Zell, Chris wrote:
More than that, I doubt the WTC buildings were as well built as the
Empire State building - when it survived A collision with a WWII
vintage bomber.
That is incorrect. The Towers were far stronger and better built than
the Empire State building. If you were to try to build a structure as
tall as the Towers using 1930s construction materials & techniques,
it would fall over. Furthermore, the Pentagon is built with 1930s
techniques, and it was destroyed by an airplane. The Empire State
building would have crumbled and fallen immediately, just as a large
section of the Pentagon did.
The Empire State building did not collapse in 1945 because the
momentum from the B25 was at least 52 times smaller than from the Boeing 767:
B25
Empty weight: 9,580 kg
Estimated speed at time of collision: 322 kph (89 m/s)
Kinetic energy (M*V^2)/2: 37,941,590 joules (38 MJ)
Boeing 767
Empty weight: 82,377
Estimated speed at time of collision: 790 kph (219 m/s)
Kinetic energy: 1,975,441,649 joules (1,975 MJ)
A Boeing 767 can carry 65,000 kg of fuel. Probably of fuel and
payload were heavier than the entire B25. By the way, 65,000 kg of
jet fuel produces 2,795,000 MJ. Approximately 31,000 kg of that fuel
burned inside each Tower, which produced 1,333,000 MJ of heat. The
B25 did not spill much fuel inside the Empire State Building.
Let me say something here, people: This is a science forum. Please
apply a modicum of quantitative thinking, basic physics and common
sense to your assertions. You should realize that airplanes are much
larger now than they were in 1945, and therefore the kinetic energy
from an airplane crash is much greater.
- Jed
