clipka wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen schrieb:
>> Huh? That doesn't sound right. An old strategic option the USSR
>> apparently had was to detonate a -real- big (50 megaton) thermonuke over
>> the US, but out in space / low orbit. The idea was to melt all radios and
>> computers, the entire US telephone network, etc. As far as I know EMP
>> damage is caused by the massive radio waves generated by a nuclear
>> explosion (besides all the "hard" gamma radiation, and other nasty stuff
>> besides heat and light). These induce current in conductors (i. e. they
>> fry microchips).
> 
> I think the story is slightly different:
> 
> - A nuclear explosion is caused by nuclear fission and/or fusion
> (actually primarily fission, even in a thermonuke aka H-bomb); the
> radiation given off by this is primarily gamma rays.
> 
> - As the gamma rays hit the atmosphere, they ionize it, turning it into
> a plasma.
> 
> - The plasma in turn "glows" in the whole EM spectrum.

Yes, that does make more sense. I seem to have had the wrong idea then...

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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