Originally Posted by willravel

Okay, how's this?

I've personally spoken to a number of structural engineers since 9/11 about several aspects of the collapse. One of them is the static load bearing ability of buildings. A good friend of mine, a commercial structural engineer, stated plainly and without exaggeration that the industry standard ratio for static loads in building high rises is at least five. This means that if a floor is rated to carry one ton, then it should be able to easily withstand 5 tons without collapsing. Now according to the NIST, the steel in the WTC lost 60% of it's rated strength, which is probably an inflated number, but I'll use it anyway. If the fire, which was said to be around 550 degrees C (1022 F), reduced the rated strength by 60%, that would mean that the actual load bearing ability would have only been reduced by less than 20%. Any engineering student can tell you that 20% loss of strength isn't enough to cause a collapse or even cause warping. If the building was only supporting 20% of it's ability (it is law that a building cannot be loaded over it's rated strength, in actuality, the building was only carrying an estimate 8-10% of it's full strength, or 37-50% of it's rated strength), and the strength of the building was reduced 20%, then you still have a building that's standing strong. It wouldn't have fallen from the heat of the fires. It wouldn't have even moved.

That's not random theory. That's hard engineering experience, industry standards, and simple math put up against the NIST report - the final official explaination for the collapse. Fires could not have collapsed the towers even if they were allowed to burn for days. Both towers collapsed in about an hour. I am suggesting, based on evidence, that something else might have been responsible for the collapse of the building.