- #1
Sefrez
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I am posting this after seeing this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=592975
and after having thought of the matter for a while, it makes no sense. Have a test charge placed near a wire, and have that wire have electrons flowing in one direction. The protons are stationary in the reference frame of the test charge. I have seen it stated that the test charge experiences no net force.
Yet if it is moving, which implies a relative velocity with respect to the protons in the given frame, even at the same velocity of the electrons such that in that reference frame of the test charge they are at rest, that there is a force.
But this has got to be total nonsense. What we assign the identity "proton" and "electron" is totally arbitrary. That being said, we could assume that at the start of my post I instead said that protons were moving in the reference frame of the test charge and the electrons were at rest. If that were the case, I certainly see no distinctness such that I could say that the test charge has a force as with the after case of what I mentioned before.
That being said, I conclude that if a wire has current running through it, and we define the current to be such that only one charge carrier is moving relative to the test charge, there is a net force. There is no net force only when you define current as that of both contrasting charge carriers moving in opposite directions in equal magnitude. This would be equivalent to the first case, but with the test charge moving at half the speed of the current.
This seems to be the only way that the net result of the effect of contraction is zero. Because, as I see it, if a wire is neutral with no current, then assuming when current is pushed through it that charge is still conserved, it is still neutral. However, if charge carriers of opposite type are moving relative to the test charge such that there contraction net result is not zero, there is a seen force by the test charge.
Am I right here or totally losing it?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=592975
and after having thought of the matter for a while, it makes no sense. Have a test charge placed near a wire, and have that wire have electrons flowing in one direction. The protons are stationary in the reference frame of the test charge. I have seen it stated that the test charge experiences no net force.
Yet if it is moving, which implies a relative velocity with respect to the protons in the given frame, even at the same velocity of the electrons such that in that reference frame of the test charge they are at rest, that there is a force.
But this has got to be total nonsense. What we assign the identity "proton" and "electron" is totally arbitrary. That being said, we could assume that at the start of my post I instead said that protons were moving in the reference frame of the test charge and the electrons were at rest. If that were the case, I certainly see no distinctness such that I could say that the test charge has a force as with the after case of what I mentioned before.
That being said, I conclude that if a wire has current running through it, and we define the current to be such that only one charge carrier is moving relative to the test charge, there is a net force. There is no net force only when you define current as that of both contrasting charge carriers moving in opposite directions in equal magnitude. This would be equivalent to the first case, but with the test charge moving at half the speed of the current.
This seems to be the only way that the net result of the effect of contraction is zero. Because, as I see it, if a wire is neutral with no current, then assuming when current is pushed through it that charge is still conserved, it is still neutral. However, if charge carriers of opposite type are moving relative to the test charge such that there contraction net result is not zero, there is a seen force by the test charge.
Am I right here or totally losing it?