Mark K. Bilbo wrote in message ...

On Mon, 02 Oct 2006 21:24:28 +0000, Alix wrote:

You're right, they were dumb enough to make so many stupid mistakes that
doubts were raised by experts.

No. The experts detailed how a weakened building of that design could
fall. A fringe bunch of bloggers who stare at the pictures all day until
they "see something" raised the "doubts."

And don't yap about the melting point of steel. That's one of the
stupidest things I've heard these past five years.

I think this is even more stupid:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/atheists-for-cheney_b_29691.html
...
If you blew into the Eiffel Tower apart halfway up the spire, the top would
fall off. If you blew off one of the legs, it might remain standing, or the
whole tower might topple over. What it certainly wouldn't do, except in a
cartoon, is crumple and fall straight down in a pile of rubble surrounded by
an immense cloud of dust.
Modern skyscrapers are not brick and morter structures, nor are they huge
walls of concrete with a little rebar thrown in. They are huge steel frames
like the Eiffel Tower, but with relatively lightweight skins on their
exteriors that give them a different appearance. You could cover the Eiffel
Tower with a facade and give it the appearance of being a massive stone
monolith, but that wouldn't alter its fundamental structure, and if you blew
a hole in a leg or the spire, the fall would be messier but basically just
the same. Welded steel frames are what make skyscrapers possible.
...
By: mlb on September 18, 2006 at 10:27pm
************************************************************

Mark K. Bilbo wrote:

And don't yap about the melting point of steel. That's one of the
stupidest things I've heard these past five years. For a building of that
design, all you had to do was weaken some of the supports of one of the
floors and the whole thing would pancake. Those are massive concrete

held up by a central core and an external steel frame. Just *one slipping
off its moorings could bring the whole structure down.

Do you have the calculations to confirm this? If this is correct, then
what happened to the central core? At least a substantial part of it
should have either remained standing, or toppled over. What happened
to these floor slabs if they did collapse? One video, I think it's the
one mentioned at the start of this thread, shows some slabs which have
collapsed on top of each other; why was nothing like this seen at the
WTC site, if this is what caused the towers to collapse? Did the
concrete break up when it hit the ground? No, much of it turned to
dust in mid-air. The pancake collapse theory cannot explain this.
Watch the video of the collapse; look at a point say half way down the
building, well below the damage caused by the aircraft impact, and with
no obvious major fire damage; the windows were intact, etc. A few
seconds later there is no building in that position. The core must
have been there just before the collapse, so where has it gone? It
didn't take off and fly into the air, it didn't sink into the ground,
it didn't topple over, the building is seen to fall straight down, so
where has it gone? The only possible answer seems to be that it has
been broken into many small (in terms of the size of the building)
pieces which are contained in the pile of rubble on the ground. How
could it be broken up in this way? where has the energy come from to
do it? Steel doesn't break easily, it tends to bend. It certainly
tends to bend if you get of hot enough to weaken it. But is there any
reason to believe that the steel got that hot? Steel is a quite a good
conductor of heat, so the heat is conducted away from the fire. Look
at those fires; lots of black smoke, does this really look like
something hot enough to cause serious weakening of the steel structure
*throughout the building*? How come that in other cases of very severe
fires in steel framed buildings, where the steel has been weakened it
has sagged somewhat, it has not shattered into many pieces, even in
areas well away from the fires, and totally collapsed to the ground

The explosives theory could explain the breaking up of the core
structure within a few seconds, but it's biggest problem is with the
placing of the thousands of charges which would have been required.
The new video suggests that parts of the buildings were empty, and that
the buildings, or at least parts of them, were evacuated at various
times in the days before 9/11. It also reported that noises were heard
on empty floors. I do not believe that explosives could have been
placed in just a few places on the building, or that they could have
been placed in a short period. In some places the building could have
been stripped to the steel structure, allowing the charges to be
placed, but only where the building was empty; I remain skeptical that
such a quantity of charges as would have been required to completely
break up the steel structure could be placed, and placed in the
positions where they would have been required, without anybody noticing
anything. You couldn't put them in just the parts of the building
which were convieniently empty, nor in service ducts etc. I really
don't know how the towers were brought down.

I do not believe that the damage caused to the towers by the
combination of the aircraft impact and the fires could possibly have
caused them to collapse in the way that was seen to happen. What
exactly did happen, I don't know; I simply don't have the evidence to
tell. Nobody is suggesting that the towers simply collapsed on their
own, and I haven't heard anybody suggest that it was the work of a
single person, therefore it was a conspiracy. There are many
conspiracy theories, including the official one. None of the many
theories that I have read fully explains what happened that day, but I
have to say that the official one has more problems than just about all
of the others.

Mark K. Bilbo wrote:

And don't yap about the melting point of steel. That's one of the
stupidest things I've heard these past five years. For a building of that
design, all you had to do was weaken some of the supports of one of the
floors and the whole thing would pancake. Those are massive concrete slabs
held up by a central core and an external steel frame. Just *one slipping
off its moorings could bring the whole structure down.

Do you have the calculations to confirm this? If this is correct, then
what happened to the central core? At least a substantial part of it
should have either remained standing, or toppled over. What happened
to these floor slabs if they did collapse?

Mark K. Bilbo wrote:

And don't yap about the melting point of steel. That's one of the
stupidest things I've heard these past five years. For a building of that
design, all you had to do was weaken some of the supports of one of the
floors and the whole thing would pancake. Those are massive concrete slabs
held up by a central core and an external steel frame. Just *one slipping
off its moorings could bring the whole structure down.

Do you have the calculations to confirm this? If this is correct, then
what happened to the central core? At least a substantial part of it
should have either remained standing, or toppled over.

What happened
to these floor slabs if they did collapse? One video, I think it's the
one mentioned at the start of this thread, shows some slabs which have
collapsed on top of each other; why was nothing like this seen at the
WTC site, if this is what caused the towers to collapse? Did the
concrete break up when it hit the ground? No, much of it turned to
dust in mid-air.

The pancake collapse theory cannot explain this.
Watch the video of the collapse; look at a point say half way down the
building, well below the damage caused by the aircraft impact, and with
no obvious major fire damage; the windows were intact, etc. A few
seconds later there is no building in that position. The core must
have been there just before the collapse, so where has it gone?

It
didn't take off and fly into the air, it didn't sink into the ground,
it didn't topple over, the building is seen to fall straight down, so
where has it gone? The only possible answer seems to be that it has
been broken into many small (in terms of the size of the building)
pieces which are contained in the pile of rubble on the ground. How
could it be broken up in this way? where has the energy come from to
do it?

Steel doesn't break easily, it tends to bend. It certainly
tends to bend if you get of hot enough to weaken it. But is there any
reason to believe that the steel got that hot? Steel is a quite a good
conductor of heat, so the heat is conducted away from the fire. Look
at those fires; lots of black smoke, does this really look like
something hot enough to cause serious weakening of the steel structure
*throughout the building*?

How come that in other cases of very severe
fires in steel framed buildings, where the steel has been weakened it
has sagged somewhat, it has not shattered into many pieces, even in
areas well away from the fires, and totally collapsed to the ground

Smoke and debris shooting sideways from the floors *yet *to *be
*fallen on, coupled with a rapid string of explosions, tends to make
me think that, indeed, *someone rigged those buildings for controlled
implosion. Maybe not the GOP. Maybe not the landlord. Who knows who

Not dust blown out by air pressure *after a floor got pancaked, but
smoke *before, with the perimeter line of smoke descending down as
fast or faster and ahead of the part of the building that was already
falling. All the fire was at the top, remember. Fire from the top
ain't even close to here yet. Something powerful happened on each of a
lot of floors just ahead of the collapse reaching them, and in perfect
descending sequence.