Ed Helms

It was one of the earliest and most dramatic demonstrations of how a high-altitude detonation could disrupt electronics over vast distances.

Chris, this is the electromagnetic pulse which you brought up at the beginning, EMP as it's also known.

It was a warning in bright neon lights about the fragility of our growing technological infrastructure.

Does the EMP make an appearance in cinema?

I mean, it must.

The Matrix is the most obvious example.

Oh, well, of course, the Matrix, they use EMPs to fight the— The squiddies, the machines.

Right, of course.

There is the book—there's a book.

I don't know how well-known it's called.

It's called One Second After, and it's written by somebody who's long—

wanted to warn, you know, our government about the effects of an EMP, specifically, I believe, detonated somewhere over Kansas, roughly central to the United States, which would effectively black out most of the country.

And a lot of things that people, you know, unless your equipment is very specifically hardened or predates something or is like in a Faraday box,

or whatever, it's gone.

I mean, planes are going down, cell phones don't work.

And by the way, it's, like you said, Ed, it's fried.

They cannot be rebooted.

They cannot be restarted.

They can't just be turned back on.

No, this is not, you know, blow in the cartridge, put the Nintendo 64 back on.