THE VIDEO SHELF · relativity and magnetism
How Special Relativity Makes Magnets Work
Veritasium explains magnetism as a consequence of special relativity. Length contraction of moving charges makes a current in a wire attract or repel a nearby moving charge.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN commenters recommend it as a short, clear explanation of why moving charges create magnetic fields.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Veritasium
- Topic
- relativity and magnetism
- Format
- explainer
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 7
- HN mentions in dataset
- 8
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2014–2024
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Here some modern explanation of the phenomena: (I love the way they explain it) "How Special Relativity Makes Magnets Work" [VIDEO] .
kull on Hacker News · 2014-08
In How Magnets Produce Electricity (1954) [video]That's right. Here is a pretty good video explaining magnetism as a relativistic effect of electrostatics - [VIDEO]
snarfy on Hacker News · 2020-02
In Ultimate ElectronicsHere's a video explainer: [VIDEO] Magnetism affects moving charges, but not stationary charges. A magnetic field in your reference frame is really just an electric field in the moving charge's reference frame.
rovolo on Hacker News · 2020-04
In Why is Maxwell's theory so hard to understand? (2007) [pdf]
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.