Electromagnetic Pulse

I've been thinking about making an EMP device. I've been learning about electromagnetic waves, antenas and stuff like that, but I must say that I'm still quite confused about the topic, even when it comes to the fundamentals. For example take this video. I'm quite confused about the very beginning. https://youtu.be/FWCN_uI5ygY > What we need is a traveling electromagnetic wave and not a fluctuating one But why isn't the fluctuating EM wave a traveling one? When I google "What causes an EM wave to travel?" I get this answer: > Changing electric fields produce magnetic fields and changing magnetic fields produce electric fields. This interplay between induced electric and magnetic fields leads to propagating electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves can propagate through free space. But the electric and magnetic fields are changing in the example of "fluctuating wave", so why doesn't it produce a traveling wave? I don't get it. Can somebody explain to me what I'm missing? And please, don't tell me to learn the Maxwell's equations. I have briefly checked and the math is beyond me. Anyway, I also want to make the EMP directional. Am I correct to assume that using a metallic parabola would be enough to make it directional? Anybody here with experience with this kind of stuff?

I think the traveling vs fluctuating wave he refers to in fact refers to transverse waves and longitudinal waves. Imagine water, and imagine water as a big set of balls, each connected to the next with a spring. (the balls are the water molecules, the springs are the hydrogen bonds). When water is waving, a ball gets closer to the next, pushing it, and getting back to it's place, while the next one gets close to the third one, pushes it, then gets back to its place, and so on and so on. This leads to a wave where energy and information is transmitted through space, without a net change in the coordinates of matter, in this case, molecules. This is what we call a longitudinal wave, because the oscillation happens along the axis of the transmission of energy. This is how sound works. On the other hand, electromagnetic waves like light or radio work differently, they are transverse waves, the photons which carry energy and information travel along an axis, but the fluctuation happens orthogonal to that axis. This means a lot of things. For example you probably heard about polarized light, but never heard of polarized sound, because only transverse waves can be polarized. Even more importantly, a longitudinal wave can't travel through vacuum, a transverse wave can. Read further on wiki or in college physics basics textbooks.

>>10629 Thanks for the reply. I think I need to do more reading as you suggest.

I think I finally found the answer for my question: https://youtu.be/PPKEpJEt_cM This makes so much sense.

Do you guys think that a dipole antenna like this would work?

Why do people build their EMP devices like this (the top example) and not like this (the bottom example)? Wouldn't the bottom example have longer range?

>>10627 Op Do you think you could temporary disable a nearby drill with em interference alone

>>10917 with sufficient power many things are possible. also just how nearby are we talking lol (im not op)

There's a book that's supposed to have a design for an explosive-pumped EMP device, like a reverse rail-gun, called "Burn This Book", by Dan Hoff, but it's very rare, I've never seen a copy, been unable to procure an electronic copy, it's supposedly actively suppressed, and the author was apparently executed.

>>10663 I think it would work! I'm not antennae-affluent, just a gut feeling! Present Day, Present Time! AHAHAHAHAHA!

>>10664 because that bottom example is just stupid nonsense

Did you ever make the EMP device? I think having an EMP would be neat but id worry about it fully frying electronics, id rather if it only disrupt them. Would be expensive having it break electronics constantly from testing.

>>10921 I actually stumbled upon that book, or at least those diagrams and some excerpts doing unrelated research into antenna theory when I was younger. For a while I thought incorrectly that this was how EMP weapons worked. Based on the designs, you were essentially firing a projectile through a tube that would create charge as the projectile moved through a wire intricately looped/coiled around the barrel portion to produce the EM field used to actually disrupt devices. The manufacture of the device required a lot of explosives, and reminded me a lot of how a gun type nuclear weapon works. Note that these were discontinued for a number of reasons. This kind of device is not really an ideal device, because it relies heavily on large quantities of explosives and a precise and well engineered detonation sequence along with a projectile that will travel through an engineered path that will generate the actual pulse. >>11789 The difference between jamming and disrupting and actively destroying electronics is pretty significant. It's easy to disrupt signals, and you can buy that hardware off the chinese market. Destroying electronics is a lot harder, and one of the other problems is you may have a device that produces a lot of electricity in the process which could injure the user.

>>11794 > The difference between jamming and disrupting and actively destroying electronics is pretty significant. It's easy to disrupt signals, and you can buy that hardware off the chinese market. Destroying electronics is a lot harder, and one of the other problems is you may have a device that produces a lot of electricity in the process which could injure the user. Well I dont mean disrupting wireless signals. I mean like say for example make a cell phone unable to take photos or record audio/video of usable quality.

>>11795 You could work backwards from the hardware itself. Most phones have CMOS sensors, which you can read about if you want to know what signals and interference they are susceptible to. As far as audio recording goes, you could figure out what the most common microphone specifications are for phones and then tamper with those. The video on the other hand is just part of the camera issue and is paired with the software for recording and compression for storage. Rule number one is anything made of metal can be turned into an antenna.