[nancyminusone]

>You can also forget about the inverse square law to protect you

No, you don't get to ignore physics because the source is not a point source

>Very large area of EMP

How large?

>Induces currents in any conducting material

So does a magnet falling off my fridge. What magnitude of currents, at what distance, in what sized conductor?

>During E1 the frequencies are so high

How high are they?

There can be radio waves strong enough to fry a silicon chip. There can be radio waves strong enough to melt glass vacuum tubes. This article provides no parameters by which one can make these calculations.

You might as well say "don't get nuked" which is admittedly sound advice.

[pjc50]

Yeah, this reads like alarmism with no numbers.

It's been a long time since atmospheric nuclear testing, but the US did carry out a bunch of tests to measure such effects, and it would be good to dig up the numbers from them.

[ianburrell]

My understanding is that nearby nuke and high altitude produce different EMP. The nearby one destroys electronic, but less of concern since close to nuclear blast. The high altitude one covers a large area, but it is more like solar flare, causing current in large conductors and primarily affecting the grid.

The problem is that the recent government studies that say high altitude can hurt electronics are all made by alarmists. When we should be focusing effort on grounding the grid, both for EMPs and for flares.

[magicalhippo]

> The problem is that the recent government studies that say high altitude can hurt electronics are all made by alarmists.

Was just thinking about how electronics back in the 80s and 90s tended to die from static electricity and similar very often, as they didn't have much built-in protection.

These days almost all transistors and microcontrollers have built-in overvoltage protection, and all serious circuits adds additional external protection like TVS diodes and such, especially for anything connected to cables (which would act as antennas).

So I'm guessing the area which an EMP is effective could be lower these days compared to back in the 80s and 90s?

[giardini]

nancyminuson says: "...There can be radio waves strong enough to melt glass vacuum tubes..."

Well, if it will melt glass vacuum tubes then it will likely smoke my a* - and my brain along with it. (Just following the directive: "...bend over and kiss your a* goodbye!")

[jajko]

I would expect this depends on yield, distance, any existing shielding (ie rebar in concrete), height of explosion and so on. Article doesn't discuss any specific bomb, hence no need for specific numbers.