Faraday Cage

A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conducting material, or by a mesh of such material. Such an enclosure blocks out external static electric fields. Faraday cages are named after the English scientist Michael Faraday, who invented them in 1836.A Faraday cage's operation depends on the fact that an external static electrical field will cause the electrical charges within the cage's conducting material to redistribute themselves so as to cancel the field's effects in the cage's interior. This phenomenon is used, for example, to protect electronic equipment from lightning strikes and other electrostatic discharges.Faraday cages can't block static and slowly varying magnetic fields such as Earth's magnetic field (a compass will still work inside).