Reply #11: yes and no

[tabatha]

If it was. Certainly a valid observation.

But it did seem as though most of the material was being pulverized and ejected from the building.

Also, when I wrote that, I had in mind a comment made by one of the OCTers that the building could not have been in free fall - because the pulverized material was falling faster than the building was collapsing - i.e. the material was in free fall down the sides of the tower, and the tower collapse was slower, and thus not in free fall. By extension of that argument, if the material was falling faster, down the sides of the building where it could be observed, than the building - then the material was not exerting the necessary pressure (un-pulverized) on the floors below to cause collapse.

Even if some material was not pulverized, the smaller amount of material falling on floors below should have resulted in a slower collapse (not accelerated as happened).