Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!homxb!mtuxo!mtune!codas!killer!wnp
From: wnp@killer.UUCP (Wolf Paul)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Laptops and Airport Security
Summary: How can XRays harm electronic/magnetic equipment/media?
Keywords: Laptop, X-rays
Message-ID: <3056@killer.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jan 88 12:48:12 GMT
References: <4426@garfield.UUCP>
Reply-To: wnp@killer.UUCP (Wolf Paul)
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection BBS, Dallas, Tx
Lines: 34

In article <4426@garfield.UUCP> martyn@garfield.UUCP (Martyn Quigley) writes:
>A while back there was discussion about laptops and airport security.  Folks
>might be interested in this.
>
>power it up.  At Heathrow I asked for it to be hand-checked.  They told me
>"No x-ray, no travel".  Since there were 6 of them and they were all bigger
>than me, the computer duly went through the x-ray machine.
>
>The first thing I did when I got back home was power up the computer.  No
>problems at all, all files intact, boot proceeded normally etc.  Whew!

I did not understand it back when the discussion was going on, and I still 
don't understand it:

What is there in a portable computer or in a box of floppy disks that is going
to be harmed by X-Rays?

X-Rays, being a form of light, can potentially damage photographic film
(although I understand that the frequencies of the airport security X-Rays are
such that it won't harm normal photographic film), but I do not see how 
X-Rays can ever affect a magnetic medium (such as a floppy or hard disk)
or electronic components such as make up a computer.

Can anyone enlighten me with scientific reasons for this panic? I don't want
any reports such as "I took it through airport security and it wiped out my
hard disk" -- unless you did this as a controlled experiment, I doubt that it
was the security X-Rays that did it. Most of us are quite capable, and have
proven it, of wiping out our hard disk without the aid of X-Rays.

What I am looking for is a scientific explanation of why X-Rays might damage
a portable computer or other magnetic media.

Wolf Paul
ihnp4!killer!wnp