OK, I've been trying to get my head around the mechanism behind magnetism. I see a magnetic field as a disturbance in the aether caused by a moving charge. Where I bog down is trying to understand how this disturbance overcomes the natural repulsion between like charges.
The mental experiment I'm working with is that of 2 parallel beams of electrons. At what velocity would the electrical repulsion of these beams be overcome by the magnetic field?
This experiment would be quite simple to conduct, simply fire 2 parallel electron beams into a target, and graph actual beam seperation at target vs electron velocity.
I think magnetic attraction may be due to the dopplering of the electric field around a moving charge. (Although, if the "velocity" of the field is the speed of light, there would be very little dopplering in most electrical systems where the electron drift velocity can be measured in cm/sec) Although if this is the way it works, then the "shockwave" of a charge surpassing the speed of light (in the medium in which it travels) may account for cherenkov radiation.
<shakes head sadly> Man do I ramble sometimes... I can't be senile yet, I'm only 26!
Merlyn
Magickal Engineer and Technical Metaphysicist
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