What is the physical definition of causality?

Question

Maxwell's equations give a physical relationship between the electric and magnetic fields $\vec E$, $\vec B$ at the same time, which some interpret as changes in one causes changes in the other etc. I find this confusing because to me, the cause of both is charge and cause should precede effect.

Therefore, how do physicists determine if there is a causal relationship between two physical quantities?

Answer 1

As far as the electric and magnetic fields go, neither one is the cause/effect of the other changing, since the very presence of an electric or magnetic field depends on your frame of reference. Rather there is a single quantity changing, the field strength tensor, $F_{\alpha\beta}$. A change in one doesn't cause a change in the other, simply one thing changes.

Causality is a extremely gigantic subject, and people have different interpretations of what it means. I think a fairly classical description is that events can only be causally connected, if the event under consideration as the cause is in the past light cone of the event that is considered the effect, and visa versa (except with the future light cone). Then causation is determined primarily through inductive reasoning and correlation, though the arrow need not be $\iff$, rather I believe the necessary condition is correlation, that is $\text{causation}\implies\text{correlation}$. More frankly, if you flip the light switch and a light comes on and those two events are in each others light cones, and you inductively verify after numerous different experiments that those two events are correlated, then you imply causation (note it's a deductive logical fallacy, but its completely legitimate as an inductive method, vis-'a-vi by the method explained above). Though, you wouldn't do that with the light would you...

I hope this helps.

Answer 2

There is no need for physicists "determine if there is a causal relationship" because in this context the word "causal" is entirely subjective. Your question addresses the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes - by way of analogy, if I (the charge) throw a ball (the electric field) at a lamp, was the cause of the lamp breaking (the change in the magnetic field) the ball or me?

That's a philosophical question, however; all that actually matters from a scientific point of view is whether a particular model: (a) works; and (b) is convenient. Maxwell's equations certainly work, and (if you don't understand relativity) it happens to be convenient to suppose that changing electric fields create magnetic fields and vice versa.

It should perhaps also be noted that one of the assumptions inherit in your question is not strictly true: electromagnetic waves can be created without any charges being involved, e.g., Hawking radiation.

Answer 3

I may add to the above already-excellent answer, that the reasoning behind the introduction of magnetic field can be explained a little less mathematical.

Basically, first thing to consider is an electric charge. When it does not move in our reference frame it does not produce any magnetic field, just electric one. Now, if it starts to move, we percieve its width (and width of spacetime) parallel to its moving direction to contract so that for every $dl$ we have $dl' = \sqrt{1-v^2} dl$ - Lorentz contraction. Now, the field lines of electric field also contract - and the closer field lines are - the stronger the field. This added influence is simply called 'magnetic field' but it is not a separate entity. So, magnetic field is a relativistic shadow of electric field. This is reflected in Maxwell equation, where charge density only apperas with the electric field, not the magnetic one. So, charge causes electric field and our relative movement w.r.t. charge causes our perception of this field to change.

This, however, is only half of the truth. This is because changes in electric fields have been found to propagate in vacuum - these are electromagnetic waves. In vacuum, Maxwell equations become completely symmetric - and one can not distinguish cause and effect when it comes to electric and magnetic fields. This is where 'relativistic reasoning' has to take precedence over our classic intuition and we have to accept that those fields - however distinct they might seem - are just one entity - the electromagnetic field.

Answer 4

Physics About Physics = Metaphysics

This is a question for philosophy, since it deals in the very foundations of how physics is done.

The philosopher David Hume notes that it is impossible for us to truly know that causality exists:

Hence we may discover the reason why no philosopher, who is rational and modest, has ever pretended to assign the ultimate cause of any natural operation, or to show distinctly the action of that power, which produces any single effect in the universe. It is confessed, that the utmost effort of human reason is to reduce the principles, productive of natural phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few general causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience, and observation. But as to the causes of these general causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery, nor shall we ever be able to satisfy ourselves, by any particular explication of them. These ultimate springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry.

Elasticity, gravity, cohesion of parts, communication of motion by impulse: These are probably the ultimate causes and principles which we shall ever discover in nature, and we may esteem ourselves sufficiently happy, if, by accurate enquiry and reasoning, we can trace up the particular phenomena to, or near to, these general principles. The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer, as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.

As Good as it Gets

We never know that billiard ball A striking billiard ball B "caused" B to move. We just expect it to happen because every time we test such a situation, that's how it works. Our belief in cause and effect is a prediction of the future based solely on inference from experience. This is, of course, a fragile kind of knowledge:

Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference, proves not that, for the future, it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently all their effects and influence, may change, without any change in their sensible qualities.

In the context of physics, you must simply be content with the simple answer that a magnetic/electric relationship has been found in the past. It's an explanation that works for now.