is the information is out there, examine it and decide for yourself.

I’m not going to play the explanation game again either. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that what we were told happened is a pack of easily proven lies.