Mike says:

#78 just me

Ya, exactly, forget about Obama. That’s what I said, presidents are just puppets.

#79 Greg Allen

No, I’ve never worked with steel. I’d think, with my unexpert knowledge, that weakened steel wouldn’t lead to a demolition like collapse at close to free fall speed.

For me though, it’s more about the big picture. 911 is only a small part of what is going on all over the world and I have seen enough proof from both sides to be convinced of what I believe. I know that’s “classic” conspiracy theorist mentality but that’s what interests me and I don’t care about how I “should” be thinking.

peterg says:

For over 50 years the British, French and American political and cultural incompetence, through 2 world wars screwed the middle east. They together plunked down the jewish state in the middle of Arab land for they felt guilty, as they did’nt act when the Nazis were killing Jews in their thousands. Then when middle eastern nations got some political power through oil, they decided to put the boot on the other foot.
Yes, and out of this came plenty of middle eastern radicals, bastards who hate the west and all it intails…The list of hijacks, killings, hostage taking, mass murder, international arms dealing, drug running to fuel wars is endless.
There is Rowanda, India and Pakistan, African nations , Ugandah,Congo and list is goes on
That tragic day on September 11th, sad as it may seem, is just another pot hole in the road of international politics and power.

Mr. Fusion says:

# Mike,

No, I’ve never worked with steel. I’d think, with my unexpert knowledge, that weakened steel wouldn’t lead to a demolition like collapse at close to free fall speed.

Then you have no idea of mechanical properties. And I suppose when your doctor tells you smoking causes lung cancer you’re going to dispute that too.

Steel is a plastic material and will deform. A simple experiment would be to take a steel coat hanger and push the ends together, eventually the hanger will bend. If the steel is heated the amount of force required to deform the hanger decreases. The higher the heat the less load it can hold before deformation.

Basic skyscraper construction consists of a steel frame made up of lateral and vertical support members. Everything else is attached to that frame. When the frame is damaged it requires the adjoining support members to carry their load. That load is not distributed equally; it is distributed unequally to the support members closest to the damaged frame. When those support members lose their strength the added load will cause the steel to deform.

When the support members lose their integrity they will catastrophically collapse. That is what happened with the Twin Towers and WTC7. All three buildings were damaged and on fire. The unequal loads caused the softened support members to deform until the buildings collapsed.

Free fall is (colloquially) the speed an object will attain when the force of gravity is balanced against all resistance. A typical example would be a parachutist before opening his chute. In all the WTC buildings that collapsed, each floor that crashed on the one below added resistance that would slow this process down significantly. Because of the dust and debris this process can not be seen in any of the WTC collapse videos.

With the Twin Towers there were large pieces of the buildings that did fall off and would have reached free fall. It is a common misconception that the buildings fell into their footprints. The debris field covered several blocks and damaged several other buildings.