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Re: [Phys-l] Force on a charged particle from a magnetic field



On 11/28/2006 02:01 PM, John Mallinckrodt wrote:

Maxwell's equations have relativity built into them

Yes.

It's quite remarkable that Maxwell could get the relativistically
correct answer, many decades before there was any systematic
understanding of special relativity.

so they are, in
principle, fully capable of answering the question.

I wouldn't go quite that far.

I would say that the Maxwell equations are /fully consistent/
with everything we know about relativity, but they do not
_by themselves_ answer the question that was posed.

It's like saying 2+2=4 is fully consistent with everything
we know about complex numbers, so we don't need to modify
it when we leap from real numbers to complex numbers. But
it does not _by itself_ solve all the world's problems.