No offense to any freeper Physicist (you know who you are :), but this is what happens when you send a physicist to do an engineers job. Its like trusting a college biology teacher to perform your open heart surgery... Bad idea..
I've met a few of these whacko physicists over the years. One who was very entertaining was a high energy physicist who was convinced he could levitate through meditation and who was working on the ability to walk through walls. It isn't just physcists of course. I've also met some chemists, biologists, and engineers who were equally deluded.
Thermite? Hey, wait a minute ...
Thermite is made from aluminum oxide in conjunction with another metal oxide, usually iron oxide (rust is one form, but there are better ones). Ignition of a thermite reaction takes a lot of heat, but then it burns feircely on its own.
Could the jets crashing into the World Trade Center have begun thermite reactions, which then melted the support beams? Aluminum oxide from the aircraft, heat from burning jet fuel in an enclosed space, iron oxide in the beams or other places ...
Just wondering.
If someone more knowlegeable about chemistry than myself would care to debunk this theory, I would be obliged.