MCM: From a physics standpoint, the forging of a sword is a bit different than what happens to steel in a fire with extremely high temperatures. Forging a sword by alternately heating, pounding and cooling the metal dozens of times actually forces the molecules of Iron and carbon in the steel into more of a “crystalline”-like formation, which makes it stronger.

Newtonian physics was the downfall of WTC. The primary supports were in the exterior walls. The interior was supported primarily with metal crossbeams, to minimize the need for space-hogging load-bearing walls. As the heat from the fire intensified, the crossbeams bowed downward, pulling the walls inward from the vector force of gravity. And the rest is a perpetual “Rudith”/GOP photo-op….

Never ‘we’

And they don’t have anchorpersons. They are news readers. They read the effing news. They are not celebrities.

Oh Katie. It is a tragic shame that nobody who felt like you did had a popular public forum . Perhaps if some mythical person (lets call her Catie Kouric) were a journalist or TV host on a show seen by millions of people she could have spoken up and explained her concerns about the march to war and perhaps showed down the rush.

Too bad no such person existed, isn’t it

You cats all love dangly things, Qetesh. Once, when an ex of mine was getting out of the shower, my feline pounced and, well, it wasn’t pretty.

Thinker, as I recall the burning jet fuel reached 1500 degrees F. This melted the steel beams. The jets were both fully loaded with fuel. Of course the freaking building collapsed.

Are the neocons evil enough to do something this horrendous? I’m afraid the answer to that might be yes. Are they capable of this sort of planning and execution? Please. Of course they’re not.

Must go be productive now.

my guess is that every engineering department within a 100 mile radius of Thinker has already slapped him with a restraining order. They tend to hold a grudge when you walk in and start yelling at the secretaries.

The kinetic energy of a falling object is half the mass times velocity squared, or KE=0.5mv^2. If you substitute v=at, which means (assuming acceleration is constant) velocity is acceleration times elapsed time, you get KE=0.5m(at)^2.

So the kinetic energy of a falling object increases proportional to time squared; in other words, the longer an object falls, the faster it falls, and the more energy it accumulates–and the increase happens very quickly. (All that energy, incidentally, is more than enough to explain the dust cloud and heat at the base of the rubble.)

With a falling skyscraper, though, it’s even more complicated: as the top of a tower fell on 9/11, it gained mass from the bits it smashed into and dragged down with it. So we have mass increasing linearly, and velocity increasing exponentially. In comparison, the resistance provided by the remaining floors of the tower is constant.

If you subtract a constant from a value that is increasing exponentially… you still get a value that is increasing exponentially. That’s why the towers fell so fast, and why it still looks like free-fall. No holograms or missiles or mysteriously unnoticed preparations for demolition are required–just a high-school understanding of physics.

Thinker, if you *are* still around, go to the local university and ask for half an hour from someone in the civil engineering or architecture departments. You’ll have a whole new perspective on how failure occurs in major structures, and maybe you’ll stop pestering my intertoobz.

Is anyone out there still in that camp, the we need to fight back, but the war as it stands now is reprehensible? JRR Tolkien once complained about Hitler’s use (misuse) of Germanic history and heritage (he called him a “ruddy ignoramus”) as potentially damning the image of that heritage and pride forever due to its misuse. Similarly, I feel that “the flag-wavers” here are doing rather the same thing. It is no terrible thing to be proud of one’s country in general, but this equaling of “patriotism” with support for the Iraq War is a smear on us all.

Hell, they don’t even recall the old “the few, the proud, the Marines” commercial in which the alternate between shots of a Marine in full dress and shots of his sword being forged. It’s hot, and soft, thus can be shaped, no melting required.

But I suggest the pie treatment from here on…

“Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.”

Oh, well. I guess I’ll go back to sleep.

Yeah, something like a PLANE HITTING THE BUILDING and the ENSUING FIRE. That’d do it.

The World Trade Center wasn’t a solid block of steel. Skyscrapers are mostly air surrounded by a handful of steel columns, beams and decks.

Think about the forces acting on the upper halves of the buildings at the time of collapse. There were only two: wind and gravity, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t very windy that day. (The force of the airplane was mostly absorbed by the structure; it’s more important that the airplane took out structural columns and tore off fireproofing.) It would’ve been unusual if the towers had collapsed anywhere besides straight down.

Does anyone in the industry even know what the word “journalist” means anymore? What in the holy hell is going on inside our university journalism programs?

I’m actually taking a Journalism class right now (at Harvard) specifically to find that out.

It’s too early for me to form any definitive conclusions but I will say the spirit of investigative journalism does not appear present in most of the students. They seem content to write cat-stuck-in-a-tree stories.

See, Thinker, most people here would at least be polite about your contentions if you only approached this as a respectful debate, and not as a chance for you to abuse some lefties. People are responding badly, in the main, because you’re being so bloody objectionable. In addition, we’re not really sure why you’ve hijacked a thread about Jonah to launch into what seems to be your favourite topic of discussion.

Now I’m being at my most serious and honest here. I think most of us would agree that there are things about the official 9/11 narrative that don’t pass the smell test. But you’re trying to force all of ‘em down our throats all at once, without regard for any demurral. And that’s impolite.

You’ve also demonstrated that you know bugger-all about SN if you think that anyone here cares about Britney et al. And that’s insulting, as well as marking you Just Plain Troll.

If you want to have a sensible discussion, then apologise like a good boy. If not, then just bugger off back to wherever you came from.

Hey, hands off the Schroedinger, friend. That cat’s mine.

How do you get your druid to behave?

HEAR! Teh Mikey tell his tale!
SEE! Teh Qetesh swallow her tongue!

We adults is talkin’ here, in measured tones, about a right-wing fucktard, and in you stamp, stridently declaring your 9/11 conspiracy theories all over the place. That’s just plain impolite, dude. That’s pissing on a conversation that you weren’t even invited to.

See me dangle my participle! I am unfearing of the Grammar Police!

I’d say there’s a definite possibility of that one. It’s a well-worn trick, I believe, and has been used a lot by the likes of Rove. Pah.

HRC ain’t the answer.

Hormone Replacement? Does that help with Teh Editing?