So how did the Towers Fall?

rebornFixer

acutejam wrote:

Uh, melted steel? Been cited that it's actually melted aluminum that looks like melted steel (colored) because of all the crap that got burnt and melted into it.

Here's a nice lil conspiracy counter-point:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjc2MjZmOTI2YzM0M2ZjOTUwZWU4YWRiMjRlOTVjZGM=

Again, it's easy to take a bit here, a bit there and come up with some credible questions -- but that's not reality, you gotta take it all in. Atta at Logan Airport. Planes crashing into buildings. People jumping from windows. A building that was designed for the floors themselves to serve as structural elements, each floor could hold itself, but when just one fell onto another ... dominoes. Will there be stuff we won't ever understand? Yap. But that shouldn't make us ignore all the points that simply can't be questioned.

Exactly. The steel didn't melt, it shouldn't have melted, and why people cite that as evidence in favour of a conspiracy is beyond me.

farfromglorified

SweetHarmonics wrote:

1. Firefighters' direct testimony about first-hand observations were excluded from the commission's report, a glaring omission to say the least.

It's not a "glaring omission". They were withheld as evidence in the Moussaoui trials. They have since been released. You can find thousands of pages of testimony and recordings on the web.

2. 'Intense heat' meaning hot enough to melt the steel into pools, again this comes from eyewitness accounts and contradicts the official report.

Jesus. It doesn't contradict the official report. Does anywhere in the report claim that metals can't be melted? No. The actual melting steel is mentioned in the NIST report. Look, lots of "steel" probably melted on that day. Aluminum melts at much lower temperature than actual steel beams. Obviously plastics melt at much lower temperatures. Lots of things melt, particularly when you have raging fires and 110 story buildings collapsing. NIST concluded that molten steel was the result of non-WTC materials such as pieces of the plane or other loose debris.

3. It would have been quite a plus to allow the analysis of the beams that failed in WTC 1 or 2, they did this with a beam from WTC 7 so why not the others. That kind of inept decision-making is highly suspect, they aren't that dumb.

Ugh.

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-3BDraft.pdf

Page 33.

SweetHarmonics

farfromglorified wrote:

It's not a "glaring omission". They were withheld as evidence in the Moussaoui trials. They have since been released. You can find thousands of pages of testimony and recordings on the web.



Jesus. It doesn't contradict the official report. Does anywhere in the report claim that metals can't be melted? No. The actual melting steel is mentioned in the NIST report. Look, lots of "steel" probably melted on that day. Aluminum melts at much lower temperature than actual steel beams. Obviously plastics melt at much lower temperatures. Lots of things melt, particularly when you have raging fires and 110 story buildings collapsing. NIST concluded that molten steel was the result of non-WTC materials such as pieces of the plane or other loose debris.



Ugh.

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-3BDraft.pdf

Page 33.

Where to begin?

So it's not suspect that the official report excludes the most direct eyewitness testimony? We know it's on the web and other places, the fact that the commission refused to include it is troubling to say the least.

That second part is hardly more than a reaching strawman.

With the inconsistent nature of the commission report, how can any subsequent study be not questioned in full? Operating on a "take my word for it" basis is out of the question with what we know 5 years later.

farfromglorified

SweetHarmonics wrote:

Where to begin?

So it's not suspect that the official report excludes the most direct eyewitness testimony? We know it's on the web and other places, the fact that the commission refused to include it is troubling to say the least.

It would be troubling if the actual conclusions of that report were contradictory to the vast majority of the testimony.

That second part is hardly more than a reaching strawman.

Suggesting that pieces of an airplane, when that plane crashes, can melt or cause other metallic objects to melt is a "strawman"? I don't think you understand the meaning of that word.

With the inconsistent nature of the commission report, how can any subsequent study be not questioned in full? Operating on a "take my word for it" basis is out of the question with what we know 5 years later.

Question away. You don't care about questions though.

audome25

pushmepullme wrote:

I got passed a really good essay today, written by a bunch of engineer teachers, all with PHds and what not, on why they can't believe that the towers fell like they did. They made some interesting points:

1. The temperature of the fire in the tower could only have reached 650 degrees, yet steel only melts at 2800 degrees.

2. The fuel in the aeroplanes would have burnt out after 10 minutes.

3. There have only been 3 incidents, ever, ever, ever of buildings falling straight down, without it have been an implosion. Those three were the 2 towers plus WTC7.

4. WTC7 fell in exactly the same way as the Twin Towers, despite have been neither hit by a plane, or having had any substantial fires.

Any comments, other than the 'you're talking shit!' kind?

not one of those "engineers" has a phd. I would bet my career on it.

SweetHarmonics

farfromglorified wrote:

It would be troubling if the actual conclusions of that report were contradictory to the vast majority of the testimony.



Suggesting that pieces of an airplane, when that plane crashes, can melt or cause other metallic objects to melt is a "strawman"? I don't think you understand the meaning of that word.



Question away. You don't care about questions though.

- it seems that first hand testimony should probably be considered first and foremost

- a strawman is exactly the overused tactic that's on display here, we are discussing a certain aspect of the argument and drawing away from it with hypotheticals is unnecessary

- that's defense lawyer-esque right there

farfromglorified

SweetHarmonics wrote:

- it seems that first hand testimony should probably be considered first and foremost

Ok.

- a strawman is exactly the overused tactic that's on display here, we are discussing a certain aspect of the argument and drawing away from it with hypotheticals is unnecessary

Ok, let's remove any hypotheticals. Good luck with a conspiracy theory.

- that's defense lawyer-esque right there

Perhaps. But don't ask questions, refer to an answer as a "reaching strawman" and offer zero refutation. You obviously aren't questioning in order to get answers. You're "questioning" in order to attack answers.

MasterFramer

aNiMaL wrote:

That could be numerous things like the tower supports failing...I am sure they wouldn't fail quietly. I am quite certain they would fail with a loud bang.

How do things fall from the bottom upward? What does that even mean? I saw the towers fall from where the air planes hit. The weight of the upper floors (above the plane crashes), combined with the massive heat from the constant fires, was enough to bring both towers down.

Again....nobody has answered my question about how they "supposedly" rigged the buildings with dynamite with no one ever seeing it.

If the towers were rigged with explosives it could have been done the two weeks prior to the "attacks" where all bomb sniffing dogs and 24 hour security was removed from the towers... two weeks is enough time to rig the towers... did you know the security company for the towers was owned by one of Bush's brothers? Heh...

Have you also seen the smaller "explosions" being blown out underneath the falling rubble?

farfromglorified

MasterModeler wrote:

If the towers were rigged with explosives it could have been done the two weeks prior to the "attacks" where all bomb sniffing dogs and 24 hour security was removed from the towers... two weeks is enough time to rig the towers... did you know the security company for the towers was owned by one of Bush's brothers? Heh...

There's a problem with your theory. When a skyscraper is "rigged with explosives", key support structures are severed up to 90% to ensure that the demolition works properly. At that point buildings are not safe for occupation because daily use of them poses an acute risk that the building will collapse on its own.

Secondly, the buildings did not collapse in their own footprint and the steel outer structure is seen falling away from the structure. If WTC was a controlled demolition, it was one of the worst controlled demolitions in history.

T-Case

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Why would they bother to plant WMDs? They knew they would have the support of the ever-so-leadable american public and would go along with anything they said.

Credibility, if they lied about WMDs then what else could they have lied about, it brings up too many questions

SweetHarmonics

farfromglorified wrote:

Ok.



Ok, let's remove any hypotheticals. Good luck with a conspiracy theory.



Perhaps. But don't ask questions, refer to an answer as a "reaching strawman" and offer zero refutation. You obviously aren't questioning in order to get answers. You're "questioning" in order to attack answers.

It doesn't take a conspiracy theory to explain it, I'm definitely in the "let it happen" group. No more of a conspiracy than a certain Hawaiian incident at least.

Sorry if I offended with the strawman part, the theory that airplane fuel brought down the WTC has always been suspect to some people. To see no type of rationalization of this until years after the fact and then it's explained away with blind spectulation that just isn't cutting it on the factual front.

It wouldn't be such a suspicious timeline if the administration had not stonewalled the idea of a investigative commission in the first place. The fact that they didn't want to see it happen coupled with the lackluster reporting of said commission makes it all that much harder to believe.

MasterFramer

farfromglorified wrote:

There's a problem with your theory. When a skyscraper is "rigged with explosives", key support structures are severed up to 90% to ensure that the demolition works properly. At that point buildings are not safe for occupation because daily use of them poses an acute risk that the building will collapse on its own.

Secondly, the buildings did not collapse in their own footprint and the steel outer structure is seen falling away from the structure. If WTC was a controlled demolition, it was one of the worst controlled demolitions in history.

Its not my theory, just one of the many I have seen... and I've watched the tapes many times... they fall straight down... I am sure there are many ways to skin a cat... besides I've watched shows an the discovery channel about demos and they showed nothing about tampering with the integrity of the buildings they were bringing down...

Besides they didnt need to be brought down "controlled" just brought down... place enough C4 in a building and set it off anything is gonna come down...

enharmonic

Conspiracy theories aside...one building had more weight above it than the other by virtue of the impact points. They were also hit in different places. If the impact to both buildings was exactly the same, and I mean to the thousandth of a degree, I would be able to accept the uniform implosion of both towers as statistically possible.

That is just simply not the case in this horrible national tragedy. I'll give you one tower impoding in a uniform manner based on the nature of the impact...the how, where, and when. I will not give you both...and neither will science or mathematics.

You don't need a conspiracy theory...all you need is statistical probability.

MasterFramer

enharmonic wrote:

Conspiracy theories aside...one building had more weight above it than the other by virtue of the impact points. They were also hit in different places. If the impact to both buildings was exactly the same, and I mean to the thousandth of a degree, I would be able to accept the uniform implosion of both towers as statistically possible.

That is just simply not the case in this horrible national tragedy. I'll give you one tower impoding in a uniform manner based on the nature of the impact...the how, where, and when. I will not give you both...and neither will science or mathematics.

You don't need a conspiracy theory...all you need is statistical probability.

not to mention tower 7 imploding because of "falling debris"

farfromglorified

SweetHarmonics wrote:

It doesn't take a conspiracy theory to explain it, I'm definitely in the "let it happen" group. No more of a conspiracy than a certain Hawaiian incident at least.

Um...that's still a conspiracy theory. And it still requires a host of hypotheticals and, more fatally, blatant assumptions without any grounding in fact. It's as if I suggested that molten metal observed at WTC came from a plane, but was unable to prove there had been any planes.

Sorry if I offended with the strawman part, the theory that airplane fuel brought down the WTC has always been suspect to some people. To see no type of rationalization of this until years after the fact and then it's explained away with blind spectulation that just isn't cutting it on the factual front.

You didn't offend. Don't worry about that.

It's not "blind speculation" to suggest that the WTC was brought down by fire when combined with the impact of the planes. It's sound science. Now that doesn't mean that it's exactly what happened that day. But I don't think anyone's claiming that the government's version is 100% absolute truth. It's not. But for a person to then take that concept and pretend that some nefarious deeds happened is to demonstrate how little truth or fact actually matter to that person.

It wouldn't be such a suspicious timeline if the administration had not stonewalled the idea of a investigative commission in the first place. The fact that they didn't want to see it happen coupled with the lackluster reporting of said commission makes it all that much harder to believe.

You don't have to believe it. You can believe whatever you'd like.

farfromglorified

MasterModeler wrote:

Its not my theory, just one of the many I have seen... and I've watched the tapes many times... they fall straight down... I am sure there are many ways to skin a cat... besides I've watched shows an the discovery channel about demos and they showed nothing about tampering with the integrity of the buildings they were bringing down...

Research RDX demolitions and the prework that goes into it.

Besides they didnt need to be brought down "controlled" just brought down... place enough C4 in a building and set it off anything is gonna come down...

:rolleyes:

The amount of C4 required to blow up the world trade center isn't something you can hide. You don't use C4 to secretly blow up steel skyscrapers and get away with it.

farfromglorified

enharmonic wrote:

Conspiracy theories aside...one building had more weight above it than the other by virtue of the impact points. They were also hit in different places. If the impact to both buildings was exactly the same, and I mean to the thousandth of a degree, I would be able to accept the uniform implosion of both towers as statistically possible.

That is just simply not the case in this horrible national tragedy. I'll give you one tower impoding in a uniform manner based on the nature of the impact...the how, where, and when. I will not give you both...and neither will science or mathematics.

You don't need a conspiracy theory...all you need is statistical probability.

What a ridiculous post. That's like looking at two hurricanes and suggesting that it's "statistically impossible" that you'll get two rain storms.

The collapses of those two buildings are similar, but not equal, just as the scenarios that led to their collapse are similar but not equal.

SweetHarmonics

farfromglorified wrote:

Um...that's still a conspiracy theory. And it still requires a host of hypotheticals and, more fatally, blatant assumptions without any grounding in fact. It's as if I suggested that molten metal observed at WTC came from a plane, but was unable to prove there had been any planes.



You didn't offend. Don't worry about that.

It's not "blind speculation" to suggest that the WTC was brought down by fire when combined with the impact of the planes. It's sound science. Now that doesn't mean that it's exactly what happened that day. But I don't think anyone's claiming that the government's version is 100% absolute truth. It's not. But for a person to then take that concept and pretend that some nefarious deeds happened is to demonstrate how little truth or fact actually matter to that person.



You don't have to believe it. You can believe whatever you'd like.

I don't find it such a preposterous idea that a foreign enemy would want to blow up some shit and we would look the other way in anticipation of our blank check to do as we wish with our military might. Like I said, it's happened before. It's actually more comforting than the idea that blatant warnings were ignorantly dismissed by the administration.

The reason I keep going back to the firefighter testimony is that it's hard to accept with the theory of the building temperature being hot enough to bring down steel girders and them being close enough to witness the origin. That would be a bit hard to explain within the context of the commission's report so any question of motive for them to omit that is quite obvious.

Cosmo

MasterModeler wrote:

not to mention tower 7 imploding because of "falling debris"

...
Don't discount the force of falling debris...
Case in point... I drop a brick off the Empire State Building... it's doing some damage.
What if I push a '66 Buick off the roof? How about a cement mixer? A cement mixer from that height... when it hits the ground, it is doing some damage to the hotdog cart parked in the plaza.
imagine a building... a 110 story building coming down. The force of all of that matter... steel girders and truss'... concrete and glass... desks and chairs and computers and refridgerators and air conditioning units and everything else... it has to go somewhere. The path of least resistance... up the street or through the adjacent structure.

Cosmo

SweetHarmonics wrote:

...
The reason I keep going back to the firefighter testimony is that it's hard to accept with the theory of the building temperature being hot enough to bring down steel girders and them being close enough to witness the origin. That would be a bit hard to explain within the context of the commission's report so any question of motive for them to omit that is quite obvious.

...
The structure of the towers was the number of vertical supports along the perimeter. When those support structures were breached, the downward load was redirected towards the remaining, in tact, supports. The pressure, along with the heat from the fires caused the failure. Once they failed, the remaining support could not withstand the weight of the upper structure and its contents and the entire level failed.
Just watch the videotape... you can actually see it fail, the upper structure tilt slightly and come straight down. None of the floors below are strong enough to stop a force as powerful as this. The only structure strong enought to stop it was the Earth.