Re: Park City Paradox ?

[Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskil@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

P.S. Perhaps we should limit the discussion
to v<<c because drifting electrons never
gain excessive v between collisions with
ions. Large Q of each skier will make the
force large, even when v<<c. Is it not
better to consider a less complex situation
first, if possible?

----- Original Message -----
From: Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskil@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>
Date: Saturday, January 5, 2002 3:36 pm
Subject: Park City Paradox ?

> Is this a paradox or not? I was skiing down
> on the left side of another skier this morning.
> We were moving in the same direction with the
> same speed. And I was speculating:
>
> 1) Suppose each of us was charged negatively.
> Being at rest with respect to each other we
> would repel each other by Coulomb's law.
>
> 2) But electrons drifting along two parallel
> wires in the same direction produce an
> attractive force between the wires.
>
> 3) This triggered my imagination. Suppose
> each of us is skiing as specified above,
> but intide a glass tube. Will our motion
> produce an attractive force between the
> two tubes? By analogy this should happen,
> right? But this would contradict our
> mutual repulsion, as in #1 above.
>
> Is it a paradox or not? The experiment is
> of the gedanken type, allow any Q and any
> v<c. Looks like a paradox to me. Note that
> in this example attraction and repulsion are
> perpendicular to the common v of two skiers.
> In other words cosines of angles are equal
> to unity for both moving and stationary
> observers. So how will special relativity
> help to resolve the paradox?
> Ludwik Kowalski