WTC: Molten Steel - Was there any? Why? What About the Hot Spots?

[lee h oswald]

Well Lee, I never said all 110 floors 'pancaked' together, although I'm not sure how you envision the collapse not involving the pancaking of many floors. My suggestion was that when the collapse began, it wasn't initially visible due to the perimeter columns blocking the view of the very beginning of the collapse and that the displacement of the volume of air, was responsible for the fireball. Are you denying that a large volume of air was displaced when the towers collapsed???

No photo then?

[Mick]

No photo then?

I think the point is that the volume of air was obviously expelled, rather than the floors neatly stacking up like pancakes.

We do have photos of the air begin expelled.

[RolandD]

No photo then?

Not even germane to the current discussion.

[lee h oswald]

Listen, R, how else - once the collapse starts and the pancaking begins (your word), then what do you think happens to the next piece in line for a 'pancaking'? It can't move out of the way - it's directly underneath what's coming. So the next piece gets a hit - another piece of pancake to add to the layer of pancakes crushing the building from above, yes? Until the whole lot has 'pancaked', floors falling in quicktime into one another, ping ping ping ping all the way down to the ground, destroying the building in the process. I'm just describing in a little more detail what you said about pancaking - imagine it like I describe it - it makes sense. It's the only thing that makes sense, it's all about gravity collapse.


Would you agree with that?

[lee h oswald]

Mick:

What we have in the WTC fireball is kind of like a backdraft in reverse, or blowing on a fire in reverse. Instead of oxygen being rapidly introduced into the fire, the fire is rapidly introduced into the oxygen. The result is the same, a sudden and violent escalation of the fire, which is also violently being pushed out of the building. A fireball.

There's a lot of things back to front around here. From backdrafts to building design to resemblance to pyroclastics and so much more...

Anyway, I'm gonna have another swig of what looks, smells and tastes just like beer, but is probably a sardine.

[Mick]

Listen, R, how else - once the collapse starts and the pancaking begins (your word), then what do you think happens to the next piece in line for a 'pancaking'? It can't move out of the way - it's directly underneath what's coming. So the next piece gets a hit - another piece of pancake to add to the layer of pancakes crushing the building from above, yes? Until the whole lot has 'pancaked', floors falling in quicktime into one another, ping ping ping ping all the way down to the ground, destroying the building in the process. I'm just describing in a little more detail what you said about pancaking - imagine it like I describe it - it makes sense. It's the only thing that makes sense, it's all about gravity collapse.


Would you agree with that?

I don't think "ping ping ping" is an adequate characterization:

[lee h oswald]

We've had all this before. Verinage is controlled demolition you know? And the buildings are designed very differently to the wtc.

Mick, do you think that Verinage would be considered by professional demolition operatives to demolish the towers, if they were condemned?

[Mick]

We've had all this before. Verinage is controlled demolition you know? And the buildings are designed very differently to the wtc.

Mick, do you think that Verinage would be considered by professional demolition operatives to demolish the towers, if they were condemned?

Well, given the proximity to other buildings, and the hight of the WTC, you'd not use any form of total collapse demolition. You'd just disassemble it from the top down.

But if that were not an issue, I think verinage would work if you could initiate it. However the initial single floor collapse would be quite hard to pull off.

[Jazzy]

Ok, but....if all these floors 'pancaked', then show us a picture of all the 'pancaked' floors after they got to the ground. There were 110 floors per tower - if they 'pancaked' there should be plenty left on the ground, yes? Hm.

Sorry. Did you want to see 110 floors attached together? No can do. Just three...

[lee h oswald]

Sorry. Did you want to see 110 floors attached together? No can do. Just three...

Oh, Jazzy, I love you really brother.

ps I make it two - are those layers an acre each? - think I need me eyes tested

[RolandD]

Oh, Jazzy, I love you really brother.

ps I make it two - are those layers an acre each? - think I need me eyes tested

Look at me! I can play this game too!!!!

So, you're still denying that a large volume of air was displaced when the towers collapsed???

[lee h oswald]

Look at me! I can play this game too!!!!

So, you're still denying that a large volume of air was displaced when the towers collapsed???

Deny? Me? Where? Please show me the 'deny' text. Thanks

ps why don't you answer my question above?

[RolandD]

Deny? Me? Where? Please show me the 'deny' text. Thanks

ps why don't you answer my question above?

Why don't you answer mine?

[Mick]

I'm quite surprised I hadn't seen it myself.
But sorry, fire was pushed...? I have to admit I'm somewhat floored at the moment, that I've gone all this time without actually seeing a damn fireball during a tower collapse. Is anyone aware of a NIST statement about the fireball, .

NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Page 188 (pdf page 232), section 5.6.2:
http://metabunk.org/files/NCSTAR_1-9_WTC7_unlocked.pdf

Content from external source:

When WTC 1 collapsed, there were several large fires burning in the tower. The most extensive fire on
the north face was located on the west side of the 92nd floor. Somewhat smaller fires were present
immediately above on the 95th floor and on the east side of the 92nd floor. As the collapse of WTC 1
proceeded, it generated a pressure pulse that pushed flames from internally burning areas out of adjacent
windows, thus revealing the extent of the fires. This is evident in Figure 5–102 which shows the upper
floors of WTC 1 roughly one second after the collapse started. The significant fire on the west side of the
92nd floor is evident. The expelled flames formed a large fireball before extinguishing.

[Unregistered]

I don't think "ping ping ping" is an adequate characterization:

Shouldn't this be megabunk? The 1st animation was generated on a graphics engine similar to PS/2 title "Mercenary". The second and third are CONCRETE structures, the WTC was A36 structural steel which has a tensile strength of 89.000psi, basically it would take a square inch of material per foot of wingspan to stop such a hollow aluminum object moving 500fps.

Great job of burying my last post in a matter of minutes, then NO POST for several days.

[Mick]

Shouldn't this be megabunk? The 1st animation was generated on a graphics engine similar to PS/2 title "Mercenary". The second and third are CONCRETE structures, the WTC was A36 structural steel which has a tensile strength of 89.000psi, basically it would take a square inch of material per foot of wingspan to stop such a hollow aluminum object moving 500fps.

Great job of burying my last post in a matter of minutes, then NO POST for several days.

The first animation is real.

Aircraft aluminum alloys like 7075 have a tensile strength of up to 78,000 psi, not really much different to steel.

And tensile strength is really not the only variable here. Water can cut though 2" steel plate at high enough speed.


I'm not sure what you mean about your last post, but perhaps if you register you can track your posts better.

[Unregistered]

Move ANYTHING fast enough, and it will penetrate: http://youtu.be/I9zBGgpzl0I
Penetration is HIGHLY dependent on velocity, a solid lead bullet has to travel 2-3000fps to shear plate steel(cold rolled).

But you are still talking supersonic speeds, and in the case of aluminum to penetrate steel it's hypersonic speeds ie 5x the speed of sound. And that is SOLID aluminum, not hollow, case in point the airliner FLOATING IN THE HUDSON RIVER. That brings it's specific gravity to about (point) .3sg. A commercial airliner can not exceed 500fps at sea level, the drag is too great due to it's high weight and large frontal area. It would create a wake vortex, which is not indicated in the video evidence people continue to believe.

As for strong aluminum, the higher strength come at the cost of making it harder and more brittle(hence the life cycle of an airframe). Even if that alloy was used, it's still only 4mm thick and the box columns are 10mm at that level (x2 b/c it has a back side, 20mm). This doesn't even take into account the 6"x.4" section for the side walls and modules of inertia nor 4" concrete floors which have great compression strength.

All one has to do is look at what really happens when an aircraft strikes a skyscraper, Ref Old John Feathermerchant's strike of the Empire st bld in 45'. The airframe fell OUTSIDE onto a lower roof, only penetrating the CONCRETE b/c it has ZERO tensile strength. No structural steel was sheared by the airframe. The occupants stated "the building swung like a pendulum for 30sec" running for cover was difficult "it was hard to keep your feet under you". NOBODY made such a statement at the WTC and such an aircraft weights TEN TIMES MORE, most were all intentionally killed by PORT AUTHORITY to prevent this from getting out. The communication system was cut in the north tower(1st to get hit), and the 1st responders who made the south tower strike area reported "only small pockets of fire" NO reports of an aircraft inside. Official's reported "No black boxes recovered from either tower", but Jesse Ventura promotes a lie to keep ppl believing the HOAX. Even the "truther" Alex Jones, will go ballistic when the subject is brought up, claiming "you discredit the truth movement".

All of this relates back to how the towers were taken down, UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR DEMOLITION, the very reason molten steel was found in the basement.

DIMITRI KHALEZOV explained the physics behind the fission reaction. And for those who want to shout radiation, plutonium decays via ALPHA particles, completely consistent lung cancer and the many heath problems associate w/ the clean up workers.

[Mick]

A 767 is not just a 4mm can of aluminum. It's hundreds of tons of aluminum, steel, fuel. Hundreds of tons of anything striking the towers would have done similar damage. It's not "cutting" in steel like a bullet, it's putting an insanely large dynamic load on it, pushing it inwards, and snapping it.

It's like if you karate chop a plank of wood. Your hand does not "penetrate" the wood. And you hand is considerably softer and weaker than the wood. Yet the wood still breaks. It's mass and speed, not hardness. Do the math.

And how would a nuke in the basement destroy the towers from the top down?

[Mick]

Move ANYTHING fast enough, and it will penetrate:



Penetration is HIGHLY dependent on velocity, a solid lead bullet has to travel 2-3000fps to shear plate steel(cold rolled).

That ping-pong example is great. At 2:30 he says how initially the ball was going at 200 m/s (447 mph), and then showed how that would punch clean through an aluminum can.



How does that jibe with your theory?

[Cairenn]

I understand that the Empire State building was built in a very different way, than the WTC or even most modern office buildings. Less glass, more steel and concrete.

Texas stadium was demoed by controlled explosives. When a high school stadium in Dallas was demolished, they had to basically 'unbuild it'. Even a wrecking ball had little effect on it.

[Unregistered]

S

I assert aluminum is a very weak material, it jives very well w/ what I say. Your cherry picked still image doesn't show how the can was hit TWICE, and NO he did not claim the ball went through the can at subsonic speeds.

In the above video, at the very end the narrator states these devices DO NOT WORK IN CONFINED AREAS due to lack of oxygen.

I made a dozen statements of FACT, and you have yet to "debunk" a single one. Maybe you could tell everyone where the animation footage took place and when. But you have made such outrageous statements so far that aren't even physically possible, it's not hard to tell what this site is about WASTING PEOPLE'S TIME.

[Mick]

I assert aluminum is a very weak material, it jives very well w/ what I say. Your cherry picked still image doesn't show how the can was hit TWICE, and NO he did not claim the ball went through the can at subsonic speeds.

In the above video, at the very end the narrator states these devices DO NOT WORK IN CONFINED AREAS due to lack of oxygen.

I made a dozen statements of FACT, and you have yet to "debunk" a single one. Maybe you could tell everyone where the animation footage took place and when. But you have made such outrageous statements so far that aren't even physically possible, it's not hard to tell what this site is about WASTING PEOPLE'S TIME.

At 2:50 in the ping-ping video he's say 447 mph ... "definitely sub-sonic, but it can do things like this" and he holds up the can with the hole in it. Then here's the ball at supersonic speed, going just twice as fast, and pasting through four cans.



You assert aircraft aluminum alloy is a "very weak" metal? So how weak exactly, in numbers?

Don't just list a whole bunch of things. Pick one. Address it.

[Jazzy]

In the above video, at the very end the narrator states these devices DO NOT WORK IN CONFINED AREAS due to lack of oxygen.

Five floor volumes isn't a "confined area". It's 2.4 MILLION cubic feet. The rising pressure before the windows blew increased the explosion efficiency.

I made a dozen statements of FACT, and you have yet to "debunk" a single one. Maybe you could tell everyone where the animation footage took place and when. But you have made such outrageous statements so far that aren't even physically possible, it's not hard to tell what this site is about WASTING PEOPLE'S TIME.

Mick has already debunked the rest of your utterances.

[Jazzy]

Penetration is HIGHLY dependent on velocity, a solid lead bullet has to travel 2-3000fps to shear plate steel(cold rolled).

But it is ultimately dependent on ENERGY, and mass is essential. The same task could easily be accomplished with a sand grain traveling at ten miles per second.

in the case of aluminum to penetrate steel it's hypersonic speeds ie 5x the speed of sound. And that is SOLID aluminum, not hollow

It met the towers where the steel was HOLLOW, not solid. It weighed eighty tons, and was traveling at eight hundred feet per second. Its impact energy equivalent was that of 1.2 tons of TNT, the energy applied only at points of contact.

doesn't even take into account the 6"x.4" section for the side walls and modules of inertia nor 4" concrete floors which have great compression strength.

Nobody is suggesting the floors didn't slice the plane into fragments. "Modules of inertia"? LOL. Are you one?

look at what really happens when an aircraft

ten times smaller and traveling at a third the speed

strikes

A completely non-lightweight structure.

NOBODY made such a statement at the WTC

Yes, they did. '"All of a sudden, the building started to shake," said Lim, who is in San Diego for a conference for the National Asian Peace Officers' Association.'

http://www.10news.com/news/9-11-surv...n-wtc-collapse

most were all intentionally killed by PORT AUTHORITY to prevent this from getting out

Bunk for another thread. Start it.

The communication system was cut

Ditto.

UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR DEMOLITION, the very reason molten steel was found in the basement

I see, a nuclear bomb in the basement started a collapse which began over 800 feet above it?

lung cancer and the many heath problems associate w/ the clean up workers.

Lung problems are caused by any dust. Go ask a miner.

[Unregistered]

To those who want to know, the CIA is NOT allowed to operate w/i the US, hence: http://www.projectcensored.org/top-s...-social-media/

Hey Einstein, remember this E=MCsq. That means the VELOCITY, C, is an EXPONENTIAL function NOT THE MASS.

For those who do not understand structural engineering. The exterior columns supported 40% of the weight. Once the core columns were not supported the weight was transferred as a tensile load to the roof structure. The roof was very strong, a key component to resisting wind forces. So with ALL the weight on the exterior columns, it had to fail. "a chain is only strong as it's weakest link", and the weakest link would be where the exterior columns were cut to make a "road runner" style hole to pull of the HOAX.

"ten times smaller and traveling at a third the speed"

As much as I hate addressing such a statement of IGNORANCE. AGAIN, a commercial airliner can not exceed 500fps at sea level w/o heavy modification. An EMPTY 767-200ER doesn't even weigh 100 tons let alone the innuendo(which is what all of you guys are using) of several hundred tons. The fuel would weigh 70tons, the rest of the 30 tons is for cargo and would NEVER be maxed out to the <200ton take off limit.

Ten time the energy would yield ten times the "pendulum swing",(esp in a lighter structure) and NO, NOBODY EVER MADE A STATEMENT THAT THE TOWER SWUNG VIOLENTLY.

[Mick]

To those who want to know, the CIA is NOT allowed to operate w/i the US, hence: http://www.projectcensored.org/top-s...-social-media/

Hey Einstein, remember this E=MCsq. That means the VELOCITY, C, is an EXPONENTIAL function NOT THE MASS.

I think you might be looking for the kinetic energy equation KE = 1/2 * m * v², but yes, energy is proportional to the square of velocity. I'm not sure exactly what you are correcting here though?

As much as I hate addressing such a statement of IGNORANCE. AGAIN, a commercial airliner can not exceed 500fps at sea level w/o heavy modification. An EMPTY 767-200ER doesn't even weigh 100 tons let alone the innuendo(which is what all of you guys are using) of several hundred tons. The fuel would weigh 70tons, the rest of the 30 tons is for cargo and would NEVER be maxed out to the <200ton take off limit.

You are right, "hundreds of tons" was a mistake. I should have used "over a hundred tons".
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_767

And can you back up your statement on the limits of velocity? Plenty of pilots said its easy to exceed Vne or Vmo, it's just not a good idea.

[Jazzy]

E=MCsq. That means the VELOCITY, C, is an EXPONENTIAL function NOT THE MASS.

You might as well quote the formula for a beef burger.

For those who do not understand structural engineering

LOL.

Once the core columns were not supported

Ah. The basement nuclear device bunkum (+ more bunkum).

So what relevance do you attach to the observed severe distortions of all three buildings prior to their collapses? Were they by chance time-traveling pre-deformations carried out by the nuclear devices?

"ten times smaller and traveling at a third the speed"

ten times smaller and traveling at a third the speed.

a commercial airliner can not exceed 500fps at sea level

No. Since the mid-fifties they are designed for static forces and anticipated control forces up to their fluttering instability limit of around 0.94 Mach or 1000 feet per second at sea level. The manufacturers then instruct the airlines to never exceed 70% of that.

I can think of at least two air crashes involving passenger aircraft diving vertically from great height where the speed of sound was exceeded without the airframe breaking up in mid-air.

NOBODY EVER MADE A STATEMENT THAT THE TOWER SWUNG VIOLENTLY.

Yes they did.



2:40

[Jazzy]

Listen, R, how else - once the collapse starts and the pancaking begins (your word), then what do you think happens to the next piece in line for a 'pancaking'? It can't move out of the way - it's directly underneath what's coming. So the next piece gets a hit - another piece of pancake to add to the layer of pancakes crushing the building from above, yes? Until the whole lot has 'pancaked', floors falling in quicktime into one another, ping ping ping ping all the way down to the ground, destroying the building in the process. I'm just describing in a little more detail what you said about pancaking - imagine it like I describe it - it makes sense. It's the only thing that makes sense, it's all about gravity collapse. Would you agree with that?

(September 25, 2001 and after): Ground Zero Workers Find Compressed Floors and Shattered Core Columns of WTC:

Two weeks after 9/11, engineers Pablo Lopez and Andrew Pontecorvo are walking in the B2 basement level at the ruins of the World Trade Center, towards where the North Tower stood.

They discover a “solid, rocklike mass where the basement levels of the tower had been,” and see “the recognizable traces of twenty floors, very much like geologic strata revealed by a road cut, compressed into a ten-foot vertical span. In one place, the steel decks of half a dozen floors protruded like tattered wallpaper, so close together that they were almost touching where they were bent downward at the edge. Nothing between the decks was recognizable except as a rocky, rusty mishmash. In a few places what might have been carbonized, compressed stacks of paper stuck out edgewise like graphite deposits.”

As New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton describe, Lopez and Pontecorvo have found “where the vanished floors [of the tower] had gone. They had not just fallen straight down. The forces had been so great and the floors so light that they had simply folded up like deflated balloons.”

Furthermore, they see the massive core columns of the tower, which are over two feet wide and made of four-inch thick steel plate, appearing to have suffered “a compound fracture: the upper sections looked as if they had been kicked, with incalculable fury, about a foot south of the sections they were resting on.” Lopez remarks, “Can you imagine the force?” [GLANZ AND LIPTON, 2004, PP. 292-293]

At some later time, ironworker Danny Doyle, who is also working at Ground Zero, finds that floors of the South Tower have been compressed into a formation like what happened with the North Tower’s. He discovers “a distinct mound of debris set into the pile, about six feet high, with strands of wire and pieces of rebar sticking out. It looked like layers of sediment that had turned into rock and been lifted up on some mountainside.… Here were ten stories of the South Tower, compacted into an area of about six feet.”

http://www.historycommons.org/timeli...e_911_timeline

[Harry_B]

The potential energy of each and every building was sufficient to raise such temperatures.

The potential energy of any building is the energy put into it to raise it from ground level into its structural position. This must be released when the building falls. It is expressed as heat, after crushing some concrete and making a din. In the case of the towers, this potential energy was 110,000 KWh, equivalent to 95.5 tons of TNT, or also 1700 tons of molten steel.

Jazzy, do you have your complete calculation of the temperature rise at hand? I have mine somewhere on an old computer, but the result was that a piece of steel, falling from the ROOF of WTC 1 or 2 would not become warmer than 4 °C more than before, so in average it would be 2 °C more.
I just calculated the potential engergy of 1 kg steel and compared it with the heat capacity of 1 kg steel.
One of us must have made a huge calculation error.

[Harry_B]

I calculated it again, using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity

Heat capacity of steel = 0.466 J/(g K)
= 466 J/(kg K)
This means that 466 J can make 1 kg steel 1 K warmer.

Height of WTC 1 roof = 417 m
Gravity force of 1 kg = 9.81 N
Falling energy of 1 kg = 9.81 N * 417 m = 4090 Nm
= 4090 J

4090 J / 466 J = 8.8

So I did not remember quite correctly, instead, the steel falling from the roof could become up to 8.8 K warmer, but this is still
quite far from melting.

[Cairenn]

Did I miss something, or is there NO pictures of molten steel? Wasn't there a discussion that the apparent 'molten metal' could have easily been something other than steel?

[Harry_B]

There was a famous discussion about molten steel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFwkAMd2-k

And the metal flowing out of the still standing tower could not have been aluminium because alu would flow away long before it would start to glow.
Also I don't think that the firefighters would have mixed up molten steel with molten alu because the look and the heat radiation are too different - I have seen both when I visited foundries during my studies of mechanical engineering.

Of course, the firefighters could also have lied, like the dozens of NOC witnesses at the Pentagon must have lied, unless there was a flyover.

[RolandD]

There was a famous discussion about molten steel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFwkAMd2-k

And the metal flowing out of the still standing tower could not have been aluminium because alu would flow away long before it would start to glow.
Also I don't think that the firefighters would have mixed up molten steel with molten alu because the look and the heat radiation are too different - I have seen both when I visited foundries during my studies of mechanical engineering.

Of course, the firefighters could also have lied, like the dozens of NOC witnesses at the Pentagon must have lied, unless there was a flyover.

We also discussed, in this thread, why you are wrong.

[Cairenn]

Are there there any pictures of this 'molten steel' that the firefighters found?

[Jazzy]

So I did not remember quite correctly, instead, the steel falling from the roof could become up to 8.8 K warmer, but this is still
quite far from melting.

It is true that free-falling pieces of steel get marginally warmer by only a few degrees. I made it less than your figure.

But that's by-the-by.

Every time another floor was punched off the core during the collapse, the reaction loads would have been expressed at the basement foundations to the core columns.

Every time any piece of steel struck any steel beneath it, some of that energy would have been immediately transferred to the lower of the two pieces at the speed of sound in steel. This would have cascaded that available energy downwards towards the bottom of the increasing pile, where the most intense energy transfers would have been taking place. The bottom of the pile would have been a net receiver of energy from the top. This would have served to raise temperatures in the basement way above the free fall norm.

The exact amount of energy resulting as heat is not so easily expressed, as some of the dynamic energy became seismic as the ground deflected/vibrated, as Mick has pointed out, but the origin of the energy which resulted in the basement temperatures was unquestionably the tower's potential energy.

Perhaps you should read the thread again.

[Harry_B]

Every time another floor was punched off the core during the collapse, the reaction loads would have been expressed at the basement foundations to the core columns.

Every time any piece of steel struck any steel beneath it, some of that energy would have been immediately transferred to the lower of the two pieces at the speed of sound in steel. This would have cascaded that available energy downwards towards the bottom of the increasing pile, where the most intense energy transfers would have been taking place. The bottom of the pile would have been a net receiver of energy from the top. This would have served to raise temperatures in the basement way above the free fall norm.

Sorry, this imagined cascading of heat energy is too far from my imagination to discuss it.

[Harry_B]

* There is no real difference between an impact on steel and its internal temperature. They both involve vibrational movement. The impact energy is COHERENT sound energy; all in a single direction, and instantaneous. The thermal activity is RANDOM sound energy. The former becomes the latter by sound transmission and internal reflection.

Maybe your error comes from here. The thermal activity can not be considered as sound energy. Otherwise, when you connect a hot piece of steel with a cold one, the temperature would distribute itself in the two pieces with the speed of sound (like from one noisy room to another) while in reality it propagates only a few centimeters per minute.

[Jazzy]

Sorry, this imagined cascading of heat energy is too far from my imagination to discuss it.

Me too. I can't imagine "heat" cascading either.

It is mechanical energy until the work is done. The work done creates the heat. The "work" is in deformation of the steel, seismic and sonic energy, in that order.

Some proportion of the tower's potential energy was lost during the collapse, of course, but the whole point is that a significant amount of it was applied to ground zero, and the bottom of the debris pile was where this was happening.

Bend a paper clip until it breaks. How hot can you make it?

Was there any straight steel in the debris pile?

[George B]

Me too. I can't imagine "heat" cascading either.

It is mechanical energy until the work is done. The work done creates the heat. The "work" is in deformation of the steel, seismic and sonic energy, in that order.

Some proportion of the tower's potential energy was lost during the collapse, of course, but the whole point is that a significant amount of it was applied to ground zero, and the bottom of the debris pile was where this was happening.

Bend a paper clip until it breaks. How hot can you make it?

Was there any straight steel in the debris pile?

The steel was basically bent once not over and over again. . . .

[Jazzy]

The steel was basically bent once not over and over again. . . .

Yes, George. That's an interesting categorical statement.