What energy does the table impart onto the chopsticks that was not initialy provided by the potential energy supplied by gravity?
Potential energy provides motion and momentum in a particular vector. When the the chopsticks impact on the table surface the downward momentum gets converted into momentum in a different vector depending on the orientation of the chopstick to the direction of impact on the table and the elasticity of the chopstick and table surface.
That is because the table is a much more massive, durable and stable structure than the chopstick. Try dropping the bundle of chopsticks on a structure of other chopsticks and see what happens then.
Gravity may be weak on the subatomic scale but it is much more powerfull on the macro scale. That is because gravity is constant and always in effect. Gravity is powerfull enough to keep the Earth in orbit around the Sun. It is powerfull enough to bend light and keep you from flying off into space when you take a good running jump. Sure you can easily overcome gravity whenever you lift something or jump, but you always come back down to earth because the energy in your jump is over come by the constant pull of gravity. Gravity is so powerful on the macroscale that it takes tons of fuel to accelerate the space shuttle into a low Earth orbit.
Gravity is also always accumulative. The greater the mass, great is the gravitational field, and greater is the effect of mass in motion in a gravitational field. Drop a feather and a bowling ball on a cardboard box (say a pizza box). Guess which one is going to flatten the box.
Why? Because of the greater mass of the bowling ball in the gravitational field.
Unfortunately you don't seem to funderstand* physics where gravity, potential energy and momentum is concerned.
Gravity does not stop acting on an object after an initial impact especially when there is still potential energy due to its mass and position in a gravitational field.
Yes, gravity is always present but nobody blames gravity when you drop something. Then you have to study both objects involved at contact and see what happens.
You cannot, like Bazant, Nist & Co, assume that the smaller object, the WTC1 upper part, is rigid while the bigger object is weak, etc. That is cheating from the start.
In this case the smaller object has exactly the same structure as the bigger object, i.e. an assembly of strong columns, weaker beams and thin concrete floor slabs. Not rigid at all!
And when the smaller object contacts the bigger objects there are serious local failures at points of contacts due to the high pressures developing there. The energy applied is transformed into all these failures ... and that's it. The worst that can happen is that the complete smaller object is destroyed while the bigger object is just partially damaged. Actually, it is the stronger parts of both objects, the columns, that will damage the weaker parts of both objects, beams and floor slabs, and after a while the weaker damaged parts get entangled into one another and friction between these parts starts to play its role.
All described in my papers that nobody has debunked so far.
To suggest that the smaller object (read assembly of parts) can completely destroy the bigger object is just fantasy and has nothig to do with physics or gravity.
It is interesting to note that Bazant, Nist & Co regard the smaller object not only as rigid but also as solid, with uniform density, inflexible, undestructible, etc, etc. It has nothing to do with reality.
Same thing with WTC7. Nist suggests that if you pour diesel oil in the basement and ignites it, the whole 47 storeys structure above suddenly collapses. Just fantasy; the diesel oil just burns on the floor (actually it is the gas of the diesel above the oil that burns) and most heat is just vented away with the smoke. Local heating of structure in the ceiling will be small and all parts will thermally expand and any local failures will be minor. The columns are spaced far apart and will not heat more than a couple of hundred degrees = no problem. Just ask NYFD and they will confirm it. Or do my experiment at
http://heiwaco.tripod.com/nist1.htm#6 .
Please, come up with a better argument than that I have no idea about physics and structural engineering.