Sounds like someone we know =P (Alternative 9-11 theories)

Punch a hole that high up, it won't be very oxygen deprived. The way the building was made and the way it was damaged ... yes, it will fall straight down.

800F is easy to reach. Your ovens at home easily reach 400+. Don't even need the aluminum mini-flares.

There was however, lots of evidence of a thermite reaction deep in the basement with lots of fun molten stuff dug up weeks after. Not at the top of the pile.

[1] Its an oxygen deprived environment when you see the fire churning out lots of smoke. Meaning its fuel rich. Also some basic science.

[2] The towers had a central core. Doesn't hitting it from the side make it want to collapse sideways? I've never seen someone chopping a tree and seeing it bury itself vertically downwards.

[1] Looked it up. Very well, a demolition. However, still not sufficient evidence of a conspiracy.

[2] The collapses took place 47 and 105 minutes later. That's more than enough time for sideways energy to be dissipated. The buildings were designed to withstand impact from a plane (but not impact and fire), so they have enough stability to shake off the sideways impact.

[1] The conspiracy is hidden behind the reason why everyone was constantly fed weird versions of how the plane caused the demise of the building.

[2] Why ship all the WTC debris to asia as recyclable raw material in such a short period of time?

[3] It would have been far easier to explain it based on a demolition set up by the country's own government to garner enough excuse for multiple invasions into the mideast. I've always believed that humans are an expendable resource especially in large countries with a high population, and this is a good example.

I gave the tree chopping example, because as explained by the official media, it supposedly damaged some of the structural columns along the side it hit. Trees do not fall from the impact of the chopping. They fall because you remove some of the material on the trunk, and it falls under its own weight.

south tower tipped over before collapsing indicating an imbalance in the supporting structure at the breaking point rather than an outright failure of the central supports.

It's also possible that OBL planned it that way, that is a demolition combined with a plane-collision spectacle. True it's easier to explain it with a conspiracy theory, but easy explanations are not always correct. What I heard is that OBL used to be funded by the US government until something went horribly wrong. So at this time, I'm still tossing a coin.

What I'd like to see is a video that shows how the individual floors fell, particularly those near the ground. The floors are hard to see because of the vertical columns of the building, but the falling sequence should end speculation as to where in the building (basement or high up) the real failure took place.

Hmm ... and I think we're taking this thread too off topic already. It's supposed to be about the professor's possible dismissal.

The heat from the burning plane fuel and aluminum is enough to weaken that core, and the impact of the upper floors coming down is enough to buckle the lower parts.

the so-called "pancake collapse" theory has been discredited by many many people already.

Nearly every large building has a redundant design that allows for loss of one primary structural member, such as a column. However, when multiple members fail, the shifting loads eventually overstress the adjacent members and the collapse occurs like a row of dominoes falling down.

The perimeter tube design of the WTC was highly redundant. It survived the loss of several exterior columns due to aircraft impact, but the ensuing fire led to other steel failures. Many structural engineers believe that the weak points—the limiting factors on design allowables—were the angle clips that held the floor joists between the columns on the perimeter wall and the core structure (see Figure 5). With a 700 Pa floor design allowable, each floor should have been able to support approximately 1,300 t beyond its own weight. The total weight of each tower was about 500,000 t.

As the joists on one or two of the most heavily burned floors gave way and the outer box columns began to bow outward, the floors above them also fell. The floor below (with its 1,300 t design capacity) could not support the roughly 45,000 t of ten floors (or more) above crashing down on these angle clips. This started the domino effect that caused the buildings to collapse within ten seconds, hitting bottom with an estimated speed of 200 km per hour. If it had been free fall, with no restraint, the collapse would have only taken eight seconds and would have impacted at 300 km/h.1 It has been suggested that it was fortunate that the WTC did not tip over onto other buildings surrounding the area. There are several points that should be made. First, the building is not solid; it is 95 percent air and, hence, can implode onto itself. Second, there is no lateral load, even the impact of a speeding aircraft, which is sufficient to move the center of gravity one hundred feet to the side such that it is not within the base footprint of the structure. Third, given the near free-fall collapse, there was insufficient time for portions to attain significant lateral velocity. To summarize all of these points, a 500,000 t structure has too much inertia to fall in any direction other than nearly straight down.

Based on the field investigation and study of drawings and other design related documents, it is the opinion of the author that the highly redundant exterior tube of the World Trade Center with many closely spaced columns was able to tolerate the loss of many columns and support the gravity while almost all occupants who could use a stairway escaped to safety. The collapse of the towers was most likely due to the intense fire initiated by the jet fuel of the planes and continued due to burning of the building contents. It is also the opinion of the author that had there been better fireproofing installed to delay the steel structure, specially the light weight truss joists and exterior columns from reaching high temperature until the content of the buildings burned out, probably the collapse could be avoided and the victims above the impact area rescued. Finally, in the opinion of the author, if the walls around the stairwells were stronger and the stairwells were not all located at one place, many of the victims who were trapped in the floors above the impact area probably could find a useable staircase and escape to safety.

"Steel is born of fire," Hamburger explained. "As it's reheated, it expands and loses its rigidity. Above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it loses a significant amount of its strength."

He said the extreme heat from the fires might have caused the steel floors to expand and bow, which may have caused the support columns to bend inward and buckle. Heat also may have caused the steel flooring to separate from the columns, or the columns themselves may have heated up and buckled outward.

Hamburger and his colleagues have not yet determined which of these scenarios occurred on Sept. 11, but there is little doubt that the collapse of the upper floors of the WTC towers brought down both structures.

"Think of the impact of dropping a 25-story building straight down," Hamburger told the audience. "It was like a pile driver, which is why it collapsed as it did."

No, I really wasn't sure. Still not, entirely.

Oookay. Basically, I was just saying that it would not surprise me in the least if an easy target were used to make the entire 9/11 research movement, as a whole, look like a bunch of silly foil hat-wearers (mind you, many really fit that stereotype, but some also very much do not). Maybe that's not what's happening here, but it was my first impression.

To be honest, after a closer look, I think I might have reacted too quickly. Yes, I do overreact occasionally.

Hm. Actually, as I was reading it, I think the writer did a good job of not portraying him as a "nutjob." The instructor came across as reasonable -- though in my opinion, wrong.

the David Ickes of the world.

Ickes. So appropriately named

By the way, did you ever read the book Them by Jon Ronson? The guy hung out with Ickes and other ideological extremists and wrote about the experience. Even went along with a guy who tried to crash a Bilderberg party. It was a good read.