This seems worth looking into, as several nations and organizations known to be hostile to the United States appear to have researched the probable effects of an EMP weapon on key elements of American infrastructure.Īt its worst, it appears that explosion of a single nuclear device, at an altitude of a few hundred miles above the U.S., could substantially wreck this country’s transportation, food, and electrical systems, along with most of its electronic devices. For many years, scientists have recognized that these pulses are capable of causing damage far greater than any but the most extreme solar events.Ī separate post sketches what appears to be the current state of knowledge on the risk and extent of the potential damage that an EMP attack could cause. The more worrisome source of electromagnetic radiation is the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) produced by explosion of nuclear weapons. It appears that most of our electronic devices are designed on the gamble that that won’t happen within their lifetime. There have been more severe instances, and there is the possibility of a solar event that could damage electronics across much of the world. Solar flares are a common and, in most cases, relatively mild source of electromagnetic disturbance. By contrast, electromagnetic damage could be a one-shot, virtually instantaneous affair. Depending upon their rate of reproduction and other factors, that could be a very long time. Plastic-eating microbes would presumably survive until they ran out of plastics to eat. The durations of these two threats could of course be very different. This post contributes a brief mention of electromagnetic damage as another existential threat to computing. A previous post observes that efforts to develop plastic-eating microbes could spell the end of computing.
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