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Delusional conspiracy theorists are commonly portrayed as wearing tin-foil hats to protect against mind-control rays from sinister organisations such as [goverments/aliens/NSA/CIA/FBI/liberals/conservatives/devil/god].

Are there any (electromagnetic or other natural world) rays that would be blocked by a tinfoil or aluminium foil hat?

To clarify, I am not asking for proof that anyone is trying to tamper with our minds, I am just wondering if a tinfoil hat would offer protection against anything at all. Is there any form of emitted radiation that would be blocked by such a hat?

terdon
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  • Probably off-topic, but yes, the tinfoil hat is a simple Faraday cage and will protect you against electromagnetic radiation. – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo Feb 20 '14 at 14:46
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo doesn't a Faraday cage need to be closed? The tinfoil hats only cover the back of the skull, the face is still open (as is the neck), so how would that provide protection? – terdon Feb 20 '14 at 14:52
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    Definitely protects the covered parts against the visible parts of the EM spectrum :) – Piskvor left the building Feb 20 '14 at 15:48
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    @Piskvor Do phasers lie in that category? – Dr. belisarius Feb 20 '14 at 18:44
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    You appear to be asking for a rational explanation to justify the behaviour of delusional people. It seems counter-productive to me. Am I missing something? – Oddthinking Feb 20 '14 at 21:03
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    @Oddthinking well, there are two claims here, the delusional one (someone is trying to control my brain) and the other, possibly less delusional, one (wearing a tinfoil hat might protect me). It is the latter I'm interested in, I am wondering whether it is conceivably possible that such a hat might help in any way. That seems like a perfectly verifiable claim (the comment about Faraday cages is the kind of thing I was aiming for). I don't hang out here much so if you think it's off topic, fair enough, but it seems answerable to me. – terdon Feb 20 '14 at 22:46
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    If we could make the question about [this product](http://www.blockemf.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=4840&osCsid=69e7ae97f6cafd7fdb1c519516c2f14c) it would be more specific. – Oddthinking Feb 21 '14 at 07:30
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    the idea that tin foil hats don't work is a conspiracy theory... Or was that the idea that they do work being a conspiracy theory? – jwenting Feb 21 '14 at 07:48
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    [On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study](http://web.archive.org/web/20100708230258/http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/) – Matthew Towers Feb 21 '14 at 10:04
  • @terdon Not only do faraday cages need to be enclosed, they need to be grounded. Anything else has some effect, but not as much. – Owen C. Jones Feb 21 '14 at 13:58
  • I'd say that this question is not posing a claim to be disputed. – Owen C. Jones Feb 21 '14 at 14:16
  • @mt_ why don't you post that as an answer? – terdon Feb 21 '14 at 15:08
  • @Owen'Coves'Jones The claim is that tinfoil hats are protective against something. Or, some type of radiation. –  Feb 21 '14 at 15:33
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    @Owen'Coves'Jones Granted, that *may* be too broad of a question. Unless the answer is a yes, in which case a single example will be sufficient to answer the question. –  Feb 21 '14 at 15:50
  • @Owen'Coves'Jones well, the comment above citing an MIT "study" (presumably submitted to AIR shows that the claim can indeed be proved/refuted. It shows that certain frequencies are attenuated by the hats while others are amplified. The question is therefore answerable. – terdon Feb 21 '14 at 16:02
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    Tinfoil will sometimes block the sort of radio frequencies used in RFID tags. We know this because it has been used in shoplifting to inhibit the security scanners. Presumably this counts as an answer. – matt_black Feb 21 '14 at 18:07
  • Do people say tin because it is easier to say/type than aluminum ? I would like to bet that less than 3 people on this board have ever seen "tin foil". – blacksmith37 Feb 02 '19 at 01:58
  • @blacksmith37 probably historical. The expression "tin foil hat" likely predates aluminum foil which only became mainstream after WWII [according to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil). – terdon Feb 02 '19 at 10:41
  • If a nuke were to explode above you a tinfoil hat would reflect at least some of the thermal pulse and thus could be of actual benefit. (Although a properly-used nuke would then either kill you with blast or neutron radiation in this situation.) – Loren Pechtel Feb 02 '19 at 22:40

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Though tin foil hats do protect you from electromagnetic radiation and from some forms of ionizing radiation, they do not protect you from all possible electromagnetic radiation:

In a not-too-serious-studyRead the conclusion first, it was found that tin foil hats actually amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. Link to PDF with FCC band allocations.

Results

For all helmets, we noticed a 30 db amplification at 2.6 Ghz and a 20 db amplification at 1.2 Ghz, regardless of the position of the antenna on the cranium. In addition, all helmets exhibited a marked 20 db attenuation at around 1.5 Ghz, with no significant attenuation beyond 10 db anywhere else.

Conclusion

The helmets amplify frequency bands that coincide with those allocated to the US government between 1.2 Ghz and 1.4 Ghz. According to the FCC, These bands are supposedly reserved for ''radio location'' (ie, GPS), and other communications with satellites [...] The 2.6 Ghz band coincides with mobile phone technology. Though not affiliated by government, these bands are at the hands of multinational corporations.

It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC. We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings.

As these bands are reserved for radio location some people might interpret that as brain location...

Community
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Fabby
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    No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist! **:-)** [Read the paper before downvoting](http://web.archive.org/web/20100708230258/http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/)... **:P** – Fabby Mar 30 '16 at 14:43
  • Not voting, but the question asks "does any", so saying "not all" is kinda awkward. – Weaver Mar 30 '16 at 17:02
  • Well, no vote needed if I put a smile on your face today... (And that was the whole reason to post this lighter-hearted answer) @StarWeaver **;-)** – Fabby Mar 30 '16 at 17:26
  • Please provide reference to the allocation of the bands to the US gov, and their supposed use. Also, please cite the most relevant part from the source. – SIMEL Mar 30 '16 at 21:23
  • @IlyaMelamed: Ping me in [chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/311/hub-of-reason), please? – Fabby Mar 30 '16 at 21:42
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    @Fabby I'm a conspiracy theorist, I believe Julius Caesar was killed as the result of a conspiracy. I've lost contact with all my friends due to these crazy conspiratorial beliefs such as that one. – Fiksdal Sep 05 '16 at 06:54
  • Does anyone know if the network analyser has any mechanism to prevent interference from outside signals in their testing? The amplification in the commonly used bands suggests to me that it could be picking up signals that aren't being generated from their own source, and then counting those added signals as attenuation. I don't know the specifics of how the analyser works though. – JMac Jan 31 '19 at 12:01
  • *amplification, not attenuation – JMac Jan 31 '19 at 12:06
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    There you have it! Tinfoil hats are a government conspiracy to help them track conspiracy theorists! – Daniel R Hicks Jan 31 '19 at 13:04
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Another benefit is that it will block alpha radiation (helium nuclei) and most of beta radiation (electrons).

You can read more here.

Of course, this will have no significative benefit.

Glorfindel
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jinawee
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    Could you expand a little? A reference would be nice for example. – terdon Feb 21 '14 at 18:05
  • Alpha particles aren't going to get through the skull. I'm not sure either way about the beta particles though. ("0.5 cm of body tissue" is the figure I found quickly.) – Oddthinking Feb 22 '14 at 00:01
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    @Oddthinking A trivial answer is an answer (unless the question asked for health protection). – jinawee Feb 22 '14 at 17:07
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    I didn't deny it was an answer. I just suggested it was in some respects a poor answer, in the hope you'd improve it. – Oddthinking Feb 22 '14 at 23:27
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    Wrong--there's no such thing as blocking your internal radiation from escaping. It's absorbing it, not acting as a mirror. – Loren Pechtel Jul 16 '15 at 23:56
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To add to the existing answers in the long (signal) electromagnetic and in the visible wavelenghts:

According to this source, Al has a high reflectance in infrared wavelenghts (>90% for near infrared radiation, >95% for far infrared).

According to this paper, human skin has a reflectance around or below 10% in most of the near infrared spectrum and presumably no higher values in the far infrared. Even though I have some difficulties finding a good source, hair doesn't appear to be a perfect reflector either. In any case, the following must apply for hairless heads.

So, in combination with sufficient water comsumption, good protection against a heat stroke should be achievable. The effect is probably much better if some air vents are cut in to get rid of the internal heat.

JulianHzg
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