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Please refer to the 2015 discussion titled "Magnetic Force Between Two Charged Particles", where a couple of the commenters present the generally-accepted equation for the magnetic force between moving charged particles. Magnetic force between two charged particles?.

This result appears to be problematic, because unlike the predicted electric forces the magnetic forces are not aligned with the vector between the locations of the two charges. As a result, the combined electric and magnetic forces on the system do not appear to conserve momentum. The sums of the electric and magnetic forces on each charge would have to be equal, opposite, and colinear in order to conserve both linear and angular momentum.

The two-charge interaction should underlie all of electromagnetic theory, shouldn't it?

What am I missing?

yimiller
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1 Answers1

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As a result, the combined electric and magnetic forces on the system do not appear to conserve momentum.

That is correct. The EM force does not conserve momentum of the interacting charged particles. The EM field itself contains momentum which must be accounted for to get the conservation of momentum of the total system including both particles and fields.

Dale
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