The peer-reviewed paper referred to in this thread likens the world trade center buildings to that of an inflated balloon. An inflated balloon is
like a spring, stretched and tied at one end. When the ends are separated, the spring is free to pull back on itself.
Now I ask you, in what way was the world trade center like a spring being kept in tension? The whole building was under static compression stress.
Furthermore, buildings are designed to resist collapses in as many ways possible, with overdesign, redundancy, and safety features.
Look at the Marriott Hotel right after the tower's collapse.
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This building has OBVIOUSLY suffered terrible damage, and yet, once the damage was done by the WTC 1 + 2 falling debris, this building held itself up
just fine, as did all the other surrounding buildings. These buildings had to be torn down deliberately by a demolition team later on. Buildings
just don't tear themselves apart when they're designed to become one giant, solid, strong piece that holds itself together. It is not a stack of
cards or a row of dominoes.
Our experience doesn't give us a sense of the scale of what happened on 9/11. The words “jumbo jet” sound awesome, but when you compare the mass
of that aircraft to the mass of the building, it makes the plane look like a gnat. One hundred fifty tons versus five hundred thousand tons. Just
one 30 foot section of the outer steel weighed more than the plane itself.
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Let's see that in terms of sports. We'll double the number of tons of the plane to 300, and call them pounds instead. So we have the mass of a
stong, heavy football player. Now we double the number of tons in the building, and call them pounds. One million pounds.
One million. What has this kind of mass? A diesel locomotive? 37,000 pounds. Nope. Way too small. How about a tank? 130,000 pounds. Not even
close.
How about one of those big trucks they use in mines to haul around ore? Take the largest one ever seen, and make sure it's fully loaded, and we're
still only halfway there.
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If we're still using the analogy of the football player, we'll say he's 150 pounds of aluminum and 150 pounds of kerosene. Now, shoot him at that
huge truck and see how much the truck cares. Let the diesel fuel burn, and that truck is just going to motor on... There is no way that human-sized
amount of aluminum and fuel is going to do any significant damage to a mass of steel and concrete that large.
I hope this helps put it into perspective.
Is there still any argument left to explain the collapse of three buildings on 9/11 that holds any water?