[nemo1618]

I've been thinking about making a project out of this for a while. Lots of people have already hacked themselves to gain a "sixth sense" -- the ability to detect electric fields via magnetic vibrations. In today's world, wouldn't the ability to detect a strong WiFi signal be a bit more useful?

Realistically the result wouldn't resemble these illustrations at all; a simple signal strength -> vibration intensity converter would be more practical.

[mhurron]

> Lots of people have already hacked themselves to gain a "sixth sense" -- the ability to detect electric fields via magnetic vibrations.

What?

[dodo53]

By implanting a small magnet normally in a finger, moving your finger through an electric field causes small movement of the magnet, so you can 'feel' electric fields. e.g. http://gizmodo.com/5895555/i-have-a-magnet-implant-in-my-fin... But there's been a number of people who've done it.

[krapp]

Apparently, Google 'magnetic implant'. I remember reading about it here: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mods/news/2006/06/71087?current...

Doesn't seem all that useful from what i've read though, unless you're an electrical engineer.

[6d0debc071]

Some people implant, I believe it's a small neodine, magnet under their skin with the idea that they can feel electrical fields.

[VLM]

Its almost as effective, much cheaper, faster, zero risk of infection, and easier to reverse to just stick a magnet in the end of a latex/nitrile/whatever glove and wear it for awhile.

I'd strongly encourage trying it. Been there done that. The glove thing, not the implant thing. Cheap and fun. You will "stick" yourself to chunks of steel and much simpler to fix that with a glove. It gets boring/annoying after a couple hours, at which point you're pretty happy to peel off the glove; I imagine implants are less convenient.

And its magnetic fields not electrical. Over a couple hundred volts/cm you can feel electrical fields without any implants or whatever, assuming you have arm hair. I'm talking about something distinct from feeling current flow, a totally different scenario.

You can feel CHANGING magnetic fields if they're immense, like in a MRI.

[TeMPOraL]

I actually spent some time walking around the streets with a neodymium magnet stuck to my finger with a piece of duct tape. What I realized after few hours is that the sensations I had were not coming from magnetic fields - I could just feel my own pulse. i.e. it worked equally well with a similarly-shaped piece of metal instead of a magnet.

(Not questioning the implanted magnets; I just want to point out that one has to be careful when doing the non-implant version of this experiment with jumping to conclusions about what one feels.)