

Those other animations of the World Trade Center disaster you've seen on the news? Illustrative in certain ways, perhaps, but not scientifically accurate. Now, scientists at Purdue have done the math to develop what they say is a scientifically accurate simulation, and they've melded the data with realistic animation.

The end result, they say, will be useful for both engineers trying to build buildings that could withstand attack, as well as laypeople trying to understand how the towers were brought down. The animation is broken down into segments, each showing the impact of a different part of the plane: metal, fuel, dust and glass.

The scientists say the weight of the fuel acted like a flash flood of 10,000 gallons of flaming liquid, like a hot and fast lava flow. They also found that the airplane metal ripped from the plane seconds after impact.

Watch the animation here. Heads up: it takes forever to load Thanks to Purdue for sending a link to a smaller version.

Purdue creates scientifically-based animation of 9/11 attack [press release]