Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Let's do some Math here concerning the Single Bullet theory, and I am going to ask my friend Richard Charnin, a mathematician, to weigh in on it. We are going to try to figure out the angle of the so-called Magic Bullet. 

We'll start by estimating Oswald's vertical distance above Kennedy. We have to figure the height of the sixth floor window and add to it the descent of the road from the top of Dealey Plaza to where Kennedy was hit. I am putting that combined vertical distance as 72 feet, which is 24 yards.  

We can try other figures later if people disagree with that. It's very hard to find accurate numbers on this.   

And the horizontal distance of that shot I am placing at 171 feet or 57 yards. 

Using the Pythagorean theorem (the sum of the squares of the height and base of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenus) it comes to a shooting distance for that shot of 61.84 yards. 

But, I am interested in the angle. We have a right triangle with a height of 24, a base of 57, and a hypotenuse of 61.84. We know the right angle is 90 degrees, and we know that the sum of the other two angles is also 90 degrees.

So, we are solving for x where x is the angle between the hypotenuse and the base. We have to determine the inverse sine using the opposite side over the hypotenuse, hence 24/61.84 which is .388. That equates to an angle of 22.83 degrees. 

That has got to be close to accurate, so why are some people claiming 17 degrees?

Actually, I know why they are claiming 17 degrees. They are claiming it because Connally has to be on the same trajectory in relation to Kennedy as Kennedy was to Supposed Oswald. Again: the angle between Connally and Kennedy has to be the same as the angle between Supposed Oswald and Kennedy for the SBT to have any chance. And that is just plain preposterous because Supposed Oswald was 6 flights up from Kennedy, while Connally was in the same car as Kennedy. 

But, let's try calculating Connally's angle to Kennedy. How far in front of Kennedy was Connally?

Here's another image:

I am going to say for now: 1 yard. So, 36 inches. So, that's the base of the triangle. How much lower was Connally than Kennedy? I figure, what? 3 inches at the most? 

But, let's add another inch to account for the fact that the road was sloped, and even over a distance of a yard there was some descent. So that's 4 inches. 

Alright, so if we have a right triangle with a base of 36 and a height of 4, again, using the Pythagorean theorem, it gives us a hypotenuse of 36.22 inches.

And then, using those numbers, we calculate the inverse sine again, and we come up with an angle of 6.33 degrees. 

What it means is that Connally was essentially in front of Kennedy. He was mostly forward of him. He was mostly ahead of him, but he was also 6.33 degrees lower than him. Only 6.33 degrees down. That was the downward angle between Kennedy and Connally. So, if Kennedy was 22,83 degrees down from Supposed Oswald, Connally would have to be 22.83 degrees down from Kennedy to be on the same trajectory, but he wasn't. He was only 6.33 degrees down. He was mostly in front of Kennedy. 

So, a bullet from the 6th floor that struck Kennedy in his back would not have been on a trajectory to strike Connally. 

I am willing to try this again using other numbers, but even if my calculation for Connally is off, even if it should be twice as great, say 12.66 degrees, that is still nowhere near the 22.83 angle between Supposed Oswald and Kennedy. 

Here's the situation: we've got two right triangles, a big one between Supposed Oswald and Kennedy, and a small one between Kennedy and Connally. The angles of those right triangles have got to be the same. 

Richard Charnin, the mathematician, has responded by redoing the calculations with different elevation numbers. So, what follows is Richard's work.

If we assume a total elevation of just 65 feet for Supposed Oswald and 171 feet horizontal distance, then the angle of the shooter to JFK is 20.36 degrees. If we assume a total elevation of 75 feet and the same horizontal distance, the angle then becomes 23.01 degrees. 

For Connally, if we assume he was just 3 inches lower than Kennedy, it makes his angle to Kennedy 4.77 degrees. If we take it up to 5 inches (and I can't imagine anyone suggesting more than that) it makes his angle to Kennedy 7.96 degrees. These numbers are obviously a long way off from the steep angle from the 6th floor. 

The point is that you don't have a straight line from Supposed Oswald to Kennedy to Connally. When you get to Kennedy from the 6th floor, you have to change direction to get to Connally. 

The way they have deceived us about this is to understate the angle from the 6th floor to Kennedy, making it too flat, and to overstate the angle from Kennedy to Connally, making it too steep.