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What you need to know about EMP weapons

As we sit, possible poised on the verge of a nuclear conflict in the Northern Hemisphere, maybe it's time to look at the damaging effects of the electromagnetic pulse that follows a nuclear detonation. Apparently, if a nuke is deployed at high altitude, the EMP produced can have some rather nasty effects on our delicate electronics below.

You can also forget about the inverse-square law to protect you because some components of the EMP are not "point source" but actually generated by the interaction of gamma radiation with the earth's magnetic field. To be truly effective, a nuke designed to disrupt or destroy infrastructure by way of EMP has to be exploded pretty damned high so direct radiation and thermal damage won't be much of a risk. The result is a burst of EM energy that spans the spectrum from near-DC to tens of gigahertz and which induces currents in any conducting material that gets in its way.

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