Chandler Davis wrote:

>Also, some
>of the "scientific" objections to the official story seem specious:
>it is objected that for the Nth storey to collapse onto the (N-1)st
>would not produce enough lateral forces to make debris explode to
>the sides,
>
>
actually, now that you mention it, the sideways "puffs" seem more
consistent with a layer collapse and air being expelled by collapse
compression than by numerous discrete dynamite explosions.

and my memory tells me i actually saw a simulation that properly account
for the sideways "puffs"

> or enough energy to trigger collapse of the (N-1)st;
>

my first thought when watching the collapse live on TV was "pancake
instability". lots of fellow physicists had simular thoughts. many of us
were wondering what the mystery was all about.

>but
>like you I think it would produce lots of energy and the lateral
>explosion would be a by-product.  I haven't computed anything on
>this question.
>
>

check out the american society for civil engineers site, i recall they
had a fairly extensive list of pointers to simulations, many of which i
looked through a year ago.

les schaffer