Solo Blender artist recreates WTC collapse in free software, matching 2002 Bazant analysis
aakashgupta · x · 2026-09-12
Blender artist Kai Kostack, working alone as a private project in free software, built a simulation that makes the Twin Towers collapse clearly visible. He wrote his own plugin for structural connections and computed breaking thresholds from actual steel dimensions. The result matches Northwestern's Zdenek Bazant's 2002 paper: once fire-weakened columns let the upper block drop one story (3.7m), impact forces far exceeded design capacity.
The quoted post notes the simulations remove smoke and show the collapse didn't simply vanish into its footprints — it began in the damaged, fire-weakened region, with the upper section tilting before destruction propagated downward. NIST spent three years, 10,000 pages and 200+ engineers reaching similar conclusions, yet the 'controlled demolition' claim persisted because you cannot screenshot a differential equation.
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