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[Phys-l] EMP hardening



On 2011, Mar 28, , at 11:00, trappe@physics.utexas.edu wrote:

The helicopters may be leaving to protect their navigation
electronics from radiation damage. Some bombers maintain a
redundancy using old ferrite core memory from the 60's.
Supposedly this was a lesson learned in WWII electronics.

On 03/28/2011 12:24 PM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:

There's a movie based on the discovery of tube based electronics in
a soviet fighter "collected". It took a while for the CIA, whoever,
to realize the Soviets were not backwards!

I heard that story decades ago. I didn't believe it then, and
I don't believe it now. Sometimes things that look backward
really are backward. The disadvantage of tubes far outweigh
the advantages, and have for a very long time (except for a few
niche applications such as klystrons and ignitrons).

EMP is not magic.

The sorts of things you need to do to protect against EMP are the
things you ought to be doing anyway, as standard good practice,
because they protect against interference from lightning strikes,
nearby radio transmitters, et cetera.

For long-haul data, replacing wires with optical fibers is a huge
win. That wasn't an option in the 1960s, but it is now.

To be sure, there are plenty of people who don't understand this
stuff ... but that doesn't mean it cannot be understood. It's
just physics ... if you do the physics right:
-- Maxwell equations, yes.
-- Kirchhoff's laws, no. Interference processes violate Kirchhoff's
laws in a big way.