Luxury skyscraper hotel completely engulfed by fire in Grozny, Chechnya (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

[William Seger]

154. Perhaps you should actually try that experiment

... but you need to model one other important aspect: If support on one side is removed, the box will begin to tilt toward that side, just as the towers did, but in fact the box is trying to rotate around its center of mass. According to Newton, the action of pushing the mass of the box to one side causes an equal and opposite reaction. i.e. the center of mass of the rotating box is moved laterally only by pushing laterally against the remaining columns. If those columns can resist that lateral force, then yes, the box should topple to the side as conspiracists imagine. But if those columns can't resist that lateral force, as was the case with the towers, then the rotating box will kick the columns away in the direction opposite the tilt and then drop straight down, still rotating until it hit the floor.