OK then. Just the facts. 9-11

[OnTheOtherHand]

85. yes, there is a lot to be learned (or that can be learned)

I don't know how narrow the circumstances were, especially with respect to the towers. The efforts to reconstruct the specifics are very intricate, but the broad outline is consonant with common sense: structural damage at the time(s) of impact; extended fires causing observable further degradation; ultimately, the inability of the structure at the impact zone to bear the mass above; gravity does the rest. WTC 7 is an odder case because we can't really see a lot of what happens, but it's not too surprising that when a penthouse on one side of the building collapses, the structure is fatally compromised. Regardless, the consequences are so shocking that it's hard to wrap one's head around the events. That's one of the reasons I started posting in this forum (back when it was a forum) -- for a while, I was learning interesting things about engineering and various other topics, as well as about how people argue. Honestly, it may have been more fun for you if you had started back when I did, or even earlier -- but there's still room for excellent discussion.

This week, on another board, I saw someone argue that NIST had contradicted itself because one of its models showed a particular girder moving off its seat in one direction, while another model showed it eventually rocking off its seat in the opposite direction. Now, that might be relevant, or it might be more like questioning whether the tide destroyed a sand castle because of ambiguities in the forensic reconstruction. The spooky thing is that this fellow doesn't even seem to ask himself whether it's relevant. When we're out of field -- and even when we're in field -- we can't always tell what is and isn't relevant, but at least we know that some things are more important than others. But when refuting an "official story" becomes an end in itself, that perspective is lost. (That works both ways in principle, although honestly, I don't remember anyone trying to defend the NIST study as infallible, whereas I see lots of people reaching for excuses to discredit it.)