The $2,000$ 9/11 Challenge

Originally posted by newtron25
Yup. A deck of cards and a marble. That'll do it.

Then try it, you'll make an easy cool 2K and prove me wrong.
What name should I make the check to?

Newton's Law of Conservation of Momentum would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass increases and the free-fall speed decreases.

So what?

Thank you SteveR, in fact there are several laws of physics which would have to be eliminated to create a 'pancake collapse', least of which is Newton's Law of Conservation of Momentum.

But some people won't understand these simple rules of physics. I just hope that someone is going to try to experiment and find out on their own.

If you know that much about physics, why you won't show that cumulative collapse isn't possible (or that it can't happen in under 15 seconds).

You can assume, that each collide takes same amount of energy, that one floor gets when it drops that 3.6 meters. By that rate, it takes about 13 seconds to fall through about 70 - 80 floors (if I remeber correct). Do the math your self, if you don't believe it!

Let us put it this way, in the second collapse, there was about 20 floors above the said breaking point and at least 80 intact floors below the breaking point. So imagine if you will a stack of 10 bricks loosely piled one on top of each other. Then grab the top 2-3 bricks, lift them up and slam them down as hard as you can into the top of the remaining 7 or 8 bricks. You might be able to crack one or two bricks toward the top of the pile but you won't be able to pulverize anything into dust as was done in both towers. Much less pulverize a stack of 7-8 bricks completely into dust.

So your telling me, that WTC floors would have stopped that collapse? How it could? Do you realize how much mass there was comming down? Lol.. =P

quote: About that other challenge.. I think that 100 MPH wind is bit overkill for my hardly ½ kg tower

Well, i think he is reasonable since the WTC towers were built to resist 140 MPH winds

Yeah, but my tower is 1:400 when compared to real WTC 1 or 2, so IMO wind speed should be smaller too.

With the two towers, most of the debris fell outside of their footprint

Where is the proof? Core was inside footprint and so were most of the floors...

quote: I wonder why it doesn't require that my tower would have to weight atleast 2 tonns.

Imagine that, 2 tons of pancake mix! That's enough to feed my fat ex-wife for a week!

I hope you'r just being sarcastic..

Oh, and this one:

quote: My tower will be 15 x 15 x 100 cm. The rest will be a surprice..

Let me guess .... you are off to the store to buy pancake mix?

No, I'm using Spaghetti I've done all 4 walls by now.. I should get some results on weekend. There will be 12 floors.

Originally posted by PepeLapew

Originally posted by newtron25
Yup. A deck of cards and a marble. That'll do it.

Then try it, you'll make an easy cool 2K and prove me wrong.
What name should I make the check to?

This is not a direct correlation between what happens in a room with a model and what happens in real life with an airplane and a massive building.

Second, I couldn't even come close to replicating the specs on how the WTC was built, unless I was funded directly by NASA or MIT or someplace that was willing to allow me the opportunity to build a 1:400 scale version of the whole thing.

What you don't understand is the complexity that is involved. Even if I were to try to build a model that LOOKED exactly like the towers, as simple as it may seem to you, it would require way more time, money and energy than a mere $2,000 could offer incentive for....besides anyone who is considering the task as a way of seeing how it could have happened is fooling themselves.

When scaling down an event that takes place, the physics do apply the same, but it is the margin of error of then translating what you just observed at 1/400th the size of the real thing back to the full size....when you do that you lose out in accuracy in what you are trying to replicate.

Fool. That's why I don't even have to try to prove you wrong. Your challenge is flawed from the very beginning.

Originally posted by PepeLapew
But some people won't understand these simple rules of physics. I just hope that someone is going to try to experiment and find out on their own.

I hope that people will post their failures as much as they do their successes. The failure to accomplish this task is just as important as the success in achieving the task IMO. Although, I still stand by what I said previously about scaled down towers.

Fool. That's why I don't even have to try to prove you wrong. Your challenge is flawed from the very beginning.

Actually there isn't anything wrong about this challenge, but it doesn't prove ANYTHING about how real size tower would behave.

Let me guess msdos, you going to make the floor connections as weak as possible and then gently throw a quarter against it? Anything equivalent to planes smashing into the towers without sending the floors going?

If you want to be more realistic, try making your floors out of about 20 independent "trusses" or so, and lay something relatively light on top of them. That would represent the steel trusses supporting the trays of concrete.

Originally posted by msdos464

With the two towers, most of the debris fell outside of their footprint

Where is the proof? Core was inside footprint and so were most of the floors...

This just shows you don't know what in the hell you're talking about.





Look in the footprints of the towers. Compare the debris you see with the size of the towers before they fell. It isn't hard to realize that the majority of the debris went everywhere but down. You can even see where the lobbies were (bigger columns near the bottom), and the debris piles don't rise above the lobbly levels.

You have a stub of WTC1's core still standing, but it didn't fall, so it doesn't count as falling anywhere, obviously. It didn't collapse.

Originally posted by newtron25
I couldn't even come close to replicating the specs on how the WTC was built, unless I was funded directly by NASA or MIT or someplace that was willing to allow me the opportunity to build a 1:400 scale version of the whole thing.

I am not asking you to replicate the towers, that would be impossible.

I am asking you to recreate a pancake collapse. Surely it happened TWICE on that day with two towers that got hit in two very different manners, surely it would be possible to replicate a similar 'pancake collapse' with a deck of cards or a pile of LEGO blocks or anything else you choose .... no?

I am asking you to create a 'pancake collapse' with something WEAKER then either of the 2 towers involved, surely if it happened twice using steel on concrete, it would also be possible to recreate it with playing cars ....no?

Originally posted by newtron25
anyone who is considering the task as a way of seeing how it could have happened is fooling themselves.

Again, I am not asking you to replicate the towers and replicate exactly how it happened. Surely if a 'pancake collapse' was in the realm of the possible in order to happen TWICE in one day it would be possible to recreate any sort of a 'pancake collapse'.

Jesus Christ! I'm not asking you to replicate the towers, I am asking you to produce a 'pancake collapse'. I don't even ask that it be done in the exact same manner as that day. Only that you create a 'pancake collapse' with the following requirements:

- keep proportions of around six times as high as it is wide at the base.
- must resist a 25cent coin thrown at it without falling or collapsing.
- must collapse COMPLETELY from top to bottom all and every floor/section.
- the complete collapse must occur inside 10 seconds from the moment it started to collapse.
- the fire must be started and contained to the top portion of the tower and the bottom half must collapse from gravity alone (as it supposedly happened on 9/11)
- and of course, no explosives can be used .... that would be cheating.
- must have a video of the 25cent throw and collapse.

But I'll tell you what, since this appears to be too difficult for you I'll remove a few rules. Here are the only rules I ask of your 'pancake collapse'. I am taking it down to 3 simple rules just for you:

- keep proportions of around six times as high as it is wide at the base.
- must resist a 25cent coin thrown at it without falling or collapsing.
- the bottom half must collapse from gravity alone (as it supposedly happened on 9/11)

Look in the footprints of the towers. Compare the debris you see with the size of the towers before they fell. It isn't hard to realize that the majority of the debris went everywhere but down. You can even see where the lobbies were (bigger columns near the bottom), and the debris piles don't rise above the lobbly levels.

You have a stub of WTC1's core still standing, but it didn't fall, so it doesn't count as falling anywhere, obviously. It didn't collapse.

Did you know, that WTC 1 and 2 continued several (I remember that over 15, but I may recall wrong) floors underground! 15 floors would mean that there was over 45 * 60 * 60 ( = 108000) cubic meters of junk. That would be about 10% of total volume of each WTC towers.

Correct me if I'm wrong..

- must collapse COMPLETELY from top to bottom all and every floor/section.

What does COMPLETELY mean? If the top floor remains "intact" (by that I mean it isn't totally flat) on top of rubble, does thant count? I'm talking about 8 cm high thing here..

[edit on 4-5-2007 by msdos464]

Originally posted by msdos464
What does COMPLETELY mean? If the top floor remains "intact" (by that I mean it isn't totally flat) on top of rubble, does thant count? I'm talking about 8 cm high thing here.

Dude! 8 cm is a hell of a small tower, are you sure it can resist the tossing of a quarter against it?

By complete collapse I mean that you shouldn't be able to recognize a whole section or floor still assembled. I don't know, I would think it is pretty much self explanatory. In the WTC towers, there were not a closet or a washroom that wasn't pulverized beyond recognition, so just make sure we can't see a section that looks like the top part or the middle section and the such. No more tower present, just debris.

I hope that clarifies it.

LePew, dude, I think I know what you're getting at. There was no pancake. The towers came down because of human intervention and not spontaneous catastrophic domino effect from the crash of the plane.

I am far, far more likely to subscribe to the thermite/micronuke/mysterious white van in the basement theories than to accept the fact that a building that tall was built so poorly as to allow such a fast and immediate collapse, a la the "pancake" theory.

What I think you are mistakenly doing is wasting your breath (like I am on you, I suppose) and credibility in asking people to believe you by asking them to take on this challenge.

If you are going to argue a point, don't counter someone with an equally weak premise or they will tear you down too.

Try to think of another way to get at them, LePew. This whole challenge is weak.

Originally posted by PepeLapew

Originally posted by msdos464
What does COMPLETELY mean? If the top floor remains "intact" (by that I mean it isn't totally flat) on top of rubble, does thant count? I'm talking about 8 cm high thing here.

Dude! 8 cm is a hell of a small tower, are you sure it can resist the tossing of a quarter against it?

By complete collapse I mean that you shouldn't be able to recognize a whole section or floor still assembled. I don't know, I would think it is pretty much self explanatory. In the WTC towers, there were not a closet or a washroom that wasn't pulverized beyond recognition, so just make sure we can't see a section that looks like the top part or the middle section and the such. No more tower present, just debris.

I hope that clarifies it.

No no no... I've 100 cm high tower that has 12 floors. Each floor is about 8 - 9 cm high (there is some variance). Well, I'm going to put some extra weight on roof

Originally posted by msdos464

Newton's Law of Conservation of Momentum would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass increases and the free-fall speed decreases.

So what?

The most impressive post I've seen on ATS, period. Your razor sharp wit just tears down the opposition. Thank you, msdos. I am in awe.

Originally posted by SteveR

Originally posted by msdos464

Newton's Law of Conservation of Momentum would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass increases and the free-fall speed decreases.

So what?

The most impressive post I've seen on ATS, period. Your razor sharp wit just tears down the opposition. Thank you, msdos. I am in awe.

Oh sry.. I didn't read that so well and misunderstood it :/

So what that means, is that mass momentum doesn't change in collissions (because inner forces doesn't affect on system's center of mass' velocity). But it DOESN'T mean, that speed should decrease when floors are falling down, because gravity accelerates them during that falling.

So what is the problem?

msdos464.no-ip.com...

There is a script that counts, how long it would take for floors to fall from 80th floor to ground (each floor is 3.7 m).

- 1st energy is wasted when detaching the lower floor. This is half of the energy, that is aproximated (by me) to be as much as one floor gets energy when falling one floor (mgh), quite much..

- 2nd mass momentum is constant during collission, that's how we get our new velocity that the floors are falling together

- 3nd that new velocity accelerates, unitl it collides to next floor

That is very basic physics, you can check the formulas if you want to.

Notice, that this doesn't care about that huge mass of tower's upper floors (above 80th floor). This velocity on the bottom is about 31 m/s, which would be about 160 km/h. From videos you can measure, that it's actually falling about 200 km/h... Those upper floors did have some effect Or then there is some error on my initial values.

By using these assumptions, total collapse time would be around 12 - 13 seconds..

edit: there was an error in formula that gave too bit collapse time :/

[edit on 4-5-2007 by msdos464]

[edit on 4-5-2007 by msdos464]

Originally posted by msdos464
Did you know, that WTC 1 and 2 continued several (I remember that over 15, but I may recall wrong) floors underground! 15 floors would mean that there was over 45 * 60 * 60 ( = 108000) cubic meters of junk. That would be about 10% of total volume of each WTC towers.

Sorry, it was more like 6 floors and obviously the debris didn't all pile down into there because, again, there is a stub of WTC1's core still standing. It didn't collapse. There was a lot still intact under that pile at the lobby level. If everything was packed underground, that structure wouldn't still be standing there, would it?

Are you satisfied with the reasoning behind 80% mass outside the footprints yet?

So how should have the buildings collapsed?

Should they have fallen as a tree cut down like a lumberjack?

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by msdos464
Did you know, that WTC 1 and 2 continued several (I remember that over 15, but I may recall wrong) floors underground! 15 floors would mean that there was over 45 * 60 * 60 ( = 108000) cubic meters of junk. That would be about 10% of total volume of each WTC towers.

Sorry, it was more like 6 floors and obviously the debris didn't all pile down into there because, again, there is a stub of WTC1's core still standing. It didn't collapse. There was a lot still intact under that pile at the lobby level. If everything was packed underground, that structure wouldn't still be standing there, would it?

Are you satisfied with the reasoning behind 80% mass outside the footprints yet?

Actuall I'm not.. 80% sounds still far too much. I'll try to find some proof to one way or other.

Where I could see that WTC1's core stub? Where I could read how much that WTC complex continued underground? I've tried to find those for a while but didn't find right answers.

What kind of structure could resist all that mass falling (on average) from 200 meters? I wanna some kind of sketch.. if possible. Jesus, it was like a thousand (depends on mass) trains comming at 200 km/h!

Originally posted by redseal
So how should have the buildings collapsed?

Should they have fallen as a tree cut down like a lumberjack?

You mean like this?

yes, it did start to fall off like a tree, but something else (other than the weight of the top portion) demolished all the 80 floors which were still standing.

Billionaire philanthropist, Jimmy Walter, is offering $1 million to anyone who can explain, or prove how the trade towers could have collapsed without explosives.

His web site is at: reopen911.org...

- so far no one has even accepted the challenge.


[edit on 5-5-2007 by skid]

Here is another challenge: try (on a small experimental scale!) using kerosene (which burns at the same temp as jet fuel) to melt a small piece of steel, better yet try melting a small piece of aluminum, which has a lower melting point.

- good luck with trying....and remember kids: SAFETY FIRST.