>electrical current flows in a certain direction
>resulting magnetic force points in the direction perpendicular to the aforementioned direction
what the fuck
this makes absolutely no sense
that's like a world where I push someone forwards and my hands go through the person and the person is pushed towards the left
Electrical current flows in a certain direction
Julian Ortiz
Matthew Smith
>magnetic force
Magnetic field, more like. But yeah, it is pretty bizarre. Science doesn't explain WHY things are, though.
Logan Jackson
so I'm not misunderstanding this then
an electrical current flowing upwards produces a left-pointing magnetic field
did I get lost in the bizarro parellel universe somehow
how do I go back to the normal one
Cameron Edwards
No current flowing in a wire produces a circular magnetic field around it
It actually is that way because of special relativity but dont ask me exactly how
Xavier Ramirez
but why
why did the universe just decide that magnetic fields are gonna rotate counterclockwise around an electrical current
atleast gravity and electrical repulsion/attraction make sense but this is nuts
William Martinez
Because special relativity, electrons go very fast so they feel the contraction of space, this make them feel other electrons closer and thats "magnetic" force. Maxwell didnt knew that at the time of course
Nathaniel Ross
So the contractions in space result in this directional magnetic field?
Good thread OP, I have always wondered about this, why is it right hand rule not left hand rule?
Caleb Barnes
I was literally about to post the exact same thing.
"
It's an arbitrary choice, because the direction of B⃗ is not actually an observable.
Whenever you compute observables in electromagnetism --- for instance, whether two parallel currents are attracted or repelled, or whether two skewed currents experience an aligning torque or an anti-aligning torque --- you always find yourself using the right-hand rule an even number of times. For instance, you use the right-hand rule to find the direction of B⃗ , then use the right-hand rule again to find the direction of v⃗ ×B⃗ . If you were to consistently use your left hand in every circumstance, you'd disagree with other people about the direction of B⃗ , but you'd predict all of the same dynamics.
This property of electromagnetism, where it doesn't matter whether you use your right or left hand to compute the direction of a vector product, is known as "conservation of parity." While electromagnetism doesn't change under a parity transformation (which transforms your right hand into a left hand), that's not a generally true statement about the world: in the weak nuclear interaction, there are different rules for interacting particles with spin, depending on whether their spin axis is parallel to their momentum (i.e. "north pole forward") or antiparallel ("south pole forward")."