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OK...this may be a silly question...but I'd rather be informed than ignorant. What if we had a 30-60 warning of an incoming ICBM to explode over Chicago. Would electronics fry in my house if I shut off the main and would the electronics in my car be fried if I disconnected the battery cable to it. I thought that EMP damages things that have current running through it...the EM pulse would seek a power source and pummel it with "extra" protons (positive energy) thus shorting it out. Enquiring minds want to know.

Short answer, yes, they could still fry. However I believe that they would be safer turned off, and disconnecting your main and removing all of the plugs from your wall, maybe dragging your computer to the basement, would probably all help.

Also if you had 30 minutes warning you could take your radio, temporarily remove its antenna, grab some extra batteries and shove everything in a metal can and that would probably be more than enough protection.

the EM pulse would seek a power source and pummel it with "extra" protons (positive energy) thus shorting it out.

Like I stated about, I think what you mean is photon, not proton?

Basically all electromagnetic energy (light, radio waves, x-rays, etc) can only exists in certain amounts. That is it is quantized. A photon is the smallest amount of electromagnetic radiation that can exist. It is possible to have 2 photons worth of EM radiation, but not 1.5.

When we are dealing with EM radiation of relatively low frequencies, such as AM or FM radio, cell phones, or broadcast TV, it is convenient to think of it as a wave. However when we get to the far end of the electromagnetic spectrum, small-wavelength and very high in frequency, such as X-rays and Gamma rays, it is more convenient to think of the EM radiation as a particle rather than a wave. This is because its behavior is more easily modeled with a particle theory.

I can certainly understand where the concept of devices not getting damaged when they are turned off comes from. Most movies (for instance the matrix) certainly depict it working in that fashion. The reason I think they would be safer is that if the EM radiation isn't enough to permanently damage the circuits it could still mess mess with a logic gate, setting something high that shouldn't be, which could possibly make the device malfunction and cause damage. That is one of the major problems with non-radiation hardened processors in space, not permanent damage to the circuits, but invalid computations because gates get flipped.

-paridel