I agree with AnotherNut

Let's keep this thread on-topic for a change. The way to introduce an alternative topic for discussion is to start a thread about it or revive a dead thread, of which there are plenty that cover nearly all facets of the subject.

For me, the smoking gun is that BOTH of the towers fell DOWN (collapsed / pancaked) instead of falling OVER.

These towers would have caused massive, extensive damage to NYC in the hundreds of millions of dollars (maybe even billions) had they of fallen over rather than collapsed in a big pile.

Much of the debris at Ground Zero looked like it had been perfectly sheared off, many of the beams at the same angle. This sort of thing is too coincidental to have happened naturally as the result of a plane impact high up in the tower.

If you took a perfectly sheared piece of metal to any investigator, and other pieces perfectly sheared in exactly the same manner, and told them that this occurrence wasn't man made, they'd laugh in your face.

Originally posted by babybunnies
For me, the smoking gun is that BOTH of the towers fell DOWN (collapsed / pancaked) instead of falling OVER.

How could the towers have fallen over? The damage was rather near the top than the base, so I would never expect them to fall over. If they had, that would be a smoking gun that something else than planes damaged the buildings at the base.

Its odd that what I would regard a smoking gun is the exact opposite of what you would call a smoking gun.

Originally posted by samkent
The Empire plane released 1350 million foot lbs of energy.
The WTC plane released 106114 million foot lbs of energy. Plus the burning fuel. Plus the burning office contents.

Your physics misses half the story, as usual. This is where that Newtons 3rd laws comes into play, that people claim I don't understand. All that energy from the aircraft impact is felt equally by both the plane and the building, regardless of velocity, equal opposite reaction.

The object with the most mass will always receive the least damage, speed makes no difference to that fact. Increase the speed you increase the force felt by BOTH objects, so the damage will increase for BOTH objects.

Physics only seems to work for the WTC collapses if you misrepresent the physics.

Also regardless of amount fuel only burns at certain temps, it can never get hotter than a certain point. You also ignore heat transfer that means any steel will never get to the same temp as the fire, and it takes time for that heat to transfer to the steel. No way could enough steel get hot enough to cause a whole steel framed building to collapse in an hour.

Not only that but SAGGING trusses cannot put a pulling force on the columns. So it makes no difference what you claim happened, NIST lied. When someone can demonstrate sagging trusses pulling in columns I will change my mind, but I know that isn't going to happen.

Sagging trusses . And physics of planes hitting buildings. Can be left at the collapse.

The spire was still standing . So what physics bought it down?

Originally posted by Another_Nut
Sagging trusses . And physics of planes hitting buildings. Can be left at the collapse.

The spire was still standing . So what physics bought it down?

The lower core columns likely broke apart at their splices due to the swaying nature of the top. It was designed to be braced by floors and exterior walls, and so without any resistance and with massive damage and loads imposed it would only need to lean a few degrees in order to break apart.

This is what we see, as the debris falls it strips rows away from the core columns, removing some of the strongest and leaving a partial spire with very little ability to support itself.

When buildings are built as the core of the WTC was, they need additional structures in place to help resist the wind loads imposed. The core didn't have that and so it was vulnerable to a lot of factors.

Originally posted by exponent

Originally posted by Another_Nut
Sagging trusses . And physics of planes hitting buildings. Can be left at the collapse.

The spire was still standing . So what physics bought it down?

The lower core columns likely broke apart at their splices due to the swaying nature of the top. It was designed to be braced by floors and exterior walls, and so without any resistance and with massive damage and loads imposed it would only need to lean a few degrees in order to break apart.

This is what we see, as the debris falls it strips rows away from the core columns, removing some of the strongest and leaving a partial spire with very little ability to support itself.

When buildings are built as the core of the WTC was, they need additional structures in place to help resist the wind loads imposed. The core didn't have that and so it was vulnerable to a lot of factors.

First they didn't most likely fail at the welds. A weld if done properly is just as strong as any other part.i will assume they were done correctly. Therefore they shouldn't have failed there. They resisted swaying and came to a near vertical orientation ( its strongest point) before falling.

Like that straw that cqn go through a potato. A straw on end can hold massive loads while vertical.

why would all 40+ columns all fail at the same time and place? And why would it break at multiple places along the column? And where is all that steel?

Originally posted by Another_Nut
First they didn't most likely fail at the welds. A weld if done properly is just as strong as any other part.i will assume they were done correctly. Therefore they shouldn't have failed there. They resisted swaying and came to a near vertical orientation ( its strongest point) before falling.

The debris was studied after collapse. We know that in fact they did break apart at their welds. Consult NIST NCSTAR 1-3C for information on the debris.

Like that straw that cqn go through a potato. A straw on end can hold massive loads while vertical.

And just like a straw, the slightest wind will send it toppling to the ground. In this case we're talking about thousands of straws stacked on top of each other with a lot more than just wind.

why would all 40+ columns all fail at the same time and place? And why would it break at multiple places along the column? And where is all that steel?

They didn't, it was likely a progressive failure. They break in multiple places as they are collapsing downwards and impacting the ground. The steel was at ground zero.