There's a reason cannon shells explode. The force of a chemical reaction such as nitroglycerine is many orders of magnitude more powerful than the physical collision of an object of the same mass. But we are to believe that the Arab world, even someone as rich as Bin Laden, can do no better than use a technique from the 15th century. They can fly airplanes but can't do first year college physics. Ah, the mystery of billionaire, backwards towel heads living in caves.simonshack wrote:Excellent, Boethius. Love your way of 'simplifying the absurdity' of it all... If any airplane could make a 100+storey skyscraper collapse from top to toe - this would be the cheapest way of demolishing ANY old high-rise building! No need for expensive / expert dynamite demolition crews. Just throw an old airplane into the building, et voilà : skyscraper neatly crumbles down in cloud of dust!Boethius wrote:
So there it is. A giant plane going as fast as it possibly can is only about as good as a few sticks of dynamite.
As for your calculations, I will double-check them just for fun - but at first sight - they sound quite sound and reasonable to me.
Why didn't they charter a private plane from Teterboro, load it with dynamite and slam it into the towers? Were they throwing empty trash cans at Soviets tanks in Afghanistan?