The Single Bullet Theory, SBT, says one bullet made a small exit hole in Kennedy's throat, tumbled about one-quarter of a revolution, then made a large entrance wound in Connally's back. We know this explanation of the small exit and large entrance wounds as the tumble theory.
Critics of the tumble theory quickly pointed out that this bullet did not have enough time while going through Kennedy to reach a sufficiently high tumble speed. Opponents of these critics, almost immediately blunted the challenge to the SBT. They proclaimed the critics were wrong and asserted the bullet was tumbling fast enough to make one-quarter of a revolution while traveling between Kennedy and Connally. Ever since this initial debate in 1964, people remember the critics of the tumble theory as those who claim the bullet was not tumbling fast enough.
If we place this dispute in a more familiar setting, we can appreciate what they were saying. Suppose someone said that during a blink of an eye a car went from zero to sixty miles per hour. Nobody would object to the claim that a car reached a speed of sixty miles per hour. However, critics would protest that a blink of the eye does not give the car enough time to reach sixty miles per hour and they would be correct.
Here the critics raised the same objection as the critics of the tumble theory. In both cases they understood and did not explicitly state that acceleration of cars or bullets are limited. This limitation on acceleration restricts the speed a car or a tumbling bullet can reach in a given time.
We are aware of one limitation on the acceleration of a car. If we try to speed up too rapidly our tires skid and we lose some acceleration. Our tires also limit how rapidly we come to a stop. If we apply the brakes too hard, our tires skid and we lose some braking force.
Tires are not the only limitation on acceleration and deceleration. Suppose we were traveling at sixty miles per hour when we struck a steel wall. The car will not stop instantaneously. The decelerating force would increase until the car began to crush. This would lengthen the time for the car to stop and limit the deceleration. Ultimately the strength of materials limits acceleration or deceleration.
The single bullet had limited strength. We know the force on this bullet while passing through Kennedy was less than its crushing value. This constraint sets an upper limit on how rapidly the tumble speed of the single bullet increased. Limited acceleration of the single bullet was one factor in the critique of the tumble theory.
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