On Jun 28, 2006, at 6:37 PM, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
On Jun 28, 2006, at 6:06 PM, Dave Land wrote:
This is an aircraft that carries enough jet fuel to cover a
football field to the depth of one foot with highly combustible
fluid (do the math; check me -- this is what I recall from
working out the figs myself about four years ago). What's
amazing, in this light, is that the buildings didn't fall before
they did.
Fuel that, when burning, generates less than 800 degrees C, about
a third of the temperature needed to melt the steel used in the WTC.
See my exchange with Nick regarding slow fires. The girders didn't
have to melt; they didn't even have to buckle. All that was needed
was for their rivets to shear, for the flooring to come loose from
the central tower — and blam. Any architect will tell you that ALL
modern skyscrapers can suffer a similar fate under similar
circumstances.
Anyone who has looked into it can tell you that this has happened to
exactly three buildings. Ever. I don't care how many imaginary
architects you want to cite, because in the real world, it hasn't
worked that way. It. Never. Happens. (Except this once.) But I'm
supposed to accept this as normal? That's just crazy talk.
Here's the deal: find documentation for just one instance of any
steel building that collapsed precisely into its footprint due to any
sort of fire at all prior to 9/11/01, and I'll take myself out of
this discussion with sincere apologies to you.
Buildings under construction have collapsed like pancakes because
their upper floors were de-reinforced before the concrete shrouding
their girders was cured. Just a few sheets of plywood held them up.
And you're suggesting, seriously, that a fire burning for 90 or so
minutes wouldn't do appreciable damage to a building's structural
integrity?
Thank you: that is precisely what I have been suggesting (and
suggesting is exactly the word: I don't know what happened; nobody
does), because in roughly 100 years of steel-reinforced construction,
not a single building has failed in this way until September 11,
2001. The ones that have collapsed as you describe were under
construction: they were incomplete.
And, of course, it doesn't matter how much fuel there was. They
could have FILLED every floor of building with a couple of feet of
Jet A and replaced the air with pure oxygen, and it still couldn't
possibly burn hot enough to bring the buildings down.
Prove it. Show your stats to support your assertion that the WTC
towers could have stood up under fires burning on every floor. We
already know that fires on thee floors were enough to bring them
down, so I think you'll be hard-pressed here.
We don't know that at all.
We know that there was a fire, and we know that the buildings
collapsed. We do not know why or how they collapsed. We most
definitely do not know that fires on three floors were enough to
bring them down.
By the way, I have no interest in proving it. I don't have to. We're
just a bunch of friends yacking on the Internet about it.
Come on, Dave -- this is really disappointing from you.
Nice to know that our surprise in each other's position is mutual: it
bespeaks an underlying respect that will survive this exchange.
We don't know what the hell happened on 9/11.
Yes, actually, we do. Islamic fundamentalists took just enough
flight instruction to know how to guide a plane, then hijacked some
planes, and flew them as missiles into designated targets. Two of
the targets collapsed after several hours of burning and
progressive structural weakening.
We do not know that. We know that two of the targets collapsed after
several hours of burning. We have a lot of guesses -- some more
rational than others -- as to why.
Maybe it was termites, not thermite.
Where, please tell me, do you think the mystery lies here?
In the bits that you conveniently assume -- the conclusion from which
you argue so unsuccessfully: that the buildings definitely collapsed
due to structural weakening.
I'm not saying that they didn't necessarily fail in that way: only
that it is extraordinarily unlikely -- representing a singular event
in architectural physics, an event at least as unlikely as a
government plot to murder thousands of American citizens to enrage
them enough to support an evil invasion of another country.
We just don't know, and probably never will. Except for those who
make up their minds before the facts are in.
Dave
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