Q: I was very interested to see you hanging in mid-air near an electricity supply. I saw the sparks shoot from the supply to your hand and was very surprised that you did not get electrocuted. Could you please tell me what material the gloves that you were wearing were made of?
Penny Hudson (age 8), UK
A: Thank you for your interesting question. The gloves were made of carbon fibre. So was the suit I was wearing. Carbon fibre is a good "conductor of electricity", which means that electricity passes through it easily. That means that a carbon fibre suit works as what is called a "Faraday cage". This is named after the famous British scientist, Michael Faraday. He discovered that, if something (or somebody) is surrounded by a good conductor, electricity will pass round it (or him or her).
That was one reason why I did not get electrocuted even though I was attached to about 400,000 volts of electricity. A second reason was that I was hanging 40 feet above the ground and was not connected to the ground by any good conductor of electricity. The wire holding me up contained a long rod made of glass fibre which does not conduct electricity. As a result only a tiny charge (about 0.1 amps) passed through my suit and gloves; and that is what you saw as sparks jumping from my fingers to the big toadstool (called a "bushing") on the wall of the laboratory.
If you would like to know more about it, the head of the National Grid High Voltage Laboratory at Leatherhead in Surrey, Jack Blackett, will be happy to hear from you. His email address is
[email protected]
.. maybe wearing rubber gloves and gum boots might help.. 
