Question about World Trade Center physics

[peaceviddie]

Most people I encounter think that the collapse of the World Trade Center towers was fishy; however, I occasionally encounter a skeptic. For them my argument has always been that the towers fell at near free fall speed and this is impossible unless it was a controlled demolition.

Recently I found some debunkers on Youtube who are using visual evidence (that the debris fell slightly faster than the towers) and audible evidence (that rumbling was heard beyond the perceived visual collapse time) to prove that the towers fell faster than freefall (9-10 seconds) at 15 and 22 seconds respectively. Although I find neither argument convincing, particularly when NIST admitted that they fell at nearly freefall, I wanted a way to prove that this too was impossible.

I found an engineer on Youtube who said that the collapse was impossible, but for argument sake, he said that since each floor was capable of holding at least the weight above it, that the top portion which collapsed could not crush the rest of the building at an accelerative rate; it would either have a constant speed or deceleration (depending on how conservative you wanted to make your estimates).

Satisfied with this new ammo in my belt, I went to sleep; however I began to think about this later. Each floor would not have a constant load bearing capacity. If you added weight to each floor, one would expect it to compress downward to a certain point before buckling and losing much of its structural strength. After this point there would be lessened resistance.

I looked up some high school physics calculations and created a spreadsheet to see what would happen. I wanted to prove that you would have to put ridiculously conservative numbers for A) the distance each floor would compress before buckling (I assumed 10 x load bearing capacity because I read that somewhere about the towers) & B) the proportional resistance each buckled floor would provide as it was crushed (e.g., 0.5 x weight above load bearing capacity).

What I found was not so cut and dry. When I put in conservative numbers, the collapsing portion of the tower would gain kinetic energy or accelerate downward (I didn’t calculate time because that was too time consuming). If I increased the numbers some more, a couple floors would get crushed before grinding to a halt.

In light of this, I can’t prove using conservative numbers that the towers wouldn’t collapse. Can someone with an engineering background provide me with some conservative estimates for?

a) The distance each floor would compress downward before buckling.

b) How much resistance (as a proportion of load bearing capacity) would the buckled remainder of each floor provide?

I’m not an engineer (actually I’m a kindergarten teacher) so I apologize if my assumptions above are way off. I’m just trying to keep this as simple as I and other lay people might understand.

Thanks,

[conk]

We should ask over 900 architects and engineers their opinion........oh wait, someone already did.

[Transdimensional Bean Pod]

I don't think we'll ever know the answers to these questions. I tend to think the debate over forensics is a trail littered with alluring but evasive clues, designed specifically to keep people confused, and to discredit the effort to better understand what happened (i.e., debunk the official story).

I'm with Mike Ruppert on this one. Many a crime is solved and prosecuted without ever actually knowing the details of the forensics. And in cases that DO revolve around forensics, the side with the most money tends to win. I think we're better off focusing on the human/intel aspect of the story, and to this end, I find the testimony of Sibel Edmonds to be the one piece of evidence that has survived all scrutiny.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7374

On a personal note, I tend to think that above all else, the addition of explosives to the building would amount to them having taken an unnecessary risk. Meaning, crashing 4 planes would have been enough to rally the people to war.

[str8thinker]

Thanks, TBP, but the Brad Blog page itself doesn't seem to mention 9/11. I haven't watched the videos listed on it.

[Lefty Dave]

Greetings Peaceviddie
The best proof of insider / controlled demo is the tower hit second, fell first! Duh! Also, bldg 7...not hit by plane...1/8 mile away...little or no debris near it before it fell at freefall speed...in its own footprint...20 minutes AFTER the bbc had announced it had fallen...with Silverstein admitting on the air that he pulled it...LOGIC...if two planes...hit two buildings...and three buildings all came down in like fashion...the planes had nothing to do with their collapse. As for Pentagon...what human do you know can fly a jetliner at 500 mph 6 feet off the ground? Impossible.Physics says the air between plane and ground would force, push the plane up. No debris of aircraft, bodies, luggage at pentagon...few pieces of aircraft that appear planted at the scene...Also, Shanksville flight with no aircraft wreckage, no baggage, bodies, the whole day stinks to high heaven...who stood down our NORAD? Why was FEMA in downtown NYC the night before? What's the truth have to do, jump up and bite you in the ass? Sorry, I get a bit agitated over the murder and treason, as well as the act of war.

[peaceviddie]

I contacted the engineer who published the youtube video mentioned in my original post and he referred me to an excellent video for building 7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP9Qp5QWRMQ It examines the velocity of collapse over time and proves that building 7 fell at free fall for a good portion of it's descent.

[Transdimensional Bean Pod]

Thanks, TBP, but the Brad Blog page itself doesn't seem to mention 9/11. I haven't watched the videos listed on it.

I hadn't noticed that. But ya, the meat of the issue is in the interview. I scrounged a bit to find something useful to you as a primer (googling Sibel Edmonds 9/11 yields plenty).

Thing is, it's a very complicated story of which 9/11 is only a part...

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff01072008.html

"...If a new article just published Saturday in the Times of London based upon information provided by US government whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, we have not only solid evidence of prior knowledge of 9-11 by high up US government officials, but evidence of treasonous activity by many of those same officials involving efforts to provide US nuclear secrets to America's enemies, even including Al Qaeda.

The story also casts a chilling light on the so-called "accidental" flight of six nuclear-armed cruise missiles aboard an errant B-52 that flew last Aug. 30 from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The Sunday Times reports that Edmonds, whose whistleblowing efforts have been studiously ignored by what passes for the news media in American news media, approached the Rupert Murdoch-owned British paper a month ago after reading a report there that an Al-Qaeda leader had been training some of the 9-11 hijackers at a base in Turkey, a US NATO alley, under the noses of the Turkish military..."


****

Found this on the bradblog site:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7332

"... After explaining the difference between what she does and doesn't know first hand, she went on to explain: "I have information about things that our government has lied to us about. I know. For example, to say that since the fall of the Soviet Union we ceased all of our intimate relationship with Bin Laden and the Taliban - those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11. ..."

[peaceviddie]

Greetings Peaceviddie
The best proof of insider / controlled demo is the tower hit second, fell first! Duh! Also, bldg 7...not hit by plane...1/8 mile away...little or no debris near it before it fell at freefall speed...in its own footprint...20 minutes AFTER the bbc had announced it had fallen...with Silverstein admitting on the air that he pulled it...LOGIC...if two planes...hit two buildings...and three buildings all came down in like fashion...the planes had nothing to do with their collapse. As for Pentagon...what human do you know can fly a jetliner at 500 mph 6 feet off the ground? Impossible.Physics says the air between plane and ground would force, push the plane up. No debris of aircraft, bodies, luggage at pentagon...few pieces of aircraft that appear planted at the scene...Also, Shanksville flight with no aircraft wreckage, no baggage, bodies, the whole day stinks to high heaven...who stood down our NORAD? Why was FEMA in downtown NYC the night before? What's the truth have to do, jump up and bite you in the ass? Sorry, I get a bit agitated over the murder and treason, as well as the act of war.

Once I got in an argument with my friend's wife over the whole ordeal. When the free fall theory wasn't working for the WTC towers, I pulled out the building 7 card. Her response was "well maybe building 7 wasn't safe anymore so they had to demolish it". At that point I just gave up.

[Transdimensional Bean Pod]

Greetings Peaceviddie
The best proof of insider / controlled demo is the tower hit second, fell first! Duh! Also, bldg 7...not hit by plane...1/8 mile away...little or no debris near it before it fell at freefall speed...in its own footprint...20 minutes AFTER the bbc had announced it had fallen...with Silverstein admitting on the air that he pulled it...LOGIC...if two planes...hit two buildings...and three buildings all came down in like fashion...the planes had nothing to do with their collapse. As for Pentagon...what human do you know can fly a jetliner at 500 mph 6 feet off the ground? Impossible.Physics says the air between plane and ground would force, push the plane up. No debris of aircraft, bodies, luggage at pentagon...few pieces of aircraft that appear planted at the scene...Also, Shanksville flight with no aircraft wreckage, no baggage, bodies, the whole day stinks to high heaven...who stood down our NORAD? Why was FEMA in downtown NYC the night before? What's the truth have to do, jump up and bite you in the ass? Sorry, I get a bit agitated over the murder and treason, as well as the act of war.

The order of the collapses would only be meaningful if the damage to each was literally identical, which of course it was not.

Building 7 sustained massive damage from debris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kSq663m0G8

This forensics angle is a lobster trap, and the information commonly bandied about simply isn't factual.

[Transdimensional Bean Pod]

In terms of the pentagon, over 100 witnesses are on record saying they saw the plane hit the building as it happened. Many could read the airline logo as it passed right by them. Some even jumped out of the way, thinking they were going to be hit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBHi9CbrNf4&feature=related (video evidence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTNRkb7AaQk&feature=related (photo evidence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1wQ2BJsgx0&feature=related (eye witnesses)


And here's a quality discussion of the recovery of human remains:

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread342278/pg1

[modwiz]

For me it is not so much a question of the floors collapsing it is a question of how the huge vertical steel pylons disintegrated into dust. Things attached to the pylons may fall but steel pylons do not just disappear and leave traces of thermite, some say nano-thermite, in a pile of rubble. Then there is the vice presidents office issuing a stand down order to scramble jets.
Divisiveness over this subject would only serve those who perpetrated it and we need all the cohesiveness we can muster. This is my two cents and I will not be going into my pocket for any more change. We have a new decade of challenges.

[hohoemi]

The order of the collapses would only be meaningful if the damage to each was literally identical, which of course it was not.

Building 7 sustained massive damage from debris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kSq663m0G8

This forensics angle is a lobster trap, and the information commonly bandied about simply isn't factual.

what i find most striking about that video is the building you see at 0:30
more than half of it appears to be totally gone - but it's still standing.

in comparision to that, at 1:29, there's a quote saying "on about 1/3 of the face to the centre and to the bottom, about 25% of the depth of the building was scoped out." now if we say that 1/3 of the "the centre to the bottom" which i read as up to 1/2 of the heigth, 25% was scoped out, we could say that
1/4 of 1/2 of 1/3 was scoped out,
that doesn't sound like very much damage compared to what that other building withstood. (i'm counting it as 1/24, but i don't trust my maths.)

now there's that theory about the supporting beams, which held everything up and then gave out, but does that really explain how the building managed to collapse in the orderly way that it did?

i'm not saying that the above offers 100% proof that that isn't what happened, but, together with the info about apparent controlled demolition of the twin towers, and the other suspicious stuff about building 7 (it was "pulled", its collapse was announced before it happened) the non-official story seems more plausible to me...

[Transdimensional Bean Pod]

Ya, I don't know about what exact percentage or whatnot, but the point is just that there was indeed substantial damage to the building. I can look at it with my own eyes and tell that much.

The exact details? Beams? Angles? I have no idea. But I no longer have an interest, really. The better evidence is lost in the din about explosions. This absolutely kills the 'truth' movement.

There isn't just one unofficial version. That's the problem. The 'truthers' have crafted themselves a dogma, and it's a crying shame. It's like a police investigation where they only have one suspect. They've become obsessed with things that can't be proven, and frankly, a large portion of their arguments ARE provably false. Like this idea that bldg. 7 wasn't damaged. When people say things like that, we get laughed at. It hurts us.

[hohoemi]

i do see both your (transdimensional bean pod's and modwiz's) points:

on the one hand, we really can't afford to unquestioningly assume anything, especially without significant evidence to support our claims, so it's definitely a good thing to point out where things don't add up. i'd like to thank you here for that video you posted, since i really wasn't aware that building 7 was damaged by more than fire and a few stray pebbles before!
(with my remark i mostly wanted to point out the discrepancy between the video showing a completely hollowed out ruin of a building still standing, and then going on to claim that building 7 collapsed due to some, comparably, minor structural damage)

on the other hand, we do agree that the "official" version of 9/11 isn't correct as a whole, don't we? (i was imprecise before - i didn't intend to imply that there was only 1 version of the 9/11 "conspiracy theory".) we shouldn't forget what common ground we have in the face of disagreeing about how exactly it came to pass, when the implications of it having been some type of planned event are more important than knowing exactly whether it was accomplised by bombs, airplanes, or whatever.

that being said, i would like to see peaceviddie's original question answered - the more things we can know with reasonable certainty, the better :)

[Transdimensional Bean Pod]

i do see both your (transdimensional bean pod's and modwiz's) points:

on the one hand, we really can't afford to unquestioningly assume anything, especially without significant evidence to support our claims, so it's definitely a good thing to point out where things don't add up. i'd like to thank you here for that video you posted, since i really wasn't aware that building 7 was damaged by more than fire and a few stray pebbles before!
(with my remark i mostly wanted to point out the discrepancy between the video showing a completely hollowed out ruin of a building still standing, and then going on to claim that building 7 collapsed due to some, comparably, minor structural damage)

on the other hand, we do agree that the "official" version of 9/11 isn't correct as a whole, don't we? (i was imprecise before - i didn't intend to imply that there was only 1 version of the 9/11 "conspiracy theory".) we shouldn't forget what common ground we have in the face of disagreeing about how exactly it came to pass, when the implications of it having been some type of planned event are more important than knowing exactly whether it was accomplised by bombs, airplanes, or whatever.

that being said, i would like to see peaceviddie's original question answered - the more things we can know with reasonable certainty, the better :)

I'm so glad to hear you say that. That's exactly where I want to be with all of this. I've just had so many bad experiences. On most message boards, people immediately start flaming each other. Since I don't tend to go with either of the 'big 2' camps (official story vs bombs in buildings), I end up getting called a kook by the former, and a shill by the latter. It wore me down to where I just don't talk about it much any more. But this board seems to do a better job than most in terms of people keeping level heads, and moderators taking care of business when people go overboard.

I understand wanting answers to these things. I just truly believe that this is somehow intentional misdirection. I haven't traced the memes or their evolutionary patterns, but my hunch is that this 'bombs in buildings' theory is specifically designed to keep us from paying attention to where the best clues are. I don't mean to interfere with another person's own free will, but imagine you're me, and you believe as I do. I've suffered slings and arrows from all sides for taking a 'middle path' - which for me has taken a psychic, emotional and physical toll. It has made this past 6 years even lonelier than it was before I broke from the main-line 'truther' camp. The 'normal' people in my life think I'm nuts, and the 'truthers' think I'm copping out.

Waaah. Right?

I just want to establish my sincerity here. I don't have fun being confrontational. I do it because I care. That's all.

Thanks for your understanding reply, and I'm sorry if I rubbed anyone the wrong way.