jashobeam said:
I have to leave. But real quick. What if these scientists were all operating under a very powerful conviction (bias/belief) that the planes/fuel/etc. HAD to have caused the collapse? All of their hypotheses would be based on HOW the planes/fuel/etc. caused the collapse, and not if other factors were involved (either necessarily or synergistically). Do or can their conclusion rule out the possibility of other destructive mechanisms having been involved?
Just a thought.
They have considered your point. And they did NOT begin with the assumption that the planes and the fuel brought the buildings down. And, in fact, if you hear the guys who actually did the investigations speak, you'll understand why the planes did not bring the buildings down, nor did the jet fuel. The investigators did NOT start off trying to show how the planes and the fuel brought the buildings down. They did it as obective investigators should have done: they looked at as many pieces of the building as they could find, determined as well as they could what failed first, and then said "Okay, now we know what failed, why did it fail and how did that cause the building to fall down?"
Remember, I said I have heard three presentations on this, two by structural engineers who investigated why the buildings fell down, and a third (just a few days ago) by a fire science engineer and professor who also, for a different team and panel, investigated why the buildings fell down.
Structurally, these towers were rather unique. There were virtually no interior columns. Go onto any of the office floors and all you saw was open space. The structure was around the outer perimeter, and in the central elevator core. The floors were long span trusses running between the central core and the outer structural "tube."
Although they were not designed to stand up to a plane as large as a 747 (which didn't exist at the time the buildings were designed), it might surprise you to know that because there had been previous instances of planes hitting buildings in NYC, they WERE designed to take a hit from a 707. In point of fact, they actually survived the impact of the larger planes. They didn't collapse for approximately an hour after impact.
Also, the jet fuel (according to the fire guy) was probably completely burned off within 5 minutes after impact. After all, the tanks were in the wings, which were ripped off and ruptured as they passed through the structure at the perimeter of the buildings. The fuel was splashed all over the place. Jet fuel is basically kerosene. It doesn't explode like gasoline, but it does burn rapidly when unconfined.
All the engineers noted that the fireproofing applied to the structure of the towers had been problemmatic. In fact, they changed the material being used for fireproofing part way through the construction. Even so, the stuff didn't stick well to the metal. Those buildings swayed (and flexed) a LOT in high winds. The fireproofing material was not flexible. It was not well adhered to the steel before the impact of the planes, and it is not unreasonable to think that the impact knocked a lot more of it loose, or completely off. Although the jet fuel burned off rather quickly, what it did accomplish was to serve as a very effective fire-starter for the combustible contents of the buildings: papers, books, furniture, loose clothing, etc. This stuff burns slower than kerosene, and there was enough of a fuel load to generate a LOT of heat.
Basically, the structure melted. One of the earlier presentations I saw included a computer simulation of just which members were affected first and worst by the heat. Once those members (columns) began to buckle, it was a domino effect. The remaining structure, also compromised by heat, simply couldn't compensate for the first columns that failed, and down they came.
There were no explosives. Heck, I'm as much a conspiracy theorist as anyone, but ... there were no explosives.
I've never seen THAT theory, and yes, that is nuts. I'm a new yorker, and I've been to the WTC on numerous occassions(had a gig as a messenger for awhile after high school), and I can attest, that they were, in fact there...I'll admit to moonbat status, but even I wouldn't go that far...
