Can anybody explain.

[Shadow Man]

I apologise if this is a bit morbid, but it has puzzled me.

I am a 16 stone man and if I trod on an ant with all my weight on one foot the ant will be completey squashed. However, the dead ant will still be completely visible once I take my foot off. Even after quite a while.

Anyway, I have just read that in the 9/11 towers, there are still believed to be 21 people who sadly perished whose bodies have never been discovered. No sign of them have ever been found.

I am no mathamtician, but the ratio of my weight to an ant is probably greater (or not much difference) to the weight of one of the towers compared to that of a human.

How therefore have these people completely vanished?

The fires caused by explosive propane were extinguished when the towers collapsed and there was no where near enough time for the bodies to be completely burnt away.

Also the bodies would have fallen at the same speed as the actual structures so they would not have been ripped to shreds.

Any theories?

(Please don't go down the lines of conspiracies!!)

[WaldoMcFroog]

You're talking about a single force acting in one direction.

The Twin Towers coming down had forces acting in all directions (though predominantly downwards) and rotation and shear. Put your ant in a blender with a kilo of gravel and turn it on, and you won't find anything much antlike at the end of ten seconds.

Gosh - no quoting.

[Clanad]

One of the most important aspects that you are overlooking is the fires erupting from the initial impact of both aircraft. The towers continued to stand for about an hour after the impacts. The fires, spread through about 5 adjacent floors, were estimated to be burning, jet fuel fed, at well above1,500 degrees F, probably even hotter. The wall of flame that erupted behind the terrific collison of the airplanes would have disintergrated anyone standing or working within any distance available on the floors and any remains would have been jettisoned out the other side of the building after suffering enormous shearing and shredding effects
I've assisted in investigating aircraft accidents where the largest piece of any human was coin sized pieces of large bones, such as the pelvis and femur. This type of accident was usually fire free and the damage to the passengers were induced solely by the G-forces. Many of the passengers onboard both airplanes, as well as the Pennsylvania and Pentagon aircraft were never identified for this exact reason, as well as the addition of the heat...

[Peter Pedant]

They were in a mixer
and not much will be left concerning the ones at the top

the terminal velocity was free fall
so there was no resistive force at all during the fall.

The terminal velocity was around 200 km/hr - sorry metric, which for free fall, I regard as rather slow, acutally

say it was 400m high, so term vel is ( 2.10.400)^1/2.
around 90 m/s, which is 3600.100 m/hr
Oh, 360 km/hr.....hmmmm

anyway at that speed I am sure you can grind meat so finely that you cant see it.

[kwicky]

There was an article recently saying that if a woman in stillettos with those micro heels stood on an object the downward force would be in tons/square inch. So applying this to your ant you would need to calculate the area of your shoe hitting the ground.

[dove]

there is more weight on the heel of a stiletto than there is on the whole of an elephants foot (ratio of god knows what but its true)

[kwicky]

On a similar vein I often wonder what happens to the people who die in shipwrecks like the Titanic. Not a trace!