June 24, 2021 • 42 mins
Faraday cages are one of those peculiar miracles of nature that we can actually explain – not to mention, they save us from potentially fatal electrocutions and electronic eavesdropping which are bonuses. Learn about this amazing hidden technology here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, there's Jerry over there,
and this is stuff you should know. I have let
me more to comment other than that. All right, how
(00:24):
are you chucking? Good? I'm great good, I'm glad. What
are you drinking? I'm drinking Perry. It's French, fancy fancy.
I'm drinking just regular old dumb American water. What is
that tap water? Don't drink that well, I mean it's water,
it's not out of the tap. I have a death
(00:46):
wish on my hands. Right, you know what I love?
If you're going fizzy drinks, best fizzy drink of all time,
I would say Sam Pellegrino. Um, well, any Sam peret
flavored kind Topechico. Oh yeah, it's good. Jerry's nodding with emphasis.
I've had one before. Yeah, the Topachico. I just like
(01:08):
the plane. It is the fizziest of fizz, is it.
And uh, here's a little drink for you. Tequila and
Topechico and about a half a lime. That's it. Low calorie, clean, simple, refreshing, simple, meager, delicious, meager, disgusting.
It's like what a what a quaker? Or uh, what
(01:28):
a Quaker would drink? Or um? Yeah? Righte tequila? Who
am I thinking of? I have no idea what you're
talking about? Now? Who goes on rum Springer? Oh? Amish?
The Amish. It's what the Amish would drink, very plain, straightforward,
boozy drink. Oh. I think when the Amish, uh going
(01:49):
rum spring and they probably go straight for the hard stuff,
straight for the Harvey wallbangers. Well, I think they just
they say, we don't need that topachico, just pour that tequila?
Got you into my stomach quickly? Man? Uh So today,
of course we're talking about Faraday cages, Chuck. Have you
ever been in a car that was struck by lightning? Uh? No?
(02:09):
Have you know? I would talk about it every day.
But you know what, if you were you'd probably walk
around saying everything was cool because the tires are grounded. Man,
not not me. I wouldn't have said that. You would
have said that yesterday today, I would have said it before.
That's not true though. It's it's not the tires right,
No tires are made of rubber too or something like it,
(02:30):
and which is an insulator. It doesn't conduct electricity very well.
But if a bolt of lightning hit your car, those
tires are not nearly insulated enough to protect you. It's
actually because your car is essentially what's called a Faraday cage,
which is why it jibes with the topic today. That's right, Uh,
(02:52):
name for Michael Faraday, the nineteenth century scientist. I don't
even dude. Yeah that I mean, this guy was just
a mazing He deserves his own episode, for sure. Yeah,
I'm a big, I'm a big. I was trying to
think of a funny name for a fair day fair,
like a fair day fair Dan, fair daddy. Oh that's
a good one. Fair Daddy, Fair daddy. But that implies
(03:15):
that you have kids. But you can be a fair daddy,
can be whatever, Sure it can be. Daddy did all
sorts of stuff. That's right, we have the stuff you
should know. Army, you're the fare daddy of the stuff
you should know. Army movie crushes, the movie crushers, And
I just learned today what you know. Dak Shepherd has
armchair expert. You know what his people are called arm
(03:36):
cherry in close? Is it really arm cherries C H
E R R I E s. Yeah, yeah, like Cherry,
you got the murder Hinos with my favorite murder. What
else I think this? American life fans are called middle
aged liberals. Very nice and that's all. No one else
(03:57):
says a nickname. No, that's it. Um. I'm sure someone
else has a nickname. But Faraday in the Fara Daddies,
which is us and no one else developed something called
a fair day cage on the heels of the work
of someone named Ben Franklin. Should we say what a
fair day cage is first? Or story? I think a
(04:18):
little bit? Yeah, alright, well, fair day cage can be
any conductor of electricity that's important that surrounds something that
you would like to protect from electro an electrical charge, right,
or it turns out also electromagnetic radiation, which is not
the same thing. No, they're based on the same stuff.
(04:40):
But electricity is a current of electrons moving through an object. Uh.
An electromagnetic radiation or type of it is just energy
flowing through there. Like, he doesn't need a conductor. That's
really the big differentiator between the two. Yeah, but it's
it can be chain link, it can be wired mesh,
(05:03):
like you said, it can be your car, can be
solid metal. We'll talk about planes later on planes technically,
or a kind of fair day cage, thank goodness, and yeah,
and it basically is there to protect what's inside and
has a range of applications. Now that has kind of
grown over the years. And the thing about a Faraday
(05:23):
cages that it's really weird. It's based on observations like
you said, by Ben Franklin and then really investigated by Faraday,
which we'll get into in a second. But it doesn't
quite make sense because if you happen to come along
and there's a down power line and it's laying on
an aluminum fence post like the Ice Storm movie? Does
(05:46):
that happen in that movie? Oh, I gotta see that.
Then you've never seen the Ice Storm one of the
great movies. I know, I know, But then I go
through periods where I'm like, I just I want something
like dumb and thoughtless. Well, that's not the storm, right,
And you also have to wait till the winter. You
can't like I see, you can't PLoP down on the
summertime in your backyard. Now I know that's true to
(06:08):
be weird, I'm trying to think I saw something just
the other day that was worth watching. Oh man, man,
this is podcast gold right here. I'll try to think
of it, and I'll keep I'll keep this little region
of my brain right here going trying to figure out
what movie I just saw sometimes and then the rest
over here it's gonna is gonna focus on Faraday cages.
(06:31):
I can't do that minds like Hummer Simpson. My thought
bubble just says it, dontut Oh this is this part here, Okay,
So but hold on. So um, so what were we
talking about that before that we were talking about movies?
Were uh, yes, So a Faraday cage is weird, and
that if you normally go up to a conductor that
(06:52):
has an electrical current running through it and you touch it,
it's going to knock you out of your shoes, like
the kid in Stand By Me. Basically that was a
train the metaphor works or the kidney ice storm. Well,
now I don't have to see the ice storm. There's
a lot more than happens. So, um, a Faraday cage
is special in that it actually protects you from doing that,
(07:14):
but it uses conductors. It's not some special insulator. It
actually uses the very thing that should electrocute you to
prevent you from being electrocuted. It's yeah, the cage itself
is a hollow conductor, and that charge stays on the exterior.
It's like, here, let me take that electrical load for you.
(07:37):
Whatever is inside of me. That was it? See, Okay,
So I think that's actually the level of Ben Franklin's
understanding of it from what I gather Ben Franklin, he was,
he was on the case. He was he was sniffing
all over, he was, he sniffed off the case. Uh.
(08:00):
In seventeen fifty five he started doing a lot of
these electrical experiments. Obviously everyone knows about the kite. Uh.
One that has to do with the fair day cages.
He electrified ran a current through a pint can, a
silver pint can. Yeah, he was always drinking pines. Sure.
And then uh, he lowered a cork which obviously has
(08:21):
no charge, like a little cork ball attached to silk,
a silk string which has no you know, can't run
a current through that either, and he lowered it down
into that pint glass and it just sat there. It
was like, what what do you want? Yeah, this is
it's dumb. It was a teenage corkball. It wasn't It
was very much a teenage cork ball, and it didn't
(08:41):
do anything. But he pulled that cork ball out and
then dangled it beside that charge scan and it went Hotcha, Mama,
let me get a piece of that can Hama blessed
tax So it like latched on the outside of it. Right,
I just demonstrated everybody's white. Chuck laughed, and Ben Franklin
(09:02):
was like, I have no idea what's going on here.
I've only just preliminarily started experimenting with electricity. This is weird.
And he wrote to a friend he said, I I
can't explain this. Maybe someday you'll be able to investigate it.
If you do, let me know what the deal is. Um.
But he was the at least on paper, the first
person to really kind of notice this. It took Michael
(09:24):
Faraday a few decades later, probably about forty maybe even
fifty years later, to say, I really want to know
what's going on here, so he investigated it himself. Yeah.
But you know, if you really think about what Franklin did,
ninety nine people out of a hundred back then would
have been like, who cares, what are you doing that
(09:45):
stupid cork ball? Like what is this matter? Like you're
hanging inside there. It doesn't do anything hanging on the
outside and it moves a little bit. But Franklin knew,
He's like this is important, Like this is this will
have an application? Right, So like that there in lies
the brilliance I think, and the beauty you have Ben Franklin,
that and his hair do. Of course, So Michael Faraday,
when he investigated it, um, he recreated the same experiment
(10:10):
very famously. UM a couple of ways. One he lined
as a room. He built a room basically and then
lined it with um foil and then applied a charge
to the outside and put a small child in there. Well,
he put himself in there, and he hung out basically.
I saw for a couple of days in this Faraday
(10:32):
cage with an electrical current being applied to the outside
of it. He had a that was good for the
time because you, I mean, I made that joke. But
usually at the time it's like, how about that kitten, right,
you have no right that cute bunny, Let me just
exploit you. Um. So yeah, So he actually did it himself.
(10:52):
He remember we did that episode of famous scientists who
were their own guinea pigs. He could have qualified in
that respect for sure. But he demonstrated, Okay, there's no
charge in here. I'm fine, uh this this there's something
going on where this conductor itself is preventing the charge
from coming in here. That was the first one. Then
they follow it up again with an ice pail um,
(11:16):
which is exactly what it sounds like. You know, it's
a bucket. And he's very famous for his ice pail experiment,
basically recreated Franklin's thing. And he said, I think I
can explain this now. It wasn't full of ice though,
just to be clear. And actually there's still Faraday ice
pails today and they're made of wire mesh. Really, yeah,
(11:36):
you gotta check them out. So is that what you
told your Yeah, don't work. They work for like, don't work.
It'll work too good. So I say we take a
break and then come back and try to explain what
Faraday figured out. That sounds great, Okay, sucks. I don't
(12:04):
know that, you know it stuck in this. It's a
great name. That's the name of that. It's a great name.
So Michael Faraday was a brilliant man chuck in that
he he took Franklin's findings and said, here's what's going on. Yeah.
So if you listen to our March twentie episode How
(12:27):
Electricity Works one, you'll you'll it was pretty intense. I
really listened to a lot of it. We got into
the weeds because that's a tough one. It is. I mean, electricity.
It's not like a slouchy subject, you know, but this
is a Josh written simplified overview that is so much
better than that episode. I think, thanks man. And it
(12:50):
goes a little something like this. Alright, man, electricity. You've
got metal objects, and let's say it's a let's say
it's that tin can or whatever it's it's it's a
cocaine the pine can. We'll go stick with the pine
Cann't know why I changed the coke can because we're
in the South, okay, we're from We're in Atlanta. But
(13:10):
all right, it's a pint can. They don't make cocin pints,
or they should, or at least the cans. What's your
favorite beer? I mean, I like tropically these days, it
comes can right, Okay, there you go. All right, So
I got a tall boy of tropically changed my mind,
changed my mind. We got younger listeners that listen, so,
but I also don't want to necessarily push coke on them.
(13:32):
How about, um, does does the it's a white cloth can?
Does um the topo Chico come in a can? Let's
say it does? Okay, I always have mine in a bottle,
but let's say it comes in a can, all right,
just for the sake of moving on. Alright, So you
got that topo cheeko can. And it is a conductor
(13:55):
of electricity, which basically means that you know, these things
have electrons and protons in them, and they can be
both positively and negatively charged. If it was always uh electric,
you would you'd go to pick up that topa Chico
and just get shocked, right it. But it's not. Itself
doesn't carry a charge, and an electrical charges the force.
(14:17):
That's the force of electricity. Um. When it's on the move,
that's a current, and a conductor allows electricity to move
through it. That's right, like those car tires right right now,
that's the uh and the it can be positive or negative.
It really just depends on the count of how many
electrons to how many protons. Has an equal number, it's
(14:40):
going to be neutral, obviously, it's has more protons, it's
gonna have a positive charge more electrons, it's gonna be
negatively charged. And then if you're a conductor like that can,
there are lots of loose electrons flying around inside that.
They're free to move about and do their business. Right,
So one way to look at an electrical current as
(15:03):
it goes from one thing through the next thing that
it's applied to, and it does that by exciting those
free electrons that are able to move. They start moving
and they basically carry the electrical charge through that that
the current through the conductor. But under normal circumstances, you
just got all the positively charged stuff of the negatively
(15:25):
charged stuff hanging out not doing anything. And so that's why,
like you're saying, you can pick up that that topo
Chico can and it's not going to electric It's just
a conductor. Right. But let's say that I was a
superhero with electricity. I was electron Man, and my hand
(15:45):
like carried a charge. What are the current The fans
of electron Man would be the electron e X electronic
x uh. And let's say I reach for that topo
Chico Can with my my electrically charged end. Then you're
in business because what happens then is you're gonna have
an opposite thing going on. All of those particles will separate,
(16:09):
those electrons in those protons that are normally just com
mingling out. Normally they're all fine under normal circumstances, but
all of a sudden they separate, and all of the
charge coming towards me would be the opposite, which would
be protons. So if you're it depends are you you
as as oh you're electron man, Yes, you would be
(16:31):
negatively charged for sure, Yeah, there or also just be
a total misnown that's right. So the protons are going
to be attracted to the electrons in this case, or
holes I saw. Electron holes is another thing that that
starts flowing toward a negative charge. I've never heard of
them before. I hadn't either, And this is called electrostatic induction.
When you separate out the positive from negative charge and
(16:53):
a conductor. That's right, and they're on the opposite sides
of that topo Chico Can. As soon as my hand
touches that thing exactly. Okay, so that makes a lot
of sense. That's basically what Ben Franklin was observing, and
he couldn't quite figure it out. And this is what
Michael Faraday recreated and was able to explain that when
you take a charged and electrically charged external object and
(17:16):
apply it to a conductor, the opposite of whatever that
charges is going to go toward it. The particles that
are the same charge, you're going to move away from it. Yeah,
they're repelled by it. And you have a good point
in here. We talk We used to talk a lot
about homeostasis, and that's kind of what's going on here,
is that those negative electrons I want to cancel out
(17:38):
that charge coming at them with my electrified hand and
just get back to neutral. They want to hang out
with the protons again exactly, So they're trying to offset
that positive charge with their own their own charge. But um,
so that the negative electrons and the positive holes I
guess create an electrical field on the outside, but it
(17:59):
keeps that electrical charge to the outside. This is what
Faraday found. It stays outside. On the inside, there is
no electrical charge. What doesn't quite make sense until you
start to dig into it a little more. And it
has to do with that electrostatic conduction where the positively
charged stuff moves to the inside, the negative stuff moves
to the outside, and because the inside is positively charged
(18:24):
and the positive charge is also on the outside, they
cancel one another out, so there is no charge on
the inside, right, And that's why Ben Franklin's corkball just
sat there, didn't do anything when you put it down
in there. And that's why I mean, I guess, Topo Chico,
it's a bad example because I would have a liquid
in there. Well, we drank it already, all right, we
(18:45):
drank it all Yeah, we opened up that can. It's
a giant Topo Chico can that we are standing in
totally unharmed because the electrostatic current is kept outside. Because
here's there are a couple of things that far Day
figured out that a conductor does in this sense that
creates what we understand is a Faraday cage, and that
(19:06):
it keeps a charge from developing on the inside. Um
because it distributes the electric electrostatic charge just to the outside.
It keeps it outside, and so it acts as a shield.
It actually shields a charge from coming inside. So when
you're inside a Faraday cage, whether it's a giant topo
Chico cane, or your car or an airplane, you're actually
(19:29):
protected from being shocked or electrocuted by the electrical field
that is distributed strictly to the outside of the conductor. Yeah,
and it's this shield that that's where the application of
this really comes into play. Otherwise it would just be
kind of a fun experiment. But then humans are like, wait,
this is actually pretty important because we can use this stuff. Um,
(19:50):
how effective that shield is h is really dependent on
what kind of Faraday cage you have. It can be
depends on the metal that you're using, and how conductive
it is, depends on the size of Like if it's
a mesh, it depends on how big the holes are.
If it's like your old plaster and laugh walls in
your house, you might realize that you don't get as
(20:13):
good as an Internet signal in one room of your
home that might still have that plaster and laugh. Yes,
Because so there's a second thing that Faraday cages do
their magic. I said, they're really weird. It doesn't make
any sense, but this is just what they figured out happens.
The second thing that it does is remember I said
that electro magnetic waves like radio waves, gamma waves, X rays, microwaves, Yeah, microwaves, UM,
(20:38):
those are a there. They're basically from the same family
as an electrical current UM. And so the Faraday cage
actually prevents their intrusion as well. So the second thing
it does is prevent these kind of waves from coming in. Uh.
And it all depends on what it's made from. And
you know what the size and shape of the Faraday cages,
(21:00):
right or getting out in the case of a microwave.
If you look at that door of your microwave and
you see a little grid pattern, that's a fair Day cage.
I say we take another break and then come back
and talk about some real life applications in addition to
microwaves of fair Day cages. What do you think, let's
do it stuck, stuck, stuck. I don't know that you
(21:32):
know it stuck in this stuck. That's a great name.
That's the name of it. It's a great name. All right.
You got your favor Day cage, your fair Day shield,
your RF cage, radio frequency all these are just different
names for the same thing. Your e m F cage
Electromotive force cage, your KLF cage, Sure, kmf DM cage.
(21:59):
Uh what was k What was the first one? He said,
KLF K Yeah what was that? Was that a group,
the KLF. Yeah, but they had like one song they
had were one hit wonder. Basically, I think they were
the ones that set a million pounds on fire. I
(22:20):
bet they regret that they did. They actually held a
very um unsuccessful Kickstarter they that million pounds back years later.
I was about to make a joke and say kickstarter,
but they really did, Yes, they did. Um, maybe they'll
write us. I think it was KALF km DM, I
can't remember. It might have been KMFDM. Who was it
that we thought was writing us at one point? But
(22:42):
it was a fake Louis Bega. Yeah they got as
good now? Am I okay to talk about that? The
Loue Bega incident. It's a good band name. Jerry's over here,
laugh is he remembers up bigger for the Loue Bega
ins Like, he even uses his picture on his Twitter handle.
We're like, oh, well that checks, yeah, yeah, that's it's
(23:05):
loup Vega. He's verified the Mama number five guy. Um oh,
he wasn't even verified. That was the dopes. Such dopes.
So we have been talking a lot about the fair
day cage and what they can be used for. And
one of the things that can be used for is like,
let's say you're in a lab, in a science lab
(23:26):
and you want to conduct an experiment and a truly
neutral setting with no electromagnetic field at all, because nothing
going on. We said, these are energy waves that are
just flowing through the air. Just because you can't see him,
doesn't mean they're not there. But yeah, so it can
affect a lot of experiment. So you might want to
have a fair day cage built for your science lab.
(23:46):
That's a big one. If you are at a university
that's more than a two bit university, they're probably going
to have Faraday cages here there around some of their
labs for sure. Yeah, of course, you want to go
to a hospital and uh, look for a fair day cage.
Go take me to the m r I lab and
they'll say, yes, sir, click their heels together and take
you to see a fair day cage. Because um, that
(24:07):
either the m r I machine or possibly the room
that the m r I machine is in. Maybe even
both are outfitted with Faraday cages because for the same
reason as when you're protecting your lab, you don't want
the the electromagnetic radiation interfering with the data that the
m r I is taking in and screwing up the picture.
(24:30):
And they'd be like, good lord, this guy's gotta tumor
in the size of a watermelon on its side. Oh wait,
we forgot to build this in a fair day cage. Yeah,
it's not to protect. It's not like an X ray.
It's not to protect m r I juice from spreading
through the hospital. I don't know. I think it's to
protect the day. That definitely is, But I wonder if
(24:51):
it's two fold or do But then you'd have to
have two fair Day cages working in opposite directions, and
then the universe might fold in on its off in
that situe. It's true I mentioned airplanes earlier as a teaser.
Cars don't get struck by lightning a lot, but you'll
be very scared to know that airplanes do get struck
by lightning quite a bit. I don't think I've been
(25:13):
in a plane that was struck by lightning, but I've
been in situations where it's possible. But this is probably
a really dumb question, like would it make a big
thunder boom right then? I don't know. I don't think
that's a dumb question. That's a great question, because I
would say then you would probably know if the whole
plane just went kaboom. The other way that you can
tell is if you end up in an alternate universe
(25:36):
that the Langoliers are eating. That's the other way to
know your plane was struck by lightning. But the airplane
is fine, all the equipment, all the people inside are fine.
With Balki, no less. Did you ever see that? No? Okay,
it was pretty bad. What was it? It was a
Stephen King made for TV movie starring Balki. Yeah, and
it was bad. What was it called? The Langoliers? All right,
(25:58):
I mean just bad. I was just because you're saying
funny words. Okay, that's good enough for me. As long
as I'm getting laughs out of you, that's all I
care about. Uh So, Yeah, that plane is a Faraday cage.
Um buildings can probably not purposely be built as a
fair day cage, but they can act as that. Well,
it's like that that laugh, um the wire mesh laugh
(26:19):
that that you apply the past plaster two you're talking
about also with um poured concrete, reinforced concrete. Right, the
rebar in there, if you, you know, build a large
enough structure, the rebar can accidentally act as a Faraday cage.
And we said, depending on what electromagnetic radiation you're trying
to keep out, you actually want to a tune that attenuate.
(26:43):
I guess the size of the mesh or the grid pattern,
whatever the chain link fence, it'll keep some stuff out
depending on the size of the hole being based on
the wavelength of the wave. If the wavelength is bigger
than the whole, it can actually be kept out. If
the wave link is smaller than the whole, then it's
going to pass through fairly easily. And even if you do, um,
(27:07):
make it just right, it's still probably not going to
be a perfect Fairday cage, as evidenced in the case
of a microwave. Right. Yeah, Like if you put your phone,
your cell phone in a microwave and shut the door,
don't turn it on, no, but if you just put
it in there and called it, it would probably bring Yeah,
probably even though your phone operates on microwaves. Um, but
(27:30):
you your microwave just isn't perfect. And I've seen everywhere
where this explained follows up with don't worry, You're not
going to be affected by the microwave radiation. Um, Like,
there's like certain standards for leakage that have to be
met in the developed world if you're selling a microwave
or buying a microwave. So I still don't stand in
(27:52):
front of a microwave. You probably shouldn't, you know, just
in case. But then now, Chuck, we've kind of traps
into the territory where Faraday cage is have really kind
of made a big appearance in the consumer market, which
is things like protecting from uh e m F allergies.
Oh right, Like, um, better call Saul's brother on the show. Well,
(28:16):
Michael McKeon is a character. He plays a character. He plays, Um,
Saul's brother and Um, he has a allergy to electromagnetic
radiation allergy or is it in his head? Well, I
mean they explore it like it's in his head, but
they also explore it like it's you know, from his viewpoint,
it's happen, it's real, and it's basically the no cebo
(28:37):
effect is how I've seen it explain. But there are
a lot of people out there, and you'll see in
this show where he's wearing like um, a solar blanket,
like a metallic blanket that he believes is is um
you know, blocking electromagnetic radiation, everything from visible light to
radio waves, to gamma rays to X rays, all of
this energy flying through there. Some people believe that it
(28:58):
has a pernicious effect on your health. For everything I've
seen scientific wise says that is not the case. But
there's still obviously there's people who are like, no, there's
this one study once that found this and it says
that your cells are not happy when they're exposed radio ways,
which is why I were a foil line suit whenever
(29:19):
I leave the house kind of thing. And it's a
real it's sad. It's very sad, especially if it's not true.
It's just as sad if it is correct. These people
are suffering and nobody can help them, right, you know,
just like with the ham or Morgellons who said it
was it Fauci? Oh man? Was it that rat? Yeah?
Like I didn't know anything. Uh, should we leave that
(29:43):
in here? It's a joke. We'll find out. Okay, we'll see,
we'll test our own temperature. And the uh they do
power utility line line lines workers. Sometimes they'll have these
special suits and if you have an E. M f
UM allergy, you probably want to get your hand. That's right. Uh,
you know, that's how one of my granddad's died. I
(30:04):
think I've told that story before. He was a power
lineman lineman, uh not which a tall Tennessee man. I
didn't know that. Yeah, he got zapped in the top
of a telephone polling and knocked him out to the
ground and it didn't immediately kill him. It is essentially
what killed him. Yeah, how long did he linger? I
(30:26):
don't know. I mean I was he died when I
was like five ish silently remember meeting him like once,
and he was you know, he had a hospital bed
in his house and my grandmother was a nurse, so
she basically just kind of cared for him for the
rest of his life. Oh so this wasn't like a
couple of days later like he know, he lived for
years after with like brain damage and uh, yeah, I
(30:47):
wonder how much of it was from hitting his head
and how much of it was from the juice. Well,
I think most of it was from the fall, but
if technically that's what caused the fall, so I was Yeah,
he wasn't a very good guy. I'm not saying he
deserve that. He didn't deserve that, but yeah, he wasn't
a good person. I got you so feel bad ish, No,
(31:07):
you don't want bad things to happen to anyone or
maybe Hilter, Yeah, did Hilter do these paintings all time?
Great man? The government they're also obviously going to protect
sensitive equipment. Uh, they're going to build special rooms. Yes, yes,
because here's the thing. If you are afraid of electromagnetic
(31:28):
radiation going through you and you're trying to keep it out,
you can also keep electromagnetic radiation from escaping. Yeah, Like,
if you want to tell sensitive secret ers and sensitive documents,
you're gonna have a special room in the White House
or the Pentagon that is tricked out to to shield, uh,
to keep anyone from listening in. Basically, it has essentially
(31:49):
a reverse Faraday cage keeps the electromagnetic radiation from leaking out,
which sounds like who cares if electromagnetic radiation leaks out
from a computer? Screen or um, you know, the an
ethernet cable or something like that. It turns out you
can actually tell you can gain information from capturing this
(32:11):
leakage and converting it into data. Yeah, what was the
guy with the I mean, this is a little scary
considering what's going on in this country right now. But
was it in Holland? It is I'm not really scared
by this. I think it kind of goes to show
just how yeah, far fetched, it's excellent, Chuck far fetched.
(32:33):
The guy named rock gun Grip, who is a Dutch
computer expert. That's how you say Dutch names, by the way, Um, like,
you have no idea what you're talking about. Uh, he uh,
figured out that you can electronically eaves drop or electromagnetically
eaves drop on the voting machines that they were using
in the Netherlands. Um. And he showed that he could
(32:58):
gather the refresh rate, or he could determine that the
refresh rate on the computer screen slowed down when a
name that had an accent or a special character was
being displayed, and he was able to take this leakage
from like or something like that from these voting machines
converted into a sound. And when somebody from the Christian
(33:22):
Democrat is Appeal party and the e has an accent
over it was voted for, the tone actually changed. That's interesting.
So he could say they got one vote or something
like that, but not manipulate that vote. No, but I
could see in this country that story being dug up
and used, you know, right by dummies for sure. But
(33:46):
the point is that this guy can do something like that.
You can bet that like a very well to do
state that wanted to electromagnetically eaves job could probably glean
some pretty import and stuff. So, yes, you probably do
want to put your most sensitive conversations government state secrets
(34:07):
in a Faraday cage enclosed room. But the average person's
vote is not going to be you know, in jeopardy
by rope going grip. You know, I read about this
guy from Holland or the Netherlands or someplace like that.
Who's that Alec Baldwin. Yeah it was Alec Baldwin. I'll
(34:28):
tell you who else might have Some Faraday cages are
like preppers, survivalists, They probably have Faraday cage or two.
They may be homemade hate rope gone grip. Yeah, I
can't stand that guy. No, but that's they worry that
um of electromagnetic pulses, which we talked a lot about
in the space Weather episode. You remember we I mean
(34:49):
we said like, if if one of these things didn't
happen from space weather or from a bad actor um
one of the others, uh, you can really lose all
of your electronics, which is another reason people build fair
day cages, not just keep out or keep their their
their own electronics from leaking information, from keeping electronic um
(35:11):
uh noise from coming in and disrupting their own stuff.
If a big one hit, it could just blow your
circuits right out the human body. Your electronics they're designed
to use and run on electricity, but only a certain amount.
When you overload that amount that the system tends to fail.
And that's why survivalists and preppers believe in things like
(35:32):
Faraday cages to protect their equipment. Right. The problem is
when you take it out and use it, if space
weather actually happened, right, then your fair day cage is
useless because you're outside of it. Yeah, and I guess
if you're really uh, sort of paranoid and have a
lot of money, you can have your home. There's this
(35:53):
place called Holland Shielding that makes a wallpaper with copper
woven into it to prevent someone from eavesdropping on you.
I also saw there's something called mew metal and it's
like an iron nickel alloy that works really well for
that too. I gotta coming over next week. That's awesome
and put that all over my house. Are you prepping
(36:13):
these days? I'm prepping for a nap than fluffing that pillow? Yeah? Yeah?
What else? A little warm milk. I've been able to
nap a little bit these days. It's good. I still can't.
I still can't. Nope. Do you try every once in
a great while? And now, can you mean nap? Noah,
we're not nappers. Yeah, I I enjoy a nap. Have
(36:36):
kind of embraced the the true siesta. Like you know,
I get up really early, I stay up really late.
I don't get a lot of sleep at night, but
I'll try and get a thirty minute nap in at
some point and it's working pretty well. What do you
do at night? I mean, that's my time. When you
got a little kid, that's like once they go to bed,
(36:57):
You're like, that's your time? How late, you stay up,
and Ry he's nodding, Uh, you know, I'll stay up.
I mean it depends. I'll go through phases where I'm
in bed at ten thirty, but usually I'm a midnight man.
It's what I like to call. And then on the
weekends that stretches into like one am. What time do
you get up? I usually get up around six thirty
or seven. Ye wake up six thirty or seven. So yeah,
(37:21):
I'm about a six hour a night guy. Maybe a
thirty minutes you need. Yeah, I think we talked about it.
You're getting up early these days. I get crazy emails
from you, and so early in all cats. Yeah, I know.
I actually try very hard to be cognizant of what
I'm emailing you early in the morning because I know
(37:42):
it might be some of the first stuff you see,
and I don't want it to be like, hey, we
gotta do this, this guy is falling. I've been good
about the not opening my email though till to work
hours and then shutting it down. You know. That's Jerry
had to talk with me once where she's like, I
don't know if you should email people on the weekends
in the evenings or whatever. I'm like, what do you mean?
And then I stopped and thought, I was like totally.
(38:04):
So I've adopted that as well as best Like what
you do? You just make a note email dumb, dumb
at nine am on Monday. Sure, so I use the
drafts folder. Now, okay, I just don't send it. Yeah,
or do that? Don't even make a note. I don't
even need to know. This is like an extra superfluous step.
I write the email, I just don't send it. I
(38:25):
leave it in the draft. That is very smart. So
you want to wrap this up, yeah, let's wrap it up. Well,
if you want to know more about fairy day cage,
just go check your car out. Uh And since I
said that, it's tempt the listener, ma'am. Oh wait, wait,
there's one other thing, Chuck. If you are have a
car and it's a convertible, look out, it doesn't have
(38:47):
a fairy day cage. You're very susceptible to lightning, which
is another explanation for why your tires don't actually save you.
Because if you're in a convertible car, it's not a
fair day cage. So your toast all right, no listener mail,
I'm gonna call this the next email in my inbox,
(39:11):
And this is actually good because rarely do we read
uh suggestions for episodes on the air, But this is
a good one, and I think we're gonna want to
do this because it also ties in with today's episode. Okay,
today's special. Hey guys riding in with the topic proposition.
I think it would fit perfectly to what you're doing. Eels.
Oh that's a great idea, electrical eels. I don't know
(39:32):
if I ever would have thought about that, I probably wouldn't.
Let me see who this is. This is um Michael
Michael from Poland. Michael says that it no, no, no.
Michael goes on to say they're just incredible creatures. And
it was mind blowing to me when I discovered that
we still do not know much about them. Have you
ever eaten meal like sushi? Of course? Yeah, I buy
(39:55):
that at the Japanese market and cook it at home.
Oh you do yourself, huh, you just bake it in
the oven. Still delicious. There's not much to look at
the foyer. They taste good. Uh. Freud, before going into psychoanalysis,
studied eels trying to find their reproductive system, a feat
not yet achieve. For thousands of years, all European eels
come from one place, the Sargasso Sea. Eels travel thousands
(40:18):
of miles after their born. I just wouldn't I didn't
want to read the parenthetical. Eels travel thousands of miles
after they were born to the lakes wells in Europe
and then come back when they feel they're ready to
undergo metamorphosis and reproduce. Let me see what else. For
many years people thought they were observing different species of eels,
(40:38):
but in fact they were the same eels at just
different stages of their life. But so we basically did
a mini episode on eels with special guests Michael sort of.
Michael also sens a New Yorker article a book called
the Book of Eels, says, ps, I love what you're
doing and how you're making interesting topics approachable with your
great and easy going attitude. Keep it up. All the
best from Poland. I hope I can see live one day.
(41:00):
And that's from Macao. I would definitely go to Poland
for a show. I would too, Yeah, cool, I've never
been to Poland. I have anything, let's do it close
as I've been is Hungary. Yeah, same here you've been hungry? Sure? Great?
Which side did you stay on? We stayed on the
pest side, but we you know, went back and forth.
(41:21):
We also went to that um, that Turkish bath that
the beginning of Red Heat was filmed in. Okay, it's
really awesome. I don't remember which side I stayed on,
to be honest, it was so many years ago, so
the left or the right? I remember? You don't remember now,
I don't. I mean, this was thirty years ago. Okay,
(41:41):
the twenty seven years ago. This was two fifteen, I
think from me, I was drunk on bulls blood wine.
I remember that you're talking about. Yeah, it's very cheap. Yeah. Yeah,
Either you told me about that before or else I
saw it myself. I don't think I tried it. Well,
thanks a lot, Michael, Michael um And that was a
(42:03):
great idea in an EELS episode will be forthcoming one day.
If you want to suggest a really great topic, we
love that kind of thing. You can wrap it up
and send it off to us at stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you
(42:26):
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, there's Jerry over there,
and this is stuff you should know. I have let
me more to comment other than that. All right, how
(00:24):
are you chucking? Good? I'm great good, I'm glad. What
are you drinking? I'm drinking Perry. It's French, fancy fancy.
I'm drinking just regular old dumb American water. What is
that tap water? Don't drink that well, I mean it's water,
it's not out of the tap. I have a death
(00:46):
wish on my hands. Right, you know what I love?
If you're going fizzy drinks, best fizzy drink of all time,
I would say Sam Pellegrino. Um, well, any Sam peret
flavored kind Topechico. Oh yeah, it's good. Jerry's nodding with emphasis.
I've had one before. Yeah, the Topachico. I just like
(01:08):
the plane. It is the fizziest of fizz, is it.
And uh, here's a little drink for you. Tequila and
Topechico and about a half a lime. That's it. Low calorie, clean, simple, refreshing, simple, meager, delicious, meager, disgusting.
It's like what a what a quaker? Or uh, what
(01:28):
a Quaker would drink? Or um? Yeah? Righte tequila? Who
am I thinking of? I have no idea what you're
talking about? Now? Who goes on rum Springer? Oh? Amish?
The Amish. It's what the Amish would drink, very plain, straightforward,
boozy drink. Oh. I think when the Amish, uh going
(01:49):
rum spring and they probably go straight for the hard stuff,
straight for the Harvey wallbangers. Well, I think they just
they say, we don't need that topachico, just pour that tequila?
Got you into my stomach quickly? Man? Uh So today,
of course we're talking about Faraday cages, Chuck. Have you
ever been in a car that was struck by lightning? Uh? No?
(02:09):
Have you know? I would talk about it every day.
But you know what, if you were you'd probably walk
around saying everything was cool because the tires are grounded. Man,
not not me. I wouldn't have said that. You would
have said that yesterday today, I would have said it before.
That's not true though. It's it's not the tires right,
No tires are made of rubber too or something like it,
(02:30):
and which is an insulator. It doesn't conduct electricity very well.
But if a bolt of lightning hit your car, those
tires are not nearly insulated enough to protect you. It's
actually because your car is essentially what's called a Faraday cage,
which is why it jibes with the topic today. That's right, Uh,
(02:52):
name for Michael Faraday, the nineteenth century scientist. I don't
even dude. Yeah that I mean, this guy was just
a mazing He deserves his own episode, for sure. Yeah,
I'm a big, I'm a big. I was trying to
think of a funny name for a fair day fair,
like a fair day fair Dan, fair daddy. Oh that's
a good one. Fair Daddy, Fair daddy. But that implies
(03:15):
that you have kids. But you can be a fair daddy,
can be whatever, Sure it can be. Daddy did all
sorts of stuff. That's right, we have the stuff you
should know. Army, you're the fare daddy of the stuff
you should know. Army movie crushes, the movie crushers, And
I just learned today what you know. Dak Shepherd has
armchair expert. You know what his people are called arm
(03:36):
cherry in close? Is it really arm cherries C H
E R R I E s. Yeah, yeah, like Cherry,
you got the murder Hinos with my favorite murder. What
else I think this? American life fans are called middle
aged liberals. Very nice and that's all. No one else
(03:57):
says a nickname. No, that's it. Um. I'm sure someone
else has a nickname. But Faraday in the Fara Daddies,
which is us and no one else developed something called
a fair day cage on the heels of the work
of someone named Ben Franklin. Should we say what a
fair day cage is first? Or story? I think a
(04:18):
little bit? Yeah, alright, well, fair day cage can be
any conductor of electricity that's important that surrounds something that
you would like to protect from electro an electrical charge, right,
or it turns out also electromagnetic radiation, which is not
the same thing. No, they're based on the same stuff.
(04:40):
But electricity is a current of electrons moving through an object. Uh.
An electromagnetic radiation or type of it is just energy
flowing through there. Like, he doesn't need a conductor. That's
really the big differentiator between the two. Yeah, but it's
it can be chain link, it can be wired mesh,
(05:03):
like you said, it can be your car, can be
solid metal. We'll talk about planes later on planes technically,
or a kind of fair day cage, thank goodness, and yeah,
and it basically is there to protect what's inside and
has a range of applications. Now that has kind of
grown over the years. And the thing about a Faraday
(05:23):
cages that it's really weird. It's based on observations like
you said, by Ben Franklin and then really investigated by Faraday,
which we'll get into in a second. But it doesn't
quite make sense because if you happen to come along
and there's a down power line and it's laying on
an aluminum fence post like the Ice Storm movie? Does
(05:46):
that happen in that movie? Oh, I gotta see that.
Then you've never seen the Ice Storm one of the
great movies. I know, I know, But then I go
through periods where I'm like, I just I want something
like dumb and thoughtless. Well, that's not the storm, right,
And you also have to wait till the winter. You
can't like I see, you can't PLoP down on the
summertime in your backyard. Now I know that's true to
(06:08):
be weird, I'm trying to think I saw something just
the other day that was worth watching. Oh man, man,
this is podcast gold right here. I'll try to think
of it, and I'll keep I'll keep this little region
of my brain right here going trying to figure out
what movie I just saw sometimes and then the rest
over here it's gonna is gonna focus on Faraday cages.
(06:31):
I can't do that minds like Hummer Simpson. My thought
bubble just says it, dontut Oh this is this part here, Okay,
So but hold on. So um, so what were we
talking about that before that we were talking about movies?
Were uh, yes, So a Faraday cage is weird, and
that if you normally go up to a conductor that
(06:52):
has an electrical current running through it and you touch it,
it's going to knock you out of your shoes, like
the kid in Stand By Me. Basically that was a
train the metaphor works or the kidney ice storm. Well,
now I don't have to see the ice storm. There's
a lot more than happens. So, um, a Faraday cage
is special in that it actually protects you from doing that,
(07:14):
but it uses conductors. It's not some special insulator. It
actually uses the very thing that should electrocute you to
prevent you from being electrocuted. It's yeah, the cage itself
is a hollow conductor, and that charge stays on the exterior.
It's like, here, let me take that electrical load for you.
(07:37):
Whatever is inside of me. That was it? See, Okay,
So I think that's actually the level of Ben Franklin's
understanding of it from what I gather Ben Franklin, he was,
he was on the case. He was he was sniffing
all over, he was, he sniffed off the case. Uh.
(08:00):
In seventeen fifty five he started doing a lot of
these electrical experiments. Obviously everyone knows about the kite. Uh.
One that has to do with the fair day cages.
He electrified ran a current through a pint can, a
silver pint can. Yeah, he was always drinking pines. Sure.
And then uh, he lowered a cork which obviously has
(08:21):
no charge, like a little cork ball attached to silk,
a silk string which has no you know, can't run
a current through that either, and he lowered it down
into that pint glass and it just sat there. It
was like, what what do you want? Yeah, this is
it's dumb. It was a teenage corkball. It wasn't It
was very much a teenage cork ball, and it didn't
(08:41):
do anything. But he pulled that cork ball out and
then dangled it beside that charge scan and it went Hotcha, Mama,
let me get a piece of that can Hama blessed
tax So it like latched on the outside of it. Right,
I just demonstrated everybody's white. Chuck laughed, and Ben Franklin
(09:02):
was like, I have no idea what's going on here.
I've only just preliminarily started experimenting with electricity. This is weird.
And he wrote to a friend he said, I I
can't explain this. Maybe someday you'll be able to investigate it.
If you do, let me know what the deal is. Um.
But he was the at least on paper, the first
person to really kind of notice this. It took Michael
(09:24):
Faraday a few decades later, probably about forty maybe even
fifty years later, to say, I really want to know
what's going on here, so he investigated it himself. Yeah.
But you know, if you really think about what Franklin did,
ninety nine people out of a hundred back then would
have been like, who cares, what are you doing that
(09:45):
stupid cork ball? Like what is this matter? Like you're
hanging inside there. It doesn't do anything hanging on the
outside and it moves a little bit. But Franklin knew,
He's like this is important, Like this is this will
have an application? Right, So like that there in lies
the brilliance I think, and the beauty you have Ben Franklin,
that and his hair do. Of course, So Michael Faraday,
when he investigated it, um, he recreated the same experiment
(10:10):
very famously. UM a couple of ways. One he lined
as a room. He built a room basically and then
lined it with um foil and then applied a charge
to the outside and put a small child in there. Well,
he put himself in there, and he hung out basically.
I saw for a couple of days in this Faraday
(10:32):
cage with an electrical current being applied to the outside
of it. He had a that was good for the
time because you, I mean, I made that joke. But
usually at the time it's like, how about that kitten, right,
you have no right that cute bunny, Let me just
exploit you. Um. So yeah, So he actually did it himself.
(10:52):
He remember we did that episode of famous scientists who
were their own guinea pigs. He could have qualified in
that respect for sure. But he demonstrated, Okay, there's no
charge in here. I'm fine, uh this this there's something
going on where this conductor itself is preventing the charge
from coming in here. That was the first one. Then
they follow it up again with an ice pail um,
(11:16):
which is exactly what it sounds like. You know, it's
a bucket. And he's very famous for his ice pail experiment,
basically recreated Franklin's thing. And he said, I think I
can explain this now. It wasn't full of ice though,
just to be clear. And actually there's still Faraday ice
pails today and they're made of wire mesh. Really, yeah,
(11:36):
you gotta check them out. So is that what you
told your Yeah, don't work. They work for like, don't work.
It'll work too good. So I say we take a
break and then come back and try to explain what
Faraday figured out. That sounds great, Okay, sucks. I don't
(12:04):
know that, you know it stuck in this. It's a
great name. That's the name of that. It's a great name.
So Michael Faraday was a brilliant man chuck in that
he he took Franklin's findings and said, here's what's going on. Yeah.
So if you listen to our March twentie episode How
(12:27):
Electricity Works one, you'll you'll it was pretty intense. I
really listened to a lot of it. We got into
the weeds because that's a tough one. It is. I mean, electricity.
It's not like a slouchy subject, you know, but this
is a Josh written simplified overview that is so much
better than that episode. I think, thanks man. And it
(12:50):
goes a little something like this. Alright, man, electricity. You've
got metal objects, and let's say it's a let's say
it's that tin can or whatever it's it's it's a
cocaine the pine can. We'll go stick with the pine
Cann't know why I changed the coke can because we're
in the South, okay, we're from We're in Atlanta. But
(13:10):
all right, it's a pint can. They don't make cocin pints,
or they should, or at least the cans. What's your
favorite beer? I mean, I like tropically these days, it
comes can right, Okay, there you go. All right, So
I got a tall boy of tropically changed my mind,
changed my mind. We got younger listeners that listen, so,
but I also don't want to necessarily push coke on them.
(13:32):
How about, um, does does the it's a white cloth can?
Does um the topo Chico come in a can? Let's
say it does? Okay, I always have mine in a bottle,
but let's say it comes in a can, all right,
just for the sake of moving on. Alright, So you
got that topo cheeko can. And it is a conductor
(13:55):
of electricity, which basically means that you know, these things
have electrons and protons in them, and they can be
both positively and negatively charged. If it was always uh electric,
you would you'd go to pick up that topa Chico
and just get shocked, right it. But it's not. Itself
doesn't carry a charge, and an electrical charges the force.
(14:17):
That's the force of electricity. Um. When it's on the move,
that's a current, and a conductor allows electricity to move
through it. That's right, like those car tires right right now,
that's the uh and the it can be positive or negative.
It really just depends on the count of how many
electrons to how many protons. Has an equal number, it's
(14:40):
going to be neutral, obviously, it's has more protons, it's
gonna have a positive charge more electrons, it's gonna be
negatively charged. And then if you're a conductor like that can,
there are lots of loose electrons flying around inside that.
They're free to move about and do their business. Right,
So one way to look at an electrical current as
(15:03):
it goes from one thing through the next thing that
it's applied to, and it does that by exciting those
free electrons that are able to move. They start moving
and they basically carry the electrical charge through that that
the current through the conductor. But under normal circumstances, you
just got all the positively charged stuff of the negatively
(15:25):
charged stuff hanging out not doing anything. And so that's why,
like you're saying, you can pick up that that topo
Chico can and it's not going to electric It's just
a conductor. Right. But let's say that I was a
superhero with electricity. I was electron Man, and my hand
(15:45):
like carried a charge. What are the current The fans
of electron Man would be the electron e X electronic
x uh. And let's say I reach for that topo
Chico Can with my my electrically charged end. Then you're
in business because what happens then is you're gonna have
an opposite thing going on. All of those particles will separate,
(16:09):
those electrons in those protons that are normally just com
mingling out. Normally they're all fine under normal circumstances, but
all of a sudden they separate, and all of the
charge coming towards me would be the opposite, which would
be protons. So if you're it depends are you you
as as oh you're electron man, Yes, you would be
(16:31):
negatively charged for sure, Yeah, there or also just be
a total misnown that's right. So the protons are going
to be attracted to the electrons in this case, or
holes I saw. Electron holes is another thing that that
starts flowing toward a negative charge. I've never heard of
them before. I hadn't either, And this is called electrostatic induction.
When you separate out the positive from negative charge and
(16:53):
a conductor. That's right, and they're on the opposite sides
of that topo Chico Can. As soon as my hand
touches that thing exactly. Okay, so that makes a lot
of sense. That's basically what Ben Franklin was observing, and
he couldn't quite figure it out. And this is what
Michael Faraday recreated and was able to explain that when
you take a charged and electrically charged external object and
(17:16):
apply it to a conductor, the opposite of whatever that
charges is going to go toward it. The particles that
are the same charge, you're going to move away from it. Yeah,
they're repelled by it. And you have a good point
in here. We talk We used to talk a lot
about homeostasis, and that's kind of what's going on here,
is that those negative electrons I want to cancel out
(17:38):
that charge coming at them with my electrified hand and
just get back to neutral. They want to hang out
with the protons again exactly, So they're trying to offset
that positive charge with their own their own charge. But um,
so that the negative electrons and the positive holes I
guess create an electrical field on the outside, but it
(17:59):
keeps that electrical charge to the outside. This is what
Faraday found. It stays outside. On the inside, there is
no electrical charge. What doesn't quite make sense until you
start to dig into it a little more. And it
has to do with that electrostatic conduction where the positively
charged stuff moves to the inside, the negative stuff moves
to the outside, and because the inside is positively charged
(18:24):
and the positive charge is also on the outside, they
cancel one another out, so there is no charge on
the inside, right, And that's why Ben Franklin's corkball just
sat there, didn't do anything when you put it down
in there. And that's why I mean, I guess, Topo Chico,
it's a bad example because I would have a liquid
in there. Well, we drank it already, all right, we
(18:45):
drank it all Yeah, we opened up that can. It's
a giant Topo Chico can that we are standing in
totally unharmed because the electrostatic current is kept outside. Because
here's there are a couple of things that far Day
figured out that a conductor does in this sense that
creates what we understand is a Faraday cage, and that
(19:06):
it keeps a charge from developing on the inside. Um
because it distributes the electric electrostatic charge just to the outside.
It keeps it outside, and so it acts as a shield.
It actually shields a charge from coming inside. So when
you're inside a Faraday cage, whether it's a giant topo
Chico cane, or your car or an airplane, you're actually
(19:29):
protected from being shocked or electrocuted by the electrical field
that is distributed strictly to the outside of the conductor. Yeah,
and it's this shield that that's where the application of
this really comes into play. Otherwise it would just be
kind of a fun experiment. But then humans are like, wait,
this is actually pretty important because we can use this stuff. Um,
(19:50):
how effective that shield is h is really dependent on
what kind of Faraday cage you have. It can be
depends on the metal that you're using, and how conductive
it is, depends on the size of Like if it's
a mesh, it depends on how big the holes are.
If it's like your old plaster and laugh walls in
your house, you might realize that you don't get as
(20:13):
good as an Internet signal in one room of your
home that might still have that plaster and laugh. Yes,
Because so there's a second thing that Faraday cages do
their magic. I said, they're really weird. It doesn't make
any sense, but this is just what they figured out happens.
The second thing that it does is remember I said
that electro magnetic waves like radio waves, gamma waves, X rays, microwaves, Yeah, microwaves, UM,
(20:38):
those are a there. They're basically from the same family
as an electrical current UM. And so the Faraday cage
actually prevents their intrusion as well. So the second thing
it does is prevent these kind of waves from coming in. Uh.
And it all depends on what it's made from. And
you know what the size and shape of the Faraday cages,
(21:00):
right or getting out in the case of a microwave.
If you look at that door of your microwave and
you see a little grid pattern, that's a fair Day cage.
I say we take another break and then come back
and talk about some real life applications in addition to
microwaves of fair Day cages. What do you think, let's
do it stuck, stuck, stuck. I don't know that you
(21:32):
know it stuck in this stuck. That's a great name.
That's the name of it. It's a great name. All right.
You got your favor Day cage, your fair Day shield,
your RF cage, radio frequency all these are just different
names for the same thing. Your e m F cage
Electromotive force cage, your KLF cage, Sure, kmf DM cage.
(21:59):
Uh what was k What was the first one? He said,
KLF K Yeah what was that? Was that a group,
the KLF. Yeah, but they had like one song they
had were one hit wonder. Basically, I think they were
the ones that set a million pounds on fire. I
(22:20):
bet they regret that they did. They actually held a
very um unsuccessful Kickstarter they that million pounds back years later.
I was about to make a joke and say kickstarter,
but they really did, Yes, they did. Um, maybe they'll
write us. I think it was KALF km DM, I
can't remember. It might have been KMFDM. Who was it
that we thought was writing us at one point? But
(22:42):
it was a fake Louis Bega. Yeah they got as
good now? Am I okay to talk about that? The
Loue Bega incident. It's a good band name. Jerry's over here,
laugh is he remembers up bigger for the Loue Bega
ins Like, he even uses his picture on his Twitter handle.
We're like, oh, well that checks, yeah, yeah, that's it's
(23:05):
loup Vega. He's verified the Mama number five guy. Um oh,
he wasn't even verified. That was the dopes. Such dopes.
So we have been talking a lot about the fair
day cage and what they can be used for. And
one of the things that can be used for is like,
let's say you're in a lab, in a science lab
(23:26):
and you want to conduct an experiment and a truly
neutral setting with no electromagnetic field at all, because nothing
going on. We said, these are energy waves that are
just flowing through the air. Just because you can't see him,
doesn't mean they're not there. But yeah, so it can
affect a lot of experiment. So you might want to
have a fair day cage built for your science lab.
(23:46):
That's a big one. If you are at a university
that's more than a two bit university, they're probably going
to have Faraday cages here there around some of their
labs for sure. Yeah, of course, you want to go
to a hospital and uh, look for a fair day cage.
Go take me to the m r I lab and
they'll say, yes, sir, click their heels together and take
you to see a fair day cage. Because um, that
(24:07):
either the m r I machine or possibly the room
that the m r I machine is in. Maybe even
both are outfitted with Faraday cages because for the same
reason as when you're protecting your lab, you don't want
the the electromagnetic radiation interfering with the data that the
m r I is taking in and screwing up the picture.
(24:30):
And they'd be like, good lord, this guy's gotta tumor
in the size of a watermelon on its side. Oh wait,
we forgot to build this in a fair day cage. Yeah,
it's not to protect. It's not like an X ray.
It's not to protect m r I juice from spreading
through the hospital. I don't know. I think it's to
protect the day. That definitely is, But I wonder if
(24:51):
it's two fold or do But then you'd have to
have two fair Day cages working in opposite directions, and
then the universe might fold in on its off in
that situe. It's true I mentioned airplanes earlier as a teaser.
Cars don't get struck by lightning a lot, but you'll
be very scared to know that airplanes do get struck
by lightning quite a bit. I don't think I've been
(25:13):
in a plane that was struck by lightning, but I've
been in situations where it's possible. But this is probably
a really dumb question, like would it make a big
thunder boom right then? I don't know. I don't think
that's a dumb question. That's a great question, because I
would say then you would probably know if the whole
plane just went kaboom. The other way that you can
tell is if you end up in an alternate universe
(25:36):
that the Langoliers are eating. That's the other way to
know your plane was struck by lightning. But the airplane
is fine, all the equipment, all the people inside are fine.
With Balki, no less. Did you ever see that? No? Okay,
it was pretty bad. What was it? It was a
Stephen King made for TV movie starring Balki. Yeah, and
it was bad. What was it called? The Langoliers? All right,
(25:58):
I mean just bad. I was just because you're saying
funny words. Okay, that's good enough for me. As long
as I'm getting laughs out of you, that's all I
care about. Uh So, Yeah, that plane is a Faraday cage.
Um buildings can probably not purposely be built as a
fair day cage, but they can act as that. Well,
it's like that that laugh, um the wire mesh laugh
(26:19):
that that you apply the past plaster two you're talking
about also with um poured concrete, reinforced concrete. Right, the
rebar in there, if you, you know, build a large
enough structure, the rebar can accidentally act as a Faraday cage.
And we said, depending on what electromagnetic radiation you're trying
to keep out, you actually want to a tune that attenuate.
(26:43):
I guess the size of the mesh or the grid pattern,
whatever the chain link fence, it'll keep some stuff out
depending on the size of the hole being based on
the wavelength of the wave. If the wavelength is bigger
than the whole, it can actually be kept out. If
the wave link is smaller than the whole, then it's
going to pass through fairly easily. And even if you do, um,
(27:07):
make it just right, it's still probably not going to
be a perfect Fairday cage, as evidenced in the case
of a microwave. Right. Yeah, Like if you put your phone,
your cell phone in a microwave and shut the door,
don't turn it on, no, but if you just put
it in there and called it, it would probably bring Yeah,
probably even though your phone operates on microwaves. Um, but
(27:30):
you your microwave just isn't perfect. And I've seen everywhere
where this explained follows up with don't worry, You're not
going to be affected by the microwave radiation. Um, Like,
there's like certain standards for leakage that have to be
met in the developed world if you're selling a microwave
or buying a microwave. So I still don't stand in
(27:52):
front of a microwave. You probably shouldn't, you know, just
in case. But then now, Chuck, we've kind of traps
into the territory where Faraday cage is have really kind
of made a big appearance in the consumer market, which
is things like protecting from uh e m F allergies.
Oh right, Like, um, better call Saul's brother on the show. Well,
(28:16):
Michael McKeon is a character. He plays a character. He plays, Um,
Saul's brother and Um, he has a allergy to electromagnetic
radiation allergy or is it in his head? Well, I
mean they explore it like it's in his head, but
they also explore it like it's you know, from his viewpoint,
it's happen, it's real, and it's basically the no cebo
(28:37):
effect is how I've seen it explain. But there are
a lot of people out there, and you'll see in
this show where he's wearing like um, a solar blanket,
like a metallic blanket that he believes is is um
you know, blocking electromagnetic radiation, everything from visible light to
radio waves, to gamma rays to X rays, all of
this energy flying through there. Some people believe that it
(28:58):
has a pernicious effect on your health. For everything I've
seen scientific wise says that is not the case. But
there's still obviously there's people who are like, no, there's
this one study once that found this and it says
that your cells are not happy when they're exposed radio ways,
which is why I were a foil line suit whenever
(29:19):
I leave the house kind of thing. And it's a
real it's sad. It's very sad, especially if it's not true.
It's just as sad if it is correct. These people
are suffering and nobody can help them, right, you know,
just like with the ham or Morgellons who said it
was it Fauci? Oh man? Was it that rat? Yeah?
Like I didn't know anything. Uh, should we leave that
(29:43):
in here? It's a joke. We'll find out. Okay, we'll see,
we'll test our own temperature. And the uh they do
power utility line line lines workers. Sometimes they'll have these
special suits and if you have an E. M f
UM allergy, you probably want to get your hand. That's right. Uh,
you know, that's how one of my granddad's died. I
(30:04):
think I've told that story before. He was a power
lineman lineman, uh not which a tall Tennessee man. I
didn't know that. Yeah, he got zapped in the top
of a telephone polling and knocked him out to the
ground and it didn't immediately kill him. It is essentially
what killed him. Yeah, how long did he linger? I
(30:26):
don't know. I mean I was he died when I
was like five ish silently remember meeting him like once,
and he was you know, he had a hospital bed
in his house and my grandmother was a nurse, so
she basically just kind of cared for him for the
rest of his life. Oh so this wasn't like a
couple of days later like he know, he lived for
years after with like brain damage and uh, yeah, I
(30:47):
wonder how much of it was from hitting his head
and how much of it was from the juice. Well,
I think most of it was from the fall, but
if technically that's what caused the fall, so I was Yeah,
he wasn't a very good guy. I'm not saying he
deserve that. He didn't deserve that, but yeah, he wasn't
a good person. I got you so feel bad ish, No,
(31:07):
you don't want bad things to happen to anyone or
maybe Hilter, Yeah, did Hilter do these paintings all time?
Great man? The government they're also obviously going to protect
sensitive equipment. Uh, they're going to build special rooms. Yes, yes,
because here's the thing. If you are afraid of electromagnetic
(31:28):
radiation going through you and you're trying to keep it out,
you can also keep electromagnetic radiation from escaping. Yeah, Like,
if you want to tell sensitive secret ers and sensitive documents,
you're gonna have a special room in the White House
or the Pentagon that is tricked out to to shield, uh,
to keep anyone from listening in. Basically, it has essentially
(31:49):
a reverse Faraday cage keeps the electromagnetic radiation from leaking out,
which sounds like who cares if electromagnetic radiation leaks out
from a computer? Screen or um, you know, the an
ethernet cable or something like that. It turns out you
can actually tell you can gain information from capturing this
(32:11):
leakage and converting it into data. Yeah, what was the
guy with the I mean, this is a little scary
considering what's going on in this country right now. But
was it in Holland? It is I'm not really scared
by this. I think it kind of goes to show
just how yeah, far fetched, it's excellent, Chuck far fetched.
(32:33):
The guy named rock gun Grip, who is a Dutch
computer expert. That's how you say Dutch names, by the way, Um, like,
you have no idea what you're talking about. Uh, he uh,
figured out that you can electronically eaves drop or electromagnetically
eaves drop on the voting machines that they were using
in the Netherlands. Um. And he showed that he could
(32:58):
gather the refresh rate, or he could determine that the
refresh rate on the computer screen slowed down when a
name that had an accent or a special character was
being displayed, and he was able to take this leakage
from like or something like that from these voting machines
converted into a sound. And when somebody from the Christian
(33:22):
Democrat is Appeal party and the e has an accent
over it was voted for, the tone actually changed. That's interesting.
So he could say they got one vote or something
like that, but not manipulate that vote. No, but I
could see in this country that story being dug up
and used, you know, right by dummies for sure. But
(33:46):
the point is that this guy can do something like that.
You can bet that like a very well to do
state that wanted to electromagnetically eaves job could probably glean
some pretty import and stuff. So, yes, you probably do
want to put your most sensitive conversations government state secrets
(34:07):
in a Faraday cage enclosed room. But the average person's
vote is not going to be you know, in jeopardy
by rope going grip. You know, I read about this
guy from Holland or the Netherlands or someplace like that.
Who's that Alec Baldwin. Yeah it was Alec Baldwin. I'll
(34:28):
tell you who else might have Some Faraday cages are
like preppers, survivalists, They probably have Faraday cage or two.
They may be homemade hate rope gone grip. Yeah, I
can't stand that guy. No, but that's they worry that
um of electromagnetic pulses, which we talked a lot about
in the space Weather episode. You remember we I mean
(34:49):
we said like, if if one of these things didn't
happen from space weather or from a bad actor um
one of the others, uh, you can really lose all
of your electronics, which is another reason people build fair
day cages, not just keep out or keep their their
their own electronics from leaking information, from keeping electronic um
(35:11):
uh noise from coming in and disrupting their own stuff.
If a big one hit, it could just blow your
circuits right out the human body. Your electronics they're designed
to use and run on electricity, but only a certain amount.
When you overload that amount that the system tends to fail.
And that's why survivalists and preppers believe in things like
(35:32):
Faraday cages to protect their equipment. Right. The problem is
when you take it out and use it, if space
weather actually happened, right, then your fair day cage is
useless because you're outside of it. Yeah, and I guess
if you're really uh, sort of paranoid and have a
lot of money, you can have your home. There's this
(35:53):
place called Holland Shielding that makes a wallpaper with copper
woven into it to prevent someone from eavesdropping on you.
I also saw there's something called mew metal and it's
like an iron nickel alloy that works really well for
that too. I gotta coming over next week. That's awesome
and put that all over my house. Are you prepping
(36:13):
these days? I'm prepping for a nap than fluffing that pillow? Yeah? Yeah?
What else? A little warm milk. I've been able to
nap a little bit these days. It's good. I still can't.
I still can't. Nope. Do you try every once in
a great while? And now, can you mean nap? Noah,
we're not nappers. Yeah, I I enjoy a nap. Have
(36:36):
kind of embraced the the true siesta. Like you know,
I get up really early, I stay up really late.
I don't get a lot of sleep at night, but
I'll try and get a thirty minute nap in at
some point and it's working pretty well. What do you
do at night? I mean, that's my time. When you
got a little kid, that's like once they go to bed,
(36:57):
You're like, that's your time? How late, you stay up,
and Ry he's nodding, Uh, you know, I'll stay up.
I mean it depends. I'll go through phases where I'm
in bed at ten thirty, but usually I'm a midnight man.
It's what I like to call. And then on the
weekends that stretches into like one am. What time do
you get up? I usually get up around six thirty
or seven. Ye wake up six thirty or seven. So yeah,
(37:21):
I'm about a six hour a night guy. Maybe a
thirty minutes you need. Yeah, I think we talked about it.
You're getting up early these days. I get crazy emails
from you, and so early in all cats. Yeah, I know.
I actually try very hard to be cognizant of what
I'm emailing you early in the morning because I know
(37:42):
it might be some of the first stuff you see,
and I don't want it to be like, hey, we
gotta do this, this guy is falling. I've been good
about the not opening my email though till to work
hours and then shutting it down. You know. That's Jerry
had to talk with me once where she's like, I
don't know if you should email people on the weekends
in the evenings or whatever. I'm like, what do you mean?
And then I stopped and thought, I was like totally.
(38:04):
So I've adopted that as well as best Like what
you do? You just make a note email dumb, dumb
at nine am on Monday. Sure, so I use the
drafts folder. Now, okay, I just don't send it. Yeah,
or do that? Don't even make a note. I don't
even need to know. This is like an extra superfluous step.
I write the email, I just don't send it. I
(38:25):
leave it in the draft. That is very smart. So
you want to wrap this up, yeah, let's wrap it up. Well,
if you want to know more about fairy day cage,
just go check your car out. Uh And since I
said that, it's tempt the listener, ma'am. Oh wait, wait,
there's one other thing, Chuck. If you are have a
car and it's a convertible, look out, it doesn't have
(38:47):
a fairy day cage. You're very susceptible to lightning, which
is another explanation for why your tires don't actually save you.
Because if you're in a convertible car, it's not a
fair day cage. So your toast all right, no listener mail,
I'm gonna call this the next email in my inbox,
(39:11):
And this is actually good because rarely do we read
uh suggestions for episodes on the air, But this is
a good one, and I think we're gonna want to
do this because it also ties in with today's episode. Okay,
today's special. Hey guys riding in with the topic proposition.
I think it would fit perfectly to what you're doing. Eels.
Oh that's a great idea, electrical eels. I don't know
(39:32):
if I ever would have thought about that, I probably wouldn't.
Let me see who this is. This is um Michael
Michael from Poland. Michael says that it no, no, no.
Michael goes on to say they're just incredible creatures. And
it was mind blowing to me when I discovered that
we still do not know much about them. Have you
ever eaten meal like sushi? Of course? Yeah, I buy
(39:55):
that at the Japanese market and cook it at home.
Oh you do yourself, huh, you just bake it in
the oven. Still delicious. There's not much to look at
the foyer. They taste good. Uh. Freud, before going into psychoanalysis,
studied eels trying to find their reproductive system, a feat
not yet achieve. For thousands of years, all European eels
come from one place, the Sargasso Sea. Eels travel thousands
(40:18):
of miles after their born. I just wouldn't I didn't
want to read the parenthetical. Eels travel thousands of miles
after they were born to the lakes wells in Europe
and then come back when they feel they're ready to
undergo metamorphosis and reproduce. Let me see what else. For
many years people thought they were observing different species of eels,
(40:38):
but in fact they were the same eels at just
different stages of their life. But so we basically did
a mini episode on eels with special guests Michael sort of.
Michael also sens a New Yorker article a book called
the Book of Eels, says, ps, I love what you're
doing and how you're making interesting topics approachable with your
great and easy going attitude. Keep it up. All the
best from Poland. I hope I can see live one day.
(41:00):
And that's from Macao. I would definitely go to Poland
for a show. I would too, Yeah, cool, I've never
been to Poland. I have anything, let's do it close
as I've been is Hungary. Yeah, same here you've been hungry? Sure? Great?
Which side did you stay on? We stayed on the
pest side, but we you know, went back and forth.
(41:21):
We also went to that um, that Turkish bath that
the beginning of Red Heat was filmed in. Okay, it's
really awesome. I don't remember which side I stayed on,
to be honest, it was so many years ago, so
the left or the right? I remember? You don't remember now,
I don't. I mean, this was thirty years ago. Okay,
(41:41):
the twenty seven years ago. This was two fifteen, I
think from me, I was drunk on bulls blood wine.
I remember that you're talking about. Yeah, it's very cheap. Yeah. Yeah,
Either you told me about that before or else I
saw it myself. I don't think I tried it. Well,
thanks a lot, Michael, Michael um And that was a
(42:03):
great idea in an EELS episode will be forthcoming one day.
If you want to suggest a really great topic, we
love that kind of thing. You can wrap it up
and send it off to us at stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you
(42:26):
listen to your favorite shows.
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