However, the consequences of triggering Goldeneye over London could have been disastrous for other areas of critical infrastructure and lesser-shielded civilian society. Of course, we don’t know what kind of precautions that the electronic systems of the Bank of England have taken - but it’s quite possible that the computer system that governs the UK’s central bank is EMP shielded to a certain extent. All of which makes for increased susceptibility The point is that there are far, far more electronic devices now and these devices are smaller and operating at lower volts, amps and power. Today, a billion transistors can be fitted on to a match head - if you were to scale your smartphone to 1962, its electronics would fill a football stadium. There were less vulnerable electronics a transistor was the size of a match head. What’s important to note is that 60s era infrastructure was much, much less vulnerable to EM than the infrastructure of today. This was enough to affect infrastructure in Hawaii, over 850 miles away, whilst also irreparably damaging at least three low earth orbit satellites. Nuclear blasts in the upper atmosphere have shown to cause EMP that effect things at ground level - the Starfish Prime test of 1962 involved a 1.4 megaton warhead detonated over 240 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Goldeneye is what would be called a High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (‘HEMP’) and, were such a satellite to exist it’d be a credible threat. Ultimately (and as usual) Bond saves the day and the satellite is never fired. The main antagonist, Alec Trevelyan, plans to later activate the second Goldeneye satellite over London, erasing all electronic information in the city. The villains escape the facility in a completely EMP-shielded, stealth Tiger helicopter. It also spells a similar fate for a helicopter. The pulse causes two fighter jets to explode, and the other to lose control and crash. Instead, there’s a visible light pulse and lots of explosions at the base in question. One of the satellites is triggered earlier in the film over a Russian base we don’t actually see a nuclear blast. Each is armed with a nuclear warhead, and designed to detonate in the upper atmosphere, producing an EMP blast that affects the area beneath them. The eponymous ‘Goldeneye’ describes a fictional Russian EMP weapon system two disposable satellites - ‘Mischa’ and ‘Petya’ (which sound a lot less sexy than ‘Goldeneye’). ![]() Set off a nuclear device in the upper atmosphere, creates a pulse, a radiation surge that destroys everything with an electronic circuit.” - M So, please bear this in mind if you’ve not seen them all yet. ![]() ![]() Spoiler alert: EMP is an important feature in most of these films. So how accurate actually are movie references to EMPs? From the mostly credible to the patently ridiculous, we’ll break down the science for you for ten popular movie moments. But, like many plot devices, liberties are often taken with the science. The latter is much less likely to happen, but the slight possibility of it has led many a Hollywood production to include references to EMP. On the opposite end of the scale, terrorist groups could create an EMP device with an impact similar to a nuclear bomb which at the speed of light could wipe out infrastructure for hundreds of miles and leave no trace. For example, autonomous systems could emit small EM pulses as they communicate with each other - this would be fine in an open space, with nothing around, but place those systems inside of a consumer retail business and the pulses they emit could impact the working efficiency of each other, the infrastructure around them, or even the security of the building. ![]() The impact of electromagnetic interference scales up or down depending on the type of environment that it occurs and its reliance on electrical connectivity. Regardless of source, the effects of an EM pulse remain consistent, in that they deny the availability or degrade the performance of critical electrical and autonomous systems many of these systems being those we place an ever-increasing reliance on to deliver day-to-day functions across our homes, cities and industries.
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