Response to General forum question -- The "Spire"

[sam]

The core columns were not one-piece, 911yewitness, they were bolted and welded together. Connections are the weakest part of a steel building.

Consider one of those spectacular chimney stack demolitions.
Here's a couple of great (and very short) examples :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwXKjNDRN2Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgXDIgA-RbE

The damage is done at the base and the chimney collapses down and somewhat sideways. It does not "topple" to the ground as a single unit, because the connections between the bricks at the bottom are failing as it collapses. The mortar/brick connections are designed to support massive vertical loads but relatively minor lateral loads. Ditto the Twin Towers. Once subjected to significant shear the bolts and welds pop. There are countless photos of the steel in the debris showing exactly this. The outcome is that the "Spire" appears to slide down and slightly sideways.

A tree however, being a unit structure, would topple. Large buildings are not unit structures.

But how anybody can be so ignorant of basic science - or lacking in everyday experience - as to believe that the steel "turned to dust" is beyond me. It left behind a cloud of dust, but the steel fell. There is no mechanism on earth - short of manual grinding and a lot of time, that could convert that steel - literally - to dust.

[Micpsi]

The 'Spire' issue was a red herring that only a minority of the 9/11 truth movement found problematic and which only a even smaller minority, such as Dr Judy Wood, saw as evidence of exotic physics at work because they failed to interpret correctly what happened when the core column dropped down.

[chek]

Indeed, I would speculate with the benefit of hindsight, that sometime around 2004, a handful of no doubt bored and over-qualified technicians at some alphabet agency were tasked with seeking out and promoting evermore outrageous theories for some of the more singularly unique footage of the disaster.

Just a personal opinion.

As Stefan points out elsewhere, in the hi-res versions, the angle-cut style one-width 'walk' of the spire is a highly improbable other than in severing terms, and unnecessary for Wood-style dustification.

For anybody interested, an intriguing analysis of the fire soot stains and subsequent cut lines is in progress at:
http://the911forum.freeforums.org/wtc-1-n-and-w-perimeter-failure-line s-t31.html

[sam]

[chek]