As tensions between North Korea and the United States grow, senior officials in North Korea threaten to detonate a nuclear bomb in outer space just above the United States. The detonation will create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that will shut down all electronic systems across the country.
Geoffrey Lewis, a nuclear bomb expert, said the threat is theoretically possible, but the United States needn't worry about it: “An electromagnetic pulse is a common occurrence when lightning strikes electricity infrastructures and causes widespread power outages,” he explains.
In a recently published article, Lewis explains that the same effect can also be artificially created (as happens when a nuclear bomb explodes, for example), and it may damage electronic equipment on a large-scale. “The electromagnetic pulse is real, but its capabilities should not be overstated. An atomic bomb falling inside a city, like what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, will cause much greater damage.”
He says experiments succeeded in shutting electrical systems and cars, but for now the United States has no reason to fear disruption and paralysis of a whole country, especially a superpower like the United States. “The scientists testing the EMP's impact created a pulse, but it was too weak to cause the level of destruction needed so North Korea's threats are simply 'stupid,'” he said.