James Fetzer: WTC towers were like trees?

In an interview with Prof. Judy Wood of Clemson Univ. on June 29 (available for download here), Ms. Wood made the claim that the WTC towers were constructed in a fashion very similar to a tree. This observation led her to make an analogy that because trees don't collapse from the top down, disintegrating into sawdust as they go, the WTC could not have failed due to progressive collapse initiated by damage/fires, as NIST/FEMA has shown. You seemed enthusiastic about this analogy and in the interview appeared to express strong agreement with Prof. Wood.

My question is:

Can you please elaborate on the similarities between the construction of the WTC towers and trees that inspired such enthusiastic agreement on your part?

Partial transcript (starting around the 27:15 mark):

Judy Wood: Part of my research work has been to look at engineering in nature. How does nature design structures? And perhaps we can copy those designs and use them in engineering designs. And one thing that struck me about the World Trade Centers is that they are very much like trees. Core, outer core, inner core. A tube within a tube design, and that's what allows a tree to wave in the breeze.

James Fetzer: Marvelous!

Judy Wood: But also I started thinking about how do trees come down? They don’t start turning into sawdust, ya know, from the top down.

(laughter)

Judy Wood: With sawdust flying out.

James Fetzer: That’s a perfect parallel, because what we actually have with the twin towers is they're blowing up from the top. Each floor is blowing up. So the sawdust, turning a tree into sawdust from the top, is perfect! Judy, absolutely a perfect analogy!

Judy Wood: And recently I gave a talk at an engineering conference where I showed some diagrams of the towers being built and I showed, “If this were a tree and the Keebler elves cut out this big chunk out of the side here, to put their, for their little house, where their dwelling is. Would that affect the towers?” And everyone in the room could see, that no, the way the structure is designed, it can’t bring it down.

James Fetzer: And the little house would be analogous to the plane impact?

Judy Wood: Right, you could have several planes, the planes hitting the towers were like a bullet being shot into a tree.

James Fetzer: Excellent! Excellent!

We could argue at length regarding the similarities and dissimilarities of comparsions of this kind. Professor Wood is the right source on this. What I liked was the introduction of an image that captured so perfectly the phenomenon taking place before our very eyes, which is that these buildings were blowing up from the top down, precisely as if they were gigantic trees that were turning into sawdust from the top down. Perfect!

I think what dubfan is trying to point out is that the comparison of a tree to a building is rather inane.



[edit on 18-7-2006 by HowardRoark]