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Worldbuilding

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  • $\begingroup$ Microwaves are radio waves. So are millimetric waves (tens to hundreds of gigahertz range). The commonly recognized boundary for when we stop talking about "radio" is 300 GHz, which translates to a wavelength of (in meters) 300/300000 = 1 mm (because $\lambda = \frac{v}{f}$, where for radio we can pretty much state $v = c$ and not really need to worry about the exceptions for the purposes of this question). A more pressing concern is that computers are generally built to be RF shielded at the frequencies they are operating on, due to EMI regulations. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 13, 2015 at 7:42
  • $\begingroup$ Also, OP is asking about the effects on something like the described happening, which you only really discuss in the first few paragraphs; a good two thirds or so of your answer is simply stating why the scenario won't happen, which isn't really relevant to discussing what effects it would have. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 13, 2015 at 7:42
  • $\begingroup$ I didn't realize microwaves and radio waves overlapped in definition. Still you'd need 1 mm resolution or better, and wikipedia says the 10-1mm range is blocked by basically anything heavier than clothing, and wouldn't likely make it to the ground from the alien spaceships, which is what I wrote. Also, there may be parts of the computer that are shielded, but the connectors aren't. The only thing between me and the HDD pins on my PC is the plastic holding the pins. So that's going to depend on the PC setup. $\endgroup$
    – MichaelS
    Commented Oct 13, 2015 at 19:45
  • $\begingroup$ And I'm not really saying it can't happen, just describing more realistically how it would happen since the question seemed to want a semi-realistic method of doing it. But yeah, only three of the paragraphs are answers to the main question, which I did answer. $\endgroup$
    – MichaelS
    Commented Oct 13, 2015 at 19:49
  • $\begingroup$ It'd be a somewhat different effect than the power going out. Power failures in critical systems are generally mitigated by batteries and generators, whereas if every machine simply halted after some random (possibly damaging) effects happened (the probable consequences of wiping RAM), we'd momentarily lose the critical systems that'd normally be protected in a power failure. E.g. the stock exchange would be chaos for a moment, cached operations in data centers, in-progress bank transactions, internet infrastructure, etc. $\endgroup$
    – Jason C
    Commented Jan 16, 2023 at 17:52