In alternative circles people tend to be worried about the harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation (EMR/EMF, or just “radiation”), which scientists tend to dismiss because is’s it’s not ionizing radiation. That is, it’s not powerful enough to smash your atoms to bits.
Now, I’m not here to argue about the harmfulness of radiation, but it rubs me the wrong way to dismiss the idea outright because you’re not standing next to radioactive waste. All I want to do is propose a pathway for how EMF could potentially influence humans.
It is really quite simple. Any current creates a field and any field creates a current, and you can measure the electromagnetic fields of your brain and muscles, therefore your brain and muscles are also stimulated by external fields.
Let’s unpack that a little bit.
Things like Electrocardiography and Electroencephalography measure the electric signals emitted by your heart and brain respectively. You can build a DIY EEG device with some wires and an instrumentation amplifier. Electrical muscle stimulation on the other hand, applies electricity to your muscles to activate them.
It’s often said everyone designs antennas, but only some design them intentionally. Everything that can carry a current is an antenna weather you want it or not. It is fundamental to electricity that every current creates a field, and every field creates a current.
So the very fact that we can measure the fields created by your brain and muscles, means that a field can create a current in your brains and muscles.
It’s just a matter of magnitudes. Muscle stimulation requires dozens of volts, while EEG seems to be on the order of microvolts. Some radio transmitters transmit kilowatts, but due to the inverse square law receivers sometimes only receive microvolts.
Humans are not nicely tuned antennas designed to receive gigahertz frequencies, so I’m not saying EMF from your phone or wifi will cause microvolt signals in your brains, and I’m also not saying anything about what the effect would be if they did.
All I want to say is that due to how electric fields and currents interact, there is a two way link between currents in your body and fields outside it, so EMF has the potential to raise the noise floor on the signals inside your body.
I’m curious what you think about this argument.
