Another one!
Do you have a degree in Physics? (I do.) I do not think of myself as an idiot. I do not believe that we have anything close to the full story about what happened in Oklahoma City. But unlike you, and others here, I have had a chance to pose questions about the event to an expert with no motive to try to fool me (He's very much on the FR side!) and I thought he had answers for all my questions. Some of those questions were specifically about Partin's analysis which I think I presented to him. This wasn't a four minute talk we had, and I believe we subsequently followed up with email back and forth.
ML/NJ
Do I have a degree in Physics? No, I do have a degree in civil engineering, and have actually overseen the construction of buildings and assisted in the design of buildings.
The lateral force required to pulverize reinforced concrete columns in the size and number of those in the Murrah Building did not come from the truck bomb, because most of the force of the bomb did not go toward the building.
If the field of force of the explosion is a 360 degree circle or sphere, because an unshaped charge travels in all directions at the time of detonation, then at most 90 degrees of the circle or one fourth of the sphere engaged the Murrah Building, meaning that only one fourth of the explosive force took down the building.
The other three quarters of the force was wasted in directions away from the building, ie down and away from the building.
A SHAPED charge of that mass of ammonia nitrate and fuel MIGHT have done the trick, but still highly doubtful. There was no way to shape the explosive force.
The lateral force of the blast had to severe the first floor columns back three or four bays into the building, and across most of the front of the building. As the blast goes farther into the building, it has less force,because the force is used up as the front columns are encountered and bypassed.
So the force required to do the actual damage done was far in excess of what a rental truck could hold, using only one fourth of the available explosive force.
That is why from day one I was not buying the official story. And at the time, I was responsible for the HQ facilities and security for a very large corporation, which included thousands of employees and high rise buildings.