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Post Reopened by John Duffield, Danu, Brandon Enright, Emilio Pisanty, DanielSank
Post Closed as "Duplicate" by ACuriousMind♦, Kyle Kanos, John Rennie, Hritik Narayan, David Z
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Emilio Pisanty
Emilio Pisanty
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Special Relativity and Magnetism How can relativistic effects be the cause of magnetic forces when the normal speeds of carrier charges are so low?

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user36790
user36790
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S Nair
S Nair
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Special Relativity and Magnetism

I had read here that magnetism arises from a current because of the special relativistic effect associated with the speed of the moving charges in that current. However that speed is only on the order of 0.024 cm/s, essentially zero compared to the speed of light, so there cannot be a relativistic effect to consider. Is special relativity the origin of magnetism?