TAM 5.5 attendees: in case you thought I was joking...

[Gravy]

A new one:

I have been asking this question for SIX years, and still, no one has answered it for me.
Maybe Bill will give it a try.

Create two models of a tower using whatever material you want. You can make it out of cardboard, glued toothpicks, epoxy, tinfoil, or glass. Anything at all. Make one section one quarter the height of the bottom section.
Now, take the smaller section of structure, lift it up an inch or two, and drop it on the taller structure.
Does the top section collapse into itself (disintegrating) and then smash through the entire bottom section, completely destroying the model?
No?
Then try again usng different materials and a different structure.
This is fun. Really.
Stack three Coke cans on top of each other, and then try and crush them by dropping another Coke can on top of them. Do it with cardboard boxes. Drop a case of lightbulbs onto a stack of three cases of lightbulbs.
Stack three cinder blocks on top of each other and try to pulverize them by dropping another cinder block on them.
Post your results here and let everyone know when you've discovered a model which works and how you made it.

–Katin
Male, 49. Boston, Massachusetts

http://forums.myspace.com/p/3708228/36762772.aspx?fuseaction=forums.viewpost#36762772

:hb:

[rebecca]

Oh good, I see Katin is a neighbor of mine. Maybe we can get together and he can lend me some of that crack he's smoking.

[CFLarsen]

Oh good, I see Katin is a neighbor of mine. Maybe we can get together and he can lend me some of that crack he's smoking.

Unfortunately, he doesn't need to be doing any kind of drugs. All he needs is the ignorance all too common - and welcomed - in today's society.

Don't forget Carl Sagan's taxi driver.

[bokonon]

The fact is that the "models" you speak about don't scale up to the size of the WTC (which is what I assume prompted this challenge).

You can make a bridge out of glued toothpicks that will withstand the force of an earthquake that's a 12.5 on the Richter scale. Not a "scaled down" 12.5, a REAL 12.5. That doesn't mean any real bridges will be left standing after such a quake.

I'm sure someone has pointed this out to [Katin] before, so I assume engineering isn't [Katin's] strong suit.

[Gravy]

Unfortunately, he doesn't need to be doing any kind of drugs. All he needs is the ignorance all too common - and welcomed - in today's society.Sad but true.

Don't forget Carl Sagan's taxi driver.Why, is the meter still running?

[Gravy]

I'm sure someone has pointed this out to [Katin] before, so I assume engineering isn't [Katin's] strong suit.Since he says he's been asking this question for six years, I'd expect that someone has pointed this out and he can't or won't understand. I had a similar experience a while back with someone who was doing the Coke can thing. I told him that one such can could support over 7,000 times its own weight, whereas one Twin Tower could support about twice its own weight (when intact). I asked him if he thought he could stack 7,000 or 5,000 or 1,000 Twin Towers on top of each other. He didn't answer.

[jmercer]

Ye gods and little green apples. :p

[a.real.girl]

Gravy, if you answer him, be sure, and I mean ABSOLUTELY SURE, to pepper your response with references to baby animals and dinosaurs.

He'll be eating out of your hand. (If that's the sort of thing you'd want.)

-A

[Gravy]

Good advice, a. (I liked all of Michael Stackpole's advice), but replying would require joining MySpace, which is on my bucket list: things to do after I kick the bucket.

[CFLarsen]

Why, is the meter still running?

Check the beginning of Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World". He tells of a driver sent to pick him up, who believed just about every woo tale there was.