Real energy released on JFK head by the fatal bullet

[Alberto Miatello]

Good morning everybody.

The conspiracy behind JFK assassination, is not only an historical event, it can be proved “mathematically”, namely in these decades several very good researchers (one of the last is Richard Charnin) proved  the odds that nearly 50 witnesses could ALL misidentify  the origin of the shots from the Grassy Knoll, is one in TRILLION. That was the correct scientific approach I tried to follow   in my last paper as well

https://www.academia.edu/32346233/Six_Compelling_and_Irrefutable_Reasons_Proving_that_President_Kennedy_was_Killed_by_a_Well-Organized_Plot

where I summarized the 6 main points in JFK assassination, mathematically proving that the odds of a “lonely assassin” are less than 1 in 10^32 (!) = INFINITESIMAL = it is 100 TRILLION times more “likely” that a person wins a Jackpot of PowerBall +  survives an airplane crash + a meteor falls a couple of meters before him/her!

But the “mathematical/scientific proof” of conspiracy, can also be easily found by proving that the fatal bullet could have been shot JUST from the PICKET FENCE  and nowhere else, by applying the established laws of physics, mechanics and terminal ballistics, that I resumed in 5 points in my paper above, in section  3)

Unfortunately, too many persons (even conspiracists!)  are still relying upon the totally wrong  words by Larry Sturdivan, who so replied  on this subject when asked by Mr. Fauntroy, as a technical expert/witness before the HSCA

“Mr. STURDIVAN: …Multiply that mass of bullet in pounds times 800 -feet per second, the velocity lost, and we have a quantity, an unusual quantity, 18.4 pound feet per second of momentum which has been deposited by the bullet. Now, in the head of the President-and I am only giving you a very rough figure here-we take that momentum, 18.4 and divide by the mass of the head, which I have guessed at as being about 15 pounds, which would produce a net velocity of 1.2 feet per second in the head… As we can see from the chart, this velocity of 1.2 feet per second is not the kind of velocity that would throw the President bodily around backwards, forwards, or in any direction no matter which direction the bullet came from. The deposit of momentum from the bullet is not sufficient to cause any dramatic movement in any direction. It would have a very slight movement, assuming that the bullet hit him in the back of the head. It would have a slight movement toward the front, which would very rapidly be damped by the connection of the neck with the body. “ (???) [HSCA, Sturdivan’s testimony, vol. I, pp. 413-414)

 

Firstly, the speed of the fatal bullet was NOT 800 feet per second, it was nearly   3-4 times larger (as an average between  2,300 - 3,000 ft/s), no matter the rifle was a Mauser 7.65, or a Remington, or a Winchester, or a Mannlicher-Carcano. In recent years Pat Speer wrote that maybe Sturdivan’s testimony could have been “misrepresented” (i.e. maybe someone wrote “feet” when Sturdivan said “meters”). And yet, Sturdivan was  always using feet + pounds, and not meters + kg.  in that testimony (even in his handwritten notes), so it seems unlikely he was “misrepresented”. Maybe some of his words have been incorrectly reported, but the sense and the meaning of his thought (= JFK head could not move so suddenly and violently  in a backward direction) seem quite clear.

2^nd fatal error by Sturdivan:  It makes no sense to analyze the energy and/or the momentum released by a bullet when striking its target, without considering the OBLIQUITY of the bullet at the moment of impact.

It is theoretically and experimentally well-known -  since 1962, after the excellent work by Ipson and Recht on terminal ballistics (“Final report. The dynamics of terminal ballistics” 1962) that of course no “expert” of the Warren Commission mentioned – that the impact energy and momentum of a bullet depends a lot on the OBLIQUITY OF IMPACT, namely, when the obliquity is > 30° and approaches 60° - the impact pressure  is GROWING UP TO 4-5 TIMES! This happens because when the obliquity increases,  a bullet is facing more resistance to the penetration, as the surface it is impacting in oblique position  is becoming larger and more elliptical as a shape of penetration, than when it is in a perpendicular position (and the surface to cross is perfectly circular). Thus, the bullet spends  much more energy to cross the target surface. But this fundamental problem was blatantly ignored by Sturdivan.

3^rd error by Sturdivan: he analyzed the movement of Kennedy’s head after impact with the fatal bullet, in a fancy and unrealistic way,  as if the head were someway “separated” from Kennedy’s body, as if his head were not articulated and rigidly connected to his torso and body through the backbone.

Thus, the numbers Sturdivan gave in his HSCA hearing are  simply meaningless.

It is not true – as Sturdivan said -  that President Kennedy received on his head a “deposit of momentum from the bullet [that] is not sufficient to cause any dramatic movement in any direction. It would have a very slight movement” (???) (HSCA ,Sturdivan, p. 414)

Actually, a correct calculation, as I reported again  also in my new paper (see sec. 3) yields a pressure of  a 60° impact to the head – by  a bullet from a 7.65 Mauser (or even a Mannlicher-Carcano)  – that is around  125,000 psi (= 50,000 psi  muzzle pressure/0.4 friction coefficient by steel sliding inside the barrel) x 4.8 (60° obliquity factor) = 600,000 psi = a size of magnitude totally coincident with that experimentally by Ipson-Recht and Denver Research Institute!

You can see here http://www.handloads.com/misc/saami.htm that the main models of rifle have a muzzle pressure between 45,000 and 65,000 psi, so we can calculate an "average" muzzle pressure around 50,000 psi.

Thus, JFK  received – from the fatal bullet -  a pressure on his head that was (more or less)  nearly 15 TIMES LARGER than the one miscalculated by Sturdivan, and this of course explains very well the violent snapshot and backward-to-the left rapid movement of his head, and explains also the impressive fragmentation of that bullet in many minute (like “grains of sand”) fragments on his right temple and inside his skull and brain, as described by Bethesda’s anatomy-pathologist Dr. Humes.

For a “layman comparison” , in order to better understand this point,  the impact on Kennedy’s head by the fatal bullet, at  around 600,000 psi (say between 500,000-600,000 psi  depending upon the model of rifle/bullet and precise obliquity (impossible to know 100% but very likely between 55°-60°)  is  similar to the energy as released  by a VERY POWERFUL  WATERJET  DEVICE and that can easily push violently in a backward direction the head of a bleeding, groggy and severely wounded person, as JFK was after the first shots to his throat and back. If you take many “commercial”  waterjet cutters, the most powerful are releasing a pressure around 60,000-90,000 psi. See here what happens to a bowling ball under a waterjet of “only” 60,000 psi pressure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIYvdAO02-w , i.e. nearly 10 times smaller than that of an oblique FMJ bullet!

Moreover, in my diagram top view of fatal shot  (see section 3 of my work)   it is simply shown why a frontal shot from the stockade fence produced an entry smaller wound on the temple and a larger occipital gap to the right side of skull, with an impact angle of 55°-60° . As the presidential limo was curving left in that point of Elm Street, the shot was frontal for the sniper, but it was oblique for the head of JFK.

Nothing new about this, as several very good researchers such as Josiah Thompson, David Scheim, etc. correctly suggested this physical interpretation many years ago.

On the contrary, it is very easy to find totally BOGUS  diagrams and images such as this one below in this website

http://www.jfk-lecomplot.com/english/6/

 

"The Moorman Photo"

 

Here is the author’s comment:

“6° - "Origin of the Frontal Head Shot"

Most supporters of the plot are convinced that the fatal head shot was fired from behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll. I have never agreed with this hypothesis because a bullet fired from any place of this picket fence would have exited the left side of JFK's head, and not the right rear.” ???

It is incredible that such TOTALLY  WRONG comment received no reply or criticism!

Needless to say, it makes no sense to take the Moorman’s photo to retrace the trajectory of the fatal bullet, simply because that photo was taken AFTER the fatal shot, when Kennedy’s head was already displaced, and therefore it is useless for this purpose, in the same way as the famous photo of Bobby Kennedy deadly wounded and  lying on his back on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel is totally useless to retrace the trajectory of the bullets that struck him when he was standing a few seconds before!

So, it is a GROSS and PATENT MISTAKE to say – based on Moorman’s photo – that a frontal shot from the picket fence would have exited the left side of JFK skull (???), because when Kennedy was struck his head was NOT in that position, his head  was NOT yet displaced and bending backward to the left!!

It is time that not only the historical, but also the scientific truth proving the conspiracy is vigorously stated, against  lies and  disinformation.

Alberto Miatello