Lightwave comments on The 9/11 Meta-Truther Conspiracy Theory - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 December 2009 06:59PM

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Comment author: Jonii 23 December 2009 12:58:37AM 6 points [-]

Just curious, but didn't those buildings really come down faster than they should've, assuming structure was intact?

Comment author: Lightwave 23 December 2009 06:41:26PM 0 points [-]

The explanation I've heard is that once few of the top floors fall on one of the floors below them, the effect is sort of like it was being hit with a hammer, all the supporting columns of each floor below snap instantly as they are hit, so it's almost free fall from then on.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 December 2009 06:53:09PM 11 points [-]

Be careful not to explain data that turn out to be false. IIRC (someone else could look it up if they were really interested) the "free-fall" part is bogus, the free-fall time was 9 seconds and the actual time was 15 seconds or something like that.