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Wer shoudl include this as a possibel source fo EMP and evience as to what happnened with previous incidents i.e. THE Carrington Event 1859: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 and modern prpearation for it http://www.armageddononline.org/electronic-armageddon-solar-flare-2012.html ALTHOUGH there is nothing preparing for eth nuclear meltdown if we had 100s of power statsions suddenly going critical if there is nothing to stop them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.244.172.55 ( talk) 12:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
What's impressive about this article is that it is written exclusively from the point of view of an American with a presumed audience of Americans. The last "FAQ" is rather amazing in this respect—"America isn't defended!" -- 98.217.14.211 ( talk) 16:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed! This article is incredibly americo-centric. Actually it's rather arrogant and prejudiced. Please provide more rounded articles! Maybe this is more a reflection of the political system in America, i.e., if something is not American it's not worth listing too. Americans need to become less self centred! (Note the 'r' before 'e'). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.101.71.182 ( talk) 00:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Should we add appearances of EMP in movies, books? Matrix, War of the Worlds and Modern Warfare 2 are the 1st to come my mind. OzhanTR ( talk) 19:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC) No! Wikipedia is not for trivia. (Axeo) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.101.71.182 ( talk) 00:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC) There are popular culture references that are not trivial. What about fiction book built around the concept (One Second After - http://www.onesecondafter.com/)? Non-technical folks will also be coming to this page due to the new NBC series ( http://www.nbc.com/revolution/) and may want discussion of this topic outside of technical scientific literature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.46.12.179 ( talk) 14:31, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
The broader question is: Where are the authoritative non-US publications about electromagnetic pulse that can be referenced in order to expand this Wikipedia article more broadly beyond U.S. and Soviet experiences and official reports?
Many EMP experts have stated in verbal reports that Europe, China and Russia have had extensive civilian activities devoted to EMP hardening. I have found hundreds of authoritative US-generated documents about EMP, and I have read many of them. I am sure that other countries must also have published non-classified material about EMP considering the work that they've done. I've only found a very few such articles, and most of them are not available in English. Please put any possible leads to authoritative non-US information here. X5dna ( talk) 03:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
How does EMP damage sensitive electrical equipment?
How does it damage power systems?
How does one protect against it? Does shielding help?
Etc.
Gypsydoctor ( talk) 03:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
More specifics:
My computer is off but connected to the power grid, will it be damaged?
Is the whole power grid in danger?
Does the article implies a large enough EMP over the US would send it back to the middle ages with no electricity, no computers, no spares, no water, no cars...? How far can this go? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.180.131.227 ( talk) 19:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
It would send the US back to the middle ages. If you computer is off but connected, it will be toast. If you computer is off and unplugged, it will be toast. Yes the entire power grid is in danger. I would suggest reading "One Second After" to get an idea of what may happen. Just an FYI, the guy that wrote the story is highly respected and knowledgeable in the area of EMP. -- Brian( view my history)/( How am I doing?) 04:21, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
This article, and especially the now-archived section of this discussion page, had (for a few years) been a rather chaotic forum-like discussion of questions and answers about EMP effects and EMP protection. That problem went away for a long time after a link to the United States EMP Commission's excellent Critical National Infrastructures Report was put in the very first paragraph of the article. The link was removed on 9 August by Cybercobra on the grounds that it doesn't belong there. (By Wikipedia standards, he's right, and the link is still in the references at the bottom of the page.)
I'm afraid, though, that we're going to get right back into the same lengthy question-and-answer forum session about EMP effects unless the link to that report is featured quite prominently. The report is at:
http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
There are many problems with a Wikipedia article about specific EMP effects. One is that the article would necessarily be extremely long (literally book-length, and a very long book at that). The concise EMP Commission Critical National Infrastructures Report is more than 200 pages long. Another problem is that the likely EMP effects change continuously as electronic technology rapidly changes. Yet another problem is that EMP protection technology is continuously and rapidly evolving. Although the EMP Commission Critical National Infrastructures Report is a look at the situation in 2008, they were able to take a fairly good snapshot of the situation at one particular time. The report can also be extrapolated, to a large extent, to most other industrialized nations besides the United States. The EMP Commission was also able to do EMP simulator testing to substantiate their statements; however scientists and engineers involved in discussions on Wikipedia talk pages had to make educated guesses based on their individual widely-varying experiences with electromagnetic disturbances. X5dna ( talk) 13:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
It has been suggested that the Electromagnetic bomb article be merged into the Electromagnetic pulse article. I can see nothing of value in the Electromagnetic bomb article. In fact, the Electromagnetic bomb article contains some important errors. The Electromagnetic bomb article has always been mostly a repository for rumor and opinion, with some occasional information from popular media articles that contain no scientific references. The Electromagnetic bomb article contains little valuable information beyond what is in the Electromagnetic pulse article. I suggest that the Electromagnetic bomb article simply be deleted if others agree with this assessment. X5dna ( talk) 00:30, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
When discussing weapon yields, I don't mind the parenthetical conversion to terajoules or petajoules, but the repeated use of "kilotons of TNT" or "megatons of TNT," rather than just kilotons or megatons, seems to make this article much harder to read. It seems to me that we no longer need to continually refer to a 146-year-old chemical explosive that the average reader of this article probably considers to be completely irrelevant to the understanding the topic of this article. Most readers think of kilotons or megatons as nuclear weapon yields. Wiki-links, as appropriate, to the "TNT equivalent" article seem more reasonable than the repeated references to TNT. X5dna ( talk) 05:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Since no one else has commented on this, I went ahead and removed the repeated references to TNT in the nuclear weapons yield statements in this article. In addition to making the article more difficult to read, the often-repeated TNT references added to the possible confusion since many methods of non-nuclear generation of electromagnetic pulse use chemical explosives. Where the references to TNT equivalence were removed, I wiki-linked to the article on "Nuclear Weapon Yield" in case any reader actually had any confusion about the terms kiloton or megaton. X5dna ( talk) 11:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
I re-wrote the "Common Misconceptions" section to be more encyclopedic, and less like a part of an essay. Although this section mostly repeats material in earlier sections, I don't think that this section should be deleted since the misconceptions that it addresses appear almost daily in new writings in the popular press and on the internet. Further suggestions are welcome. X5dna ( talk) 01:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Would anyone object to the deletion of the External link to the cover article in the September 2001 issue of Popular Mechanics? The lead-in to that article states, "In the blink of an eye, electromagnetic bombs could throw civilization back 200 years. And terrorists can build them for $400." This statement has caused confusion in discussions all over the internet since it confuses nuclear EMP with non-nuclear EMP, and leaves the impression that terrorists can build a nuclear weapon for 400 dollars. This Popular Mechanics article has been responsible for so much misinformation and confusion that I don't believe that the Popular Mechanics article should be linked from a Wikipedia article. X5dna ( talk) 05:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Someone has added a description of a video game which includes an EMP to this article. The video game reference clearly does not belong in this article. Whenever I can find the time, I hope to create a new page called "Electromagnetic pulse in popular culture," although anyone else is welcome to begin such a page if they have time to start the page before I do. There was once an article called "Electromagnetic pulse in fiction," but it was deleted back in the days when articles were deleted by Wikipedia administrators for trivial reasons. That deletion has proven to be a very serious mistake because whenever there is no article for "Electromagnetic pulse in fiction," then fiction will begin to creep into the scientific article on "Electromagnetic pulse." Misguided Wikipedia policies of the past have led to articles (such as this article on 1 December 2009) which seem to show video game rules as being actually equivalent to real and powerful nuclear weapon effects. There is a need to have a separate article about the occurrence of electromagnetic pulse in fictional/gaming situations so that it can be clearly distinguished from the occurrence of electromagnetic pulse in reality. (This has been a problem in Wikipedia for many years). X5dna ( talk) 10:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
There is now a new article called Electromagnetic pulse in fiction and popular culture. This new article is the place for all fictional and video game references to electromagnetic pulse. Please do not put fictional references in the scientific article on electromagnetic pulse. X5dna ( talk) 04:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
I removed the "citation needed" tag after the phrase "Typical modern scenarios seen in large numbers of news accounts and opinion articles . . ." in the "Post-Cold War attack scenarios" section. A Google search today for "electromagnetic pulse" in news articles shows 2,580 news articles and 17,718 blog postings about electromagnetic pulse for a total of 20,298 possible references that could be used here. Although not all of these possibilities would be appropriate for references here, a large number of them would be. Including only the most highly appropriate references would still leave hundreds of highly relevant examples. Citations are not needed for things that appear in news and opinion articles on a daily basis. These "citation needed" tags for obvious things like this are simply time wasters. X5dna ( talk) 02:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
"The E1 pulse is the very fast component of nuclear EMP. The E1 component has an intense electric field that can quickly induce very high voltages in electrical conductors. E1 is the component that can destroy computers and communications equipment and is too fast for ordinary lightning protectors."
This is not entirely accurate. The incident electric field does not induce currents in conductors. In fact, the boundary conditions on an electric conductor dictate that the tangential component of the incident electric field is zero, and the normal component induces a surface charge density (assuming for the sake of academic argument that the electric conductor is perfect - zero resistivity).
What induces a current in an inductor is a tangential MAGNETIC field. However, because in normal space a time varying electric field is necessarily coupled with a time varying magnetic field that is orthogonal to it, an incident electric field pulse comes with an orthogonal magnetic pulse for free, and this is what induces the potentially damaging currents in electronics. It is nonetheless the incident magnetic field, and not the incident electric field, that is the direct cause of coupled current in electric conductors.
-- 173.62.183.174 ( talk) 13:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
The entire section is based in gossip and gossip of gossip, and some sparce information that it is not conclussive.
Sorry but gossip can't be used to fill a incomplete story. -- 190.21.162.224 ( talk) 16:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)-- 190.21.162.224 ( talk) 16:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I put much of the more concise, older version of the introduction to the article back in place. Most of the material that had been moved to the new and extremely long introduction to the article (for the past two weeks or so) was material that was questionable or confusing anyway. If needed, that deleted material is readily available from the article history, and can be added back in to the appropriate parts of the article (very carefully) as needed. X5dna ( talk) 02:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Would the deliberate use of high altitude nuclear explosions (for EMP effects) have much utility from a military standpoint (terrorism aside) ? During the cold war it was sometimes suggested that a "pure case EMP attack" (i.e without any bombing of military or civilian targets) was possible in order to inflict economic/infrastructural damage on an enemy. However were such an attack to occur it would have likely to have lead to retaliation in kind or escalation to fullscale nuclear warfare. In a cold war scenario it would have been difficult to use EMP in most parts of Europe without affecting neutral and friendly countries as well. Initially EMP might have been regarded as a way to prevent retaliation to a surprise attack by disabling an enemies means of counterattack but as awareness of the phenomenon grew measures were taken to "harden" crucial military hardware against such effects. Therefore the only likely effect of an EMP attack would be to hamper civil defence and recovery/reconstruction efforts after the war is over causing even more difficulty and misery for civilian survivors. 86.112.65.115 ( talk) 20:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Someone has added a paragraph to the article stating that the destruction of consumer electronics would be the greatest danger to the average person from an EMP event. This contradicts all of the the published studies by EMP experts which have found that the greatest danger would be the lack of food and water. The food distribution systems in industrialized countries relies completely upon computerized inventory systems, electric and electronic temperature control equipment, and a functioning transportation system. Water supplies for all but a small minority of people depend totally upon functioning electric water pumps and electrical and electronically-controlled water purification systems. Consumer electronics are of little consequence to people who are dying because of a lack of food and drinkable water. X5dna ( talk) 13:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Is there any meta-analysis about the US discussion on this matter? The vast discussion is IMHO a remarkable phenomenon, given the fact that any attacker could yield much more destruction or "terror" if he simply ignited the same bomb over a city. The fascination for having (only) the electric devices shut down should give interesting insight into americas heart. At least a paragraph "in the media" or "public discussion" might make sense. -- Bernd.Brincken ( talk) 23:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
I have removed the "confusing or unclear" tag from this article. The article has been extensively re-edited since that tag was put in place. Also, whoever added that tag provided no explanation at all as to why it was added.
Electromagnetic pulse can be a complex subject to understand. Please put specific areas of confusion on this discussion page. I'm sure that specific points of confusion can be addressed. Some graphic animation would be useful, but I doubt if anyone has the time or resources to produce the necessary animation. Perhaps we can make this a much more easily understood article, though, if readers would address specific points of confusion on this discussion page. X5dna ( talk) 09:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Is it pronounced "Emp" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.98.100.146 ( talk) 03:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Editing of this article really needs to be restricted to registered editors. The vast majority of unregistered users making recent edits are clear cases of vandalism. The quantity of this sort of vandalism is driving away legitimate editors from Wikipedia altogether. It is tiresome to be constantly reverting vandalism rather than making real improvements to articles. X5dna ( talk) 18:48, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Do EMP's remain in the Earth's magnetic field after a bomb explosion or do it dissipates? I mean, how long do EMP's remain active? When a nuclear missile or bomb explodes EMP's are released, on which distance depending upon the explosion altitude, that much I know but how long does it last. Freedom Fighter 1988 ( talk) 05:46, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Conceptually and theoretically only (obviously), if several large conducting balloons were filled to high pressure with an insulating gas like sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), were charged and had large induced magnetic fields, and then were rapidly popped, would this generate a substantial amount of magnetic flux ? (Presumably, the surface area of the magnetic fields would rapidly contract ?) Is this a decent analogy or metaphor for the generation of magnetic fields and rapid decrease in it's area ? Alternatively, is this metaphor misplaced or misleading - for example are there important features relating to symmetry, or shape or direction of the flow that are getting lost in such an analogy or metaphor? If so, how would you describe the basic concepts of these physics phenomena to laypeople in a clear manner using simple down to earth metaphors and models ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.116.128.56 ( talk) 20:33, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Someone recently changed about half of the spellings of "metre" in this article to "meter". This half-and-half version of spelling standards not only violates the Wikipedia: Manual of Style, it just makes the article look really sloppy. Also, when there have been other revisions made since the half-and-half change, it is really a lot of work for another editor to make everything consistent again. As a U.S. resident myself, I prefer the U.S. spellings, but this article has used the British spellings for a very long time now. If you believe that it is necessary to make a change in spelling standards, please state the reason here, and make ALL of the changes. Don't just leave the article a jumbled mess. X5dna ( talk) 09:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
When I was reading some soviet books on in-space EMP tests, I stumbled at some informations about these tests damaging multiple satellites of that time, both US and russian (and there weren't *that* many at the time. Anyone got more info about this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.112.108.225 ( talk) 20:26, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.bombshock.com/electronics/how-to-protect-yourself-from-electro-magnetic-pulse.html. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. VernoWhitney ( talk) 18:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
first paragraph needs to specifically state that it can induce excess currents in electronic devices that are turned ON at the time. article needs a seperate section to discuss more about methods used for sheilding from emp. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gawdsmak ( talk • contribs) 19:32, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
The reference cited in the addition of November 4 to the Electromagnetic Pulse article provides no justification for the statements that were added to the article. In fact, Figure 3 in the reference from the Army Communicator article contradicts the material that was added to the article. Note that the frequency components of EMP go out beyond 100 MHz according to Figure 3 of the cited reference at:
http://www.signal.army.mil/ocos/ac/articles/fiedler/dfemp.pdf
That article from Army Communicator is from 1987, meaning that it is 25 years old. A reference to 25 year old electronics technology would generally be inappropriate, but that article is actually pretty good. Most of the technology described in the article has not been outdated, although better EMP protection techniques are now available.
The problem with the November 4 addition to the Wikipedia Electromagnetic Pulse article is that the magnetic shielding described is designed for frequencies of less than about 300 Hz. and is generally ineffective at frequencies above 100 KHz. So this leaves the frequency components of EMP that are between 0.1 MHz and 100 MHz completely unprotected. See the descriptions of the frequency range of magnetic shielding alloys at:
http://www.magnetic-shield.com/faq/interference.html#q5
Also see the Wikipedia articles on Electromagnetic shielding and Mu-Metal.
For additional information about the frequency spectrum of a nuclear EMP, see pages 33 and 34 of the technical report at:
http://www.ece.unm.edu/summa/notes/TheoreticalPDFs/TN364.pdf
X5dna ( talk) 03:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
what about EMP from an asteroid-impact? i´m pretty sure this effect exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.138.46 ( talk) 18:18, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I reverted the revisions made on January 30 by Luisloureiro for several reasons. First, the additions were inappropriate for the introduction to any article, and would have belonged in explanations later in the article. The addition to the introduction made the introductory section extremely confusing to the average reader. Introductory sections are supposed to be simple and concise. Second, the subject matter of the additions applied more to other Wikipedia articles, such as Electromagnetic radiation and health. The top of the current article states that "This article is about the general weapons effect. For other uses, see the more specific topic."
The nature and effects of bursts of electromagnetic radiation that occur incidentally during the normal course of commercial or experimental activity are not appropriate to this particular article (although they may be quite relevant and important to other Wikipedia articles). There are other Wikipedia articles about many aspects of electromagnetic radiation. Finally, the cited reference was added in a manner that did not conform to Wikipedia standards. In addition, the cited reference was not in English, and therefore not appropriate to the English-language version of Wikipedia without some sort of unusual justification. X5dna ( talk) 02:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
The IP user who made these 3 deletions violated several Wikipedia policies as stated in WP:LINKROT, which states, among other things, "Do not delete cited information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer." If anyone wants to add this information back into the article, the updated reference to use for what is now a dead link is:
http://web.archive.org/web/20121108204504/http://kyl.senate.gov/legis_center/subdocs/030805_pry.pdf
X5dna ( talk) 12:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
This article discribes the effect of an EMP attack on electronics, but it doesn't describe the direct effect on human, animal & plant life. Does a HEMP have no physical effect? Would the radiation releaced affect anyone or anything on the ground? How low does a EMP detonation need to be to hear a blast, feel a shock wave? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CycloneSteve ( talk • contribs) 01:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
This article is misnamed. It focuses almost entirely on HEMP, with a few ragged pointers to other kinds (for example the section supposedly on on the general "Characteristics of nuclear EMP" almost immediately talks of the E1 pulse generated in the "upper atmosphere", so is really about the "Characteristics of HEMP").
There are many types of EMP. Off the top of my head I have come across:
Nor is there much in the article about protection, test and measurement, such as the damped sinewave model of induced signal in the victim. Fair enough, that could be treated as EMC, but it sill needs summarising and linking.
Frankly, this article needs splitting with the lion's share going to a new article on High altitude electromagnetic pulse and the rest forming the basis of content more directly relevant to the article name.
The question is, is it better to move this whole misnamed thing and start afresh, or to create the new article page and cut-paste the bulk of it across? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Following the above discussion I propose to move the current page to Nuclear electromagnetic pulse because that is what it is primarily about.
I have drafted a replacement article on the Electromagnetic pulse at User:Steelpillow/Test, which I propose to cut/paste back into this article (Moving it across is bad because that would bring a lot of my test page's old history with it).
To tidy things up, I also propose to delete the section on NNEMP weapons from the new Nuclear EMP article. The section has found a home in my draft, so overall it will effectively just stay on this page.
Any objections?
— Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 12:51, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
An anonymous editor added several "citation needed" tags to a quotation from a U.S. government report written for Oak Ridge National Laboratories. That report was already cited in this article along with a web link to the original Oak Ridge report. I have never before encountered the assertion in a Wikipedia article that an authoritative quotation from a public domain reference should have references within the cited reference. If someone disagrees with the Oak Ridge government report, they should state why Oak Ridge National Laboratories is not an authoritative source on nuclear physics, or else they should take the matter up with the government laboratory in a different venue. Actually, many of the misconceptions which the Oak Ridge report was addressing were popularized in earlier versions of this very Wikipedia article, and some the the "Citations needed" can be found above on this very talk page. X5dna ( talk) 06:38, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Once again, an anonymous editor has altered a direct quotation from a U.S. government report. If you think that you know more about this subject than physicists who are employed by, or are under contract to, a U.S. government laboratory, please state the reasons for your greater level of expertise, and then cite more authoritative references instead. Do not, however, alter direct quotes unless you can cite evidence on this talk page that the quotation in question is actually a misquotation. X5dna ( talk) 06:39, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
This section makes a general claim about vacuum tube based equipment being less vulnerable to nuclear EMP than newer solid state equipment. However, the only citation for this paragraph is from 1981. The phrase "newer solid state equipment" is surely no longer accurate in this context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BillBucket ( talk • contribs) 18:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Recently some U.S. Senators questioned Energy Secretary Moniz about the potential effects of an Iranian nuclear EMP attack on the United States. Ted Cruz, for example, puts U.S. casualties in the "tens of millions". He referenced the work of the EMP Commission during this discussion. Does anyone know where this figure comes from? I have not read the 2008 and 2004 EMP Commission reports, but I searched through them using a number of different queries and couldn't find a basis for this figure.
Jim Woolsey cites testimony of the "chairman of the EMP commission" for "90 percent of Americans would die within 12 months" of a nuclear EMP attack. Woolsey also coauthored a 2014 Wall Street Journal article that states "The EMP Commission, in 2008, estimated that within 12 months of a nationwide blackout, up to 90% of the U.S. population could possibly perish from starvation, disease and societal breakdown." In other news articles, I have seen a figure of "70 to 90 percent dead" attributed to the chairman of the EMP Commission. But I can't find the actual quote. The closest I got is the July 10, 2008 House Armed Services Committee testimony of Dr. William Graham, chairman of the 2008 EMP Commission, who was asked a question about a novel called One Second After, which considered a HEMP attack over Nebraska that killed 90% of the U.S. population a year after the attack. Graham said that the novel's estimates were "in the correct range" and that 10% of the population could probably survive in a "basically rural economy" caused by an EMP attack.
Is this off-the-cuff answer regarding a novel the only basis for the "90% of the U.S. population would die" figure? And is that figure, in turn, the source of Cruz's "tens of millions of Americans would die" figure? Can anyone shed some more light on these numbers? Ketone16 ( talk) 15:15, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
The article should make an attempt to spell out, in terms as concrete as possible, what kind of EMP effects are generated, if any,
Would there be any appreciable/significant EMP at all in these kinds of scenarios, where the burst height is geared to maximise the damage caused by the other weapons effects? -- Cancun ( talk) 11:32, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
The article begins with a clear distinction between EMP and HEMP, but then becomes muddled and seems to deal mostly with the latter and very little with the former. Also, it says that "The term 'electromagnetic pulse' generally excludes optical (infrared, visible, ultraviolet) and ionizing (such as X-ray and gamma radiation) ranges" but gamma radiation crops up over and over again in the subsequent text and illustrations.
In the article, it states that watch are "much too small" to be affected by the EMP.
Earlier above, it says that Hawaii experiment delivered about 5 kV/m pulse strength, which induces about 10 megavolt of electric potential over 500 nanoseconds in 1 mm long conductor parallel to the EMP propagation vector. This far exceeds breakdown voltages of semiconductor electronics, so it may permanently damage all internal circuitry just by irreversibly eroding semiconductors. Additionally, with common resistance of digital chips of 50 kiloohm, this will result in producing thousands of watts worth of heat dissipation energy during this short surge, which is all but sure to melt extremely small internal circuitry. It's worth mentioning that internally, chips also feature significant length of conductors, usually devoid of electromagnetic shielding. It also says that targeted pulse can peak out at 50 kV/m. Thus even in wrist watches, there's sufficient amounts of conductors to cause permanent damage from EMP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.247.33.223 ( talk) 10:05, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
"Thousands of Watts" of heat, dumped even just over 500ns, would raise the temperature of a 1mm*0.1mm*0.1mm copper conductor by 15000K (per kW), resulting in explosive vaporisation. Seems unlikely. 178.15.151.163 ( talk) 13:26, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
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References
This link is broken, it goes to an "under construction" page at ORNL. Can someone hunt down another copy of this PDF or figure out where on ORNL's page it got shuffled off to?
99.194.243.91 ( talk) 14:20, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
These reports made for Oak Ridge National Laboratories by Metatech are cited many times throughout Wikipedia. They have been moved from the Oak Ridge site to the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) web site. For future reference, here are their current locations (as of early 2017):
Executive Summary:
Report Meta-R-319
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-319.pdf
Report Meta-R-320
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-320.pdf
Report Meta-R-321
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-321.pdf
Report Meta-R-322
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-322.pdf
Report Meta-R-323
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-323.pdf
Report Meta-R-324
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-324.pdf
X5dna ( talk) 21:10, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which some editors of this page have been involved. The thread is
Dr. Ronald Cutburth. Your input at ANI is very much welcome. --
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A user made a massive change to this article on September 7, 2017. This change deleted a major section that was added after years of careful consideration. The deleted quotation was written as part of a report for Oak Ridge National Laboratories and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, two major United States federal government entities. This quotation was added to prevent the insertion of individual opinions into this article (such as was done on Sept. 7). Also, the deleted Common Misconceptions section was referenced by other Wikipedia articles. This massive change was made without any discussion on this talk page. I reverted this massive change and the deletion of the Common Misconceptions section. As I have said on other occasions, if you disagree with the lengthy quotation on common misconceptions, one should take the matter up with Metatech or Oak Ridge National Laboratories or the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This article is not the place to express personal disagreements with organizations of experts. Changes to this article should be made more incrementally and with much more care and with consideration to problems that have occurred with this Wikipedia article throughout its history. X5dna ( talk) 23:52, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
In spite of the large number of references in this article, there are also a large number of "Citation Needed" tags in this article. Most of the requested citations are already in information in the listed references. The "Citation Needed" tags mostly just need to be matched up with proper sections of already listed references. This is an extremely time-consuming process. Please do not remove sentences that have had a "Citation Needed" tag for a few weeks unless you are a subject matter expert and know the sentence in question to be inaccurate. Accurate and verifiable information has been removed from this article in recent months in a manner that amounts to little more than vandalism. Remember that Wikipedia editors are working without pay, and usually have very busy lives. Have patience; and use this page to point out sections that are most badly in need of attention. X5dna ( talk) 04:52, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
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I've added some new cites in the section "Post-Cold War attack scenarios" to publications in 2016 and 2017 because the section stopped short in 2011. However I found them hard to summarize because they are mainly preparation studies and listing knowledge gaps. Perhaps someone here would like to expand on this a bit, or know more about the larger context? Robert Walker ( talk) 00:03, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
I deleted the reference to the failed S.H.I.E.L.D. Act because it is just one of a very large number of failed congressional bills (and proposals to government agencies) to protect civilian infrastructure in the United States from nuclear EMP that have been introduced during the past few decades. With so many failed efforts, I can see no justification for singling out only one such failed effort for inclusion in this article. Proposals, laws and other efforts which have been formally accepted for action do deserve a description in the article. X5dna ( talk) 07:19, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
I love how a random master's thesis is inserted between a pair of US Federal government reports as though it's equivalent. Extra Brass. 68.230.153.193 ( talk) 23:09, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
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Wer shoudl include this as a possibel source fo EMP and evience as to what happnened with previous incidents i.e. THE Carrington Event 1859: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 and modern prpearation for it http://www.armageddononline.org/electronic-armageddon-solar-flare-2012.html ALTHOUGH there is nothing preparing for eth nuclear meltdown if we had 100s of power statsions suddenly going critical if there is nothing to stop them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.244.172.55 ( talk) 12:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
What's impressive about this article is that it is written exclusively from the point of view of an American with a presumed audience of Americans. The last "FAQ" is rather amazing in this respect—"America isn't defended!" -- 98.217.14.211 ( talk) 16:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed! This article is incredibly americo-centric. Actually it's rather arrogant and prejudiced. Please provide more rounded articles! Maybe this is more a reflection of the political system in America, i.e., if something is not American it's not worth listing too. Americans need to become less self centred! (Note the 'r' before 'e'). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.101.71.182 ( talk) 00:05, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
Should we add appearances of EMP in movies, books? Matrix, War of the Worlds and Modern Warfare 2 are the 1st to come my mind. OzhanTR ( talk) 19:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC) No! Wikipedia is not for trivia. (Axeo) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.101.71.182 ( talk) 00:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC) There are popular culture references that are not trivial. What about fiction book built around the concept (One Second After - http://www.onesecondafter.com/)? Non-technical folks will also be coming to this page due to the new NBC series ( http://www.nbc.com/revolution/) and may want discussion of this topic outside of technical scientific literature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.46.12.179 ( talk) 14:31, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
The broader question is: Where are the authoritative non-US publications about electromagnetic pulse that can be referenced in order to expand this Wikipedia article more broadly beyond U.S. and Soviet experiences and official reports?
Many EMP experts have stated in verbal reports that Europe, China and Russia have had extensive civilian activities devoted to EMP hardening. I have found hundreds of authoritative US-generated documents about EMP, and I have read many of them. I am sure that other countries must also have published non-classified material about EMP considering the work that they've done. I've only found a very few such articles, and most of them are not available in English. Please put any possible leads to authoritative non-US information here. X5dna ( talk) 03:22, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
How does EMP damage sensitive electrical equipment?
How does it damage power systems?
How does one protect against it? Does shielding help?
Etc.
Gypsydoctor ( talk) 03:33, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
More specifics:
My computer is off but connected to the power grid, will it be damaged?
Is the whole power grid in danger?
Does the article implies a large enough EMP over the US would send it back to the middle ages with no electricity, no computers, no spares, no water, no cars...? How far can this go? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.180.131.227 ( talk) 19:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
It would send the US back to the middle ages. If you computer is off but connected, it will be toast. If you computer is off and unplugged, it will be toast. Yes the entire power grid is in danger. I would suggest reading "One Second After" to get an idea of what may happen. Just an FYI, the guy that wrote the story is highly respected and knowledgeable in the area of EMP. -- Brian( view my history)/( How am I doing?) 04:21, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
This article, and especially the now-archived section of this discussion page, had (for a few years) been a rather chaotic forum-like discussion of questions and answers about EMP effects and EMP protection. That problem went away for a long time after a link to the United States EMP Commission's excellent Critical National Infrastructures Report was put in the very first paragraph of the article. The link was removed on 9 August by Cybercobra on the grounds that it doesn't belong there. (By Wikipedia standards, he's right, and the link is still in the references at the bottom of the page.)
I'm afraid, though, that we're going to get right back into the same lengthy question-and-answer forum session about EMP effects unless the link to that report is featured quite prominently. The report is at:
http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
There are many problems with a Wikipedia article about specific EMP effects. One is that the article would necessarily be extremely long (literally book-length, and a very long book at that). The concise EMP Commission Critical National Infrastructures Report is more than 200 pages long. Another problem is that the likely EMP effects change continuously as electronic technology rapidly changes. Yet another problem is that EMP protection technology is continuously and rapidly evolving. Although the EMP Commission Critical National Infrastructures Report is a look at the situation in 2008, they were able to take a fairly good snapshot of the situation at one particular time. The report can also be extrapolated, to a large extent, to most other industrialized nations besides the United States. The EMP Commission was also able to do EMP simulator testing to substantiate their statements; however scientists and engineers involved in discussions on Wikipedia talk pages had to make educated guesses based on their individual widely-varying experiences with electromagnetic disturbances. X5dna ( talk) 13:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
It has been suggested that the Electromagnetic bomb article be merged into the Electromagnetic pulse article. I can see nothing of value in the Electromagnetic bomb article. In fact, the Electromagnetic bomb article contains some important errors. The Electromagnetic bomb article has always been mostly a repository for rumor and opinion, with some occasional information from popular media articles that contain no scientific references. The Electromagnetic bomb article contains little valuable information beyond what is in the Electromagnetic pulse article. I suggest that the Electromagnetic bomb article simply be deleted if others agree with this assessment. X5dna ( talk) 00:30, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
When discussing weapon yields, I don't mind the parenthetical conversion to terajoules or petajoules, but the repeated use of "kilotons of TNT" or "megatons of TNT," rather than just kilotons or megatons, seems to make this article much harder to read. It seems to me that we no longer need to continually refer to a 146-year-old chemical explosive that the average reader of this article probably considers to be completely irrelevant to the understanding the topic of this article. Most readers think of kilotons or megatons as nuclear weapon yields. Wiki-links, as appropriate, to the "TNT equivalent" article seem more reasonable than the repeated references to TNT. X5dna ( talk) 05:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Since no one else has commented on this, I went ahead and removed the repeated references to TNT in the nuclear weapons yield statements in this article. In addition to making the article more difficult to read, the often-repeated TNT references added to the possible confusion since many methods of non-nuclear generation of electromagnetic pulse use chemical explosives. Where the references to TNT equivalence were removed, I wiki-linked to the article on "Nuclear Weapon Yield" in case any reader actually had any confusion about the terms kiloton or megaton. X5dna ( talk) 11:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
I re-wrote the "Common Misconceptions" section to be more encyclopedic, and less like a part of an essay. Although this section mostly repeats material in earlier sections, I don't think that this section should be deleted since the misconceptions that it addresses appear almost daily in new writings in the popular press and on the internet. Further suggestions are welcome. X5dna ( talk) 01:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Would anyone object to the deletion of the External link to the cover article in the September 2001 issue of Popular Mechanics? The lead-in to that article states, "In the blink of an eye, electromagnetic bombs could throw civilization back 200 years. And terrorists can build them for $400." This statement has caused confusion in discussions all over the internet since it confuses nuclear EMP with non-nuclear EMP, and leaves the impression that terrorists can build a nuclear weapon for 400 dollars. This Popular Mechanics article has been responsible for so much misinformation and confusion that I don't believe that the Popular Mechanics article should be linked from a Wikipedia article. X5dna ( talk) 05:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Someone has added a description of a video game which includes an EMP to this article. The video game reference clearly does not belong in this article. Whenever I can find the time, I hope to create a new page called "Electromagnetic pulse in popular culture," although anyone else is welcome to begin such a page if they have time to start the page before I do. There was once an article called "Electromagnetic pulse in fiction," but it was deleted back in the days when articles were deleted by Wikipedia administrators for trivial reasons. That deletion has proven to be a very serious mistake because whenever there is no article for "Electromagnetic pulse in fiction," then fiction will begin to creep into the scientific article on "Electromagnetic pulse." Misguided Wikipedia policies of the past have led to articles (such as this article on 1 December 2009) which seem to show video game rules as being actually equivalent to real and powerful nuclear weapon effects. There is a need to have a separate article about the occurrence of electromagnetic pulse in fictional/gaming situations so that it can be clearly distinguished from the occurrence of electromagnetic pulse in reality. (This has been a problem in Wikipedia for many years). X5dna ( talk) 10:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
There is now a new article called Electromagnetic pulse in fiction and popular culture. This new article is the place for all fictional and video game references to electromagnetic pulse. Please do not put fictional references in the scientific article on electromagnetic pulse. X5dna ( talk) 04:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
I removed the "citation needed" tag after the phrase "Typical modern scenarios seen in large numbers of news accounts and opinion articles . . ." in the "Post-Cold War attack scenarios" section. A Google search today for "electromagnetic pulse" in news articles shows 2,580 news articles and 17,718 blog postings about electromagnetic pulse for a total of 20,298 possible references that could be used here. Although not all of these possibilities would be appropriate for references here, a large number of them would be. Including only the most highly appropriate references would still leave hundreds of highly relevant examples. Citations are not needed for things that appear in news and opinion articles on a daily basis. These "citation needed" tags for obvious things like this are simply time wasters. X5dna ( talk) 02:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
"The E1 pulse is the very fast component of nuclear EMP. The E1 component has an intense electric field that can quickly induce very high voltages in electrical conductors. E1 is the component that can destroy computers and communications equipment and is too fast for ordinary lightning protectors."
This is not entirely accurate. The incident electric field does not induce currents in conductors. In fact, the boundary conditions on an electric conductor dictate that the tangential component of the incident electric field is zero, and the normal component induces a surface charge density (assuming for the sake of academic argument that the electric conductor is perfect - zero resistivity).
What induces a current in an inductor is a tangential MAGNETIC field. However, because in normal space a time varying electric field is necessarily coupled with a time varying magnetic field that is orthogonal to it, an incident electric field pulse comes with an orthogonal magnetic pulse for free, and this is what induces the potentially damaging currents in electronics. It is nonetheless the incident magnetic field, and not the incident electric field, that is the direct cause of coupled current in electric conductors.
-- 173.62.183.174 ( talk) 13:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
The entire section is based in gossip and gossip of gossip, and some sparce information that it is not conclussive.
Sorry but gossip can't be used to fill a incomplete story. -- 190.21.162.224 ( talk) 16:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)-- 190.21.162.224 ( talk) 16:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
I put much of the more concise, older version of the introduction to the article back in place. Most of the material that had been moved to the new and extremely long introduction to the article (for the past two weeks or so) was material that was questionable or confusing anyway. If needed, that deleted material is readily available from the article history, and can be added back in to the appropriate parts of the article (very carefully) as needed. X5dna ( talk) 02:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Would the deliberate use of high altitude nuclear explosions (for EMP effects) have much utility from a military standpoint (terrorism aside) ? During the cold war it was sometimes suggested that a "pure case EMP attack" (i.e without any bombing of military or civilian targets) was possible in order to inflict economic/infrastructural damage on an enemy. However were such an attack to occur it would have likely to have lead to retaliation in kind or escalation to fullscale nuclear warfare. In a cold war scenario it would have been difficult to use EMP in most parts of Europe without affecting neutral and friendly countries as well. Initially EMP might have been regarded as a way to prevent retaliation to a surprise attack by disabling an enemies means of counterattack but as awareness of the phenomenon grew measures were taken to "harden" crucial military hardware against such effects. Therefore the only likely effect of an EMP attack would be to hamper civil defence and recovery/reconstruction efforts after the war is over causing even more difficulty and misery for civilian survivors. 86.112.65.115 ( talk) 20:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Someone has added a paragraph to the article stating that the destruction of consumer electronics would be the greatest danger to the average person from an EMP event. This contradicts all of the the published studies by EMP experts which have found that the greatest danger would be the lack of food and water. The food distribution systems in industrialized countries relies completely upon computerized inventory systems, electric and electronic temperature control equipment, and a functioning transportation system. Water supplies for all but a small minority of people depend totally upon functioning electric water pumps and electrical and electronically-controlled water purification systems. Consumer electronics are of little consequence to people who are dying because of a lack of food and drinkable water. X5dna ( talk) 13:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Is there any meta-analysis about the US discussion on this matter? The vast discussion is IMHO a remarkable phenomenon, given the fact that any attacker could yield much more destruction or "terror" if he simply ignited the same bomb over a city. The fascination for having (only) the electric devices shut down should give interesting insight into americas heart. At least a paragraph "in the media" or "public discussion" might make sense. -- Bernd.Brincken ( talk) 23:09, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
I have removed the "confusing or unclear" tag from this article. The article has been extensively re-edited since that tag was put in place. Also, whoever added that tag provided no explanation at all as to why it was added.
Electromagnetic pulse can be a complex subject to understand. Please put specific areas of confusion on this discussion page. I'm sure that specific points of confusion can be addressed. Some graphic animation would be useful, but I doubt if anyone has the time or resources to produce the necessary animation. Perhaps we can make this a much more easily understood article, though, if readers would address specific points of confusion on this discussion page. X5dna ( talk) 09:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Is it pronounced "Emp" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.98.100.146 ( talk) 03:05, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Editing of this article really needs to be restricted to registered editors. The vast majority of unregistered users making recent edits are clear cases of vandalism. The quantity of this sort of vandalism is driving away legitimate editors from Wikipedia altogether. It is tiresome to be constantly reverting vandalism rather than making real improvements to articles. X5dna ( talk) 18:48, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Do EMP's remain in the Earth's magnetic field after a bomb explosion or do it dissipates? I mean, how long do EMP's remain active? When a nuclear missile or bomb explodes EMP's are released, on which distance depending upon the explosion altitude, that much I know but how long does it last. Freedom Fighter 1988 ( talk) 05:46, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Conceptually and theoretically only (obviously), if several large conducting balloons were filled to high pressure with an insulating gas like sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), were charged and had large induced magnetic fields, and then were rapidly popped, would this generate a substantial amount of magnetic flux ? (Presumably, the surface area of the magnetic fields would rapidly contract ?) Is this a decent analogy or metaphor for the generation of magnetic fields and rapid decrease in it's area ? Alternatively, is this metaphor misplaced or misleading - for example are there important features relating to symmetry, or shape or direction of the flow that are getting lost in such an analogy or metaphor? If so, how would you describe the basic concepts of these physics phenomena to laypeople in a clear manner using simple down to earth metaphors and models ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.116.128.56 ( talk) 20:33, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Someone recently changed about half of the spellings of "metre" in this article to "meter". This half-and-half version of spelling standards not only violates the Wikipedia: Manual of Style, it just makes the article look really sloppy. Also, when there have been other revisions made since the half-and-half change, it is really a lot of work for another editor to make everything consistent again. As a U.S. resident myself, I prefer the U.S. spellings, but this article has used the British spellings for a very long time now. If you believe that it is necessary to make a change in spelling standards, please state the reason here, and make ALL of the changes. Don't just leave the article a jumbled mess. X5dna ( talk) 09:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
When I was reading some soviet books on in-space EMP tests, I stumbled at some informations about these tests damaging multiple satellites of that time, both US and russian (and there weren't *that* many at the time. Anyone got more info about this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.112.108.225 ( talk) 20:26, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: http://www.bombshock.com/electronics/how-to-protect-yourself-from-electro-magnetic-pulse.html. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. VernoWhitney ( talk) 18:33, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
first paragraph needs to specifically state that it can induce excess currents in electronic devices that are turned ON at the time. article needs a seperate section to discuss more about methods used for sheilding from emp. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gawdsmak ( talk • contribs) 19:32, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
The reference cited in the addition of November 4 to the Electromagnetic Pulse article provides no justification for the statements that were added to the article. In fact, Figure 3 in the reference from the Army Communicator article contradicts the material that was added to the article. Note that the frequency components of EMP go out beyond 100 MHz according to Figure 3 of the cited reference at:
http://www.signal.army.mil/ocos/ac/articles/fiedler/dfemp.pdf
That article from Army Communicator is from 1987, meaning that it is 25 years old. A reference to 25 year old electronics technology would generally be inappropriate, but that article is actually pretty good. Most of the technology described in the article has not been outdated, although better EMP protection techniques are now available.
The problem with the November 4 addition to the Wikipedia Electromagnetic Pulse article is that the magnetic shielding described is designed for frequencies of less than about 300 Hz. and is generally ineffective at frequencies above 100 KHz. So this leaves the frequency components of EMP that are between 0.1 MHz and 100 MHz completely unprotected. See the descriptions of the frequency range of magnetic shielding alloys at:
http://www.magnetic-shield.com/faq/interference.html#q5
Also see the Wikipedia articles on Electromagnetic shielding and Mu-Metal.
For additional information about the frequency spectrum of a nuclear EMP, see pages 33 and 34 of the technical report at:
http://www.ece.unm.edu/summa/notes/TheoreticalPDFs/TN364.pdf
X5dna ( talk) 03:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
what about EMP from an asteroid-impact? i´m pretty sure this effect exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.204.138.46 ( talk) 18:18, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
I reverted the revisions made on January 30 by Luisloureiro for several reasons. First, the additions were inappropriate for the introduction to any article, and would have belonged in explanations later in the article. The addition to the introduction made the introductory section extremely confusing to the average reader. Introductory sections are supposed to be simple and concise. Second, the subject matter of the additions applied more to other Wikipedia articles, such as Electromagnetic radiation and health. The top of the current article states that "This article is about the general weapons effect. For other uses, see the more specific topic."
The nature and effects of bursts of electromagnetic radiation that occur incidentally during the normal course of commercial or experimental activity are not appropriate to this particular article (although they may be quite relevant and important to other Wikipedia articles). There are other Wikipedia articles about many aspects of electromagnetic radiation. Finally, the cited reference was added in a manner that did not conform to Wikipedia standards. In addition, the cited reference was not in English, and therefore not appropriate to the English-language version of Wikipedia without some sort of unusual justification. X5dna ( talk) 02:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
The IP user who made these 3 deletions violated several Wikipedia policies as stated in WP:LINKROT, which states, among other things, "Do not delete cited information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer." If anyone wants to add this information back into the article, the updated reference to use for what is now a dead link is:
http://web.archive.org/web/20121108204504/http://kyl.senate.gov/legis_center/subdocs/030805_pry.pdf
X5dna ( talk) 12:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
This article discribes the effect of an EMP attack on electronics, but it doesn't describe the direct effect on human, animal & plant life. Does a HEMP have no physical effect? Would the radiation releaced affect anyone or anything on the ground? How low does a EMP detonation need to be to hear a blast, feel a shock wave? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CycloneSteve ( talk • contribs) 01:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
This article is misnamed. It focuses almost entirely on HEMP, with a few ragged pointers to other kinds (for example the section supposedly on on the general "Characteristics of nuclear EMP" almost immediately talks of the E1 pulse generated in the "upper atmosphere", so is really about the "Characteristics of HEMP").
There are many types of EMP. Off the top of my head I have come across:
Nor is there much in the article about protection, test and measurement, such as the damped sinewave model of induced signal in the victim. Fair enough, that could be treated as EMC, but it sill needs summarising and linking.
Frankly, this article needs splitting with the lion's share going to a new article on High altitude electromagnetic pulse and the rest forming the basis of content more directly relevant to the article name.
The question is, is it better to move this whole misnamed thing and start afresh, or to create the new article page and cut-paste the bulk of it across? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 16:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Following the above discussion I propose to move the current page to Nuclear electromagnetic pulse because that is what it is primarily about.
I have drafted a replacement article on the Electromagnetic pulse at User:Steelpillow/Test, which I propose to cut/paste back into this article (Moving it across is bad because that would bring a lot of my test page's old history with it).
To tidy things up, I also propose to delete the section on NNEMP weapons from the new Nuclear EMP article. The section has found a home in my draft, so overall it will effectively just stay on this page.
Any objections?
— Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 12:51, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
An anonymous editor added several "citation needed" tags to a quotation from a U.S. government report written for Oak Ridge National Laboratories. That report was already cited in this article along with a web link to the original Oak Ridge report. I have never before encountered the assertion in a Wikipedia article that an authoritative quotation from a public domain reference should have references within the cited reference. If someone disagrees with the Oak Ridge government report, they should state why Oak Ridge National Laboratories is not an authoritative source on nuclear physics, or else they should take the matter up with the government laboratory in a different venue. Actually, many of the misconceptions which the Oak Ridge report was addressing were popularized in earlier versions of this very Wikipedia article, and some the the "Citations needed" can be found above on this very talk page. X5dna ( talk) 06:38, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Once again, an anonymous editor has altered a direct quotation from a U.S. government report. If you think that you know more about this subject than physicists who are employed by, or are under contract to, a U.S. government laboratory, please state the reasons for your greater level of expertise, and then cite more authoritative references instead. Do not, however, alter direct quotes unless you can cite evidence on this talk page that the quotation in question is actually a misquotation. X5dna ( talk) 06:39, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
This section makes a general claim about vacuum tube based equipment being less vulnerable to nuclear EMP than newer solid state equipment. However, the only citation for this paragraph is from 1981. The phrase "newer solid state equipment" is surely no longer accurate in this context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BillBucket ( talk • contribs) 18:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Recently some U.S. Senators questioned Energy Secretary Moniz about the potential effects of an Iranian nuclear EMP attack on the United States. Ted Cruz, for example, puts U.S. casualties in the "tens of millions". He referenced the work of the EMP Commission during this discussion. Does anyone know where this figure comes from? I have not read the 2008 and 2004 EMP Commission reports, but I searched through them using a number of different queries and couldn't find a basis for this figure.
Jim Woolsey cites testimony of the "chairman of the EMP commission" for "90 percent of Americans would die within 12 months" of a nuclear EMP attack. Woolsey also coauthored a 2014 Wall Street Journal article that states "The EMP Commission, in 2008, estimated that within 12 months of a nationwide blackout, up to 90% of the U.S. population could possibly perish from starvation, disease and societal breakdown." In other news articles, I have seen a figure of "70 to 90 percent dead" attributed to the chairman of the EMP Commission. But I can't find the actual quote. The closest I got is the July 10, 2008 House Armed Services Committee testimony of Dr. William Graham, chairman of the 2008 EMP Commission, who was asked a question about a novel called One Second After, which considered a HEMP attack over Nebraska that killed 90% of the U.S. population a year after the attack. Graham said that the novel's estimates were "in the correct range" and that 10% of the population could probably survive in a "basically rural economy" caused by an EMP attack.
Is this off-the-cuff answer regarding a novel the only basis for the "90% of the U.S. population would die" figure? And is that figure, in turn, the source of Cruz's "tens of millions of Americans would die" figure? Can anyone shed some more light on these numbers? Ketone16 ( talk) 15:15, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
The article should make an attempt to spell out, in terms as concrete as possible, what kind of EMP effects are generated, if any,
Would there be any appreciable/significant EMP at all in these kinds of scenarios, where the burst height is geared to maximise the damage caused by the other weapons effects? -- Cancun ( talk) 11:32, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
The article begins with a clear distinction between EMP and HEMP, but then becomes muddled and seems to deal mostly with the latter and very little with the former. Also, it says that "The term 'electromagnetic pulse' generally excludes optical (infrared, visible, ultraviolet) and ionizing (such as X-ray and gamma radiation) ranges" but gamma radiation crops up over and over again in the subsequent text and illustrations.
In the article, it states that watch are "much too small" to be affected by the EMP.
Earlier above, it says that Hawaii experiment delivered about 5 kV/m pulse strength, which induces about 10 megavolt of electric potential over 500 nanoseconds in 1 mm long conductor parallel to the EMP propagation vector. This far exceeds breakdown voltages of semiconductor electronics, so it may permanently damage all internal circuitry just by irreversibly eroding semiconductors. Additionally, with common resistance of digital chips of 50 kiloohm, this will result in producing thousands of watts worth of heat dissipation energy during this short surge, which is all but sure to melt extremely small internal circuitry. It's worth mentioning that internally, chips also feature significant length of conductors, usually devoid of electromagnetic shielding. It also says that targeted pulse can peak out at 50 kV/m. Thus even in wrist watches, there's sufficient amounts of conductors to cause permanent damage from EMP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.247.33.223 ( talk) 10:05, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
"Thousands of Watts" of heat, dumped even just over 500ns, would raise the temperature of a 1mm*0.1mm*0.1mm copper conductor by 15000K (per kW), resulting in explosive vaporisation. Seems unlikely. 178.15.151.163 ( talk) 13:26, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
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References
This link is broken, it goes to an "under construction" page at ORNL. Can someone hunt down another copy of this PDF or figure out where on ORNL's page it got shuffled off to?
99.194.243.91 ( talk) 14:20, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
These reports made for Oak Ridge National Laboratories by Metatech are cited many times throughout Wikipedia. They have been moved from the Oak Ridge site to the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) web site. For future reference, here are their current locations (as of early 2017):
Executive Summary:
Report Meta-R-319
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-319.pdf
Report Meta-R-320
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-320.pdf
Report Meta-R-321
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-321.pdf
Report Meta-R-322
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-322.pdf
Report Meta-R-323
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-323.pdf
Report Meta-R-324
https://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/reliability/cybersecurity/ferc_meta-r-324.pdf
X5dna ( talk) 21:10, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at
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20:12, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
A user made a massive change to this article on September 7, 2017. This change deleted a major section that was added after years of careful consideration. The deleted quotation was written as part of a report for Oak Ridge National Laboratories and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, two major United States federal government entities. This quotation was added to prevent the insertion of individual opinions into this article (such as was done on Sept. 7). Also, the deleted Common Misconceptions section was referenced by other Wikipedia articles. This massive change was made without any discussion on this talk page. I reverted this massive change and the deletion of the Common Misconceptions section. As I have said on other occasions, if you disagree with the lengthy quotation on common misconceptions, one should take the matter up with Metatech or Oak Ridge National Laboratories or the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This article is not the place to express personal disagreements with organizations of experts. Changes to this article should be made more incrementally and with much more care and with consideration to problems that have occurred with this Wikipedia article throughout its history. X5dna ( talk) 23:52, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
In spite of the large number of references in this article, there are also a large number of "Citation Needed" tags in this article. Most of the requested citations are already in information in the listed references. The "Citation Needed" tags mostly just need to be matched up with proper sections of already listed references. This is an extremely time-consuming process. Please do not remove sentences that have had a "Citation Needed" tag for a few weeks unless you are a subject matter expert and know the sentence in question to be inaccurate. Accurate and verifiable information has been removed from this article in recent months in a manner that amounts to little more than vandalism. Remember that Wikipedia editors are working without pay, and usually have very busy lives. Have patience; and use this page to point out sections that are most badly in need of attention. X5dna ( talk) 04:52, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
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I've added some new cites in the section "Post-Cold War attack scenarios" to publications in 2016 and 2017 because the section stopped short in 2011. However I found them hard to summarize because they are mainly preparation studies and listing knowledge gaps. Perhaps someone here would like to expand on this a bit, or know more about the larger context? Robert Walker ( talk) 00:03, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
I deleted the reference to the failed S.H.I.E.L.D. Act because it is just one of a very large number of failed congressional bills (and proposals to government agencies) to protect civilian infrastructure in the United States from nuclear EMP that have been introduced during the past few decades. With so many failed efforts, I can see no justification for singling out only one such failed effort for inclusion in this article. Proposals, laws and other efforts which have been formally accepted for action do deserve a description in the article. X5dna ( talk) 07:19, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
I love how a random master's thesis is inserted between a pair of US Federal government reports as though it's equivalent. Extra Brass. 68.230.153.193 ( talk) 23:09, 1 January 2023 (UTC)