14th November
2pm
Chris and Jem are, as usual, nowhere near finishing the prop which will be integral to the pièce de résistance of the programme, the coup de theatre - Adam standing in a cage and staring a million volts in the eye. This is the first Faraday cage that they have ever built and, as usual, they joke about whether it will work or not.

But this time they have rather outdone themselves. This cage is already getting the envious eye from a number of high voltage physicists on the campus. Jem looks a little worried that he may be building something that looks almost professional. There are even rumours that the local lion tamer is thinking of putting in a bid.

2.30pm
Doctor Ken Skeldon of Glasgow University brings his one and only collapsible Tesla coil (it really is the only one in the world like it) into Dr Howton's lab. Ken built it with financial help from a government body (SATRO) that promotes the understanding of science. Tesla invented his coil a hundred years ago. It is not only a spectacular piece of machinery but it is able to generate very high voltages with little power (though there is still plenty of power to kill you).

Adam chats to Ken as he sets up his coil. Built with the Russian Doll principle each section, holding 250,000 volts, links with the next. It is as portable as a Tesla coil can get. Ken explains that Tesla's dream was to provide cordless electricity that could be delivered through the air. He thought every city, town and village could put one up in the local square and people could draw their electrical requirements from it. He was certainly a brilliant man, and this idea was not completely off beam, but the system as it was could not be described as terribly safe. His coil is still used extensively in engineering and electronics for generating those high voltage/low power currents.

'Ken's Pagoda', as we are soon calling it, looks like something out of a very sophisticated conjuring trick. He has even brought along his beautiful companion Meg Horn to help him demonstrate and test it. Unfortunately Adam keeps getting in the frame. Ken is a brilliant builder of wonderful science gadgets for teaching the 'public understanding of science' in conjunction with Glasgow University. He has an 'Arts and Sparks' show and also works with sound.

One of his demonstrations is a sound system that pumps out sound at the resonating frequency of a high quality wine glass (the sound that can make a wine glass break - like the one you can generate with a wet finger on the rim). Using a stroboscopic light you can see the rim of the glass bend up to a centimetre before the glass breaks!

Ken puts the 'Tesla Turban' onto his magical spark machine and we dim the lights. This process takes about half an hour because it involves camera people negotiating how far they really have to stand next to a million volts. Soundman Andy tries to get the amassed science experts to come to some sort of agreement as to how dangerous it is for him to be attached to his microphone boom (he eventually places it on the ground, keeping well away). His main concern is that today his kit is rented. He is quite able to countenance a million volts running down his trouser leg but he does not want the rental gear to be fried!

2.45pm
Ken lights the touch paper and retires. Actually he does nothing of the sort - he switches a switch and makes House of Horror lightning bolts dance about with a great crackling and ripping sound all over his Tesla Turban.

Adam is reassured that he is far enough away from the coil to be safe. Then Ken picks up a metal wand and waves it what seems dangerously close to the coil.

A massive crackling spark jumps to the end of the coil but does no damage to Ken because, despite holding onto the metal, the wand is well earthed. Adam has a go and starts to conduct an orchestra of flashing sparks off the top of the coil.

3.30pm
Despite the gags in today's 'zap happy' web update electricity is seriously dangerous stuff and who better to tell us than the ever cheerful Kim Bradburn who had a ghastly experience three years ago, during a lightning storm.

Her new conservatory at her home in the Midlands was dripping water and as she went in to the room to see how much water was coming in she touched a light switch and lost a large section of her hand. It has, mercifully, been rebuilt and she has movement again in her thumb. But the experience led her to find out all about lightning and how to avoid it.

5pm
Jem and Chris' spectacularly professional looking Faraday cage is ready for testing. See yesterday's Big Build for a bit more on how the cage works, demonstrated by a model of a copper man with two polystyrene balls hanging off his arms (that's a bit more like Science Shack than this flashy cage). Adam steps into the cage after he has had his 'court tasters' (Science Shack team members and Dr Ken Skeldon) have a go. Just to get the right camera angle of course.

Adam decides to take a camera into the cage and films the electric current as it zaps him.

Inside the cage Adam is perfectly safe. He can even touch the inside. But if someone outside touched the outside of the cage they would be killed by a million volts of current. This principle explains why an aeroplane is perfectly safe in a lightning storm and why staying inside your car during a 'lightning attack' is a good idea. The team leans two fluorescent tubes against the cage and one inside. The ones outside light up, the one inside does not.

6pm
Science Shack team member Jem has been itching to be zapped with a million volts so he can impress his hoards of clearly easily impressed fans. But Jem always gets the last laugh. He asks the amassed boffins of high voltage electricity, people at the top of their profession, like Drs Howson and Skeldon, what would happen if Adam took a fluorescent tube inside and poked it out through the mesh. Would it only light up in the bit outside?

Director Paul Bader, impressed by Jem's boundless energy and ceaselessly enquiring mind, but keen to get the day's filming finished, gives Jem a sideways glance, raises his eyes to the ceiling and walks purposefully off.

This leaves Jem in the lab with Drs Howson and Skeldon who are quite happy to let Jem have a go. Dr Skeldon does not believe this is an experiment that has ever been done and is not sure of the answer. Dr Howson, not a man to shirk the chance of hosting a World First in his lab, mans the light switch.

Lights are dimmed and the cage is zapped. No one is quite able to work out if the light in the bit of the tube outside the cage is brighter than the (definitely alight) bit inside. Various theories are posited, various theories shot down. Dr Skeldon reckons the gas lit up outside the cage travels down the tube. But no one is quite sure.

Grant offering bodies are invited to contact Jem at Science Shack. He will gladly make use of the monies to further his understanding of the behaviour of fluorescent tubing when poked through a Faraday cage, with him, pointlessly observing it all from inside the cage.

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