Stuff You Should Know - How Faraday Cages Work

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart 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 nothing more to comment other than that.

All right. How are you, Chuck? Good. I'm great. Good. I'm glad. What are you drinking? I'm drinking a Perrier. It's French. Oh, fancy, fancy. I'm drinking just regular old dumb American water. Is that tap water? Don't drink that. Well, I mean, it's water. It's not out of the tap, but you can come and have a death wish on me. You know what I love? If you're going fizzy drinks, best fizzy drink of all time. I would say San Pellegrino. Well, any San Pellegrino flavored kind. Topicico. Oh, yeah, that's good. Jerry's nodding with emphasis. I've had one before. Yeah, the Topicico. I just like the plain. It is the fizziest of fizz. Is it? And here's a little drink for you. Tequila and Topicico in about a half a lime. That's it. Wow. Low calorie, clean,

simple, refreshing, simple, meager, delicious, meager, disgusting. It's like what a Quaker or what a Quaker would drink or a nice reposado tequila. Who am I thinking of? I have no idea what you're talking about. No, who goes on rum springa? Oh, Amish. The Amish. It's what the Amish would drink. Very plain, straightforward, boozy drink. Oh, I think when the Amish go on rum springa, they probably go straight for the hard stuff. Straight for the hard of your wall bangers? Well, I think they just say, we don't need that Topicico. Just pour that tequila into my stomach quickly. Man. So today, of course, we're talking about Faraday cages, Chuck. Have you ever been in a car that

was struck by lightning? No, have you? No. 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 me. I wouldn't have said that. You would have said that yesterday. I would have said it before, sure. That's not true though. It's not the tires, right? No, tires are made of rubber for something like it, 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. That's right. Which is why it jibes with the topic today. That's right. Name for Michael Faraday,

the 19th century scientist. I don't even think, yeah, that, I mean, this guy was just amazing. 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 Faraday fan. You're a Faradayan? Faraday. Faradady. Oh, that's a good one. Faradady. Faradady. But that implies that you have kids. But you can be a Faradady. You can be whatever. Sure. You can be daddy to all sorts of stuff. That's right. We have stuff you should know Army. You're the Faradady of the stuff you should know Army. Movie crush is the movie crushers. And I just learned today what, you know, Dak Shepard has armchair expert, you know, what his people are called. Armcharians. Close. Is it really? Armcharies. C-H-E-R-R-I-E-S.

Yeah, yeah, like cherry. You got the murderinos with my favorite murder. Sure. What else? I think this American life fans are called middle-aged liberals. Very nice. And that's all. No one else has a nickname. No, that's it. I'm not sure someone else has a nickname. But Faraday and the Faradaddies, which is us and no one else, developed something called a Faraday cage on the heels of the work of someone named Ben Franklin. Yeah. Should we say what a Faraday cage is first? Or should I walk into history? No, I think a little bit. Yeah. All right. Well, a Faraday cage can be any conductor of electricity.

That's important. That surrounds something that you would like to protect from 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, but electricity is a current of electrons moving through an object. An electromagnetic radiation or type of it is just energy flowing through the air. It doesn't need a conductor. That's really the big differentiator between the two. Yeah, but it can be chain link. It can be wired mesh. Like you said, it can be your car. It can be solid metal. Yeah. We'll talk about planes later on. Right. Planes technically are a kind of Faraday cage. Thank goodness. Yeah. It basically is there

to protect what's inside and has a range of applications now that has kind of grown over the years. The thing about a Faraday cage is 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. The movie. Does that happen in that movie? Oh, I got to see that then. You've never seen the ice storm? One of the great movies. I know. Yeah. 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 ice storm. Right. And you also have to wait till

the winter. You can't like, I see. Can't plop down on the summertime in your backyard. No, I know that's true too. That'd 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. I'll keep, I'll keep this little region of my brain right here going, trying to figure out what movie I just saw. Can you do that? Sometimes. All right. And then the rest over here is going to, is going to focus on Faraday cages. I can't do that. Mine's like Homer Simpson. My thought bubble just says a donut in it. Oh, this is this part right here. Okay, that's your donut. So, but hold on. So, so what were we talking about though before that? We were talking about movies. Oh,

yes. So a Faraday cage is weird in that if you normally go up to a conductor that 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 standby me basically, right? That was a train. The metaphor works. Or the kid in the ice storm. Well, now I don't have to see the ice storm. There's a lot more that happens. So, a Faraday cage is special in that it actually protects you from doing that, 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 nuts. 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, whatever's inside of me. That was it. In scene. Okay. So, I think that's actually the level of Ben Franklin's understanding of it from what I gather. Ben Franklin. I love Ben Franklin. He was on the case. He was sniffing all over. He sniffed it off the case. In 1755, he started doing a lot of these electrical experiments. Obviously, everyone knows about the kite. One that has to do with the Faraday cages, he electrified, ran a current through a pint can, a silver pint can. Yeah, he was always drinking pints. Sure. And then he lowered a cork, which obviously has no charge, like a little cork ball attached to a silk string, which has no, you know, can't run a

current through that either. Right. 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 so stupid. This is dumb. It was a teenage cork ball. It was a very much a teenage cork ball, and it didn't do anything, but he pulled that cork ball out and then dangled it beside that charge can. And it went, Hacha, mama, let me get a piece of that can. Hominah, hominah, hominah. Plus tax. So it like latched on to the outside of it, right? I just demonstrated everybody as if I took laughed. And Ben Franklin 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 can't explain this. Maybe someday you'll be able to investigate it. If you do, let me know what the deal is. Yeah. Um, but he was the, at least on paper, the first person to really kind of notice this. It took Michael Faraday a few decades later, probably about 40, maybe even 50 years later to say, Oh, 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, 99 people out of 100 back then would have been like, who cares? What are you doing with that stupid cork ball? I got like, why does this matter? Right. Like you're hanging inside there. It doesn't do anything. You're 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 therein lies the brilliance, I think. And the beauty of Ben Franklin. Yeah, sure. That and his hairdo. Yeah, of course. So Michael Faraday, when he investigated it, he recreated the same experiment, very famously, a couple of ways. One, he lined as a room, he built a room basically and then lined it with foil and then apply to charge to the outside and put a small child in there. Well, he put himself in there. Oh, did he really? And he hung out. Basically, I saw for a couple of days in this Faraday cage with an electrical current being applied to the outside of it. He had a... That was good for the time because I made that joke, but usually at the time it's like,

how about that kitten? Right. You have no right. Yeah, that cute bunny. Let me just exploit you. So yeah, so he actually did it himself. He was, remember we did that episode on famous scientists who were their own guinea pigs. Oh, that's right. He could have qualified in that respect for sure. But he demonstrated, okay, there's no charge in here. I'm fine. There's something going on where this conductor itself is preventing the charge from coming in here. That was the first one. Then he'd follow it up again with an ice pail, which is exactly what sounds like, you know, it's a bucket. And he's very famous for his ice pail experiment, which basically recreated Franklin's thing. And he said, I think I can explain this now.

Yeah, it wasn't full of ice though, just to be clear. No. And actually, there's still Faraday ice pails today and they're made of wire mesh. Oh, really? Yeah, you got to check them out. Is that what you tote your ice in? Yeah, but they don't work very well. They work for like a couple minutes. It don't 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. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangeh Shatikler. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're gonna get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on

this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stuxnet. Who Stuxnet? Stuxnet. I don't know what that is. You know it's Stuxnet. Is that in this? Stuxnet. Stuxnet. It's a great name. It's a great name. So Michael Faraday was a brilliant man, Chuck, in that he took Franklin's findings and said, here's what's going on. Yeah. So if you listen to our March 20th, 2014 episode, How Electricity Works. That was a good one.

It was pretty intense. I re-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. No, but this is a Josh written simplified overview that is so much better than that episode, I think. Thanks, man. And it goes a little something like this. All right, man. Electricity, you've got metal objects, and let's say it's that tin can or whatever. It's a coke can. The pint can. We'll go stick with the pint can. I don't know why I changed the coke can. Well, because we're in the south. Okay. We're in Atlanta. But all right, it's a pint can. Okay. They don't make coke in pints, or they should, or at least the cans. What's your favorite beer? I mean, I like Tropicalia these days.

It comes in a can, right? Okay, there you go. All right. So we've got a tall boy of Tropicalia. No, wait, wait. I changed my mind. I've changed my mind. We've got younger listeners that listen. Oh, yeah. But I also don't want to necessarily push coke on them. How about hard seltzer? It's a white claw can. Does the Topo Chico come in a can? Let's say it does. Okay. I always have money to bottle, but let's say it comes in a can. All right. Just for the sake of moving on. There you go. All right. So you got that Topo Chico can. And it is a conductor 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 electric, you would go to pick up that Topo Chico and just get shocked. Right. But it's not itself doesn't carry a charge. And an electrical charge is the force. That's the force of electricity. 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. No, that's the insulator. That's the opposite of it. And it can be positive or negative. It really just depends on the count of how many electrons to how many protons. If it has an equal number, it's going to be neutral. Obviously, if it has more protons, it's going to have a positive charge, more electrons, it's going to 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 is 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. That's right. They start moving and they basically carry the electrical charge through the current through the conductor. But under normal circumstances, you just got all the positively charged stuff or the negatively charged stuff hanging out, not doing anything. And so that's why, like you were saying, you can pick up that topochico can and it's not going to electrocute you. It's just a conductor.

Right. But let's say that I was a superhero with electricity. I was Electron Man. And my hand, like, carried a charge. What are the current? The fans of Electron Man would be the Electroniacs. Yeah, sure. Electroniacs. There you go. And let's say I reach for that topochico can with my electrically charged hand. Then you're in business because what happens then is you're going to have an opposite thing going on. All of those particles will separate, those electrons and those protons. That are normally just commingling out normally. They're all fine under normal circumstances. But all of a sudden, they separate and all of the charge coming toward me would be the opposite, which would be protons. So it depends. You as an Electron Man.

Oh, you're Electron Man. Yes, you'd be negatively charged for sure. Yeah. There would also just be a total misnomer. That's right. So the protons are going to be attracted to the electrons in this case. Or holes. I saw electron holes as another thing 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 in a conductor. That's right. And they're on the opposite sides of that topochico 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 apply it to a conductor, the opposite of whatever that charges is going to go toward it. The particles that are the same charge are going to move away from it. Yeah, they're repelled by it. And you have a good point in here. We used to talk a lot about homeostasis. And that's kind of what's going on here is that those negative electrons want to cancel out that charge coming at them with my electrified hand. Yeah. 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 charge. But so that the negative electrons in the positive holes, I guess, create an electrical field on the outside,

but it keeps that electrical charge of the outside. This is what Faraday found. It stays outside. On the inside, there is no electrical charge, which doesn't quite make sense until you start to dig into it a little more. And it has to do with that electrostatic induction where the positively charged stuff moves to the inside. The negative stuff moves to the outside. And because the inside is positively charged 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 cork ball just sat there. Yeah, didn't do anything when he 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 drank it all. Yeah. We opened up that can. It's a giant Topo Chico can that we are standing in. Okay. Totally unharmed because the electrostatic current is kept outside because here's there are a couple of things that Faraday figured out that a conductor does in this sense that creates what we understand as a Faraday cage in that it keeps a charge from developing on the inside because it distributes the electric electrostatic charge just to the outside. It keeps it outside. And so it acts as a shield. Yeah. It actually shields a charge from coming inside. So when you're inside a Faraday cage, whether it's a giant Topo Chico can or your car or an airplane, you're actually 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. Right. Otherwise, it would just be kind of a fun experiment. But then humans were like, wait, this is actually pretty important because we can use this stuff. How effective that shield is 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. Yeah. It 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 lath walls in your house, you might realize that you don't get as good of an internet signal

in one room of your home that might still have that plaster and lath. Yes, because so there's a second thing that Faraday cages do. They're 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 electromagnetic waves like radio waves, gamma waves, x-rays. Microwaves. Yeah, microwaves. They're basically from the same family as an electrical current. And so the Faraday cage actually prevents their intrusion as well. Right. So the second thing it does is prevent these kind of waves from coming in. And it all depends on what it's made from and you know what the size and shape of the Faraday cage is. 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 Faraday cage. Yeah. I say we take another break and then come back and talk about some real life applications in addition to microwaves of Faraday cages. What do you think? Let's do it. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh God. Seriously,

I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India,

it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the

iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stuxnet. Stuxnet. I don't know about that. You know it's Stuxnet. Is that in this? Stuxnet. Stuxnet. It's a great name. That's the name of it. It's a great name. All right. You got your Faraday cage, your Faraday shield, your RF cage, radio frequency. All these are just different names for the same thing. Your EMF cage, electromotive force cage. Your KLF cage. Sure. KMFDM cage. What was the first one you said? KLF. KLF. That's right. What was that? Was that a group? The KLF, yeah. But they had like one song. They had it where one hit wonder basically. I think they were the ones that set a million pounds on fire. I bet they regret that. They did. They actually held a very

unsuccessful Kickstarter to get that million pounds back years later. I was about to make a joke and say Kickstarter, but they really did. Yes, they did. Maybe they'll write us. I think it was KLF and not KMFDM. I can't remember. It might have been KMFDM. Who was it that we thought was writing us at one point, but it was a fake. Louie Bega. That's right. They got us good. Only now am I okay to talk about that. The Lou Bega incident. It's a good band name. Jerry's over here laughing. She remembers Lou Bega or the Lou Bega incident. He even used his picture on his Twitter handle. We're like, oh, well, that checks it out. Yeah, that's Lou Bega. He's verified. The mama number five guy. No, he wasn't even verified. That was the fact.

I know. Dopes. Such dopes. We have been talking a lot about the fair day cage and what they can be used for. One of the things they can be used for is, let's say you're in a lab, in a science lab, and you want to conduct an experiment in a truly neutral setting with no electromagnetic field at all. Yeah, because nothing going on. We said these are energy waves that are just flowing through the air, just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not there. Yeah, so it can affect a lot of experiments. So you might have a fair day cage built for your science lab. 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 fair day cages here or there around some of

their labs for sure. Yeah, of course. You want to go to a hospital and look for a fair day cage, go take me to the MRI lab and they'll say, yes, sir. Yeah. Click their heels together and take you to see a fair day cage because either the MRI machine or possibly the room that the MRI machine is in, maybe even both, are outfitted with fair day cages because for the same reason as when you're protecting your lab, you don't want the electromagnetic radiation interfering with the data that the MRI is taking in and screwing up the picture and they'd be like, good lord, this guy's got a tumor the size of a watermelon on his head. I'll 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

MRI juice from spreading through the hospital. I don't know. I think it's to protect the date. It definitely is, but I wonder if it's two-fold or two-fold. I don't know. But then you'd have to have two fair day cages working in opposite directions and then the universe might fold in on itself in that situation. That'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 in a plane that was struck by lightning, but I've been in situations where it's possible. 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 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 bulky, 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 Balke. Really? Yeah. And it was bad. What was it called? The Langoliers. All right. I mean, just bad. I was just laughing because you were saying funny words. Oh, okay. That's good enough for me. As long as I'm getting laughs out of you. That's all I care about.

So yeah, that plane is a fair day cage. Buildings can probably not purposefully be built as a fair day cage, but they can act as that. Well, it's like that laugh, the wire mesh laugh that you apply the plaster to you're talking about. Also with poured concrete, reinforced concrete, right? Rebar. The rebar in there, if you build a large enough structure, the rebar can accidentally act as a fair day cage. Right. And we said, depending on what electromagnetic radiation you're trying to keep out, you actually want to attune that or attenuate, 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, based on the wavelength of the wave. If the wavelength is

bigger than the hole, it can actually be kept out. If the wavelength is smaller than the hole, then it's going to pass through fairly easily. And even if you do make it just right, it's still probably not going to be a perfect fair day 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 ring. Yeah, probably, even though your phone operates on microwaves, but you, your microwave just isn't 100% perfect. And I've seen everywhere where this is explained, follows up with, don't worry, you're not going to be affected by the microwave radiation. Right. 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. I still don't stand in front of a microwave though. You probably shouldn't, you know? Just in case. But then now, Chuck, we've kind of traipsed into the territory where fair day cages have really kind of made a big appearance in the consumer market, which is things like protecting from EMF allergies. Oh, right. Like better call Saul's brother on the show. I still haven't seen that. Well, Michael McKean is a character, he plays a character, he plays Saul's brother. And he has a allergy to electromagnetic radiation in light. A true 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 half, it's real. And it's basically the nocebo effect is how I've seen it explained. But there are a lot of people out there and you'll see in the show where he's wearing like a solar blanket, like a metallic blanket that he believes is, is, you know, blocking electromagnetic radiation, everything from visible light to radio waves to gamma rays to x-rays, all of this energy flying through the air. Some people believe that it has a pernicious effect on your health. 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 they found this and it says that your cells are not happy

when they're exposed to radio waves, which is why I wear a foil line suit whenever 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. Right. These people are suffering and nobody can help them. Right. You know, just like with the hum or morgolons. Who said it? Was it Fauci? Oh, man. Was it that rat? Yeah. Like I didn't know anything. Should we leave that in there? It's a joke. We'll find out. Okay. We'll see. We'll test our own temperature in the edit. They do power utility line lines workers. Sometimes they'll have these special suits. And if you have an EMF allergy, you probably want to get your hands on one. That's right. You know, that's how one of my grandad's died.

I think I've told that story before. He was a power lineman. A Wichita lineman? Not Wichita, Tennessee. Man, I didn't know that. Yeah. He got zapped in the top of a telephone pole and knocked him out, you know, 25 feet to the ground and it didn't immediately kill him. It is essentially what killed him. Yeah. How long did he linger? I don't know. I mean, I was, he died when I was like five-ish. So I only 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 was in like a couple of days later. Like he, no, he lived for years after with like brain damage and yeah. I 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 deserved that. He didn't deserve that, but yeah, he wasn't a good person. I got you. So feel bad-ish. Well, you don't want bad things to happen to anyone, except maybe Hylter. Yeah. Did Hylter do these paintings? All time great, man. The government, they're also obviously going to protect sensitive equipment. They're going to build special rooms. Yes, yes, because here's the thing. If you are afraid of electromagnetic 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 secrets or send sensitive documents, you're going to have a special room in the White House or the Pentagon that is tricked out to shield, to keep anyone from listening in basically. It has essentially a reverse Faraday cage. Yeah. It keeps the electromagnetic radiation from leaking out, which sounds like who cares if electromagnetic radiation leaks out from a computer screen or an ethernet cable or something like that. It turns out you can actually tell, you can gain information from capturing this 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... Farfetched. Yeah. Farfetched. That's excellent, Chuck. Farfetched. The guy named Rob Gunn Grip, who's a Dutch computer expert. That's how you say Dutch names, by the way. Yeah. Like you have no idea what you're talking about. He figured out that you can electronically eavesdrop or electromagnetically eavesdrop on the voting machines that they were using in the Netherlands. Right. He showed that he could 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. He was able to take this leakage from like 25 feet or something like that from these voting machines,

convert it into a sound, and when somebody from the Christian-Democratisch-Appel party and the E has an accent over it was voted for, the tone actually changed. Yeah. 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. Yeah. For sure. But the point is if this guy can do something like that, you can bet that like a very well-to-do state that wanted to electromagnetically eavesdrop could probably glean some pretty important stuff. Right. So yes, you probably do want to put your most sensitive conversations, government state secrets in a Faraday cage enclosed room. Right.

But the average person's vote is not going to be, you know, in jeopardy by rope gone 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. Good job. I tell you who else might have some Faraday cages are like preppers, survivalists. Yep. They probably have the Faraday cage or two that may be homemade heat rope gone grip. Yeah. Can't stand that guy. No, but that's they worry that of electromagnetic pulses, which we talked a lot about in the space weather episode. Oh, yeah. You remember, we, I mean, we said, like, if one of these things really did happen from space weather or from a bad actor, one of the other, you can really

lose all of your electronics, which is another reason people build Faraday cages, not just keep out or keep their, their, their own electronics from leaking information from keeping electronic 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, the system tends to fail. And that's why survivalists and preppers believe in things like Faraday cages to protect their equipment. Right. The problem is, is when you take it out and use it, if space weather actually happened right then, your Faraday cage is useless because you're outside of it.

Yeah. And I guess if you're really sort of paranoid and have a lot of money, you can have your home. There's this 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 mu metal and it's like an iron nickel alloy that works really well for that too. I gotta get coming over next week. That's awesome. And put that all over my house. Are you prepping these days? No, I'm prepping for a nap. Fluffing that pillow. Yeah. Yeah.

What else? A little warm milk first. I've been able to nap a little bit these days. It's good. I still can't. Still can't. Nope. Do you try? Hmm. Every once in a great while and no. Can you mean nap? No. We're not nappers. Yeah. I enjoy a nap. I've kind of embraced the true siesta. I get up really early. I stay up really late. Probably all night.

I don't get a lot of sleep at night, but I'll try and get a 30 minute nap in at some point. 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, you're like, that's your time. How late do you stay up until? The chair is nodding. You know, I'll stay up. I mean, it depends. I'll go through phases where I'm in bed at 10.30, but usually I'm a midnight man.

It's what I like to call myself. Oh, is that right? And then on the weekends, that stretches into like 1 a.m. What time do you get up? I usually get up at around 6.30 or 7. Yeah, that sounds right. Wake up. 6.30 or 7. Yeah. So yeah, I'm about a six hour a night guy. Maybe a 30 minute siesta.

That's all you need. I think we talked about it. You get up early these days. I get crazy emails from you. Why do you do it, Chuck? It's so early in all caps. Yeah, I know I actually try very hard to be cognizant of what I'm emailing you early in the morning because I know it might be some of the first stuff you see and I don't want it to be like, hey, we got to do this. This guy's falling. I've been good about not opening my email though until work hours and then shutting it down.

No, that's the way I do it. Jerry had to talk with me once where she's like, I don't know if you should email people on the weekends or in the evenings or whatever. I'm like, what are you mean? And then I stopped and thought about it. I was like, totally. So I've adopted that as well as best I can. Yeah. What you do, you just make a note, email dumb dumb at 9am on Monday. Sure. So I use the drafts folder now.

Oh, okay. There you go. I just don't send it. Yeah, or do that. Don't even make a note. Yeah. 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 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 cages, go check your car out. And since I said that, it's time for Listener Man. Oh, wait, wait. There's one other thing, Chuck. If you have a car and it's a convertible, Look out. It doesn't have 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 fairy day cage. So you're toast. All right. Now Listener Mail. Now Listener Mail. I'm going to call this the next email in my inbox. And this is actually good because rarely do we read suggestions for episodes on the air.

But this is a good one. And I think we're going to want to do this because it also ties in with today's episode. Okay. Today's special. Hey, guys, writing 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 if I ever would have thought about that. I probably wouldn't. Let me see what this is. This is Michael. Thanks, Michael. From Poland. Michael says- That was 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 eel like sushi, unagi? Of course. So good. Yeah, I buy that at the Japanese market and cook it at home. Oh, you do yourself, huh?

Yeah, you just bake it in the oven. It's delicious. They're not much to look at, but boy, are they tasty. It's good. Freud, before going into psychoanalysis study, deals trying to find their reproductive system. Wow. A feat not yet achieved for thousands of years.

All European eels come from one place. The Sargasso Sea. Eels travel thousands of miles after they're born. What is that, pods? I just didn't want to read the parenthetical. Eels travel thousands of miles after they're born to the lakes, wells, and 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, but in fact, they were the same eels at just different stages of their life. So we basically did a mini episode on eels with special guest Michael. Sort of. Michael also sends a New Yorker article, a book called The Book of Eels. Okay. It says, PS, I love what you're doing and how you're making interesting topics approachable with your great and easygoing attitude.

Keep it up. All the best from Poland. I hope I can see you live one day, and that's from Mikal. I would definitely go to Poland for a show. I would too. Yeah, cool. Never been to Poland. I haven't either.

Let's do it. Closest I've been is Hungary. Yeah, same here. You've been to Hungary? Sure. Great place. Budapest? Yeah.

Which side did you stay on? We stayed on the Pest side, but we went back and forth. Sure. We also went to that Turkish bath that the beginning of red heat was filmed in. Oh, 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 don't remember. You don't remember? No, I don't. I mean, this was 30 years ago. Oh, okay. They're 27 years ago. This was 2015, I think, for me.

Yeah. I was drunk on Bull's Blood wine. I remember that. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very cheap. Yeah, 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, Mikhail. And that was a great idea and 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 stuffpodcast.ihartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts on iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app.

Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Shatigler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.