I recently posted about Airburst Nuclear detonations being potent enough to make even a Faraday Cage useless. I posted the link to the Wikipedia page for Faraday Cages in case anyone was interested. But I spent forever trying to find anything to illustrate how destructive to electronics and even common wiring an Airburst Nuclear detonation would be. I failed. Could any of you learned Diggle-Beaters point me in the right direction? My nation, (I live in the United States of America.) is one that sometimes flatly lies to the entire world about nuclear theory and concepts that they simply do not want others to be able to reproduce. Because of this, I know that the former Soviet Union independently did all their own testing and made their own nuclear arms. As did China and others. So I believe the documents or references I seek exist somewhere in an unclassified way for those of us simply curious. It is old news, and they have few remaining lies due to time and shame forcing the truth out. What I seek in explicit terms is a document by a reputable agency of any nation that states the effects of nuclear detonations at various altitudes, and what effect if any, shielding and even Faraday cages has on reducing the damage. Have I been misled for my lifetime? It is possible. But I read up on this stuff about a decade ago and I just know I read that regardless of the shielding, electronics would be destroyed. The documents I read specified something around 40k Feet as optimal for an Airburst with a multi-megaton detonation. And further specified that even household copper telephone wiring and power lines would no longer carry current reliably. (The problem being that so much current had already saturated the lines that they would have resistance off the scale of what can be intentionally made without drastic means being employed.) I know some of you do not want to read this, and if so, thank you for enduring this much. Go back to bashing Diggles to death and be happy. Here is the link to the thread where I said this and then got lost in Wikipedia. http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/alchemy-is-bad-for-you.4807/#post-55460
The problem is not that a Faraday cage can't handle the energy, the problem is that the holes need to be smaller than the wavelength. Concerning wavelength, smaller means more energy. Since the emitted radiation has a freakishly high energy, its wavelength is very small as well. Shielding your electronics without holes should work though. The bigger problems are that the explosion will screw up the Ionosphere, where transmissions with a longer wavelength bounce off. You might loose radio for some time, same with satellites (they bounce it of the other end of the ionosphere iirc). This is very much IIRC, didn't pay that much attention in physics. If that stuff interests you, why not visit a physics course at your local uni? Many offer programs for people of any age to visit the uni without making a degree, just for fun At least in Germany that is...
Omni, a Supernova produces magnitutes more energy than an airburst, and even so, it won't destroy all the electronics on the Earth if it his the Earth. The first electromagnetic wave which travels at the speed of light, not the giant fiery expanding wave of planet exploding energy which hits like 30 years later. The ones far underground will be safe until the other wave hits. Now I'm not saying an Airburst won't ruin the day of electronics all over, but it's not going to cut through solid rock for a mile, and cut through multiple Faraday cages like a hot knife through butter. Unless I have been mistaken on how radiation travels. Remember though, only gamma rays travel through lead/solid rock for miles. Electromagnetic radiation is not as powerful in it's penetration.
Magnetism does travel through solid matter with little effect in most cases. Place a car engine under a foot thick plate of lead and you can use a electromagnetic crane to lift it as if the lead was not even there. I will update this thread once I get done reading up on EMPs. (There is a lot of data to sift through.)
Hell. Read for yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse#Characteristics_of_nuclear_EMP They specify that the mechanism is gamma rays. So I finally found the page I knew I had read in the past about this. I am still reading it though.
Yep, that's why Faraday cages don't help, unless the holes are a few picometers big.A solid cover of any conducting metals works though, as long as it is gapless. Gamma Rays are actually affected by matter, just less than Alpha- and Beta- Rays. If they weren't the human body would have no problem with Chernobyl et al. So, a few miles of rock are a pretty good deterrent, as well as some layers of aluminium foil. Gentlemen, it's time for the tin foil hats.
*Edit* I could not find the image I was looking for, but a quick search turned up these. Good enough.
