I’m not deleting this previous comment, but someone over my shoulder tells me they just read about this in Physics for Future Presidents by Richard Muller.
Accordingly, what happened was that the burning gasoline in the plane melted the metal support structure on one of the floors, so that one floor collapsed onto another (like the melting of a cake layer). When the first floor collapsed, this caused a domino effect as the lower floors failed structurally one after another.
So the building fell due to fire rather than the impact of the plane. I am told this is consistent with the time scale of the building collapse.
In any case, I’m not deleting my previous comment with all speculations because it still goes to show; the dynamical system of the building and the plane was too complex to guess what was going on.
I’m not deleting this previous comment, but someone over my shoulder tells me they just read about this in Physics for Future Presidents by Richard Muller.
Accordingly, what happened was that the burning gasoline in the plane melted the metal support structure on one of the floors, so that one floor collapsed onto another (like the melting of a cake layer). When the first floor collapsed, this caused a domino effect as the lower floors failed structurally one after another.
So the building fell due to fire rather than the impact of the plane. I am told this is consistent with the time scale of the building collapse.
In any case, I’m not deleting my previous comment with all speculations because it still goes to show; the dynamical system of the building and the plane was too complex to guess what was going on.
Well, in this thread we are discussing the collapse of WTC7 which was not hit by any plane.