Mr. Rogers' AP Physics C: E&M (with IB Physics) Objectives

1. Find testable claims: Locate conspiracy theory sites on the internet and list 3 testable pieces of evidence or claims they use to indicate that the building had to be brought down by explosives including the claim that the buildings collapsed at a rate faster than 1 g. Formulate an appropriate research question, list the various conspiracy claims along with the web site references and hypotheses to test them.

Not Testable: Martians with invisible death rays made the tower collapse, so that they could take over Wall Street and suck the brains out of stock brokers and bankers. (While the above is clearly absurd, it's not that outlandish for a conspiracy claim.)

2. Perform video analysis: Working in groups of three to four,  take video data of the North Twin Tower collapsing form a web site,  9 - 1 1 R e s e a r c h (http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/) and produce a displacement vs. time graph from it by analyzing screen shots of the collapse in Adobe Illustrator. (You will have to devise your own procedures for doing so.) From this graph derive acceleration and velocity data in order to evaluate the claim that the the North Tower fell at a rate faster than 1g.

It's ok to use other videos from other sites. The suggested site is one of the few that is not blocked at the school.

3. Perform mathematical modeling and observations:  Generally it's not possible to create exact mathematical models of complex events like a building collapse, but it is often possible to establish that an alternative explanation is or is not feasible by using a simple mathematical model combined with other  observations. for example: if a simple calculation says that an object would take t seconds to hit the ground after being dropped from the height of the twin towers and videos show that parts of the towers were still standing well beyond t seconds, then obviously the tower did not uniformly collapse at a rate of 1 g or higher. Perform any other analysis that may shed light on the two other conspiracy claims. Keep in mind that the building itself had a considerable amount of gravitational potential energy stored in it and a collapsing floor in a tower would have acted  like a huge piston increasing air pressure and creating a considerable wind as it fell.

Examples:

1. If it's possible to find a machine that uses water to cut steel (such machines do exist) then it's likely that other soft materials could be used to cut or punch holes in steel assuming that water has no special material  properties that would give it a special ability to cut steel.
2. If we assume that a hypothetical photocell has 100% efficiency in converting sunlight to electricity and it still could not provide the needed power, then a real photocell (obviously with less than 100% efficiency) would not work in the application.

Deliverables: The final result will be formal write up meeting or exceeding all the requirements of the IB internal assessment rubrics. In doing so, the write up will follow the outline given in Format For Formal Write-ups of Physics Investigations. The write up will count as a test grade.

the diagram to the right shows the general layout for the write-up. Note that the three testable claims are to be listed in the Research Question section below the question. The hypothesis section will contain three hypotheses corresponding to the three claims in the Research Question section.