Clip of NYC fire crew saying WTC seemed like controlled demo.

[Sterling]

I am not drawing any conclusions I just found this clip very interesting. These guys were right there. It is really creepy:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/docs/discussion_in_firehouse.mpg

[Sterling]

1. Sorry for the double post plz delete.

nt

[kalian]

2. This has been buried beneath the LIES....

yes, it was a controlled demo...its obvious. :tinfoilhat:

[wunnerfulrobin]

3. Yeah, right

There was PLENTY of time to go into both buildings and drill and plant explosives, THOUSANDS of pounds worth, in just the right places for a "controlled demolition" and be noticed by no one.

I watched as the first building dropped. The TOP fell onto the rest of the building. A demolition starts at the bottom; i just watched one in person 6 months ago. Just watch the video from the helicopter.
End of story.
Sorry, I guess "they" planted the explosives on the top, just above where the soon-to-crash jet would hit.
I guess the Clintons killed Vince Foster, too.

[kysrsoze]

4. Yup, another one of these bullsh*t conspiracy theories

The conspiracy was intentionally looking the other way while the planes flew into the towers and burned them up, and the towers finally fell on top of themselves, thereby destroying the structural integrity of the buildings around them.

'Nuff said.

[kalian]

5. I'm glad that both of you believe in our "fearless leader" and

the "official" story.
I guess you also believe that the unburnt passport of Atta was
found amongst the ruins...and the tied up body of a flight
stewardess as well... :eyes:
I'm also sure that you believe that a vehicle with a copy of the
Koran was found in an abandoned car, along with a flight manual for
the 757... :eyes:

And while we're at it...I'm sure that you also believe that pigs can
and do fly.

Yup...just another "bullshit" conspiracy theory.

We now return to our regularly scheduled brainwashing...enjoy.

[pretzel4gore]

6. and building 7...at 5 pm it also inexplicably demo'ed!

i mean it's obvious....
the biggest mystery of all is that no one can see how necessary 911 was to the repukes..... without it, what?

[kysrsoze]

43. That was because of the force of two 100 story buildings

smashing into the ground next to them. Of course they were going to topple, due to the massive structural damage inflicted from the collapses.

The whole controlled demo conspiracy was discredited over a year ago. Please concentrate on the real conspiracy: LIHOP/MIHOP. I'm getting a little freaked out these days b/c I now see so many posts which match those of Free Republic in the level of B.S. and ridiculousness.

[Cassandra]

61. Not inexplicably

That building had a huge fuel tank which was damaged and burned all afternoon. By then, the fire department was standing around waiting for it to collapse. I agree with you that 9/11 was necessary for the Repugs, but I don't think they knew or cared exactly what the event was going to be, as long as it was an attack. As long as it was on our soil, it would serve their purposes. Even Bin Laden was surprised that the buildings collapsed; he thought there would just be massive damage.
The collapses looked like semi-controlled demolitions because of the way they were constructed, which was unique to them, not because someone set charges. Most major skyscrapers in NYC are one-offs; they take ideas from previous buildings and add something new. These were completely different. Thank God they collapsed straight down; I wouldn't have wanted to see the mess they would have made if they had toppled over sideways. That's why controlled demolition is illegal in most of Manhattan. We use hand and wrecking ball.

[maggrwaggr]

8. I don't believe the official story but this is just plain dumb

I mean just because the official story stinks to high heaven doesn't mean you should jump to the most wild, outlandish and impossible conclusion of all.

I really wish we could send these "controlled demolition" threads to some hinterland. They make us all look really looooooony

[bpilgrim]

10. is it wrong to DEMAND a REASONABLE explaination/investigation?

i don't think so.

i am not an engineer and i readily admit that i DON'T KNOW WTF HAPPENED that horrid day BUT i know a CLEAN collapse when i SEE one...
http://new.globalfreepress.com/911/wt7/flash_8fps/

and there are only two types of events that i can think of that could account for what we all witnessed...

1. DESIGN(flaw/feature)

2. CD

still looking for other examples :hi:

peace

[TomNickell]

25. There IS as reasonable explanation....

It burned 7 (SEVEN) hours and then fell down.

This 'question' is just plain dumb.

But, yes, solid independent investigations are needed. THIS issue won't be one they will need to spend much time on.

[TrogL]

36. No, it is wrong to ignore a reasonable explanation

eg. "gravity works".

i am not an engineer ... BUT i know a CLEAN collapse when i SEE one ... there are only two types of events ...

Lemme get this straight. You're not an engineer, but suddenly you're an expert in "clean collapses" (which it wasn't and you've posted plenty of photographs proving it).

[kysrsoze]

45. Bwahahaha

That was utterly funny. Glad there are still people here who can think rationally.

[kysrsoze]

42. Uhhhh, if you actually read my post you would see what I really said

I said there indeed was a conspiracy - how far it went we don't really know. It was certainly LIHOP, if not MIHOP. The controlled demolition wasn't required when you had a 757 slamming into each building.

That said, do us all a favor and READ the posts before you respond to them. And GROW UP.

[PVnRT]

60. In other words

If you don't believe in a government conspiracy that resulted in the controlled demolition of the WTC, you MUST be an idiotic, brain-dead Republican!

Never mind that there is no evidence to support your claim, just speculation...nope, we're all freepers, and only YOU and people who agree with YOU are the true liberals!

[goforit]

38. Were you there with those firemen?

?

[kysrsoze]

58. Please try to actually put some logic into your responses

Otherwise, it's just a waste of time and space.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Minstrel Boy]

13. er,

Welcome, Weyoun. Though I should have thought it decent to wait more than a couple of posts before calling people here "paranoid loonies."

Oh, and Bush knew. Do you?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=995140&mesg_id=995140

[TomNickell]

26. I've got more than a 'few posts'....

though I have a day job.

IMHO, the comparison to the RW conspiracy theorists is entirely reasonable.

What, really, is the difference?

[SpiralHawk]

29. No actually, it's quite unreasonable.

Read this, then come back here and try to fluff the whole thing off as BushCo incompetence. No way. Malfeasance is the word.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/index.html

The Bush Regime Engineered 9/11.

[Minstrel Boy]

32. The distinction between skepticism and credulity

isn't ideology, it's evidentiary.

No less a legal mind than Vincent Bugliosi said that conspiracies are proven circumstantially, and circumstantial evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy we have in abundance. Enough, I think, to warrant pursuing such lines of inquiry regarding the events of the day.

[calimary]

20. Weyoun? You a DS9 fan?

Welcome to DU!

[WilliamPitt]

7. "I jumped behind a batallion car and waited to die."

:(

[plaguepuppy]

9. More from the firefighters

Funny how the people who were really there got such a strong impression that this was not a normal collapse.

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/Engine-7.htm

As for what a controlled demo is supposed to look like, the traditional way to do it is with the collapse starting at ground level like WTC-7. But if you wanted to make it look like it was caused by an airplane crash it would be easy enough to start triggering the charges from nearer the top.

Demolition charges can be triggered remotely (http://hiex.bc.ca/products.html) and would not have to be drilled into the steel. Small linear shaped charges (http://www.ebco-aerospace.com/charges.html) with wireless detonators could be discreetly attached to columns over a period of months and triggered in any desired sequence by a remote computer. All it really takes is power, money and access to the buildings.

[yankeedem]

12. "Not a normal collapse"

Please tell us what a normal collapse is in a 110-story building, based on pre-9/11 experiences, including collapses after airline crashes. Thanks!

[DUreader]

14. WTC-7 was not 110 stories

[yankeedem]

15. Then tell these people

http://www.emporis.info/en/wm/ci/bu/sk/li/?id=101028&bt=2&ht=2&sro=1

[Minstrel Boy]

16. This post suggests you don't know what WTC 7 was.

It was only 47 stories (http://www.wirednewyork.com/wtc/7wtc/default.htm), was not hit by an airplane, and yet fell thusly on 9/11:



Only the third such building to do so. You know the other two.

http://wtc7.net/index.html

[wunnerfulrobin]

17. Its no wonder we keep losing elections..........................

Dont know why its so hard to believe that you'd find some items in good shape in the destruction. Ever seen pictures from other plane crashes, or tornado aftermaths?
And we've already been through the bldg 7 deal and why it went down.
I'm sure George loves reading this stuff.

[trumad]

18. And what election are you referring too...

The biggest one... It's lame to try and say were losing elections because a couple of folks are asking questions... Folks who spout what you just spouted are not to bright regarding politics.

[Minstrel Boy]

19. That damn "controlled demolitions" plank of the Democratic platform, eh?

The facts of 9/11 have persuaded me Bush knew and the events of the day were managed by his cabal. I remain agnostic on demolitions, but think it's a valid line of inquiry.

"I'm sure George loves reading this stuff."

Did you see his response to a question about foreknowledge in a recent press conference? I'm sure he doesn't love "this stuff."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=918713

But perhaps you agreed with Bush, when he said "let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories about the events of September 11th."

[JHB]

23. Typical

I'm tired of seeing this false dichotomy constantly being wipped out.

Don't mince words, Minstrel: everybody either agrees with you or they're dupes or agents of the Chimperious Leader, that's what you're saying, isn't it?

[Minstrel Boy]

24. hardly

No one has to agree with me. Sometimes I don't even agree with myself. :)

In fact, I said explicitly I'm agnostic as to demolitions, but that I think it deserves inquiry.

Find your own answers. All I'm opposed to is not asking the questions.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

22. We won the last three elections

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is definitely something fishy here.

[number6]

63. who's we ?

..

[RoeBear]

76. As an example...

...a plane crashed at Detroit Metro a number of years ago. The plane was totally destroyed but one baby bounced out and was unharmed.

[JHB]

21. Yes, what a surprise...

...a skyscraper which is allowed to burn for SEVEN HOURS without contol efforts collapses!

[Dhalgren]

28. The problem is not that people are spinning

elaborate theories as to what happened on 9/11, the problem is that the Bush admin will not allow a true, valid, indepth investigation of what really did happen. Were there demo charges in WTC 7, was the aftermath "staged"? Did the Wicked Witch of the East come back to life and huff and puff and blow the WTC down? I don't know, you don't know, and we never will as long as these criminals remain in power.

[plaguepuppy]

31. Were there demo charges in WTC 7 ?

Good question - kind of looks like it to me:

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Flashes/squibs_along_southwest_corner.htm

[wunnerfulrobin]

37. Site doesnt prove anything.

I just have to wonder: has ANYONE who actually believes this stuff ever been to an actual demolition? Ever seen just how much time is involved? I doubt it. I recently worked a site where an 8 story building was dropped. ( i was there to make sure the river wasnt impacted, not doing the demo). The crew worked on that building for nearly 2 weeks before it was finally dropped. And thats just an 8 story bldg! The video of the so-called puffs of smoke is simply the air blowing out of each floor pad as it gets squashed. I can only imagine the type of work & time that would have been involved to drop buildings of the size of the WTC & adjoining bldgs. Its just amazing what people will believe.
I think people should concentrate on REAL issues, such as the patriot act, etc.
This stuff just makes us look like kooks.'
sorry.

[kysrsoze]

49. OMFG - that is absolutely without basis.

For a controlled demolition, you'd need "squibs" along the length of all four corners, particularly at the bottom. Notice there is NOTHING on the closest end. If this was what you think it was, THAT CORNER of the building would collapse down on itself. The post right above me was correct - that was just air/debris being blown out due to the collapsing floors above.

I'm really starting to doubt whether DU is headed in the right direction. The notion of controlled demolitions and pentagon missiles is starting to become the Democratic counterpart of Clinton's penis.

[TomNickell]

27. Baloney.

The building burned for SEVEN hours and the fell down. That's what burning buildings do.

Controlled demolitions work because buildings tend to fall 'like controlled demolitions'.

This 'question' is just dumb.

[plaguepuppy]

30. Exactly wrong

"Controlled demolitions work because buildings tend to fall 'like controlled demolitions'."

Complete and utter BS. Companies like Controlled Demolition get paid lots of money to implode buildings because it's very difficult to make buildings fall straight down. Listen to someone who knows what they're talking about:

A big question for implosion expert Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc., of Phoenix, Maryland, is why the twin towers appeared to have collapsed in such different ways.

Observing the collapses on television news, Loizeaux says the 1,362-ft-tall south tower, which was hit at about the 60th floor, failed much as one would fell a tree. That is what was expected, says Loizeaux. But the 1,368-ft-tall north tower, similarly hit but at about the 90th floor, "telescoped," says Loizeaux. It failed vertically, he adds, rather than falling over. "I don't have a clue," says Loizeaux, regarding the cause of the telescoping.

Footnote: At the time that Loizeaux said this had apparently only seen the initial footage of the south tower collapse, in which the top 50 stories begin to topple southward as a solid block. This is indeed how a demolition engineer would expect a building to fail, with the upper portion toppling off to the side, “much as one would fell a tree.” But in fact the south tower also did something strange that was not visible in those first brief clips: after starting to topple as an intact unit, the top 50 floors then collapsed on itself, losing most of its height at the same time that it began to settle straight down, with the building below obligingly collapsing under it. This is indeed very similar to the mysterious “telescoping” that he comments on in the north tower.

Or this comment from Architect Matthys Levy, author of "Why Buildings Fall Down" from the Discovery Channel documentary on the WTC collapse: http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/discovery.wmv

[IbeaMoran]

41. Absolute rubbish

"it's very difficult to make buildings fall straight down."

Total crap. Gravity wants everything to "fall straight down." In fact it is very very difficult to force an object to fall any other direction.

Any theory that claims the WTC was anything other than heat, stress and gravity at work is weak at best.

[plaguepuppy]

44. And your kowledge of the subject is based on?

Gravity wants everything to "fall straight down."

Right, and I want a billion dollars in small unmarked bill - it doesn't always work out that way. Your opinion is frequently asserted with great vehemence by free-lance debunkers like yourself, but have yet to hear anything like it from a real structural engineer. It may sound nice, but for a whole variety of reasons it just isn't true.

[kysrsoze]

48. What are you talking about?

Of course, they didn't fall exactly straight down. You'll notice if you watch the videos closely, that the top of both buildings started to slightly lean to one side as they fell, then gravity took completely over and they fell down on top of themselves. It was explained in another post, that in this type of construction, each floor is only built to hold three floors above it, while connected to the central "tube" structure. That's it. When you get 20 floors falling on top fo the one below them, you have a downward domino effect - not a falling tree.

Please read some books on gravity and physics before you post this drivel.

[IbeaMoran]

51. I am not a physics teacher but I have a grip on its reality

Understanding the laws of physics is natural for me but I can't force you to understand the facts and absolute law of physics. You either get it or you don't.

[IbeaMoran]

55. I don't want to sound rude but you need to get a grip on reality

Looking at your http://www.plaguepuppy.net I am utterly amazed at the complete and total ignorance of the reality of gravity and physics.

No offense but it's that kind of tin foil garbage that gives any party you claim to be a member of a bad name.

[kysrsoze]

47. Welcome to DU. Glad you're not a flake.

You're exactly right about this. Gravity pulls everything directly toward the center of the earth. It's not a tree being cut from the bottom, it's a building collapsing from the top. BIG difference.

[number6]

65. yea , tree's fall stright down all the time

:crazy::crazy::crazy: nothing ever falls over ...

[number6]

64. what bull

n/t

[Sapphocrat]

33. Does anyone have a transcript of this?

I'm too broke to afford a sound card, and have been able to glean only the gist of the conversation in bits and pieces.

Any pointers? Muchas gracias!

[plaguepuppy]

69. Transcript

Lines indicate different speakers:

---What did we do? We made it outside, we made it about a block...

---We made it at least two blocks and we started running.

---(makes explosion sounds and chopping hand motion)

---Floor by floor it started popping out...

---It was as if they had detonated - as if they were planning to take down a building, boom boom boom boom boom...

---...all the way down. I was watching it and running.

---We ran up West Street...

---And then you just saw this cloud of shit chasing you down.

---What'd you do?

---You couldn't outrun it...

---What'd you do?

---I jumped behind a Battalion Car, I hid under the car, I was waiting to die...

[TrogL]

34. Here we go again

All cows are blue
My dog is blue
Therefore my dog is a cow

CD's fall straight down
the various towers fell straight down
therefore the towers were a CD.

Same logic.

[On the Road]

35. Wow -- This is the Best Page on the Controlled Demolition Theory I've Seen

The "ground tremor" clip, under the title "Another close-up the top of WTC-1". Something is shaking the ground immediately BEFORE the collapse. That has to be explained.

There were definitely a series of descending explosions preceding the collapse of the shell. I always figured this was a result of the core collapsing first (due to being severed by the plane) and the shell following. But now I'm not so sure.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But there are some extraordinarily unusual elements to the WTC collapse.



Has anyone tried to model the collapse on architectural software? I have heard you can do this sort of thing. The structure of the WTC is unusual but is pretty well known. If not, it would be interesting to try.

[NavajoRug]

39. I can't believe this is still a topic of conversation here . . .

The buildings all looked like they collapsed in "controlled explosions" because any massive structure that falls down is going to collapse in a similar manner.

Keep in mind that a tall building is VERY HEAVY, and because it is composed of a large number of discrete elements (steel columns and beams, concrete slabs, etc.) it will not function like a Lego set or building blocks when it falls down.

Any single piece of a building that falls out of place will have a NATURAL reaction -- to fall STRAIGHT DOWN. That's because the only force acting on it is gravity, which acts in a vertical (downward) direction. Does anyone have any idea how much horizontal force would be required to propel even just 5,000 pounds of steel and concrete to a point half a block away? This is why the vast majority of debris that ended up any substantial distance away from the WTC was from the aircraf themselves -- because they were already traveling horizontally at several hundred miles per hour when they struck the buildings.

In fact, I would have been much more suspicious if the buildings had collapsed in any manner OTHER THAN the manner in which they collapsed.

[plaguepuppy]

40. Toxic meme alert... "tall buildings naturally fall straight down"

As I tried to address in post #30 above, this bit of conventional wisdom is simply dead wrong. It seems to originate with Thomas Eagar, from the Materials Science Department at MIT. His expertise is not in structural analysis but in metallurgy, mostly exotic welding techniques. He's the first and only person I have heard articulate this view, first as an offhand comment at an informal MIT conference on the WTC collapses that was reported in Scientific American, then in an article in Journal of Metals (again not a peer-reviewed journal in the appropriate field of structural analysis) with a graduate student as co-author, and finally as a consultant extensively quoted in the Nova documentary, Prof. Eagar has singlehandedly pushed this demonstrably false idea into wide popular acceptance. As I recently wrote:

And a few bad experts can go a long way toward making impossible things seem natural. Thomas Eagar (http://dmse.mit.edu/faculty/faculty/tweagar/) has probably done the most damage by propagating the idea that it is natural for tall buildings to fall straight down on themselves rather than topple over. His area of expertise is not in structural engineering but in materials science, specifically in exotic welding techniques. So how did he come to author an article on the WTC collapse in the Journal of Metals? He was also a major authority cited in the Nova collapsed documentary.

And here is his strange theory:

"It has been suggested that it was fortunate that the WTC did not tip over onto other buildings surrounding the area. There are several points that should be made. First, the building is not solid; it is 95 percent air and, hence, can implode onto itself. Second, there is no lateral load, even the impact of a speeding aircraft, which is sufficient to move the center of gravity one hundred feet to the side such that it is not within the base footprint of the structure. Third, given the near free-fall collapse, there was insufficient time for portions to attain significant lateral velocity. To summarize all of these points, a 500,000 t structure has too much inertia to fall in any direction other than nearly straight down."
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

It's all basically nonsense from a structural dynamics standpoint - the fact that a building is "mostly air" is beside the point. A tall skinny object stands up because it has the structural strength to do so, and that strength doesn't vanish because it begins to tip. Tall skinny objects tend to topple over, just as Mark Loizeaux said:
Observing the collapses on television news, Loizeaux says the 1,362-ft-tall south tower, which was hit at about the 60th floor, failed much as one would fell a tree. That is what was expected, says Loizeaux. But the 1,368-ft-tall north tower, similarly hit but at about the 90th floor, "telescoped," says Loizeaux. It failed vertically, he adds, rather than falling over. "I don't have a clue," says Loizeaux, regarding the cause of the telescoping.

And of course the free-fall rate of collapse is a problem in itself, given that we are asking steel box columns to somehow telescope into themselves. But then even the box columns are "mostly air" so this should not surprise us.

New page with some very impressive close-ups of the south tower collapse from an ABC documentary:
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/dust%20trails/abc_news_footage_of_WTC-2.htm

[kysrsoze]

46. That was a ridiculous explanation

The only way the buildings are going to fall like trees is if you take out ONLY ONE SIDE of the building AT THE BOTTOM, much like a lumberjack does. I've watched the videos over and over. There is absolutely nothing which would cause these buildings to fall over like a ladder and take out 10 - 20 other buildings. The immense weight of each floor landing on the one below it toppled these buildings like houses of cards.

Time to move on to UFOs, cause this one doesn't hold water. And yes....this kind of stuff makes DU look extremely stupid.

[Terwilliger]

50. tell me something

that first floor that gave way...what...4 central colums? Fire burned through and started weakening those members...so, the weakening was uniform? if there were four supports on that floor(floors) and it was only one of them that gave way, why did the structure above that floor buckle straight?

Maybe the floors below wouyld fall straight down, but why the top section? So those supports gave way at the same time causing a straight vertical fall? What's the chance of that?

[kysrsoze]

53. If you look at the videos it wasn't a perfect collapse straight down

A closer look will show that the tops of the towers started to lean slightly to one side (almost sliding off), but the force of gravity took over immediately. These buildings mainly fell down on themselves, but made an absolute mess around the whole area when they finally hit the ground. Again, the buildings were built so that each floor only supported the weight of three floors above them. You get too much weight on any floor from collapse above and you start the whole thing crashing down.

I believe in LIHOP, potentially MIHOP, but not in controlled demolition. There is no solid evidence of it at all. In all the photos and videos from multiple perspectives, the buildings basically fell in the way I would expect them to fall, given what happened to them.

[number6]

66. the buildings were damaged on one side

..

[NavajoRug]

54. Your rationale is absolutely incorrect.

Prof. Eagar's explanation is right on target in one key respect: . . . there is no lateral load, even the impact of a speeding aircraft, which is sufficient to move the center of gravity one hundred feet to the side such that it is not within the base footprint of the structure.

What he has described here is exactly what defines a "toppling" failure vs. a "straight-down" collapse.

If you've ever cut down a large tree using a two-person saw, you'd see how this works. A pair of people cutting a tree down in this manner can't just use the saw in a position that is perpendicular to the trunk -- as the saw works its way through the trunk, the weight of the tree above it will simply press down on the saw, until the two people can't even pull it back and forth. This is because the center of gravity of the tree is still directly over the center of the trunk. The way to cut a tree in this manner is to have the two cutters use the saw at a DOWNWARD ANGLE. As the saw works its way through the tree, the center of gravity will remain in the center of the trunk but the angle of the cut will cause the top part of the trunk to try to "slide" against the bottom.

"A tall skinny object stands up because it has the structural strength to do so, and that strength doesn't vanish because it begins to tip. Tall skinny objects tend to topple over . . .

This is where your rationale is incorrect. As I mentioned in my earlier post, a skyscraper is NOT a "tall, skinny object" -- it is a structure comprised of thousands of smaller elements holding it together. If the building were one solid piece from top to bottom, then your approach would be sound.

A tree topples sideways as it collapses because the trunk of the tree is held together as it falls. With a tall building, the collapsing motion causes numerous internal failures that separate individual building elements (colums, beams, slabs, etc.) from each other in the process. If you were to take several thousand popsicle sticks, construct a scale frame model of a tree, and then try to topple it over, it will not behave the same way a real tree does as it falls -- the collapse of the model tree will cause the joints in the frame to shear apart.

[kysrsoze]

56. You're exactly right. These photos will end a lot of arguments...

Check the pictures here. From below, it's obvious that the buildings didn't fall straight down from the start (heavy leaning) due to differing levels of weakness in the floors that gave way. However, gravity took over, the buildings progressed to falling straight down on top of themselves and the floors below were blown out along the way. No magical charges were required.

http://www.twin-towers.net/collapse.htm

I actually never saw these photos before today. It's really creepy to see some stuff falling over the side and faster than the collapse of the building itself. From that angle, it also looks like a fairly big lean (bigger than I saw before), but it still obviously crashed almost straight down due to gravity.

[plaguepuppy]

59. If you were to take several thousand popsicle sticks

But in fact the towers had much more internal coherance than that, and would not simply disintegrate as you claim. The whole point of designing a building is to oppose the forces tending to make it fall. If steel-frame buildings were really analagous to collections of popsicle sticks they would never stand up in the first place. Real buildings are made of steel columns with a lot of individual strength tied together with steel cross-members to form a very strong composite structure. The WTC towers used a tube-within-a-tube design that would topple as a unit rather than crumbling in place.

[NavajoRug]

62. If the WTC were designed as you seem to think . . .

It would not even have stood up under a strong gust of wind.

Don't ever believe anyone who tries to make the case that the World Trade Center towers were built as a "coherent unit" like that. A tall building can't be designed as a "rigid" structure, because one of the ways it stands up against a strong wind is by "flexing" slightly in any direction. This is usually accomplished by designing all of the joints to have a little bit of play in them. I may be wrong about this (I will research it next week if I remember), but I believe the tops of the twin WTC towers were designed to sway up to seven feet in any direction under its maximum wind load.

[plaguepuppy]

68. Yes it had a lot of wind sway

At least a few feet as I recall, and enough to be quite noticeable to the occupants. But this was caused by a flexion of the entire structure, not from any play in the joints, and was very much designed in. If the movement was accompanied by play in loose joints it would have made the most godawful racket imaginable.

The lateral wind loads for the towers were very large as you can imagine and had to be designed to withstand 100mph winds. The main function of the perimeter columns of the outer walls (14" square steel box columns 4" thick at the base, on 39" centers) was to resist these wind loads. It was an innovative idea at the time to make the outer wall handle the wind loads, and made it possible to make the whole structure lighter. The core was designed to support the full gravity load of the building, while the outer wall supported its own weight and wind loads.

As the building flexes in the wind the upwind wall is in tension, while the downwind wall and core are in compression. But the whole structure flexes as a unit, with the floors linking the inner and outer tubes. If they are strong enough to withstand thousands of tons of wind load, the towers are not going to disintegrate just because they tip to one side. The top of WTC-2 actually begins to telescope on itself as soon as it starts to tip, though the forces acting on it are actually less once it starts to topple, and it loses almost half its height before it drops into the tower below. Oddly enough there are small bright flashes in crucial places just as this telescoping takes place:
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Flashes/flashes.htm

[NavajoRug]

70. No tall structure in the world . . .

. . . is ever designed as such a "single integrated unit" as you've described. The cost of such an undertaking would be enormous, and would be an utterly useless building anyway -- because the only way to do it would be to design it as a solid chunk of homogenous material from top to bottom.

What you've overlooked in all your posts is that the "100-mph wind" the building is designed to resist is actually a tiny fraction of the larger forces that act on the structure. What makes this wind load unusual is that it is applied in a horizontal direction, while the primary loads (the weight of the structure itself) act in a vertical direction. In essence, each element in the entire building is designed mainly to hold itself and its surrounding elements upright.

I would also point out that designing a structure as a "integrated unit" would be terribly unsafe, because it would not allow for load shifts in the event a single beam or column failed on its own.

P.S. I work in a tall building, and on windy days it DOES creak as it sways.

[Must_B_Free]

52. Seems like CD

if buildings fell straight down, there would be no need for the science of Controlled Demolition.

There's no way the planes hit two identical buildings in two very different ways and produced the same "lucky" collapse.

[NavajoRug]

57. Your argument actually contradicts your conclusion . . .

There's no way the planes hit two identical buildings in two very different ways and produced the same "lucky" collapse.

Structurally, the two buildings actually failed in two completely different ways. The fact that they collapsed in almost the same manner does not indicate at all that there was any kind of controlled demolition involved -- it indicates that the influence of gravity plays the primary role in any building collapse no matter what the cause of the collapse was.

[number6]

67. I vote CD

:smoke:

[durutti]

71. But but but...

They're firefighters, not engineers or physicists.

Furthermore, the traumatic nature of such events can alter the perception of them.

[plaguepuppy]

73. Yeah, guys who have actually seen buildings destroyed by fire

...who had seen a wide range of collapse scenarios and who very clearly were not expecting to see the towers collapse the way they did. Read the transcripts of the firefighters in the south tower who were right at the level of the airplane impact describing survivors and small localized fires just before the collapse, survivors in an area we are asked to believe was hot enough to soften steel.

Emotional trauma or not, if you actually look at the videos shot from near the collapse it's very hard not interpret what you are seeing as a rapid series of explosions, precise rows of explosions that merge to form a demolition wave racing down the tower. This is exactly the "boom boom boom" that the firefighter describes (which I suspect is about how an engineer or physicist who was there in person would describe it).

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/dust%20trails/abc_news_footage_of_WTC-2.htm

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/--_ground_level_closeup_of_wtc_south_tower_collapse_and_escape_from_dust_cloud.avi (Divx codec needed)

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/demolition_wave_slow.mpg

[Cassandra]

74. They have certainly seen buildings destroyed by fire but...

they had never seen a skyscraper of WTC construction style collapse before. Skyscrapers of any style don't collapse here in NY on any regular basis. Perhaps the explosive sounds of the concrete slab floors giving way sounds like a controlled demolition; doesn't mean it is one.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

72. "Controlled Demolition"? I vote for DISINFO - Bush is being questioned

How can we know? I vote that stories of a "controlled demolition" - just like the stories of "no plane hit the Pentagon" - are DISINFO designed to discredit people questioning Bush about 911.

Now that all of these revelations have gained some more publicity - and our leading candidates are asking questions - it makes sense that the DISINFO is making a comeback too.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" or something like that.

[peacetalksforall]

75. No science here, but....

when I watched on TV having turned it on right after the first a/c hit. Nearly immediately on watching the collapse, my gut told me that it had to be helped by explosives - don't know where it came from, but it came. I have no scientific training. Don't know that I want to prove or disprove my gut - but keep on debating - so that some truth will fall out because it's going to be a long time before we listen to a government or courtroom investigation with countering experts. If ever.