Um, wasn't the old excuse for mistakes "Cosmic Rays"?

Um, wasn't the old excuse for mistakes "Cosmic Rays"?

Originally shared by Rob Jongschaap

Computer crashes may be due to forces beyond our solar system | Computerworld

'When your computer crashes or phone freezes, don't be so quick to blame the manufacturer. Cosmic rays -- or rather the electrically charged particles they generate -- may be your real foe.

While harmless to living organisms, a small number of these particles have enough energy to interfere with the operation of the microelectronic circuitry in our personal devices. It's called a single-event upset or SEU.

During an SEU, particles alter an individual bit of data stored in a chip's memory. Consequences can be as trivial as altering a single pixel in a photograph or as serious as bringing down a passenger jet. '

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3171677/it-industry/computer-crash-may-be-due-to-forces-beyond-our-solar-system.html

The Invisible Neutron Threat | National Security Science Magazine | Los Alamos National Laboratory

'The Invisible Neutron Threat

A neutron produced by a cosmic ray and traveling at nearly the speed of light strikes a military C-141B Starlifter carrying over 100 troops at 37,000 feet over the Sea of Japan. Immediately the pilot notices something is wrong. Very wrong. The plane is suddenly banking to the right and is in danger of going out of control. What is happening?

Is a single subatomic particle capable of causing such a big problem? The answer is yes: a microchip in a plane's flight controller can malfunction and produce an erroneous command after being struck by a neutron. These neutrons, like ghosts, can pass through materials without being noticed. At aircraft cruising altitudes, about 2,000 of them per second penetrate each square yard of the aircraft's surface, passing through the passengers, seats, and onboard electronics and exiting on the other side. What happens when a high-energy neutron collides head-on with a silicon atom's nucleus in a transistor of the onboard electronics?'

https://www.lanl.gov/science/NSS/issue1_2012/story4full.shtml
http://www.computerworld.com/article/3171677/it-industry/computer-crash-may-be-due-to-forces-beyond-our-solar-system.html