3dvd wrote:The analogy is spot on. You raised the question of the amount of dust as if it was something unusual when in fact it is expected.
Indeed, the quantity of dust is simply a non-starter but Cole cannot grasp that concept.
In a real CD there is a lot of dust BUT it should be obvious that in a real CD most of the dust creating material has been removed, all the insulation, wallboard, furnishings, computer monitors, light fixtures etc. In a collapse of a building that contains all of these items the amount of dust created will be much greater.
We will see if Cole can grasp the concepts involved in the collapse itself;
Nothing above the collapse? The collapses began 10+ stories below the top of the building. That's a ten storey building 'above' the initial collapse and that ten storey structure was reduced to rubble in the first few seconds. (here's where Cole may say, well loose rubble cannot destroy the rest of the building)
The mass of that falling debris would be going where? On the floor spans of the lower floors. The floor spans were pretty much identical but even the maintenance floors with their heavier construction were never designed to hold the mass of 7,8,9 or more floors. The force on a floor must be transfered to the columns via the trusses and truss seats. These would fail all but immediatly when that much mass is on them. When they fail they add to the falling debris mass, impact the next floor span down, failing it, etc.
The columns are now stripped of their lateral support and the columns cannot stand on their own without buckling. In fact the entire core structure, if one magically removed the floor spans and perimeter columns, could not stand on its own without buckling. The perimeter required the bracing to the core and the core required the bracing to the perimeter. the building was designed as a system, the core and perimeter are sub systems that relie on each other.
So the floors collapse due to the impact (I did not even mention dynamic loading up to this point but is of course exists and adds to the static loading of the mass) , which removes the lateral bracing between core and perimeter ( and much of the lateral bracing between core columns as well) , which results in the columns buckling and failing at the welds between column sections (the brittle points along the columns).
Math, science, history unraveling the mystery, that all started with a Big Bang.....BANG!!