Timeline for Why does an MRI machine or other EMP generating machine not damage humans, but it will fry computers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
5 events
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| May 9, 2023 at 13:02 | comment | added | Kuba hasn't forgotten Monica | @LorenzoDonatisupportUkraine The watch I had was polycarbonate with a tiny PCB and the battery contacts were conductive plastic. The only ferromagnetic alloys were the case of the battery. And it gave a good tug for sure. I don't recall what brand of a watch it was - it was one of those minimalistic designs without even a backlight. The LCD survived all that abuse. It does get uncomfortable when one's wrist is being tugged at though. | |
| May 7, 2023 at 11:19 | comment | added | LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike | BTW, yep, that was a quite risky setup, with the control PC placed at 3m away with no further protection, but that was the situation with underfunded Italian universities labs in the 90s * sigh! *. The whole thing was placed in an ex-storeroom in the basement of the faculty. The room was no bigger than 4x4 meters. | |
| May 7, 2023 at 11:18 | comment | added | LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike | ... In the lab the "absolutely keep away" red line on the floor was just about a meter away from that cylinder and there was a yellow "danger" line a meter further away. He told me that if you wore a watch in the red area the magnetic field was enough to bend the hands of a watch and could even make the glass of the watch pop out. He lost two cheap "Swatch" watches this way and a female colleague of him risked an earring to be torn away from her earlobe! | |
| May 7, 2023 at 11:17 | comment | added | LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike | I'd be careful with your watch example, to avoid giving people a false-sense of security. Maybe your digital watch had no moving parts and its case was mostly plastic or a non-ferromagnetic alloy, but other watches (e.g. battery-powered analog watches) may be more susceptible. I had a university fellow who worked with MRI for liquid crystal characterization. His apparatus was no bigger than a cylinder of 1m height by 50cm diameter (so much less powerful than a MRI scan machine for people). ... | |
| May 6, 2023 at 20:19 | history | answered | Kuba hasn't forgotten Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |