EMP destroys equipment by inducing high voltage and current in unshielded conductors, which act as antennas. The amount of energy picked up is related to the length of the conductor, with shorter conductors picking up less energy. Anything small enough to be described as “nanotechnology” would probably be unaffected, as long as it’s not connected to unshielded external wiring. (An unmodified human touching a conductor would also experience an electric shock during an EMP.)
I was worried that human augmentation might come at the cost of susceptibility to EMP’s: tricksters finding it humourous to walk around with controlled radii EMP devices and troubling augmented humans.
Point taken. But the repercussions of EMP disruption of augmented humans aren’t akin to playful beatings with sticks: an augmented eye short-circuiting, an augmented arm rendered considerably heavy dead weight, an artificial heart stopped.
Unless of course you meant stick-beatings of a fatal or maiming nature, in which case I would not call them tricksters but thugs. Sorry if my diction misled.
Indeed. Messing with people’s implanted devices, whether it is a standard pacemaker or sci-fiesque medical nanotech, would be a severe act of assault, not a prank.
What puzzles me is why you care about this particular type of assault, since other types seem much more likely.
That was the only way I could reconcile ‘beating random people with a stick’ and ‘tricksters’; 16th century vagabonds in London, for instance, may have found it an amusing pastime.
What puzzles me is why you care about this particular type of assault, since other types seem much more likely.
EMP assaults come (or came, if it indeed would not prove problematic) across as the largest obstacle in ensuring augmentation’s safety from malicious attacks, as it would be difficult to identify a guilty party in a crowd, and attacks might, if the technology develops to allow for it, be relatively easy to carry out.
What types of assaults do you consider having a higher probability?
Ah, I think I may understand you now. You mean why do I care about how augmented humans may be attacked, when similar technology could be used to much more nefarious ends? To that I say I do not have the requisite knowledge base for grounding any such speculations in reality.
EMP’s affect only circuitry which can be broken by high voltage. The intersection of this with nanotechnology is not empty, but also not the same as all nanotechnology.
A faraday cage should be enogh to block the effects of an EMP (full-body chainmail, anyone?).
I really wasn’t presenting it as an argument, but more a request for information. I view technology of the sort I imagine nanotech requires as necessitating electricity, which I had thought susceptible to EMP’s; I know brains aren’t affected, but could not fully elaborate why.
Nuclear EMP effects had real-world impact damaging electronics, but I never saw any mention of human health damage from the EMP (as opposed to the fallout).
Street lights are an extreme case—hooked up directly to a very long baseline with no real protection to speak of. Anything capable of taking on, say, a cell phone, would have to be several orders of magnitude stronger.
The link mentioned that if the detonation had been over the US, the effect itself would have been 6x stronger—quite aside from being closer than 1500 kilometers to places that mattered. And that wasn’t even designed to maximize EMP effects in any way.
Besides that, when someone says ‘the electronics around them’, I think that covers a lot more and more important stuff than one’s cellphone.
The context here was EMP to be deployed against nanobots, not power grids. The source will thus be optimized to produce EMP, and to minimize collateral damage against general infrastructure—perhaps by producing smaller pulses closer to the target rather than enormous pulses further away.
In particular, the ability to affect microelectronics is paramount. The ability to take down the grid is irrelevant.
Would an EMP effectively disable any implanted nanotechnology? If so, how can nanotechnology be made EMP-proof?
EMP destroys equipment by inducing high voltage and current in unshielded conductors, which act as antennas. The amount of energy picked up is related to the length of the conductor, with shorter conductors picking up less energy. Anything small enough to be described as “nanotechnology” would probably be unaffected, as long as it’s not connected to unshielded external wiring. (An unmodified human touching a conductor would also experience an electric shock during an EMP.)
Thank you! That makes me very happy.
Why do you particularly care about EMP?
I was worried that human augmentation might come at the cost of susceptibility to EMP’s: tricksters finding it humourous to walk around with controlled radii EMP devices and troubling augmented humans.
As opposed to beating random people with a stick, for instance? Try not to worry about unlikely things
Point taken. But the repercussions of EMP disruption of augmented humans aren’t akin to playful beatings with sticks: an augmented eye short-circuiting, an augmented arm rendered considerably heavy dead weight, an artificial heart stopped.
Unless of course you meant stick-beatings of a fatal or maiming nature, in which case I would not call them tricksters but thugs. Sorry if my diction misled.
‘playful’ beatings with sticks?
Indeed. Messing with people’s implanted devices, whether it is a standard pacemaker or sci-fiesque medical nanotech, would be a severe act of assault, not a prank.
What puzzles me is why you care about this particular type of assault, since other types seem much more likely.
That was the only way I could reconcile ‘beating random people with a stick’ and ‘tricksters’; 16th century vagabonds in London, for instance, may have found it an amusing pastime.
EMP assaults come (or came, if it indeed would not prove problematic) across as the largest obstacle in ensuring augmentation’s safety from malicious attacks, as it would be difficult to identify a guilty party in a crowd, and attacks might, if the technology develops to allow for it, be relatively easy to carry out.
What types of assaults do you consider having a higher probability?
Ah, I think I may understand you now. You mean why do I care about how augmented humans may be attacked, when similar technology could be used to much more nefarious ends? To that I say I do not have the requisite knowledge base for grounding any such speculations in reality.
EMP’s affect only circuitry which can be broken by high voltage. The intersection of this with nanotechnology is not empty, but also not the same as all nanotechnology.
A faraday cage should be enogh to block the effects of an EMP (full-body chainmail, anyone?).
I really wasn’t presenting it as an argument, but more a request for information. I view technology of the sort I imagine nanotech requires as necessitating electricity, which I had thought susceptible to EMP’s; I know brains aren’t affected, but could not fully elaborate why.
If it appears to you that I didn’t treat it as such, I apologize.
It appeared an assumption that I was informed could be inferred from the comment; if I have caused you distress, I too apologise.
I would be surprised if a human were completely unaffected by an EMP that trashed the electronics around them.
Nuclear EMP effects had real-world impact damaging electronics, but I never saw any mention of human health damage from the EMP (as opposed to the fallout).
Street lights are an extreme case—hooked up directly to a very long baseline with no real protection to speak of. Anything capable of taking on, say, a cell phone, would have to be several orders of magnitude stronger.
The link mentioned that if the detonation had been over the US, the effect itself would have been 6x stronger—quite aside from being closer than 1500 kilometers to places that mattered. And that wasn’t even designed to maximize EMP effects in any way.
Besides that, when someone says ‘the electronics around them’, I think that covers a lot more and more important stuff than one’s cellphone.
The context here was EMP to be deployed against nanobots, not power grids. The source will thus be optimized to produce EMP, and to minimize collateral damage against general infrastructure—perhaps by producing smaller pulses closer to the target rather than enormous pulses further away.
In particular, the ability to affect microelectronics is paramount. The ability to take down the grid is irrelevant.