Talk:Nuclear electromagnetic pulse

US centric?

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)

Popular Culture references

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)

Correcting the US centric problem

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)

Effects of EMP?

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)

Effects of EMP. Best Available Information.

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)

Merging or Deleting Electromagnetic Bomb article

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)

I found some material in "electromagnetic bomb" that was not overlapping and had references, so I merged the articles rather than nominating for deletion. I left out dubious material, but I did end up pulling over some unreferenced passages. It's clearly tagged as such, and unless I think unreferenced material is probably wrong, I prefer to leave it around until someone can at least make a good-faith effort to find sources. Please feel free to yank anything unreferenced which you know is wrong, and I expect some amount of smoothing out will be necessary as the new content settles out. (But at least now we have one article in need of improvement, instead of two largely overlapping articles in need of improvement.) -- Beland (talk) 02:51, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I deleted two sections that were imported from the "electromagnetic bomb" article that contained so many errors that the sections were pretty much beyond repair. It will take some time to fully integrate and reference the remaining material. I think that the topic of "Electromagnetic Pulse in Fiction" would be a good one for a separate article. I have been told that the Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel did a show on how Hollywood gets EMP wrong. I haven't seen that show, but Electromagnetic Pulse is usually portrayed incorrectly in fiction, although a few recent works of fiction have done a pretty good job. X5dna (talk) 03:35, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Weapon Yield Terminology

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)

Common Misconceptions Section

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)

On the topic of this section, I am missing the "misconceptions" part of the section. All I see is a list of explanations, but the actual misconceptions are not explicitly stated. I think it should mention the (cited) misconception, and then debunk it. As it stands, these are just random fragments of information. Remco47 (talk) 15:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

This is an inherent problem with Wikipedia as it pertains to subjects which have many very common and widespread misconceptions. Although it is very easy to find these misconceptions about EMP all over the internet, the misconceptions are not specifically listed as such in any authoritative source. Wikipedia has a strict "No Original Research" policy. This means that the misconceptions cannot be listed. The corrections to the misconceptions are easily confirmed in many authoritative sources, so the facts correcting the misconceptions can be listed. This article originally had these very common misconceptions listed along with the actual facts, but there were a lot of complaints about listing the misconceptions, so they were removed. (In fact, I am the one who originally listed the misconceptions because they were so widespread. I am also the one who took the misconceptions out, because I could not figure out a way to include them without violating Wikipedia policies.) There is also a bit of a problem with listing statements that are known to be false in an encyclopedia, even if the false statements are immediately followed by a correction of the false statement. X5dna (talk) 05:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I saw a glaring problem with the fifth 'misconception'. The original statement was "Not every electronic device will be damaged if an EMP occurs. Items like battery-powered handheld radios that have no wire or antenna exceeding 30 inches will survive." However the FEMA source did not imply that devices under 30 inches wouldn't be affected. IMHO the FEMA source is hardly a reputable scientific source. The only thing true about any of this is the implication that some devices may not be affected. Who is to say that all types of batteries won't be affected? I changed it a little to at least reflect what the FEMA source said. However I think scientific sources reflecting real research is necessary here - not re-mashed-bureaucratic-talk-down sources. --66.223.168.45 (talk) 02:30, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above posting about FEMA being a poor source of information on this. I changed that sentence to a direct quotation from the FEMA manual. The direct quotation was, at least, more accurate than the earlier statements paraphrasing the old FEMA manual. Since the FEMA manual is a U.S. Federal Government publication, Wikipedia policy permits a direct quotation. The old FEMA statement basically agrees with more authoritative statements made about the affects of 1962 and earlier nuclear weapons technology. The 25-year-old FEMA manual would NOT be accurate for any kind of enhanced-EMP weapon. I wish that people would refrain from citing material from the 1980s and earlier for what EMP effects would be on 21st century electronics. X5dna (talk) 22:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I still find that quote confusing. I understand the grounding part but I do not understand the "30 inches". Is this implying that there is some kind of wave-length factor in the EMP? I've never seen any reference to that before so if the FEMA quotation is based on reality where is a source that clarifies this? --66.223.168.45 (talk) 05:10, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

A process known as a Fourier transform can show that any pulse is equivalent to a group of frequency components. This means that for any particular electromagnetic pulse, it does contain a group of wavelengths. To see some actual results of EMP for various nuclear weapon yields, and the corresponding frequency components that it contains, see http://www.ece.unm.edu/summa/notes/TheoreticalPDFs/TN190.pdf on pages 28 and 29. That report shows that most nuclear weapons don't yield frequency components much above 100 MHz. and the strength drops off steeply at higher frequencies. On the other hand, the greater the gamma ray output of the nuclear weapon, the higher the frequency components (and the shorter the wavelengths in the pulse).

The 2008 EMP Commission Critical National Infrastructures Report stated that, for portable two-way radios, the results of current testing were essentially the same as tests done in 1973 (which is where the 30-inches rule of thumb originated). This is a bit deceptive, though, because portable two-way radios have sophisticated filtering in the circuits connected to the antenna and much more rugged components that most types of electronics equipment. This ruggedness cannot be extended to other types of electronics equipment. The EMP Commission found that most public safety two-way base stations would be destroyed because they contain microprocessor-based circuits. X5dna (talk) 17:00, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I replaced the 25-year-old FEMA information with a quotation from the 2008 U.S. EMP Commission Report. I agree with others that very old information from non-scientific sources has no place in this article. Whoever wrote this paragraph originally with the old FEMA information probably wanted to make it clear that an EMP is unlikely to destroy every electronic device. However most electronics equipment in use today is not decades old, and information about extremely old electronics systems is not relevant. X5dna (talk) 22:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

External link to Popular Mechanics 2001 article

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)

Electromagnetic pulse in fiction/popular culture

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)

New article on Electromagnetic pulse in fiction and popular culture

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)

Citation needed???

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)

EMP Mechanics incorrect

"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)

I changed the term electric field to electromagnetic field so that it would be technically correct with reference to E1 (since the previous post is correct with respect to some details of the E1 mechanism). E1 currents can be induced from both the electric and magnetic field components (depending upon a number of factors). It is important to note, however, that it is excessive voltage that exceeds rated the breakdown voltages of devices and equipment -- and not excessive current -- that initiates most of the E1 damage. X5dna (talk) 04:04, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Soviet Test 184

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've read technical journal articles and scientific conference reports and other writings about the Soviet K Project and Test 184, and I can't find any justification for the claim that this section of the article is based on gossip.  Although much is unknown about these events, the published reports from various sources, including some not referenced in this article, are all pretty consistent with each other and with known facts about nuclear electromagnetic pulse. X5dna (talk) 02:39, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Introduction

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)

Usefulness as a military weapon

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)

Questionable Addition of 11 August 2010

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)

popular news (USA Today)

• Electromagnetic pulse impact far and wide • Ling.Nut (talk) 06:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Analysis?

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 don't believe that anything about the current EMP controversies in the United States belongs in this particular article. It is possible that new articles should be written about "The United States EMP Commission" or "The United States Congressional EMP Caucus" or "EMPact America." A summary of current EMP controversies might be appropriate in those articles, but not this one.

It should be noted that the core of the current controversies is the one that you have mentioned, and then (perhaps without realizing it) advocated one side of that controversy. Because the food distribution system in the United States is almost totally dependent upon data processing and electricity, many people in the United States government have stated the belief that more than 200 million U.S. residents would starve to death during the first year after a maximally-effective EMP attack, and that they would not fare much better after a severe solar storm of the magnitude of the 1859 event. The point of controversy is the question of at what level food distribution could resume, and water and sewer service could resume, after an EMP event. The largest EMP non-profit organization, "EMPact America," was started by the owner of a small regional food distribution company who was concerned about that question. Food, water, sewer service and home heating (not consumer electronics) are at the core of the controversy.

The U.S. EMP Commission spent several years trying to come up with an objective meta-analysis of this subject incorporating all of the available data. Much of the EMP Commission work is freely available on the internet[1]. Most of the writings about EMP in the popular press make no reference to the work of the EMP Commission.

It should also be noted that many people have already objected to the extent to which this article relies on United States writings on EMP, although United States writings comprise at least 90 percent, and probably closer to 99 percent, of the authoritative and unclassified reference material that is available on the subject. Including any of the current United States controversies in this article would simply prompt a barrage of outraged comments on this discussion page, and would make this article into an even greater target of vandalism than it already is.

There is already a separate article about Electromagnetic pulse in fiction and popular culture, that cites many of the early popular articles written about this subject, as well as the novels describing death by starvation after an EMP event. X5dna (talk) 07:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed comments. A separate article like "EMP in the US public debate" might thus make sense. --Bernd.Brincken (talk) 14:14, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Confusing or Unclear?

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)

Pronunciation?

Is it pronounced "Emp"