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According to special relativity, a stationiary observer would observe a moving object as being shorter. So a moving current in a wire would appear to have a more dense amount of electrons for a stationary observer. Wouldn't this repel a stationary negative charge?

I was looking at a very similar stack exchange question but the explanation was to complex for me current in wire + special relativity = magnetism

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  • $\begingroup$ This seems exactly the same as the question you link to, its not really clear what else one could add to the accepted answer there which is good. I could add a shorter answer but it would be a subset of that one. $\endgroup$
    – jacob1729
    Commented Dec 30, 2018 at 21:58
  • $\begingroup$ The assumption that moving charges in a wire are moving at relativistic speeds is incorrect. The drift speed for electrons in a wire that is carrying a "normal" amount of current is on the order of one meter per hour. This is definitely NOT a relativistic speed. $\endgroup$
    – David White
    Commented Dec 31, 2018 at 4:23

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