pjn@nworks.com writes: Someone writes:
The car stopper works by focusing an intense electromagnetic charge on the electronic systems that manage most modern engines, disabling them and paralysing the car. In the jargon of its inventors, the 150 kilovolt charge is a nemp, or non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse. Contractors are bidding to produce a police version.
Is there any dif between this and a HERF gun?
Only that this is pretty real, while "HERF guns" have only appeared in science fiction novels, and in newspaper articles which seem to be from the 'Weekly World News' school of journalism. Go over the the amateur radio newsgroups, and you'll find that the interference of mobile ham radios with car ignitions is a well known issue. On a more speculative note, many years ago Harlan Ellison wrote an anti-statist short story entitled '"Repent Harlequin!" cried the Tick-Tock Man.' , in which the government required all adults to be surgically fitted with 'cardioplates', which allowed the state to turn off the hearts of uncooperative citizen-units by radio. Peter Trei trei@process.com