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Ralph Smithen wrote: > o rly?! > > You should explain that to all these demolition engineers, wasting their > time carefully placing timed cutting charges in the mistaken belief that > this is necessary to prevent a condemned building from toppling into > those adjacent. I think Tom is referring to the specific construction methodology for the WTC which IIRC had a single solid spine up the middle. From memory the documentary I saw said that the burning jet fuel simply melted that spine enough the the floors simply fell inward. I'm not an engineer so I'm not about to go into the feasibility of that. All I will say is that it sounds a lot more feasible than a building with a shedload of steel crossbeams on every floor which would require the careful placement you mentioned. Also older buildings were not always built to the symmetrical designs of today so the chance are if you blow one of *them* up it will fall to one side. If however you place an explosive at the central weak point of a symmetrical building, chances are the equal weight upon it from every direction will cause it to fall inward. Again though I'm not an engineer, that just seems logical. Kind regards, Julian -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html