Bart,

I have been in many debates with people about the 9/11 conspiracy and it's "unanswered questions" and 
when I answer those questions the person I am debating with refuses to accept the physics of the situation. 
in every instance so far I have been the only physicist involved in the argument and the lay person on the 
other side keeps trying to convince me that laws of thermodynamics somehow don't apply in fuel-filled jets.  
Don't get me wrong, I think Bush and company totally ignored the obvious and let those terrorists attack us, 
either willingly or through gorss incompetence but I do not think there were charges in the foundations of 
the buildings, or that missiles hit the Pentagon, etc...

I take exception to the http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/ website sent to you by many readers.  The men 
who head this site have no background is physics.  One, James H. Fetzer, Ph.D, is a philosophy professor 
and the other, David Ray Griffin, Ph.D, professes in theology.  The other "scholar" they associate with is an 
astronomer from BYU named Stephen Jones.  BYU's astronomy program is dedicated to searching for 
the planets "good Mormons" will inherit when they die.

A few quick rebuttals to the conspiracy arguments:

First, the argument that kerosine only burns at 1700 degrees and cannot melt steel because steel melts at 
2800 degrees is false.  Kerosine's adiabatic flame temperature is 1727C and the melting point of steel is 1570C.  
Steel also reaches a plastic state where creep can take place at only 1000C; this is how black smiths pounded 
swords in the old days.  By getting steel to around 1000C where they could make it "bend" to their will much 
easier than when it was at room temperature.

Another argument is that the Twin Towers had charges set and were professionally demolished.  If this is true 
then why did the towers collapse from the top down?  No intentionally demolished building in history has ever
collapsed from the top down.

Also, there is ample evidence that the Port Authority asked FDNY to pull Building 7 as the foundation had 
been destroyed by air and debris that was "rifled" through the sky bridge that connected it to the Twin Towers, 
that and the raging gas fire inside made the building incredibly unstable.

The BBC reports on the hijackers being "alive and well" was nothing more than a report on a claim that the 
hijackers were alive and well, something that has never been substantiated by anyone and is now "truth" that 
gets passed from one conspiracy site to another.

A good, quick explaination on the physics of the WTC collapse by an engineer at the Univeristy of Illinois 
can be found here:  http://www.scifidimensions.com/Oct01/Collapse_of_WTC.pdf

Keep hammerin'

-Houston