Similarity between Magnus effect and Lorentz force The Magnus effect causes a rotating cylinder, that moves perpendicularly to the axis of rotation, to experience a transversal force (i.e. perpendicular to the rotation axis and the primary direction of motion. As such it bears some superficial similarity with the Lorentz force in classical electrodynamics.
I have always been fascinated by the analogies between electrodynamics and fluid dynamics that were en vogue at the times of Faraday and Maxwell. I know they are old-fashioned today, and any such analogy would have to explain quantum effects, special relativity and Yang-Mills fields as well, among others.
But isn't the analogy between the Magnus effect and the Lorentz force extremely striking? It lets me think that an electron is spinning and the spin interacts with the surrounding vaccuum by friction, accelerating the vaccuum (generating a magnetic field) and the reaction force of this interaction is the Lorentz force. I know the spin of the electron is generally indeterminate, quantum mechanically, and the electron is certainly not tube-shaped. But maybe in extra-dimensions it could make sense?
I certainly don't want to unleash a non-mainstream topic here. But I would like to know if anyone has investigated this analogy already in some more detail, just because I find it so exciting.
 A: The similarity you are seeing is not due to any fundamental physical connection between the magnus effect and lorentz force, but is instead due to similarities in the mathematical and verbal descriptions of both phenomena.
Mathematical descriptions of both aerodynamic lift forces and the lorentz force in the absence of an external electric field contain cross products of a vector that looks like a velocity and a vector field quantity.
$$ \text{Lorentz Force: }\vec{F} = q \vec{v} \times \vec{B} $$ $$ \text{Kutta–Joukowski Force: } \vec{L} = \int\rho \vec{v} \times \Gamma d\vec{l}$$
Additionally both electrons and rotating cylinders have a property that sounds like the word "spin", although the quantum mechanical spin of an electron and the angular velocity of a rotating cylinder immersed in moving fluid are not at all related.
Although similar math is used to describe both forces, their physical bases are entirely different. Electromagnetic forces are "actions at a distance" where two distant objects can apply forces to each other without touching, whereas fluid-dynamic forces are only transmitted through the physical contact of neighboring fluid elements.
