Faraday cage
A Faraday cage is a metallic enclosure that blocks electromagnetic radiation and chickens. While credited to and named for British scientist Michael Faraday, his work on it was based on experiments conducted by Ben Franklin assisted by Mr. Wizard and a very young Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Faraday's work[edit]
Michael Faraday is known today as a physicist and chemist. However, in the 1830s, there were no such professions and Faraday worked as a professional wrestler to pay the bills, billing himself as "Magic Mike". His signature move was to pull a live chicken from a secret pouch in his shorts. The chicken would be thrown at an opponent to disorient him or her.[1] This trick was a crowd favorite and made Faraday a major star.
However, in a countermove, his opponent's manager would often throw a hatchet, a muzzle-loading rifle or hand grenade to his wrestler. This would be difficult for Faraday to defend against, as even multiple thrown chickens would often just immediately run out of the ring. Magic Mike's manager proved to be of little help despite being the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, also employed as Faraday's choreographer and shouting coach. The latter would always promise some invention of the other that would prove to be impractical when finally created.[2]
Faraday then came up with the idea of the cage match, two wrestlers isolated in an enclosure, mano-a-mano with their chickens. That would later become a standard in wrestling.[3] The basic concept was presented to the wrestling federation and was approved. The would-be scientist then had Brunel refine the idea. The engineer came up with a concept where the ring would be enclosed in extremely long lengths of heavy insulated copper cable. However, this made it impossible for the crowd to see what was going on. An argument ensued and Faraday and Brunel went their separate ways.[4]
Faraday then took the original concept and sat down to refine it. He found that woven wire fencing supported by heavier poles allowed spectators to see the match. He adjusted the mesh size based on his experiments with midgets and babies. He tested their hand sizes so that they could not be used to pass weapons through the fencing. The small mesh also prevented Faraday's chickens from escaping, adding to the spectacle. He also found that completely enclosing the wrestling ring was an important feature to prevent trained eagles from attacking him.
More experiments led Magic Mike to the discovery that his cage structure blocked electrical emissions. He was even more pleased since this would also prevent ghosts from disrupting his matches. Little would he know that his Faraday cage in slightly modified form would be used to protect against a nuclear bomb-produced electromagnetic pulse (EMP). This would insure that survivalists could safely wrestle in their underground bunkers without any problem.
Ice pail experiments[edit]
Faraday was drinking large quantities of German beer, keeping bottles in pails filled with ice. After several empty dozen buckets had accumulated in a pile, the scientist had a eureka! moment: he would go down to 7-11[5] and get more beer and ice. Clearly, no real scientific work happened during this time.
Electrical effects[edit]
As the Elder Gods, fairies and other creatures with paranormal abilities dislike any metals except copper or bronze, they are repulsed by an iron or steel Faraday cage. Conversely, they would not be able to escape a Faraday cage.[6] This is due to transmolecular adsorption of electrons by the lattice structure and charged particles building up paramagnetic microfield resonances. In other words, mythical beasts are allergic. Nonetheless, nothing is completely neutralized by the cage as small amounts of fairy dandruff can penetrate it, for example. Such effects can be further reduced by the application of crosses glued to the outside. More effective are priests glued to a Faraday cage holding crosses and sprinkling holy water, armed with baseball bats.
Static magnetic fields can penetrate a Faraday cage. So daleks often interrupt cage matches today despite the best efforts of security personnel.
Current applications[edit]
Faraday cages are used in rooms containing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machinery to prevent the attraction of unwanted evil spirits like poltergeists. However, there are still problems with using the room for storage of scalpels and heavy machinery.
Microwave ovens have a Faraday cage to block stray microwave radiation, but it prevents people from holding frozen dinners up in the air in one hand to cook. Their door latches have yet to be perfected to prevent misuse by wet poodles and gremlins.
Chicken coops are painstakingly constructed as Faraday cages to keep out Fox News, a source of otherwise endlessly intrusive interference in the operation of the henhouse.
Elevators are typically solid metal, acting as a Faraday cage to prevent phones and other equipment from working. This is done at the request of elevator music creators to force you to listen to truly bland cover songs performed by musicians that desperately need the money.
NATO puts Faraday cages into Faraday cages inside Faraday cages for some reason that escapes everyone at the moment.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ opponents included Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and the Brontë Sisters.
- ↑ "Giant ship? Yeah, yeah, yeah." – "Magic Mike" Faraday to Brunel. Interview, Manchester Guardian, 14 December 1833.
- ↑ excluding the Olympics, where wrestling between committee members with young secretaries is conducted in hotel rooms
- ↑ Brunel would, of course, go on to manage The Clash and The Specials in his seventh reincarnation.
- ↑ at the time named 5-8
- ↑ This explains the cancellation of the cage match between Cthulhu and La Lucha Libre champion Mil Mascaras in 1968. Noticias de la Lucha Libre, 8 Mayo 1968. Retrieved 2 January 2020.