Bruce Toback wrote:
>
> Denys writes:
>
> >I have been travelling with a laptop since 1990...
> >I have never had a laptop disk drive
> >go bad on me, and I always put my laptop through the X-ray machine.
>
> Will those suggesting that a low-dose X-ray machine can damage
> magnetic storage please suggest a mechanism by which it occurs?

Bruce, magnetism is a property of electron spin around
certain metal atoms.  Photons of certain frequencies
can alter electron shells and spin.  X-Rays are highly
energetic photons, and can indeed cause magnetic
anomolies.  Personally, I would be less concerned about
the metal detectors affecting a hard drive, which is
in a sealed metal box which will protect it to some
degree from magnetic fields, than I would be about the
X-Rays which will go right through the metal box.
Although I would prefer not to subject it to either.

I have flown in and out of domestic airports of
various sizes.  I have had more problems with the
smaller airports.  They don't have to pass 20,000
passengers a day through the gates, so they have their
metal detectors turned up higher, and will quibble
over fillings in teeth (well, not really, but it
feels like it).  I almost had to leave my trusty
Swiss Army knife in a small airport near Pittsburgh
because it set off their metal detector.  Finally,
they called the security guy up a couple of levels,
and he just laughed and gave it back to me.

--

Buz          (8

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