Resolved: There was a cover up on 9/11/01 of the demolition of WTC 1 and 2.

Much thanks to Heart_Of_The_Matter for posting this 10th anniversary debate on the events of September 11, 2001. I will try to respond quickly and succinctly to his points so we are not buried by a snowball of new information as we move through the rounds.Those familiar with my debate style know that quoted comments preceeded by >> indicate that the quote is from my opponent. I'll stick to this style, but also let it be known I'm experimenting with this new "Rich Text" feature =)>> "In other words the designers of the buildings prepared the buildings to withstand this exact type of scenario (actually OVERDESIGNED them to handle much more)...so why wouldn't they be able to?"The root response to this line of argument is that in the 1960's, nobody had the information to make accurate assumptions about large-scale systems like this. The only practical experience anybody had with planes crashing into buildings was the plane that hit the Empire State Building in 1945 - a B-25 bomber that weighs about 33,000 pounds (http://www.b25.net...). The Boeing 767-200 that hit the WTC towers has a load weight that far exceeds the B-25 (http://www.boeing.com...). So the long and short of this is that nobody actually knew for sure what they were talking about. But researchers at Purdue University, one of the nations top engineering schools, put together this simulation with modern techniques that fairly conclusively shows that no matter what the engineers thought in 1965, the building was not built to withstand getting hit by a jetliner - http://www.youtube.com....>> "An aluminum nose on a tip of a plane would not even survive the armor-like outer steel beams upon entry!...let alone cut through the middle of the 47 steel columns and come out the other side of the building (and through the OTHER steel reinforced frame on the other side) and have its NOSE INTACT...so how did that happen? Did a normal aluminum plane hit the towers? I will wait for my opponent's explanation."I am curious where my opponent gets the idea that the nose of the plane was still intact? I'm aware that many 9/11 clips show debris exiting the far side of the buildings, but I'm not aware of anyone that says that te nose cone from one of the planes was intact.>> " WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7 are the only steel-structure buildings ever to have collapsed (allegedly) as a result of fire..."Let's get the whole story here... A major component of the structural strength of the WTC towers was that they had much of the weight supported by the outer "grid" of pylons that made up the tower. The floorspace was essentially stretched between the core columns and theouter columns. Nobody disputes that the impact severed many of the outer columns - we can see the gaping holes in the buildings on hundreds of videos. And while it is true that steel can withstand very hgh temperatures, what occurred on impact was basically a firestorm for about 15 minutes, and then a regular fire afterwards. By a firestorm, I mean a massive explosion of jet fuel, metal, glass, dust, concrete chunks, etc... that not only tore through the building, but sucked a massive windburst of fresh air in to fuel the jet fuel inferno. This firestorm ripped the fireproofing insulation off the support members of the surrounding floors, which were then subjected to a fire for quite some time. While steel structures can withstand fires, they are not particularly good at doing so when missing crucial support members. The basic hypothesis here is that the fires inside the building expanded the steel, which caused the remaining outer pylons to bow outwards - a perhaps survivable amount, had all the pylons in fact been there. The destruction of couple of the core columns would have also transferred more weight to the already stressed outer pylons.>> "It is not well-known that WTC1 itself survived a serious fire in 1975. It started on the 11th floor and spread to six other floors, burning for three hours. How come WTC1 survived a 3-hour fire in 1975 but completely collapsed as the (alleged) result of a fire lasting less than two hours on 9/11?"Because in 1975, the WTC1 had all of its support pylons and all of its fireproofing still in place.>> "If the fires were the cause of the collapse then we would expect the North Tower to have collapsed more quickly than the South Tower. But the opposite happened: the North Tower collapsed 104 minutes after impact whereas the South Tower collapsed after only 56 minutes."As I recall, the impact on the South Tower occurred at a corner, and the primary cause of collapse for the South Tower was that the top began to tip...>> "Also there is no way for jet fuel to burn any hotter than 1110° F.-1740° F. and only when steel is at a temperature of 2000° F-2550° F can it be deformed by heavy force."This is definitely not correct. This picture shows the strength of steel as temperature rises (in celsius)(http://911research.wtc7.net...). Wikipedia has an excellent color scale for determining the approximate heat of a fire (http://en.wikipedia.org...). I invite the readers to watch any video of the 9/11 fires and look up the approximate heat range. For argument's sake, we'll conservatively say they were "cherry red" at a lovely 900-1000 degrees celsius, where unprotected steel would be at about 10% strength. Of course the steel wasn't actually *in* the fire, and was probably subjected to lesser temperatures, so even if we half our estimate, the steel would still only be at 75% strength... with many support beams missing.*************************************************************************I should note that my opponent has some glaring issues with the way he has phrased this debate that must be addressed. For example, if, as he says, "Science more fully supports a controlled demolition explanation," then why were the buildings clearly destroyed in a non-controlled manner? Also, why go to the trouble of crashing some planes into the buildings - buildings that were supposedly going to resist the crash? Why not just use the explosives and blow them up without a plane crash?Essentially, my opponent's objectons to the official story are at odds with his theory of controlled demolition. I also found it interesting that he did not present any evidence of the presence of the incredible amount of high explosive that would take, or how the teams snuck past the quarter-million residents, tourists, and workers that are in the towers on a daily basis...As it stands now, the resolution is certainly,NEGATED.