Google
Home arrow Politics arrow 9/11 Thought Experiment
9/11 Thought Experiment E-mail
Written by Karl Smithe   
Sunday, 16 March 2008

WTC explosionThe 9/11 Truth Movement has gotten extremely complicated and confusing with all of the different perspectives and interpretations of vast amounts of data resulting from the bizarre events of that day.  Some of which is neither correct nor important, so inevitably a lot of people dismiss the movement as a bunch of kooks which, unfortunately, some of them are.

So I propose a little thought experiment to simplify things a bit.

 

Imagine that we have WTC2, the south tower, intact as it was on Sept 10, 2001.  Since the plane impacted at the 81st level of the building let's completely remove FIVE LEVELS of the building, 79, 80, 81, 82 and 83.  Since each level of the building was 12 feet in height this would leave a 60 foot gap between the top of the 78th level and the bottom of the 84th.

Now that is far more damage than the airliner could possibly do.  It eliminates any debate about how hot the fires were and whether they could weaken the steel.  Obviously there is no point in discussing fake planes.

The formula for distance from acceleration and time is:

d = 1/2 a t^2

Since gravitational acceleration is 32 ft per seconds squared the data for this problem yields:

60 = 16 * t^2

Therefore the time is about 2 seconds.

1.936491673 sec = t

So the intact upper 27 levels would take 2 seconds to fall and impact the intact lower 78 levels.  The formula for velocity from acceleration and time is:

v = a * t

Which for these values yields:

64 ft/sec = 32 ft/sec^2 * 2 sec = 44 mph

Since each level of the World Trade Center was 12 feet the top of the 78th level was:

78 levels * 12 ft/level = 936 ft

Now if the falling 27 stories could maintain a constant velocity from the moment of impact until it reached the ground it is easy to compute how long that would take.

936 ft / 64 ft/sec = 14.625 seconds

If the bottom 78 floors prevent the top from accelerating but crumple at a constant velocity it would take 15 seconds to crush 78 floors.  Since the building came down in 11 seconds the top had to crush the bottom and accelerate at the same time.  A truly amazing feat.

Are we supposed to believe those 78 levels would not cause the falling mass to SLOW DOWN?

What is going to happen the instant the bottom of the 84th level comes in contact with the top of the 78th?  They are going to engage in a mutual crushing of steel, concrete and office furniture that would be deadly to behold.  But where is the energy to do that crushing going to come from?  It is going to come from the kinetic energy of the falling mass.  Which means the falling mass is going to SLOW DOWN.  It is going to DECELERATE.  It is going to undergo NEGATIVE ACCELERATION.  Which means it must take longer than 15 seconds to reach the bottom, if it ever does.

But to come up with anything vaguely resembling an accurate analysis of this simplified thought experiment we would have to know the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE on every level of the WTC.  The expected and maximum loads for each level would probably help too.  That would tell us how over-engineered the building was and the extra energy necessary to crush it.  Since the people who designed the World Trade Center way back in the 60's, when computers still had CORE MEMORY, it is certainly amazing that our EXPERTS don't even raise such childishly simple questions in these days of laptop supercomputers.  The NIST report mentions the total amount of steel in the towers three times but NEVER SPECIFIES the total amount of concrete though it says two types of concrete were were used.

Some people accuse the "conspiracy theorists" of not understanding the difference between static loading and dynamic loading as though the difference is going to cause the overloaded material to burst into dust.  But we are dealing with a material state with inputs applied and a known output of a TOTALLY DEMOLISHED BUILDING.  The known input is a 150 ton plane with 34 tons of kerosene traveling at 500+ mph.  How can we claim to know the state of the material if we don't know the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE on every level.  The believers in the official story demand proof of an energy input besides the plane but don't demand accurate information about the subject of the destruction.  You can't do an analysis if you don't know what you are analyzing.

Of course we can trust Dr. Sunder of the NIST when he says the buildings came down so fast because they were 70% air.  It is astounding that the nation that put men on the moon will tolerate crap like that.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/cons-flash.html

So until we can get such simple information as the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE on every level of the towers, then talking about fake planes, beam weapons and nuclear devices is absurd because we really don't understand what it was that was destroyed.




Reddit!Del.icio.us!Facebook!Slashdot!Technorati!StumbleUpon!Newsvine!Blinklist!Furl!
Trackback(0)
Comments (5)Add Comment
...
written by umbrarchist, September 03, 2008
{{{ Very thought provoking essay, but there are too many unknowns to try and explain why there are 4 seconds difference between a classroom calculation and actual destruction. }}}

I am not trying to account for a four second difference. I say there is no way those towers could collapse straight down in less than 18 seconds. The worst that should have happened is the portions above the impacts could have fallen down the sides of the buildings.

Our engineering schools should have all been demanding tables for distribution of steel and concrete within a few weeks of 9/11. The can't be teaching people to design skyscrapers without teaching them how to figure that out and have the buildings stand.

What kind of electronic computers were used to design the Empire State Building?

umbra
...
written by umbrarchist, April 12, 2008
Did you guys ever find out what happened to building #7 that decided to fall later? It was not in the final published report.


I like the, "it fell out of sympathy for the other buildings" explanation.

Sympathetic Vibration

umbra
...
written by jakelong, April 12, 2008
Looks like both of you are correct, just arguing about C from two ends of the spectrum. C is the main issue here. What in the hell makes up C? Is it tons of steel? Tons of concrete? Strength of steel below the 81 floor? Amount of debris hitting the lower floors at any given time?

Very thought provoking essay, but there are too many unknowns to try and explain why there are 4 seconds difference between a classroom calculation and actual destruction.

Did you guys ever find out what happened to building #7 that decided to fall later? It was not in the final published report.
...
written by umbrarchist, April 11, 2008
And what are you claiming C might be.

Apparently you missed the point of the essay even though I put it in BOLD three times.

In my thought experiment the bottom of the 84th level would hit the top of the 78th level at 44 miles per hour. But how much STEEL was on those level. That information should not be unknown. Those should not be variables. We should have had that information within SIX WEEKS of 9/11. There should be a table like this:

Steel Concrete
Level Tons Tons
110 xxx xxx
109 xxx xxx
108 xxx xxx
. xxx xxx
. xxx xxx
. xxx xxx
2 xxx xxx
1 xxx xxx
-1 xxx xxx
-2 xxx xxx
-3 xxx xxx
-4 xxx xxx
-5 xxx xxx
-6 xxx xxx


There should be numbers for all of those xxx's. The people who designed the towers in the 60s had to know what they were going to put on every level and how much it would weigh. The towers stood for 28 years and survived 85 mph wind and were designed to take 150 mph. It is absurd to think the palnes could bring them down in less than 2 hours so you will have to come up with something better than C because we are already missing the TONS of STEEL and TONS of CONCRETE and my objective is to demonstrate that lack.

umbra
...
written by site visitor, April 11, 2008
Although your thought process is impressive, you are attempting to harness far too many variables into a series of 2 well defined equations for acceleration and velocity.

There was far too much happening that day for those simple, concrete formulas to be applied in the forms you are using them. Derivatives and Integrals in grade school will always have a C that one has to take into account. Who in the world knows what C is as it applies to the buildings crumbling on 9/11?

You have the general idea, but your 8th grade formulas for acceleration and velocity are only a grainy starting point.

Write comment
quote
bold
italicize
underline
strike
url
image
quote
quote
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley
Smiley

security code
Write the displayed characters


busy
 
< Prev

Advertisements

© 2008 QuantumCritics.com