[wordup] Magnetic 6th Sense without inserting foreign objects into your body?

[Adam Shand]

Awesome awesome awesome.

And that's enough for today.

Source: http://www.friday.com/bbum/2007/03/27/magnetic-finger-a-sixth- 
sense/#more-836

Magnetic Finger: A Sixth Sense
Ben, Adam and I were having a random chat today and, somehow, the  
conversation turned to magnets. Maybe it was because I got called a  
complete idiot by the clue impaired.

Anyway, a bit of free associating later and I mentioned that some  
folks had embedded magnets under their skin to add a “sixth  
sense” (link heads off to a wired article).

Sounds neat. The ability to quite literally feel magnetic fields? ….  
to find out how “live” a circuit really is just by running a finger  
over insulated wires? … to be able to navigate the magnetic field  
lines present around motors and permanent magnets by waggling a  
finger in the air?

Sign us up! But, then again, slicing open a frozen finger to insert a  
potentially toxic magnet under the skin sounds just a wee bit  
uncomfortable.

So, could a half baked magnetic sixth sense be achieved without the  
use of a scalpel?

The answer is an unequivocal yes and proved also to be a great excuse  
to erase some more hard drives. Read on for simple instructions on  
how you can quite literally feel magnetic and strong electrical fields….
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First, grab yourself a hard drive, preferably dead. You will need to  
dissect said hard drive to remove the itty bitty magnets used to park  
the heads. The smaller the hard drive, the better. The newer, the  
better, as newer drives seem to use magnetic head parking mechanisms  
more commonly than the older ones.

You will need to rip apart said drive. This will typically require a  
philips head screwdriver and a couple of smaller Torx drivers.

As seen in the picture, there will likely be a screw or three hidden  
underneath rather dire warning labels.
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Once the cover is off, you should be able to find some really tiny  
cubic or rectangular magnets in the head actuator mechanism. These  
are used to park the drive heads by effectively making them stick at  
the extreme position.

Some drives will have one magnet, some will have two. Unfortunately,  
some drives — typically older models — will not use such tiny  
magnets, opting for a mechanical toggle mechanism to lock the heads.

Anyway, find said ultra tiny magnet and rip it out.
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The magnets that you are looking for really are quite small. That  
particular magnet is stuck to the end of a T-8 torx driver!

 From what we can tell, the smaller the magnet, the better.
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Grab a bit of tape and tape the magnet to your finger.

As for type of tape, the more flexible the better. You want the  
magnet to be held tightly against your skin, but you also want it to  
be free to move and wiggle.

You will also want to place the magnet on sensitive areas of your skin.

The magnet’s orientation matters, too. Try holding the magnet up  
against another magnet until you find the direction where the two  
repel the most. Tape the part that repels such that it is facing out  
or directly in to your skin — this will be a pole.

Once taped to you, try waving your finger over one of the larger  
permanent magnets found within the hard drive. Both Ben and I could  
quite literally feel the magnetic field lines.

Then, try bringing your finger close to a live electrical cord.  
Florescent lamp ballasts are particularly interesting. You should be  
able to feel a distinct sort of buzzy sensation coming from the  
magnet. Speaker wires are fun; you can feel the beat of whatever  
music is playing.

Beyond just feeling the presence / absence of electrical signals, you  
can definitely feel the “shape” of the field, including areas that  
are “leakier” than others or, for more stable magnetic fields, the  
shape of the field and how it interacts with whatever metal pieces  
are around it.

Very cool and one hell of a lot less intrusive than cutting open a  
finger. After doing this, it is abundantly clear that magnet-under- 
the-skin must be quite intense!

I suspect that wearing the magnet for a while would make your body  
grow more sensitive to the sensations produced as you become more  
comfortable with how it is attached. Similar to how the sensation is  
refined as your body heals around the magnet for the embedded scenario.

Try adding magnets to multiple finger tips. This adds a new level of  
sensation in that you can feel magnetic fields across multiple digits  
and, thus, an increased bandwidth.

All in all, a fun and easy experiment that illuminates the depth and  
versatility of the sensory subsystems.

Gonna have to play with this some more…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 2:54 am and is  
filed under Technology, Hacks, Life.