EMPs and Humans

Occasionally a puzzling question comes into my head and sticks out because of its peculiarity. I have one for you today.

Why don't EMPs (Electromagnetic Pulses) affect humans? To give you a little background EMPs are pulses of electromagnetic energy (hence the name) that can produce currents (electrical flow) in electrical systems and devices whether they are on or not. The EMP can be powerful enough to overheat the wires and components of the system or device and melt it thereby destroying it. Imagine every electrical thing from your local power plant to your cell phone getting fried all at once.

They can be cause in many ways, but the two that people are usually most concerned about are man made EMPs caused by detonating nuclear bombs in the upper atmosphere and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that are produced by the sun. CMEs are basically really big solar flares. They happen periodically and if one hit earth directly the sunward facing side of the planet would experience widespread electrical melt down. Not a good day.

I don't really want to get into the topic at large. I am more interested in why EMPs do not melt humans down (they don't by the way). But, you may ask, why don't they since the human body uses electricity to power our hearts, and our nervous system is electrical in nature.

The explanation is actually pretty simple and short which is why I've waited to the end to tell you, but basically nerves use electricity internally to each cell, but communicate between cells using chemical communication. That means the length of "wire" where the electric circuit could be messed with by the EMP is tiny making any affect very very small. So the only way an EMP could hurt a human was if it was soooo strong that you'd get completely fried regardless of anything.

So don't worry, all of human technology could get reduced to a smoldering pile of melted wires, but you'll be fine.