# What do I see if I move quickly past a charge surrounded by iron filings?

This might be a straightforward exercise, in which case I apologize. Suppose I surround a charge by iron filings initially oriented in some fixed direction, and I then move past the charge at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light.

What do I see the iron filings do?

More precisely, in my frame there should be a magnetic field of some kind (right?). What do I see it doing to the iron filings?

-
If 4-force in one inertial frame is zero then it will be zero in any other inertial frame too (simply because a zero vector is preserved under a linear transformation). For simplification replace iron fillings with a tiny magnet. Then in the rest frame this magnet doesn't feel any force because i) it can not respond to its own magnetic field ii) it is not moving relative to the charge. So the total 4-force on it is zero as observed in rest frame. Hence in any other frame too it will remain zero. –  user10001 Oct 22 '12 at 21:25
Yea but this doesn't 'fix' the apparent paradox –  Chris Gerig Oct 22 '12 at 21:43
Guys, please respond it as an answer :-) –  Waffle's Crazy Peanut Oct 23 '12 at 2:17

In the rest frame nothing moves (i.e. no forces), so in the boosted frame the same must hold (besides the objects moving according to the boost of course). Our material is essentially a collection of internal magnetic dipoles, so we are reduced to the scenario of a single magnetic moment $\mu$ sitting with a stationary charge. When you boost, a magnetic field is produced from this charge, and hence $\mu$ should realign to this $B$. But we know that this $\mu$ must not actually move, so what's the deal? Well because we boosted, $\mu$ itself changed! It's motion will counteract the intended realignment, resulting in no movement.
We start with a dipole moment $\mu$ in a static electric field (produced by some charge $q$), experiencing no force/torque. When we boost (speed $v$ in some convenient direction, also nonrelativistic so I can throw away my $\gamma$'s), a magnetic field by the now-moving charge is produced, and so there is a resulting torque $N_1=\mu\times B$ which tends to align $\mu$ with $B$. But by invariance, this $\mu$ cannot actually move, so we are missing something. What we are missing is the fact that $\mu$ was boosted and hence has an electric dipole moment $p=v\times \mu/c$. There is then a torque $N_2=p\times E$ on this dipole moment from the (boosted) electric field $E$. So our net torque is really $N_{tot}=\mu\times B+v\times\mu\times E/c=0$, since $B=-v\times E/c$ from our Lorentz transformation.