Re: Another professor says official 9-11 story is BULLSHIT
- From: "John P" <noaddress@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2005 14:39:49 -0600
"Scout" wrote in a message
First of all, I have to say that you have contributed some excellent posts
to this discussion.
>> So, the bottom line here is that the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 are anything
>> but mysterious. ... what about how they fell? It seems some of the
>> conspiracy theorists talk about them falling straight down as an
>> indication of a controlled demolition.
> Hardly, Gravity works, and the structure simply isn't strong enough to
> deflect a collapse of this nature much off the centerline. Indeed the
> upper portion did start to fall to one side, then the general failure of
> the structure began to occur. Since it starts at the top and works it's
> way down, it's not surprising that the bulk of the collapse was nearly
> straight down. You can demonstrate this if you like, take and build a
> house of cards from strips of wood (you want something with more mass than
> surface area) and then poke it about 1/4 the way down. The top with start
> to collapse to the side of failure, then Oops, the whole structure falls
> straight down. Why? Domino effect, the structure at the bottom is still
> intact and holding even as the upper stories collapse.
Here's a link with good illustrations of the start of the fall:
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/official/silverstein.html
I've seen a bit of this when felling trees. The tree very often only wants
to fall straight down. I've had a few that I managed to get to, basically,
slide off the stump to end up pretty much still standing straight up, on the
ground next to the stump. One tree was growing next to the driveway and had
a significant lean to it (out over the driveway). We would have preferred to
drop is somewhere other than onto the drive, but decided there was no way
we'd overcome that much lean. So, we cut it in such a manner that would work
with the natural lean to let the tree fall exactly the way it wanted to. We
were so sure it would fall quickly, that we chained it to my jeep to keep it
from falling onto the saw as we were cutting the notch.
So, we get the notch cut and figure the chain is all that is keeping it from
falling. I drive forward to set the tree down, and all that happens is the
chain slacks. The tree is still standing. We remove the chain, cut through
from the other side to the notch - constantly thinking this thing is going
to go over - and it still doesn't fall. We had to give it a good shove to
start the fall.
Those experiences were my first indication that the pull of gravity
(straight down) is very difficult to overcome.
> Further we had some fall out to the sides, look at the impact damage on
> WTC7 as evidence of that.
And WTC 6 as well (which appears to have been destroyed by one of the
towers).
> What you have to remember is that you are talking a HUGE mass here,
> and it is ONLY going to pivet around the point of failure. It that failure
> is at the bottom, then yes, the building can fall on it's side. If that
> failure is
> near the top, then you're going to get very little deflection from the
> centerline.
> The problem for the conspiracy theorists is that once that upper portion
> deflects enough you are going to cause a general failure of the entire
> structure, starting at the top, and working it's way down. It's only while
> the structure holds in part that it can pivot the mass of the building.
Another thing I consider when looking at the tower 2 collapse is the effect
the tilt of the upper portion of the building, towards the damaged area,
would have on the structure on the side of the building opposite the damage.
As one side is tilting down, isn't it stretching the other side (makeing it
longer)? All that change in that structure would seem unable to lead to
anything other than complete failure. I would say the collapse of tower 2 is
the least "mysterious" event of all.
Tower one may be a bit less obvious since it was shrouded in dust for almost
the entire collapse. I do note that by watching the antenna on the top of
the building it seemed to fail in more of a straight down manner (i.e. the
top of the building didn't tilt anywhere near as much as tower 2). Perhaps
more of the core support area of the building was damaged by the plane
crash?
>>You may have seen my response where I indicated that
>> gravity would seem to dictate that the fall nowhere other than straight
>> down unless acted upon by some significant force in some other direction.
> Absolutely, particularly when you consider where the failure started and
> where each subsequent failure would occur.
>> Do you find anything unusual in the fact that they came down pretty much
>> on their own footprint?
> Not particularly.
>
> Consider for a moment how the collapse took place. We have an impact,
> crash, fire. The outer structure fails on one side, the upper stories
> begin to collapse to the side, as the core and other side are bent to the
> side, they lose the structural strength to continue to support the upper
> stories. Now at this moment consider what you have. You basically have two
> structures. An upright tower which is just fine, and a block of about 20
> stories that has collapsed a little to the side and is down falling
> largely down since effectively the foundation has been ripped out from
> under it. The upper portion will continue to fall to the side somewhat,
> but this is nothing compared to the rate of failure in the down direction.
> After all you have only that initial lateral motion to continue moving it
> to the side, while gravity is accelerating everything else straight down.
>
> To help visualize what would occur, once you get to the point that the
> upper section has rotated enough that the structural support holding it up
> there fails, mentally remove the rest of the building. Consider only those
> 20 floors way up there in midair, slowly falling towards one side. Now
> mentally let it go. Where is it going to fall? Way off to one side, or
> basically straight down?
>
> Because once the structural support holding it up there fails that is
> basically what you have left. A 20 story block of building falling. The
> fact the rest of the building is there really isn't going to alter that
> much since it's like dropping a brick on a house of cards. The cards just
> aren't strong enough to effect the motion of the brick much. So it was
> with the lower tower, as the upper stories collapsed on to the structure,
> they failed, at the top while doing little to alter the path of that
> falling debris because they simply lack the structural strength to do
> anything else.
Excellent post (and not just because it agrees with what I was thinking - it
would be an excellent post even if I disagreed with you).
I have to say, I came into this discussion with a willingness to look at
everything and keep an open mind. From what I have seen thus far, the
official version of events can be logically and easily supported. If there
is no cover-up, conspiracy, controlled demolition required for tower 2, then
it would seem unlikely that there was some plan needed to help the other
buildings. The alternate theories all require that we take some ridiculous
leaps, ignore reality or dismiss facts or physics. I would say I don't
understand why or how so many people buy into such theories, but, as I have
already mentioned - some people need to believe that there must be some
extraordinary answer to such an extraordinary event (just like the JFK
assassination).
.
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