4 ms·

Well...the theory goes that if an intentional demolotion can only cause a building to fall close-ish to the 9.8m/s, then a 'non-intentional' collapse surely mus

Well...the theory goes that if an intentional demolotion can only cause a building to fall close-ish to the 9.8m/s, then a 'non-intentional' collapse surely must be slower.

sliverstorm 14y ago
That doesn't even make sense. What does gravity care for intent?
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Because there are obstacles along the way. Support beams, uncollapsed floors, etc. that will slow down the descent. As I said, I haven't bought into this theory yet. Just want to get other opinions on whether or not it makes sense in this particular case.
  - regularfry 14y ago
    The time taken for an uncollapsed floor to become a collapsed floor in the face of even a fraction of a tower falling onto it is unimaginably brief. In short, the reason that the towers' collapses looked like controlled demolitions is because controlled demolitions don't rely on the explosives to destroy the building, they rely on destabilising it enough that it falls in on itself. The "controlled" part is just making sure it collapses inwards.
- Firehed 14y ago
  There's a lot of stuff that has to break. Theory being that (at least until there's a certain amount of momentum) the structure of the undamaged building will slow the collapse. Remember, the damage was three quarters of the way up the building, not at the foundation. I'm no demolitions expert nor am I a physics major, so I can't speak as to how structures of that size behave under those conditions - though I'm sure the conspiracies have been thoroughly debunked by now. But that's the thinking. Personally I'm more inclined to disbelieve a conspiracy theory simply because there's no way our government is competent enough to keep a secret that big for eleven years - across multiple administrations. But who knows - maybe there're better at their jobs than I'm willing to give them credit for.
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    Wow....I couldn't have articulated my position better myself. Hence my bringing up this topic. It's not that I doubt that people would want to (and perhaps have motive) to pull off a stunt like this. It is the subsequent burying of the evidence and keeping it a secret for so long - something that has attracted more scrutiny than any other terrorist attack in recent history. Either the gov't is far more sophisticated than we imagine, which I doubt - or the theories are just that. Theories. I am more inclined to believe the latter.
  - conductor 14y ago
    The government? The one that we "elected" (election between two preselected candidates/puppets? Really?). Or maybe the real one, who's behind the scene, the puppet-masters? If this was an inside job, there are not so many people (especially public people) who were behind it. They just needed to hire some Arabs (through several proxies) and train them to intercept the airplanes. And I'm sure those Arabs didn't know who was really behind it (they were sure it was Osama who could be an agent or a legend). Then make sure the secret services somehow fail to do their job at time X. Then eliminate/threat/silence those people at lower levels who couldn't understand some actions/lack of actions and were suspicious about that. It isn't so hard for people with sufficient power and money, don't you think?
  - cantrevealname 14y ago
    > there's no way our government is competent enough to keep a secret that big Counterexamples to refute the assertion that the US government cannot keep "big" secrets: (1) A US bomber accidentally dropped a hydrogen bomb out of an airplane into the dessert near Albuquerque, New Mexico, triggering a conventional but non-nuclear detonation. This happened in 1957 but was kept secret until 1986 -- a span of 29 years. "It was only in 1986 when an Albuquerque newspaper published an account based on military documents recovered through the Freedom of Information Act." (ref: http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ ) (2) The British were regularly reading encrypted German messages by around 1940. The codebreaking of the German Enigma machine was one of the greatest secrets of World War 2, and the British shared the knowledge with the Americans. This secret was revealed in 1974--after 34 years--because of two books by key intelligence figures. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures ) In both cases, at least dozens of people--but more likely hundreds of people--would have been privy to the secrets. But these two secrets did not leak for 3 decades. Note: I am not endorsing any 911 conspiracy theories. I am simply showing that the stubborn meme that the US government cannot keep big secrets is incorrect.
- conductor 14y ago
  in case of intentional demolition there are explosive at all levels they blow up and speed up the demolition. So when the airplane hit the building, it should had taken more time than when using explosives, or airplane + explosives.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    At this point I must defer to civil engineers. I do not have the background in structures to model their collapse and draw reliable conclusions.
  - ars 14y ago
    The energy contained in that much mass falling down is far FAR more than any explosive (more than what would be using to bring down a building anyway). Each story had about 480MJ worth of energy. That's equivalent to about 1/10 of a ton of TNT. That's each story falling just one floor mind you. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281500000+tons+%2F+110%29+*+13+feet+*+g&a=UnitClash_*g.*StandardAccelerationOfGravity--&a=UnitClash_*tons.*ShortTons.dflt-- http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281500000+tons+%2F+110... For the North tower that's 120 floor equivalents as the 15 floors fell, about 12 tons of TNT. For the entire tower that's 700 tons of TNT (assuming the mass of the tower is distributed evenly, which it isn't, but it's still a huge amount of energy).
    - marcamillion 14y ago
      Can you explain this please? Where did you get the 15000000 tons figure from. Also..what relation does 480MJ of energy have on the rate at which the building would have collapsed? Are you debunking the theory that it was explosives, or supporting it?
      - ars 14y ago
        From here: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/wtc/about/facts.html http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/wtc/about/facts.html That's the weight of the entire tower. I'm saying that there is more energy in simply the tower falling than there would be in any explosive. So it would not fall any faster with an explosive - there already is much more energy there than needed.

Well...the theory goes that if an intentional demolotion can only cause a building to fall close-ish to the 9.8m/s, then a 'non-intentional' collapse surely must be slower.

sliverstorm 14y ago

That doesn't even make sense. What does gravity care for intent?

marcamillion 14y ago
Because there are obstacles along the way. Support beams, uncollapsed floors, etc. that will slow down the descent. As I said, I haven't bought into this theory yet. Just want to get other opinions on whether or not it makes sense in this particular case.
- regularfry 14y ago
  The time taken for an uncollapsed floor to become a collapsed floor in the face of even a fraction of a tower falling onto it is unimaginably brief. In short, the reason that the towers' collapses looked like controlled demolitions is because controlled demolitions don't rely on the explosives to destroy the building, they rely on destabilising it enough that it falls in on itself. The "controlled" part is just making sure it collapses inwards.
Firehed 14y ago
There's a lot of stuff that has to break. Theory being that (at least until there's a certain amount of momentum) the structure of the undamaged building will slow the collapse. Remember, the damage was three quarters of the way up the building, not at the foundation. I'm no demolitions expert nor am I a physics major, so I can't speak as to how structures of that size behave under those conditions - though I'm sure the conspiracies have been thoroughly debunked by now. But that's the thinking. Personally I'm more inclined to disbelieve a conspiracy theory simply because there's no way our government is competent enough to keep a secret that big for eleven years - across multiple administrations. But who knows - maybe there're better at their jobs than I'm willing to give them credit for.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Wow....I couldn't have articulated my position better myself. Hence my bringing up this topic. It's not that I doubt that people would want to (and perhaps have motive) to pull off a stunt like this. It is the subsequent burying of the evidence and keeping it a secret for so long - something that has attracted more scrutiny than any other terrorist attack in recent history. Either the gov't is far more sophisticated than we imagine, which I doubt - or the theories are just that. Theories. I am more inclined to believe the latter.
- conductor 14y ago
  The government? The one that we "elected" (election between two preselected candidates/puppets? Really?). Or maybe the real one, who's behind the scene, the puppet-masters? If this was an inside job, there are not so many people (especially public people) who were behind it. They just needed to hire some Arabs (through several proxies) and train them to intercept the airplanes. And I'm sure those Arabs didn't know who was really behind it (they were sure it was Osama who could be an agent or a legend). Then make sure the secret services somehow fail to do their job at time X. Then eliminate/threat/silence those people at lower levels who couldn't understand some actions/lack of actions and were suspicious about that. It isn't so hard for people with sufficient power and money, don't you think?
- cantrevealname 14y ago
  > there's no way our government is competent enough to keep a secret that big Counterexamples to refute the assertion that the US government cannot keep "big" secrets: (1) A US bomber accidentally dropped a hydrogen bomb out of an airplane into the dessert near Albuquerque, New Mexico, triggering a conventional but non-nuclear detonation. This happened in 1957 but was kept secret until 1986 -- a span of 29 years. "It was only in 1986 when an Albuquerque newspaper published an account based on military documents recovered through the Freedom of Information Act." (ref: http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ http://www.hkhinc.com/newmexico/albuquerque/doomsday/ ) (2) The British were regularly reading encrypted German messages by around 1940. The codebreaking of the German Enigma machine was one of the greatest secrets of World War 2, and the British shared the knowledge with the Americans. This secret was revealed in 1974--after 34 years--because of two books by key intelligence figures. (ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra#Post-war_disclosures ) In both cases, at least dozens of people--but more likely hundreds of people--would have been privy to the secrets. But these two secrets did not leak for 3 decades. Note: I am not endorsing any 911 conspiracy theories. I am simply showing that the stubborn meme that the US government cannot keep big secrets is incorrect.
conductor 14y ago
in case of intentional demolition there are explosive at all levels they blow up and speed up the demolition. So when the airplane hit the building, it should had taken more time than when using explosives, or airplane + explosives.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  At this point I must defer to civil engineers. I do not have the background in structures to model their collapse and draw reliable conclusions.
- ars 14y ago
  The energy contained in that much mass falling down is far FAR more than any explosive (more than what would be using to bring down a building anyway). Each story had about 480MJ worth of energy. That's equivalent to about 1/10 of a ton of TNT. That's each story falling just one floor mind you. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281500000+tons+%2F+110%29+*+13+feet+*+g&a=UnitClash_*g.*StandardAccelerationOfGravity--&a=UnitClash_*tons.*ShortTons.dflt-- http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%281500000+tons+%2F+110... For the North tower that's 120 floor equivalents as the 15 floors fell, about 12 tons of TNT. For the entire tower that's 700 tons of TNT (assuming the mass of the tower is distributed evenly, which it isn't, but it's still a huge amount of energy).
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    Can you explain this please? Where did you get the 15000000 tons figure from. Also..what relation does 480MJ of energy have on the rate at which the building would have collapsed? Are you debunking the theory that it was explosives, or supporting it?
    - ars 14y ago
      From here: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/wtc/about/facts.html http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/wtc/about/facts.html That's the weight of the entire tower. I'm saying that there is more energy in simply the tower falling than there would be in any explosive. So it would not fall any faster with an explosive - there already is much more energy there than needed.