Zeitgeist, 9/11 Coincidences, 7/7 Ripple Effect, etc.

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Ok, if you were serious about this, then by that same arguement, you must believe the 9/11 conspiracy is false and actually supported by the gov't to control the conspiracy nuts. Yeah, I don't watch much South Park, but I seem to remember the reasoning was that something like 1/4 of all humans are idiots. Of course, you could just be one of the idiots, but that sounds like a cop-out to me.

Religious, check.
Trade peace for freedom, yes, because living 'peacefully' in prison isn't living. As many great Americans have said it, "Live free or die!"
Trade freedom for happiness, yes, because true happiness is the actual goal of most people's lives, thus trading anything for it is selling the farm.
Honesty, on the other hand, is one of the highest values I know, where as I spit on most public opinion (because I really do believe 1/4 of all Americans are idiots). You'd know this if you took 5 minutes to read our other posts before jumping at us. Here at the end, though, your blind assumptions are shown clear. I'm not militaristic, I actually prefer to avoid violence whenever possible. I'm not nationalistic, either. Honestly, I don't like the US that much, I just like it a bit better than any other country I've seen (plus, y'know, I live here and know the language and everything). If the US invaded Canada tomorrow, and didn't have one HELL of a good reason, I'd be perfectly willing to help the Canadians if I had the option. I'd certainly be vocal against it.

You assume I'm a liar because you don't like what you hear? Do you do that with everyone that contradics you? If you want to convince people here, calling an engineer who claims to be an engineer a liar isn't the way to go.

I don't know what engineerd you heard say it could withstand a 707 impact with similar fuel loadings, but they didn't know what they were talking about.

 

@Montresor: of course not. I value constructive criticism, ridicule a bit less, but no hard feelings to anyone. It's all in good fun, even though the topic is controversial. I do regret insulting people's religion, but I thought very few seriously religious people would be on a D&D forum (I thought it was called satan's game, but what do I know...).

Many people tell me they find the USgovt's explanation to make more sense, be more logical, etc. I think I've made a pretty good case why so many of their claims are unlikely, or even defy the laws of physics. The conspiracy theory is deemed unlikely based primarily in your trust upon the integrity of the US government. I'd like to correct some of the old opinions I've heard; If you choose to believe the official story, then this is based on credibility more than on facts. The USgovt's story is more trustworthy, more believable, or more reliable. It's their word against the 'truthers'. Their story has more holes than swiss cheese, so it can't be more logical, or likely.

"Live imprisoned or be unhappy?" You believe that you have to trade these values in, but since when have these concepts been mutually exclusive? Bush says they are, but I don't think so. I think they coincide.

I accused you, which I regret doing so directly, because the explanations you offered were counterintuitive. I never claimed to be an expert. But, with a university education i can mostly understand some of what experts say. And what you said, at least needed more explaining to make any sense.

Now I've heard statements to the contrary, and they make more sense. A prop-driven plane wouldn't create more force than a mild wind. Am I supposed to believe that a storm could have disintegrated the WTC? Even a localized force, damaging a portion of the support structure - would this bring it tumbling down like a house of cards? Sounds like a dangerously unstable building, slap bang in the heart of Manhattan! What about an eathquake? I know NYC doesn't get those, but a 110-storey building that isn't even earthquake-proof?

Assuming this is correct, only a portion of these outer support beams would be damaged. Since well over half the outer shell was intact, it doesn't seem likely that the building would come tumbling down. Gradually, *maybe*, but not at free-fall speed.

Office building have fire protocols. If it was packed with combustibles, the entire WTC would be in breach of protocols. Of course, much more things will catch fire when doused in kerosine, but how much can it be?

Now you're making sense. If you'd said this the first time, instead of that silly cigarette analogy, maybe I wouldn't have accused you of lying.
Let's say, that through some unfortunate coincidence, furnace fire conditions were mimicked by the building and the wind. How can people have been taped, leaning against these white-hot outer frame pillars? If some pillars remained cool while others were cooked, why did the building fall at free-fall speed? Ultimately, no explanation is possible for the lack of resistance while the building fell. The law of conservation of momentum would have predicted 45 seconds for the building to fall. Even if the pancake theory was true, the floors should have slowed the crash down one by one. They didn't, because they already started falling before the floor above could hit them.

I watch those too, but from a different perspective

 

Coineineagh, you have failed to take into account one of the most important factors, the wind.
The towers regularly swayed as much as 4" from their center. Now normally this isn't a problem, however when you have a huge diagonal gash thru more than half a dozen floors, it is.
Over the roughly an hour before the towers fell you had all of this energy pushing & swaying the towers. With the damaged structures the forces were much greater than they could stand.
As far as pancaking & slowing down, you have more weight falling as each floor fails so in actuality the rate of fall should increase until reaching terminal velocity.

Now as for the plane that was headed to the pentagon, . . . . . . . i have to say,IMHO, it was probably shot down by the air force. I don't think it will ever be admitted however strategically & tactically(but not politically) it was the right decision.

 

If the top floors were so badly beaten, then the top floors would have started crumbling. But the symmetrical dive into its own footprint is an obvious demolition. There wasn't much wind for the hour it was burning, as you see the smoke traveling away at a moderate pace.
Now I'm not even considering floor resistance here (which I should), but the simple inertia of the floors would have slowed the descent down a little, every 3 or so meters. I know it speeds up, I understand gravity. But this collapse was at free-fall speed, no resistance, no inertia, just acceleration at the speed of gravity.

I heard it was headed for the Whitehouse. But the crash site is a hole in the ground with rubbish thrown in. There were no bodies, and it didn't look like a plane crash atall. If you ask me, it was a story concocted to make people believe terrorists had very nearly destroyed the Whitehouse. But the gov't had no desire to destroy it.

 

Here you go Coineineagh, http://www.911myths.com/index.html
At this site they debunk every single point you have raised & about 100 more about the 9/11 attacks with pictures, links to videos & everything.

 

The rubble fell within 10 seconds, that was doing a free fall. The main section of the tower, which was slowed down by the lower levels, fell within 16 to 19 seconds. You claim that since the entire tower fell within 10 seconds, it must have been doing a free fall. I hereby tell you that the entire tower took at least 25 seconds to fall completely. It took 19 seconds for the main rubble, but 10 seconds for the debris. Here is a link with seismic data


But anyhow, here comes the big main problem I have with your theory. The Great Snook already asked a big part of it, but you just completely avoided it by responding with a vague remark about how every member of the CIA, FBI and NSA was in it and that you dislike tennis terms... right.

A lot of people here think that the entire Bush presidency was one major screw-up. The economy, ENRON, the war in Iraq, WMD's, the war in Afghanistan, the low dollar, Katrina, wire-taps, the no-child-gets-ahead errr... no-child-left-behind act, the PATRIOT act. The blunders are just too numerous to come up with. A lot of people even have the opinion that he is the worst president in the history in the US (I for one, do not. Buchanan was worse.) Most people certainly agree that he is an idiot.

And you, here, accuse Bush and his cronies of pulling a stunt so enormously, and monstrously HUGE. Involving thousands and thousands of people who are working so extremely coordinated and so extremely efficient for such a simple, vague and fragile, goal: power. The people world wide have been played so deftly by the media that everyone who has found the truth is thought of as a nutjob. The media even furthers these prejudices by actively broadcasting Loose Change (no kidding, the public TV stations did that here.) They are thereby making us skeptical and cynical towards any 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Like I said, the goal, was power for all involved. Which, for the first time in human history, they apparently managed to share! Because, up until now, absolutely NO ONE from high up, like a banker or a government official or some secret service agent has come out and confessed it to us. So that we could overrun their ranks in a new Red October with that person as our new leader. I find this very hard to believe. You wouldn't put acts like mass murder above them, but betrayal? Let me state it again, in clear words, this balance of power, which you claim to exist, has a shorter life expectancy than the infamous Higgs Boson.
According to you, every agent in the FBI, CIA, NSA, whatever, is totally committed to maintaining this fragile balance of power. Even Valerie Plame didn't turn around when she was back stabbed, to uncover the whole plot, and she was completely surrounded by the media. Oh right, perhaps she did confess but it was quickly covered up since the media, the interviewers, cameramen are involved too. She even wrote a book but her publishers are also probably involved.

What would such power mean to those thousands involved? How much power does each individual hold and why are they content with that measly share? Why did no one of those ten thousands suddenly feel regret? Hell, even some of the Nazis were more humane than that! They even tried to assassinate Hitler!

To reiterate. This stunt was so ****ing enormous and so extremely well performed, that Machiavelli, bless his soul, would cry of joy (it's a euphemism ) when he would hear of this plan. It at least deserves some praise, because it is genius in every way.

 

I anxiously await a reply to my point which Morgoth expanded on so beautifully.

 

I think we scared him off with all the facts

 

Yes, we do. They build a boat. I've found a site that shows a picture of a place where they could have built and lauched the boat.

 

This whole thread smacks to me of a form of trolling -- the fellow who started this thread seems to be conducting some sort of sociology experiment for a University class -- "how much poop can I shake up by advocating a truly ridiculous premise and then sticking to it?" (I'm sure the actual project proposal would be couched in suitable Sociology terminology, I just reduced it to its scatalogical essence.)

Or maybe it's just plain old fashioned "I like to argue ridiculous things". Either way, it's such a silly thread I'm gonna forgo any further discusion.

 

Patience, patience, glasshoppah. I was just helping a friend move house, and working. I can't man the keyboards 24/7, I'll be gone a couple hours after this too. I'm running late now, actually.
Morgoth, a very eloquent piece indeed, and thanks for refraining from insults this time. To first respond to martaug's debunking site: I quickly perused through the site, and checked on a point that I was going to bring up, about Cheney being in direct control of NORAD on 9/11. They go into great detail (in the chapter "Stand Down"), and I thank you for showing me this, as they appear to expand on the issue objectively. My statement sounds very damning for Cheney, but the site adds the necesarry nuances. Cheney is in command of the Office of National Preparedness, brought into being four months earlier, tasked with commanding all kinds of defenses and emergency services in the event of a calamity. They are also mandated to control excercises. So, while not able to disprove the claim completely, they add nuances that were left out by conspiracy films. A very credible debunking site, and worthy of further study. But it is a lot of work...

So I didn't provide adequate counter-argument as to how the idiotic Bush administration could pull this off. OK then. I read somewhere that psychiatrists estimated his IQ to be 120, that's by no means retarded. He probably has a debilitating form of stagefright, and the aire of derisive laughter around him probably keeps him stumbling through speeches and even hallways. And it could all be a deliberate act, perish the thought...
Funny you mentioned ENRON. Did you know the files needed to continue the court case against Enron and other large frauds, was being stored in WTC building 7? I wonder which documents they claim to have lost in the Pentagon attack?
Nice seismic data, it's in yet another debunking site. I feel the need to bring some backup, so I'll just link 911truth.org here, in case you hadn't alredy heard of it.
The seismic data doesn't coincide with tapes you can see of the collapse, which show the whole building uniformly collapsing to dust in 10 seconds. The heavy rubble, which appears to take longer, is nowhere to be seen in the videos.

I find this very hard to believe. Can you imagine the people not being confused and stunned when the truth comes out, and blindly following this heroic leader person in a commie revolution? Yeah right! No way that even uncovering the truth would give anyone that much authority and credibility. People will want to wait for elections, and await court justice.

 

Well, yeah theres a lot of ridiculous theories and crazy ideas that dont make sense, and some things that look compelling, but dont hold up under close scrutiny.

But, here are some thoughts that still bother me.

1. The US government, or its agencies, confiscated most of the footage of 9/11, especially footage related to the Pentagon attack. Now, I know that American blood was running high, but was there any reason why threats were made, and why the footage couldnt be returned later after it had been examined? Now, in my mind, whenever an agency tries to remove footage of an incident, it smells of a cover up, because it looks like they are trying to cover their tracks up. Whatever the real motive for confiscating that footage, the fact that it was confiscated, and confiscated aggressively, leads me to think it wasnt done to have a look at it, but to keep it out of public hands.

2. The tower fall speed. Whatever you say about how complicated a demolition is to set up, the towers own inertia should have prevented it falling as fast as if it were in free fall. When one floor buckles and hits the floor beneath it, it should slow down slightly as some of its energy is absorbed by the entire remainder of the building. That should have at least a small but noticeable effect on the collapse time, but didnt seem to. Why? Either we have to conclude that, when the first floor collapsed, the floors beneath it were no longer structurally sound, or the force from above was far stronger than to even permit a slight delay. As for why the floors may no longer have been structurally sound, well.... thats anyones guess, I'll leave it up to you.

3. The above mentioned point about the plane even getting close to the Pentagon. Why werent fighters scrambled to shoot it down on sight?

hmm, there might have been another point, but I forgot what it was!

Anyway, there are 2 other points I have about conspiracies in general.

Some people have been arguing that such a massive conspiracy is out of the league of the government. And, in some ways, the point may be that they are right. Think about it - the perfect conspiracy is one in which nobody catches even a whisper. If 9/11 was the perfect conspiracy, there would be no evidence to debate over. Discussions like this wouldnt even happen. So, the fact that we have any suspicious evidence at all, although it definitely doesnt prove that there was a conspiracy, also does not rule out a conspiracy. Basically, the competence or lack thereof of the government is not a good enough reason to rule out a conspiracy, because perfect competence is not needed to pull one off, just adequate competence.

Related to that, people have asked "But they couldnt possibly get everyone to keep their mouths shut!". Well, related to what I said above, maybe thats the point, they werent able to, but they know that because the theory sounds ludicrous anyway, nobody will believe them, so there is no point in silencing every single critic, just the ones that actually have hard proof and a reputation good enough to be believed. Also remember that the government actually does have a fair bit of power over its employees, in terms of agreements, policies etc. Hell, the companies that received National Security Letters werent even allowed to disclose the fact that the got them! If an order to keep silent was issued, it would most likely be obeyed. Summary: governments need not keep complete control over everybody in order to silence a conspiracy, natural skepticism will do that for them as long as they silence the most believable critics.

Think about your own reaction to the idea of a conspiracy - your first thought is most probably, "Thats just stupid". If the conspiracy was true, and some have been known to be true, that would be as effective as if the government had bought you out. Again, it doesnt prove anything, I'm just citing it to show information control need not be in the form of "kill or buy off every single person".

The last thing is that, if the conspiracy were true, we couldnt possibly guess at the motives of those involved. Perhaps someone at the top wanted a better view from his penthouse apartment. Perhaps a real estate magnate wanted the property for development later. Perhaps the thought of increased world sympathy to wars in the Middle East is well worth the price in American blood and capital. I dont know the answer, the point is that nobody except those (potentially) involved do. I'm just saying you cant rule out a conspiracy because at surface value it appears to be of little gain - you cant be sure what the gain actually was, so you cant be in any kind of position to decide whether it was worth it.

 

Coin: I've seen all these arguments before. Nothing new. They remind me of the "fact" that man never landed on the moon (another older conspiracy theory). Another good conspiracy theory is that the CIA and FBI cooperated to kill Kennedy.

The World Trade Tower collapse can be summed up with one word: Energy.

Each aircraft weighed over 160,000 pounds and was moving approximately of 500 miles per hour. The kinetic energy of each plane exceeded 200,000,000,000 joules of energy -- this is equivalent to 50 tons of explosive (not counting the fuel on board). It is reasonable to assume a blast of 50 tons of explosives would weaken the structure. Another factor is that steel will creep (stretches under load) when above 660°F. When steel creeps the length is increased and the width proportionally decreases -- this weakens the structure even more. Creep is a time and temperature related function, i.e., creep is accelerated by higher temperatures.

Once the supports were sufficiently weakened by initial blast and subsequent creep of the steel, potential energy took over. Each tower weighed nearly a billion pounds. A billion pounds of concrete and steel falling results in an energy equivalent to nearly 200 tons of explosives. The surrounding buildings (and people near the collapse) never had a chance.

Oh yes... the 50 tons blast from the aircraft impacting the towers (or Pentagon) and subsequent fire would leave very little of the airplane intact. Metals used in the airline industry burn very hot and produce their own oxygen -- this makes it very difficult to put out an aircraft fire and leaves very little residue.

 

Funny that you suddenly change the subject. It's also funny that Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Paula Rieker, Richard Causey and William Roberts were convicted. Without the files! Since you claim that they where obviously involved, it's also funny that they were jailed. One even got a sentence of 24 years!

Then you're obviously not looking good enough. In this video(I swear, it's not Rick Astley ), which I took from the site that you and I linked to, shows the fall from a number of different angles. For the fall starting at 00:44, you can still see the heavy rubble at 00:56, just disappearing behind the 7WTC building, which was 226 meters tall. Meaning, that 12 seconds after the start of the collapse, the top of the debris was only half-way in its fall. I know that it takes some effort to see, but that is because of all the smoke and light debris covering almost the entire tower. I am sure that without the smoke, seeing the heavy rubble fall after 18 seconds would be much more easier. How convenient that the smoke is blocking our view!

Didn't the top, the part above the impact, collapse first?

You know whats really funny? That you completely avoided me and Snook's point. You only took a pot shot at the weakest points of my arguments.

Oh, are we talking about the same people that created the world largest cover up that was so enormously successful that it would make Machiavelli cry? Are you saying that doing this stunt flawless was within their power but using the ultimate power of the global media to rat on the others, strengthening their own base of power and cover up their asses, is beyond them?
Perhaps you're also going to argue that they themselves understand the fragile position they're in and are afraid to make another move? Didn't they already prove their love for power by risking everything during the attack and didn't absolute power corrupt absolutely?

And I read somewhere that he is rambling idiot, what's your point?

But, hey, me and a lot other people are still waiting until you show us how that extremely fragile base of power managed to stay alive for 7 years.

 

Thanks Proteus, at least someone's willing to consider that large scale conspiracies aren't automatically a preposterous notion.

T2Bruno, that is indeed a huge amount of kinetic energy. It impacted the tower an hour before the collapse. The buildings stood tall and proud for an hour before disintegrating in 10-18 seconds. That doesn't seem the slightest bit odd to you?

Morgoth, I thought your big point was that Bush was too stupid to pull it off, so that's what i responded to. So I assume you meant this sentence in bold then. This isn't in clear words, especially if you don't know the 'infamous Higgs Boson'. I looked it up to understand your analogy, and I believe you mean that the conspiracy would be very unstable and short-lasting. This rests on the assumption of the independent uncensored media, willing to listen to and publish every conspiracy story. Also the assumption that the people won't (let themselves) be confused, were the truth to come out. And the assumption that there were thousands of co-conspirators able to see the whole picture, and procure damning evidence. These assumptions about the balance of power are founded on belief and credibility. This is not a strong point. Neither you nor I have full insight into the processes and interactions between the governments---media metworks---population. We only make assumptions based upon the impressions we get. I can't disprove your belief in the balance of power. You may see a member of the Bush administration appear on Saturday Night Live, and think: "He's an OK guy". If I didn't see that SNL episode, I'm less inclined to trust him than you. Americans are the fiercest disbelievers for this reason, but it's just belief based on trust and credibility.
I'll attempt again to attack these concepts of 'If the truth came out all hell would break loose!' and 'Covering up so much evidence is impossible!'. For this I'll copy a few passages from 911truth.org:

Charlie Sheen.... hahahahaha

Heat transferal; it involves concentrating the heat from a large fire, and/or insulating it. How can this be achieved, when the support structures are on the outside of the building? The outside supports are distributed all around the building, to weaken them, they all need to be heated.
About the collapse speed: At the full speed of gravity, encountering only air resistance, it would have taken 8-10 seconds. 45 seconds when accounting for the inertia of the floors (they start out still, and travel with collapsing floors, thus slowing down the total floors' rate of collapse. The law of conservation of momentum). It should have been minutes when considering that the floors are attached to the support structure, and also offer resistance, before breaking off and joining the pancake.
The only direct way for the kerosine to have traveled down to floors below, to heat up the support structure, is through the elevator shaft in the centre of the building. The support structures, to quote NOG, are on the outside of the building.

Elaborate indeed, but no other plan would achieve all of the following, without more detrimental effects:
*- Improve public opinion for war. Create a reason to go to war, and an enemy. A "new Pearl Harbour".
*- It is uncertain how much gold was actually stored in the WTC vaults (or whether it was all found again), but it was significant, and the whole affair raised the price of gold considerably, great for traders in gold.
*- Strike fear into the population, enabling the government to take away civil liberties.
*- Get rid of some expensive buildings, which also needed to be renovated to remove asbestos, which would cost billions.
*- Make countless stockbrokers a bundle of money on airlines put-options.
*- Destroy court evidence for numerous fraud cases, preventing a stock market crash. The Enron guys may have been convicted, but you can't blame them for trying.
*- Allow an oil-producing country to be occupied, also raising the price of oil. Great for traders in oil, such as Bush and his Bin Laden trade partners.
*- Create a steady demand for war materials. Great for traders in war, such as Bush and his Bin Laden trade partners.
*- Air defense blunders, showing the ineffectiveness of the department of defense, further justifying an increase in defense budget.
*- Raise the popularity of the administration, they become war heroes.
*- Give US & NATO troops field experience.
*- Increased military spending, borrowed directly from the Federal Reserve, enriching its owners. Federal Reserve has owners, it's not state run.
*- This devalues the dollar, causing bankruptcies and mortgage crisis, allowing the rich to buy up companies and real estate.
*- Namecalling: Whoever the government calls "Believed-to-be-linked-to-al-qaida" is fair game. A perpetual "War on Terror".
*- Polarization: Increased loyalty from the more radical christians. More christians become radical. More people become christians.
*- Nationalization: Increased loyalty and trust in the government, as people feel the need to work together and help their country in a time of trouble.
*- Less crime and unemployment, as people are encouraged to join the army.
*- Anti-American sentiment in the Middle-East creates the perfect patsy, who by their own opinions, incriminate themselves. Criticism of the USA worldwide becomes associated with terrorism.

The Bush administration couldn't believe their luck!

 

Next question would be: so what?

If the Bush government is SO powerful and SO clever and SO unstoppable - then there is clearly nothing we do about them, so why not just give up and go back to playing more computer games? What do we gain, even if we do uncover this conspiracy?

Now don't come back with "apathy is the ally of the tyrant" or some such thing. Because if what you are saying is correct, then democracy is pointless so we might as get on with our own lives and let the immortal politicians and evil bankers and whoever else is involved just carry on doing what they are doing. Nothing we can do about it.

Or is there? Because if there is, then these guys aren't all powerful, which means they could never have pulled this off.

Either way, there is no point in debating it any further. Either they are thick and could never do it, or they are geniuses and we can't stop them. Either way, playing more computer games and not worrying about this any more, is the correct way forward.

 

Paging Mr. Coin, Paging Mr. Coin- We are still waiting for your explanation of how there isn't a single person who has come forward and said they were involved or at least a single person who has come forward to say they know of someone else who was involved.

Stop focusing on Youtube videos and answer the question.

 

The building was put together using spanning wires similar to the Golden Gate Bridge. However these spanning wires were throughout the inside of the building. It is the spanning wires that held the floors in place. The floors, in turn, provided compressive resistance to the vertical structural members. When the spanning wires parted (from the creep factor I mentioned earlier), the floors collapsed -- all the floors above the failed spanning wires -- and the structural members collapsed in on the building. This is how these buildings are designed to fail.

The 45 second mark is quite a bit off and shows a misinterpretation of the law of conservation of momentum.

The law of conservation of momentum states the total (additive) momentum of all objects involved in a collision must be conserved -- that is, the sum of momentum of the objects before the collision must be equal to the sum of the momentum of the objects after the collision. Momentum is mass times velocity: mv.

mv(falling part) + mv(stable floor) = mv(new falling part)​

You have the mass of 30 or so floors falling on a stationary floor -- conservation of momentum dictates the total speed of the falling mass has been decreased by a factor of approximately 3% initially (mass from 30+ floors falling on one floor -- all with equal mass). As the falling mass increases, the percent slowdown factor decreases proportionally. This is what was observed on the videos -- the initial collapse looked as if it was in slow motion, then increased speed going down the trade towers. As the falling portion got to the bottom of the towers it was moving with tremendous velocity as expected by the conservation of momentum. The total slow down by the all stationary floors would have only been a few seconds.

I'm a scientist, so I just look at the science of the arguments presented in the videos -- which is questionable. If questionable science is used as evidence, the arguments used in the videos become less compelling.

 

@HarbourBoy
That is kind of my initial question: How do you feel about this, if it were true?
I'm inclined to feel the same way; the culprits are deeply entrenched, and untouchable. Without a larger awareness, there isn't even a chance that the truth would come out. So just go back to playing computer games. I never started this thread to incite people, I just hoped to make people more aware. to quote one of my first posts:

People being driven to their deaths, without anybody being aware of what's going on, is just despicable. With awareness though, it's a little less sad. Apathy isn't a crime, but it is a less commendable quality of human nature.
To reiterate, I don't think a conspiracy requires that much intelligence. It may seem impressive, if they fooled us all for so long. But if the mass media is helping them mislead the public, there is no genius required. Even an idiot can make "humans and fish coexist peacefully".
@TGSnook
I believe I gave an explanation in my last post, read below the first quote. Morgoth's point is based on numerous assumptions, which can be wrong. People did come forward, with fairly damning evidence too. But what evidence can't be put to question with a good lawyer on the case?
@T2Bruno
This is the first I've heard of spanning wires, but I'll take your word for it. It doesn't explain how the entire outer support structure could be superheated to weaken it, and make it also come crashing down so quickly. Of course you're right, I haven't done the math myself. Perhaps 45 seconds is a misinterpretation, and 22 seconds is possible. A 3% reduction in the initial speed means a lot for an accelerating object, though. The final floors would each have given less than 1% slowdown, but it all adds up to what should be a significant delay past free-fall speed.
What still concerns me, is the total lack of resistance offered by the concrete. I'm aware of the creep issue, but this is unlikely to have suddenly weakened all 110 storeys at the same time. A massive outburst of heat from igniting thermate would have completely disintegrated the concrete, and chopped up the entire steel structure. That's what I'm seeing when I watch the collapse.
Steel frame buildings of all kinds of construction catch fire all over the world. Never before have they collapsed, let alone disintegrated so quickly. Some buildings were blazing hot for over a day, and still the iron framework stays erect in the end, showing no signs of weakening.

True. And I appreciate your input. Many people have succeeded in weakening evidence presented in the videos, but it still doesn't come close to making the official story more compelling.

 

coineineagh: I calculated approximately 23 seconds. Both of us have made an invalid assumption in these calculations: that the entire force of the impact would destroy the next floor. All that is necessary is for a significant enough mass to weaken the next floor for collapse to occur. Typically floors and spanning wires are rated to a specific capacity. Designers usually use a 4:1 safety factor (you can find this in ACI 318 Building Code). This means that only four times the rated load of a single floor is necessary to collapse that floor. When a building starts to collapse a rippling affect is sent throughout the structure -- this would be akin to a domino affect. The resistance of each floor is much less than calculated because we assumed perfect resistance to the falling mass.

One other item that was neglected in pure conservation of momentum calculation was the affect of energy on the system -- in this case kinetic energy. This is akin to the question "why does a bullet cause so much damage to the target while the gun does not harm the shooter?" The momentum of the gun and the bullet are the same -- it is the kinetic energy difference of the gun versus the bullet that makes the bullet lethal (kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared). A structural member can only absorb a specific amount of energy before failure. A quarter-billion pounds of mass falling with an acceleration of 32 feet per second squared is a lot of energy.

As I mentioned previously, the entire systems of concrete floors and spanning wires, combined with the structural supports, provided the necessary strength for the building. Take away one of those items and the building is no longer stable. The force of impact was equivalent to ~50 tons of explosives -- this significantly weakened the structure. The resulting heat from the fire finished the destruction by heating the already weakened spanning wires to the point where they could no longer support the load required.

Unfortunately, a building is like a house a cards -- take away one part of the support and the house falls. The exterior supports did not need to be damaged at all.

I agree completely, but none of those fires had been caused by a 50 ton explosive force. The 4:1 safety factor I mentioned previously is very adequate for all but the most extreme occurances.

The use of a thermate explosive device was not necessary -- the airplane provided all the explosive force necessary. In fact the energy from impact was probably greater than the amount of explosive that could have been loaded into the building in any reasonable amount of time.