How could the twin towers have collapsed in 8.7 seconds? it takes me 1.5 seconds to fall down some stairs?

Question

on purpose, why did the impact of an aircraft on the 88th floor of the North tower cause the 87 floors beneath it to disappear?

Answer 1

Because you are not trying hard enough to fall down as fast as you can. Keep trying until you get it right. It was not the aircraft that causes the 87 floors to disappear, it was a magic trick be David Copperfield. lol...right....
The people who did the math got it right. The towers collapsed according to the rules of physics, and people who say otherwise are either uneducated or lying because they hate George Bush and assume that most of the people who hear them are ignorant of physics and will believe the lies.
Every step you hit slows your fall because you are not heavy enough to break the steps as you fall. The weight of the upper floors of the towers overcame the resistence of the framework of the lower floors so they fell down almost as if in free fall and went BOOM.

Answer 2

Fall faster! Out a window!

You're overestimating, it doesn't take 1.5 seconds, falling happens really quickly. (acceleration)

WTC? I thought the news said 10 or 13 seconds..

Half the supports are in the middle, the building can't stay up when most of those are severed and the remainder heat-weakened. One floor didn't kill it, the fifth of a building suddenly falling on it killed the rest of the building.


And all buildings will fall down if their supports weaken sufficiently.
Gravity remember?
They will only tip over if the supports are asymetric enough that the top is no longer over the base. And the second tower did tip over when it fell you see, just not enough to prevent the "downness".


I don't know why 7 fell down, it was on fire, and debris hit it, but that black one with the curtain (Deutsche Bank?) didn't fall down, and the shell was considered so unusable that it was later demolished.

So it's just on a case to case basis, whether a burning, non-airplane crashed skyscraper falls down or not, you can't know all the variables.

Answer 3

Do the math. 880 ft in 8.7s is only 0.73 g's.

The collapse is because the 22 floors above the damaged floors fell due to the buckling of the supports on the damaged floors.

Answer 4

Think about it - not 8.7 second from impact to collapse, it's 8.7 seconds from beginning of collapse to end of collapse. Once the structural stress limits had been surpassed and the initial breakdown began, it began a domino-effect that super accelerated as it went further down the building.

Answer 5

My trusty calculator tells me that in 8.7 seconds, an object heavy enough for air resistance to be negligible will fall 378.45 metres, which is 1242 feet. That sounds about right for the height of the Twin Towers.

Answer 6

Gravity's acceleration is an actual accelerative force...once an object begins falling in continues to speed up as it goes down (on Earth, the speed is 32 feet per second squared). Clearly, the trade centers obeyed the laws of physics....

Trade Center number 7 also fell that day. Funny, no plane's hit number 7. It also fell directly into its footprint, almost like it was demolished by an expert!

Answer 7

Darling Occulty has the products on the rodent, darling... Yammie's getting somewhat senile and is making loopy statements. Any day now, we are going to locate him outdoors donning a bathrobe and yelling at youngsters to get off the backyard. (((VK))) (((Occulty)))

Answer 8

A bit slower than 32 feet per second per second - the lower floors held it up a bit from an actual free fall.
Do the math.

Answer 9

Try falling straight down instead of down stairs. Throw yourself out a window. Watch the two TV programs in the references below.

Answer 10

Was it a brick from Tower 1 or 2 that got ya?