Stimulating nerves with electricity produced by the human body

[hkarrson]

Have you ever touched an audio jack while it was connected to a speaker?

You might of noticed that the current from your own body created electrical interference

causing sound to be played out of the speakers. Did you know that if you rub the audio jack

against your arm you might feel as if the audio jack is rotating? What a strange phenomenon!

What if we could use that same technology to somehow feel a sense of touch in virtual reality?

Let me know what you think!

[Function]

Well, it's truly fascinating indeed. I've experiented with this so far myself:

 

• Jack touching nothing: almost no sound
• Jack touching finger: soft buzzer
• Jack touching a metal part of a 11W desk lamp: annoyingly loud buzzer
• Jack approaching the same metal part: soft buzzer, increasing in intensity as I approach the metal part
  • Suggests involvement of magnetic fields interfering with the jack instead of real electric current running through the jack itself
• Jack touching finger touching the metal part: intermediate loud buzzer
• Jack touching any other part of my body, no matter the distance to my finger touching the metal part: same intermediate loud buzzer
• Jack touching finger: soft buzzer (as mentioned before)
• Jack touching finger which is approaching the metal part of the lamp: increasing intensity as I approach the lamp with my finger, the jack still touching any part of my finger or even my body (I can hold the jack in one hand, touching the metal part; and approaching the lamp metal part with my other hand will elicit an increase in intensity). The intensity of the sound when I approach the lamp with my hand is louder than when I directly approach the lamp with the jack.

Truly fascinating!

[Strange]

Let me know what you think!

 

 

This is already used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haptic_technology

 

One wacky example I heard of a while ago was for training vets. They had an artificial cows uterus for vets to shove their arm into. The system could model pregnancy and various disorders so that the vets knew what they were looking for before having to inflict their skills on a real animal.

 

(But why is this under science news?)

[Phi for All]

(But why is this under science news?)

 

!

Moderator Note

Moved to Engineering.