The conspiracy theorists ain't gonna like this... (but physics geeks will!)

[Auburndreamz]

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2025/06/08/2003838226

The author is a University professor who contacted several other experts around the world. There's been this conspiracy lately that magnetic storms are causing heart attacks by short-circuiting our hearts and brains.

"AFP Fact Check quoted University College London space and climate physics associate professor Daniel Verscharen as saying that there was no proof that geomagnetic storms directly affect human health."

"The US National Academy of Sciences said that nerve and muscle activity in the human body induces electric currents of about 1 milliampere per square meter (mA/m2). If a person were exposed to an electromagnetic field of 1mG, it would induce a current measuring only 0.001mA/m2, so its effect is about 1,000 times smaller than the currents naturally generated within the human body."

It's debunking news articles such as this one: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20250926/Solar-storms-linked-to-increased-heart-attack-risk-in-women.aspx which only prove that correlation doesn't equal causation! https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Ions that are constantly bouncing around in your own body produces far greater magnetic fluctuations and induced currents than fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field. Living in a house with wiring exposes you to magnetic field fluctuations several orders of magnitude greater than Earth field-fluctuations.

Don't tell these people about MRI scanners for godsakes...! They might have a heart attack, but not from the magnetism...

You can actually cause peripheral nerve stimulation with MRI scanners.

The danger from geomagnetic storms is probably far more that it could destroy the electricity grid and our IT infrastructure, plunging the world into chaos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event

Probably something far more to be concerned about.

Esp since we don't really know how often these occur.

The conspiracy theorists will just ignore it, sadly. There are people out there who truly believe that the electromagnetic fields from the mains wiring in their homes makes them ill.

Yeah, I could see that happening. There's loads of correlational studies they'd hang on to while ignoring how it's physically impossible. Some people claim to be allergic to EMF but when this was tested, they were unable to tell if an EMF generator was on or off.

The only EMF that comes close to, or exceeds the body's natural thermal floor is an MRI. At that point, it's less of a whisper while you're right next to a jet engine and more like a jet engine overpowering the noise of the other, so you can "hear" it. Sometimes this can stimulate peripheral nerves or make a person feel dizzy or "see" things (magnetophosphenes).

Sorry, I must've skimmed this by accident and didn't notice!

Did you know if you move your head around too fast near or in an MRI, you'll start seeing wispy colours in your vision? Apparently it's quite common in MRI technicians when they walk past high tesla MRI's. I think experimental ones go up to 10 Tesla.

An MRI scanner's gradient fields induce over 1 billion times more current in the human body than the nanotesla fluctuations experienced during a severe geomagnetic storm.

About the infrastructure, yeah a lot of it is old or outdated. I'm surprised we don't really have means of shielding our electrical grid more from solar flares given they aren't all that rare, it's just a case of if it's pointed at us.

Yes. You can also see flashing lights and it can make you feel dizzy (magnetic vestibular stimulation). Most clinical systems (1.5T/3.0T) that people encounter though are a lot weaker than the research ones that can go up to about 12T.

I think the interesting thing is that a geomagnetic storm is something that can really happen and might well have serious consequences for society as a whole. Much more likely than zombies for example, but is not really talked about much.

In some ways it would be good for us to be hit by a major flare sooner than later. The more society gets completely integrated around the net, the more serious the consequences are going to be when we finally get one. I think we just missed one in 2013. The good news I guess is that we would at least get some warning.

As society gets more advanced and technology develops, we become a lot more vunerable to something like this taking everything down. Society as a whole becomes less resilliant and we rely more and more on increasingly marginal technology. Probably better to find out the consequences of that process sooner rather than later. If it happens in 100 years time and the technology is not hardened against it it could put us back to the stone age.