The 2001 November issue of Scientific American contains data on page 15 about the energy released in the attack on the World Trade Center towers and their collapse. Citations for the work are contained in the sidebar in which this information was presented.
Despite the name of the magazine, the units worked in include "feet", "pounds", "gallons", "tons", "mph", and "btu"s. They then pull off a Hail Mary play and convert the whole mess to joules. But just centimeters from the goal line they turn around and pass the ball backward to "tons of TNT". Nice science but lousy choice of units, except for the joules. I feel yet another letter to Scientific American coming on. The main categories break down as follows: 2 TJ collapse of the towers 5 TJ explosion and burning of jet fuel 9 GJ kinetic energy of the two jets Personal aside: most experts are saying that it was the heat from the fires, weakening the steel, that caused the collapse. Essentially then, the jets were used as flying bombs; had they been nearly out of fuel, the disaster would have been less exothermic. Thus the kinetic energy of the jets provided just over 0.1 % of the energy released in this attack on humanity and civilization. Jim -- James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston 10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street 843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424 http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
