I’m sure it’s a quite different experience, but there are people whohave gotten magnets implanted under their skin in order to feel magnetic field.
I’m not quite ready for that myself, but I did do a little experiment my supergluing some tiny neodymium magnets to my fingernails. I suspect the implants are probably more sensitive since they better able to wiggle around but I could feel some things. The forklift charger and pencil sharpener I had at work got probably the strongest responses I noticed for the week or so I had them.
I also got really used to picking up paperclips and such with them really quick, I caught myself trying to do it now and then for probably about a month after I no longer had the magnets.
I read an article years ago about a guy who put magnetic sensors and vibrator motors in his belt so that every time he turned, the north side of him would buzz. Apparently after a while, he stopped noticing, and just “knew” which way was north.
Somewhat related to that, certain Australian aboriginal languages don’t have words for relative directions like left/right and use cardinal directions (north/south/east/west) so they tend to keep track of their orientation subconsciously.
So if you were to help one of them, for example, move a couch, they might tell you to move your end a bit to the west and avoid any “my left or your left?/No your other left” shenanigans.
Probably also a very helpful thing to be aware of if you find yourself trying to navigate the outback.
I’m sure it’s a quite different experience, but there are people whohave gotten magnets implanted under their skin in order to feel magnetic field.
I’m not quite ready for that myself, but I did do a little experiment my supergluing some tiny neodymium magnets to my fingernails. I suspect the implants are probably more sensitive since they better able to wiggle around but I could feel some things. The forklift charger and pencil sharpener I had at work got probably the strongest responses I noticed for the week or so I had them.
I also got really used to picking up paperclips and such with them really quick, I caught myself trying to do it now and then for probably about a month after I no longer had the magnets.
I read an article years ago about a guy who put magnetic sensors and vibrator motors in his belt so that every time he turned, the north side of him would buzz. Apparently after a while, he stopped noticing, and just “knew” which way was north.
Found this while looking for that article.
Somewhat related to that, certain Australian aboriginal languages don’t have words for relative directions like left/right and use cardinal directions (north/south/east/west) so they tend to keep track of their orientation subconsciously.
So if you were to help one of them, for example, move a couch, they might tell you to move your end a bit to the west and avoid any “my left or your left?/No your other left” shenanigans.
Probably also a very helpful thing to be aware of if you find yourself trying to navigate the outback.