Just so we're all on the same page: if you're talking about the New York Times article's statement that the items on a desk three floors below the impact site in the North tower were undisturbed by the impact, but then thrown off the desk by the backlash when the shockwave from the impact returned from the bottom of the building, a) it ain't my idea, it's in the New York Times article, if you have a problem with it best discuss it with them, and it ain't the core, it's the whole building.

If you're talking about something else, please give more details.

If you're talking about aerosolized kerosene being mixed with air, forced down the freight elevator shaft by the overpressure of the collision, and ignited, causing a blast wave that would travel either hundreds or thousands of feet per second, depending on whether the conditions were right for a deflagration or a detonation of the fuel-air mixture, that seems like a pretty obvious consequence of running a jet aircraft with thousands of gallons of fuel into a building at 500 miles an hour. What's to discuss? I see a plane with thousands of gallons of fuel in it, I see a materials data sheet that says that that fuel is an explosion hazard, I see a visible explosion and fireball, I see plenty of energy to get the deed done, and I see an ignition source. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Szymanski is a pretty good researcher, but he's also sensationalist and doesn't use standard fact-checking methodologies. I've seen him put some really interesting and well-researched stuff up, but it's not very common compared to the sensationalist stuff that's NOT well-researched, and that almost always turns out to be incorrect. AFAIK, he doesn't have a penchant for making things up, but he does listen to sources that do, and doesn't check them. He's not held to any sort of editorial standards, and given what I've seen, I generally take anything he says as unproven until I see a reliable source.

A good example of this was his reporting on the Fitzgerald grand jury, prior to the indictment of Scooter Libby being handed down. He was repeating the rumor mill that had everybody from Shrub on down to the marine guard at the West Wing entrance being indicted for everything under the sun, up to and including lying to congress to start the war in Iraq (which of course we know actually did happen, but which is not an offense that can be prosecuted by anyone Fitzgerald is going to present a case to; congress would have to act on it, and in case you hadn't noticed they aren't exactly likely to go after him for it; they'd like to cover it all up if they could find somewhere to bury it that wouldn't stink to high heaven). Pretty wild stuff. Go have a look.

I am NOT impressed with recordings of someone who is "not available for comment," nor with hearsay. Rodriguez himself is reliable, if you understand that you can count on his OBSERVATIONS, but not his CONCLUSIONS. Think about it: you're standing INSIDE the second sub-basement of a 110-story building when a plane hits the 97th story. What do you think, you'll know about it the instant it happens? How? Because you hear it? HEAR WHAT? You're twenty feet underground!

Because the building shakes? Well, the transmission of such forces is not instantaneous- and it takes a few seconds for the effects to propagate through the building's structure. So his OBSERVATION is, there was a shock to the building- but he's a long way from where the event occurred- over a thousand feet. I trust that OBSERVATION, but I don't trust the CONCLUSION that that's when the plane hit the building. I think it's fairly obvious that the plane hit the building several seconds BEFORE he made that observation.

OK, so what about the explosions? Contrary to another poster's assertion, I have ALWAYS believed that there was an explosion in the basement, however, I have ALWAYS believed that it was due to the plane's impact. I was SURE there had to be some shaft or something that went all the way from the impact site to the basement. Now, I've found hard evidence that there WAS a shaft that went from the 108th floor to the subbasements. I've provided a link to the elevator manufacturer and installer for the WTC towers that gives the details of that shaft: Otis Elevators.

Let me point something else out. High explosives don't make large flames- they make shock waves, and they are very high peak overpressure shock waves. If you are in the same room with a pound of TNT when it goes off, they aren't going to find a body- they're going to find little pieces. And most of those pieces won't be burned. That's not how high explosives work. But if you're in a workshop when a fuel-air explosion blows the doors off the elevator shaft, that's not going to happen- you might even live, but be badly burned. The fact that the victim was BURNED is not PROOF that it was not high explosives, but it makes it VERY UNLIKELY, and since a fuel-air explosion is, on the other hand, VERY LIKELY to cause such burns, which do you think is MORE LIKELY given the evidence you see?

So how fast does a fuel-air explosion burn? That depends on whether the concentration is right to support detonation. If it's not, then the burn will be sub-sonic, probably hundreds of feet per second but not thousands. But if the concentration is right, then it will be a detonation, and the burn will be supersonic and move at thousands of feet per second. If it's hundreds of feet per second, then it might take a few seconds to get to the bottom of the shaft; but if it's thousands of feet per second, it will be there in under a second. This page discusses the characteristics of a fuel-air detonation, and lower down discusses the transition from deflagration to detonation.

If the event in the elevator shaft was a detonation, then the blast wave would have reached the bottom of the elevator shaft in a fraction of a second. When it did, the overpressure behind it would have caused it to seek the weakest point, if there was any point weak enough for it to push its way through. This appears to be what happened in this case, since otherwise, the arrival of a subsonic pressure wave and the arrival of the shock wave from the aircraft's impact on the building should have been relatively simultaneous.

I need to point out for the umpteenth time that I don't have to PROVE this happened; it merely needs to inject REASONABLE DOUBT as to whether there were high explosives involved, and I believe this meets that standard amply; all factors considered, it seems MOST LIKELY that there was a fuel-air explosion that proceeded from deflagration to detonation in the elevator shaft:
1. Someone was burned, rather than blown apart. The person who was burned was CLOSE ENOUGH to be burned, and therefore close enough to be blown apart if there had been a highly brissant shockwave; the fact that they were THROWN by the explosion rather than KILLED by it tells us that the brissance (the magnitude of the peak overpressure) was LOW, which is not a characteristic of explosions involving high explosives, but IS a characteristic of fuel-air explosions, particularly because their shock waves don't reach as high a peak overpressure as those from high explosives, but last longer.
2. The blast wave reached the basement BEFORE the shock wave from the impact. This seems very unlikely at best in a deflagration, but is CERTAIN in a detonation because the blast wave in a detonation travels at supersonic speed.
3. A large piece of equipment was thrown across the room. High explosives are brissant; that is, they make a shock wave that has a very high peak overpressure, but because the explosion is over quickly, it does not last long. This is why high explosives are often called "shattering" explosives; objects subjected to brissant shockwaves do not have time to move, but are instead shattered by the shockwave. Fuel-air explosions, on the other hand, do not have high brissance; but their shockwaves LAST LONGER. This is because the shockwave is developed over a much larger area than it is in a high explosive. Thus, if you see things shattered by an explosion, it is most likely a high explosive; but if you see them thrown around by an explosion, it is most likely a fuel-air explosion.

So it is not Rodriguez' OBSERVATIONS I question; I am certain, in fact, that all he OBSERVED is correct and truthful. It is his CONCLUSIONS that I question: that the plane struck AFTER the explosion in the basement. I note that he was twenty feet underground and not in a position to OBSERVE the plane's impact; all the information he had was from secondary effects of that impact. And that is all we should take from his account.