According to the graph, steel strengthens to a certain temperature. The optimistic approach would be to say that if not for the fires ignited by the jet fuel, the steal would not have held out as long (giving hundreds more time to escape). As, the fires were burning out (as so notably pointed out by the conspiracists), the steel’s temperature cooled and returned to normal strength, with normal strength no longer able to support the overbearing torque forces. Once it reaches a tipping point, there’s a catastrophic failure, not slow failure.

But I do have some basic reasoning abilties. So when I hear a theory like “two buildings got hit by planes (or something), but three buildings collapsed in controlled demolitions” I think, what kind of moronic brilliant conspiracy theory is that? Did they forget a plane? Did they accidentally blow up too many buildings?

Likewise, in the NPR(?) video debate, those Loose Change guys azgued that 1) obviously a plane didn’t hit the Pentagon and 2) one of Bush’s cronies forced the Air Force to stand down so the plane could hit the Pentagon.

It’s like they combined every conspiracy theory they could find, without bothering to check and see if they made any sense next to each other….

Summary: A Ryder truck filled with explosives was planted by Ramzi Yousef and detonated in the underground garage of the North Tower, opening a 100 foot hole through 4 sublevels of concrete. The building did not collapse, and the surrounding steel beams were still intact (see picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_bombing)

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Below is a list of several other large building fires. None of the fires mentioned caused any of these buildings to collapse from top to bottom, not even two prior fires that took place in the North Tower of the WTC one of which included a 1,300 pound bomb and the other which reached temperatures of over 1,200 degrees (F).

My first question for you is, why did these other buildings not collapse completely from top to bottom if their temperatures, duration and intensity were great enough to cause the factors you described to have affected the WTC (and please don’t forget to include mention of WTC 7 in your explanation)? My second question is since history has shown it unlikely for buildings to react as the WTC did to fires, would you be open minded enough to consider any other possible explanation aside from the official story (i.e. thermite, bombs aboard the planes, etc.)?

THE ONE MERIDIAN PLAZA FIRE
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Date of Fire: February 23, 1991
Duration of Fire: 18 hours
Summary: The fire started on the 22nd floor and gutted eight floors. Despite the severity and duration of the fire no part of the building collapsed.

THE FIRST INTERSTATE BANK FIRE
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Date of Fire: May 4, 1988
Duration of Fire: 3.5 hours
Summary: The fire gutted offices from the 12th to the 16th floor and caused extensive smoke damage to floors above. In spite of the total burnout of four and a half floors, there was no damage to the main structural members and only minor damage to one secondary beam and a small number of floor pans.

CARACAS TOWER FIRE
Location: Caracas, Venezuela
Date of Fire: October 17, 2004.
Duration of Fire: 6 hours
Summary: The blaze began before midnight on the 34th floor, spread to more than 26 floors, and burned for more than 17 hours. Heat from the fires prevented firefighters from reaching the upper floors and smoke injured 40 firefighters. The building did not collapse.

THE WINDSOR BUILDING FIRE
Location: Madrid, Spain
Date of Fire: February 12, 2005
Duration of Fire: 24 hours
Summary: Fire was detected on the 21st floor which spread quickly throughout the entire building, leading to the collapse of the outermost parts of the upper floors. The main structure, however, stayed intact.

WTC FIRE #1
Location: North Tower
Date of Fire: February 13, 1975
Duration of Fire: 3 hours
Summary: The WTC North Tower was beset by a fire, which burned at temperatures in excess of 700°C (1,292°F) for over three hours and spread to over 65 percent of the 11th floor, including the core. The fire caused no serious structural damage to the steel structure. In particular, no trusses needed to be replaced.

WTC FIRE #2
Location: North Tower
Date of Fire: February 26, 1993
Duration of Fire: ?
Summary: A Ryder truck filled with explosives was planted by Ramzi Yousef and detonated in the underground garage of the North Tower, opening a 100 foot hole through 4 sublevels of concrete.

Information taken from Wikipedia and http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html

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Also, the impact might have been led to weaken important parts of the steel structure (something those types always neglect) and therefore brought the steel well below the usual heat-resistance value.

Conspiracy theories are mostly the work of amateur-players in a science field, who understand things partly and jump to conclusions without considering the whole thing with most likely causes.
Especially when it comes to engineering and hard science, such amateurish attempts are often misleading and result in misinformation, which obviously has a tendency to spread (perhaps to console once political views, or to snipe at the “experts” in the field).

1. A massive conspiracy coordinated without a single leak between hundreds or even thousands of people -OR -
2. Sustained stupidity, confusion and/or incompetence

Assume stupidity.”

It is my experience the great and most modern conspiracies are neither hidden nor secretive. They are out in the wide open for all to see AND definitely adhere to rule number 2.

Thanks for your labours and the good job.

Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I am pretty dismayed that people actually believe these conspiracy theories. I listened to the NPR debate between the makers of Loose Change and the editors of Popular Mechanics, and it’s easy enough to discern which side did not have a logical leg to stand on. On the one hand, I think the media should not be validating these theories (and the media tends to be very uncritical of anything that can potentially harm our government), but on the other hand, I do believe in freedom of speech, and more speech means more debate. In the ideal world, this should lead to the “right” conclusion.

Unfortunately, the world is not ideal, and I’ll have to live with the blathering of idiots of who like to drop the word “science” in their arguments to gain any semblance of credibility. I think of all the offenses, that is the one that annoys me the most.